Will sustain margins, cautious on Q4: Raymond CFO Shivkumar

Raymond expects to sustain operating margins at current levels, chief financial officer M Shivkumar said in an interview to CNBC-TV18’s Latha Venkatesh. The company's third quarter net profit surged more than fourfold to Rs 56.9 crore, driven by strong realizations in its textiles business, which accounts for over 50 percent of total revenues. The growth in bottomline was strong even after adjusting for the huge VRS expense in the year-ago quarter.The company's consolidated margins grew 250 basis points to 12.1 percent during the quarter, as each of the company’s divisions—textile apparels, denim, garments, shirts, tools and hardware, auto components—turned in a decent performance."The story has been the revival of apparel and we are able to consistently hold on to even the second quarter numbers to a large extent,” Shivkumar said, adding “the secondary sales growth is happening like-to-like both across exclusive brand outlets (EBOs) and Large Format Shops (LFSs) and B2B segment is doing very well, our exports are doing well and the FMCG business continues to do well."But he sounded caution on the fourth quarter number while saying that it still would be better on a year-on-year comparison."December month for most of the people I believe has been a very difficult period as you could observe from LFSs have introduced end of season sale much earlier than they would normally do. So I would maintain some caution going forward in Q4 against the background of the current situation," he said.Shivkumar said the company was evaluating options to monetize the Thane land.Below is the transcript of M Shivkumar interview to Sonia Shenoy and Latha Venkatesh on CNBC-TV18.Latha: It is such a good set of numbers. Revenues 14 percent uptick, what is the pace at which you will continue in the next 4-5 quarters?A: This quarter has been very good for us when we compare with the previous year in the same period and previous year was a difficult period. Even in this quarter if you see all the business verticals have done well which includes textile apparels, denim, garments, shirts, tools and hardware, auto components. Each of these businesses have contributed that is why we have got very good result. Of course the story has been the revival of apparel and we are able to consistently hold on to even the second quarter numbers to a large extent. And the secondary sales growth is happening like-to-like both across exclusive brand outlets (EBOs) and Large Format Shops (LFSs) and B2B segment is doing very well, our exports are doing well and the FMCG business continues to do well. December month for most of the people I believe has been a very difficult period as you could observe from LFSs have introduced end of season sale much earlier than they would normally do. So I would maintain some caution going forward in Q4 against the background of the current situation. Our discretionary spends to some extent has been impacted by possibly inflation, high interest costs. And I will maintain some caution. It is little early for me to give any estimate for Q4 though it would definitely be better than last year.