Grasim Industries, an Aditya Birla Group company, has reported 13 per cent increase in March quarter consolidated net profit at ₹2,617 crore, against ₹2,309 crore logged in the same period last year, largely due to better realisation.
Revenue was up 26 per cent at ₹24,399 crore (₹19,350 crore) while Ebitda was up 56 per cent at ₹5,142 crore.
The company declared a dividend of ₹9 per equity share.
Revenue from the discontinued fertilizer business was down at ₹561 crore (₹623 crore) while Ebitda almost halved to ₹33 crore (₹68 crore). The financial performance of the fertilizer business was not included in this quarter as the company expects to divest the business by Q2 of FY22.
Net debt reduced to ₹8,831 crore from ₹20,882 crore as of last March quarter.
The revenue from the viscose business was up 23 per cent at ₹2,583 crore (₹2,102 crore) while Ebitda more than doubled to ₹625 crore (₹261 crore) due to higher sales volumes and better realisation.
Revenue from chemical business was up at ₹1,472 crore (₹1,290 crore) and Ebitda stood at ₹185 crore (₹104 crore). The company’s subsidiary UltraTech Cement and Aditya Birla Capital also delivered better financial performance.
The company plans to invest ₹2,604 crore (excluding paints and fertiliser) in this fiscal against ₹1,508 crore spent last fiscal. The VSF expansion project at Vilayat with Line-1 scheduled to be commissioned in Q2FY22 and Line-2 in Q3FY22.
Other capex includes Grasim’s plans to invest towards increasing its Advanced Materials (Epoxy) business capacity by 1,25,000 tonnes per annum through a brown field expansion at the existing location of Vilayat. It plans to increase caustic soda production capacity by 200 tonnes per day to 1,400 tpd at Vilayat in 24 months.