ACC says Dec quarter profit down 49 percent, meets expectations

MUMBAI (Reuters) - ACC Ltd , controlled by Swiss group Holcim , the world's second-largest cement producer, reported a 49 percent fall in net profit for the Oct-Dec quarter, meeting analyst expectations.

ACC, India's No. 2 cement maker, reported a net profit of 2.39 billion rupees compared with 4.7 billion rupees a year earlier, meeting market estimates of 2.4 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The year-ago number included an exceptional gain for tax write-back of 1.29 billion rupees. Excluding this, profit would have fallen 30 percent.

Earlier, Morgan Stanley downgraded ACC to "equalweight" from "overweight", while cutting its view on the cement industry to "in-line" from "attractive."

(Reporting by Aditi Shah; Editing by Prateek Chatterjee)