Shares of India Cements were trading lower after the company on February 3 reported a weak performance in the December quarter of the financial year 2022-23.
A one-time gain of Rs 294.28 crore helped the company report a net profit of Rs 90.7 crore in the October-December period quarter, up 26.5 percent from the year-ago quarter, the cement maker told exchanges. Nonetheless, removing the element of the one-time exceptional gain, the company registered a net loss of Rs 180.14 crore, which has not gone down well with investors.
As a result, the stock extended early losses to fall to Rs 184.65 intraday. At 12.22 pm, the shares of India Cements were trading 1.74 percent lower at Rs 189 on the National Stock Exchange.
The fall in the stock was also accompanied by strong volumes that were higher than the one-month daily traded average volumes.
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The decline in the cement manufacturer's bottomline was on account of high raw material, power and fuel costs. Employee and finance costs also rose in the December quarter and weighed on its net profit.
Revenues from operations were up 10 percent on-year to Rs 1,219.5 crore. The cement manufacturer also managed to record an EBIDTA of Rs 104 crore, up from a loss of Rs 69.5 crore in the year-ago period.
Shares of the company had risen for the past two sessions on the back of a higher-than-expected jump in the capital expenditure outlay in the Budget 2023. The Budget also proposed an outlay of Rs 79,000 crore for the PM Awas Yojana, up 66 percent from the previous year, which bodes well for cement stocks.
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