India's Godrej Agrovet posts drop in Q3 profit on lower demand (updated)

Godrej Agrovet

01/02/2024 14:26

(Adds details from company statement in paragraphs 5, 6 and 8)
       BENGALURU, Feb 1 (Reuters) - India's Godrej Agrovet  GODE.NS  reported a
21% fall in third-quarter profit on Thursday, hurt by soft demand and inventory
destocking.
    Consolidated net profit fell to 918.4 million rupees ($11.1 million) for the
three months ended Dec. 31 from 1.16 billion rupees a year earlier, the company
said in an exchange filing.
    The company's overall inventory levels have fallen 15.5% due to the ongoing
destocking across the sector, according to analysts. This in turn affected the
bottom line of the company.
    Total expenses for the quarter rose 0.23%, while total revenue was flat at
23.45 billion rupees.  
    The company's agrochemical unit - Astec LifeSciences, has been facing
extremely challenging external market conditions which have severely impacted
its topline and margin performance, B.S. Yadav, Managing Director at Godrej
Agrovet said in a statement. 
    Astec LifeSciences faced challenges in selling its enterprise products due
to an excess of inventory in key markets, affecting both pricing and demand for
these products, the company added. 
    The animal feed segment, which constitutes more than half of the total
revenue, rose 1.5% year-on-year.
    Godrej Agrovet's core profit margins for the quarter contracted to 7.3% from
9.2% a year earlier. 
    Shares of the company rose 1.9% on Thursday ahead of the results.  
    

($1 = 82.9800 Indian rupees)

 (Reporting by Navamya Ganesh Acharya in Bengaluru; Editing by Sohini Goswami
and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
 ((Navamya.GaneshAcharya@thomsonreuters.com; +91 8805175330 ;))