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UltraTech Cement, an Aditya Birla group company, has reported marginal fall in December quarter net profit at ₹724 crore against ₹726 crore logged in the same period last year, largely due to one-time provisioning of ₹226 crore for the stamp duty expenses incurred for buying out JP Associates’ cement asset.
Sales in the quarter under review were up 34 per cent at ₹9,298 crore against ₹6,922 crore recorded last year.
Dividend payment
The company has announced a dividend of ₹10.50 a share leading to outflow of ₹288 crore.
In addition, it will pay the Dividend Distribution Tax of ₹59.27 crore, resulting in a total payout of ₹348 crore.
Atul Daga, Director & Group CFO, told BusinessLine that the capacity utilisation at the erstwhile JP Associate cement plants has been ramped up to 75 per cent from 18 per cent with fresh investments and it will reach optimal capacity by end of this fiscal.
The overall capacity utilisation was at 80 per cent in the March quarter due to drag down impact of JP cement asset, he added.
The company has repaid debt of ₹1,000 corre in the March quarter to bring down the overall debt to ₹12,007 crore from ₹13,600 crore at the time of acquiring JP assets in June last year.
The company's consolidated net debt was at ₹14,062 corre against cash surplus of ₹215 crore logged in the last fiscal.
The debt to EBITDA has come down to 1.85 in March quarter from a high of 2.4 recorded in June quarter.
The company plans to reduce debt further in the coming months. Finance cost more than doubled to ₹344 crore (₹167 crore).
Sales volume was up 32 per cent at 17.64 million tonne (mt).
EBITDA per tonne in the March quarter was up marginally at ₹922 against ₹908 in the same period last year.
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