Indian cement maker ACC's third-quarter profit surges on volumes boost

ACC

27/01/2025 09:14

Jan 27 - Indian cement maker ACC  ACC.NS  reported a third-quarter profit surge on Monday, as strong sales volume
growth cushioned the impact of weak prices. 
    The Adani group firm's profit after tax more than doubled on-year to 10.89 billion rupees ($126.10 million) for the
three months to Dec. 31.
    Revenue rose 7% to 51.76 billion rupees. 
    For further earnings highlights, click  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nFWN3OL06P
    
KEY CONTEXT 
    ACC posted a 21% growth in volumes in a seasonally-weak quarter, when lack of labour hits construction activities,
higher than the as much as 16% growth estimated by analysts from four brokerages. 
    The firm said it is expecting a rebound in cement demand in the ongoing quarter.
    ACC's volumes likely benefitted from market share gains of its parent as a result of the Adani conglomerate's
dealmaking spree.
    Last week, market leader UltraTech Cement  ULTC.NS  forecast that the demand and price of the construction material
are improving. The other Adani-owned cement company, Ambuja  ABUJ.NS , will report later this week.

    
PEER COMPARISON 
                                 Valuation (next 12     Estimates (next 12      Analysts' sentiment              
                                 months)                months)                                                  
                      RIC        PE     EV/EBITDA       Revenue     Profit      Mean     No. of   Stock to       Div
                                                        growth (%)  growth (%)  rating*  analyst  price          yield
                                                                                         s        target**       (%)
 ACC                   ACC.NS    -      9.75            8.15        24.77       Buy      18       0.79           0.36
 Ambuja Cements        ABUJ.NS   40.56  15.47           18.55       30.41       Buy      31       0.85           0.36
 UltraTech Cement      ULTC.NS   37.20  20.05           16.63       31.95       Buy      37       0.91           0.62
 Shree Cement          SHCM.NS   49.94  18.77           8.02        18.92       Hold     17       0.99           0.41
 
    
* The mean of analyst ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell

** The ratio of the stock's last close to analysts' mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above
the PT
    
OCTOBER-DECEMBER STOCK PERFORMANCE 
    
    
-- All data from LSEG 

-- $1 = 86.3710 Indian rupees

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ACC Q3    https://tmsnrt.rs/3EbeoSN
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 (Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
 ((Hritam.Mukherjee@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: @MukherjeeHritam;))