India's JK Lakshmi Cement's third-quarter profit halves on weak prices

Nuvoco Vistas

06/02/2025 11:58

Feb 6 (Reuters) - India's JK Lakshmi Cement  JKLC.NS  reported a 52% drop in third-quarter profit on Thursday,
hurt by a drop in prices of the construction material.
    The company's standalone net profit after tax fell to 596.4 million rupees ($6.8 million) in the quarter from 1.24
billion rupees a year ago.
    Revenue from operations fell 13.4% to 13.73 billion rupees.
    For further earnings highlights, click  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nFWN3OX0VJ
    
    KEY CONTEXT
    Cement prices have been falling for most of last year, including a 11% on-year drop in the last quarter, which is
also a seasonally weak one as the pace of construction activity slackens.
    Cement makers so far have reported a mixed set of earnings. Market leader UltraTech  ULTC.NS  and its closest
rivals, the Adani group-owned Ambuja  ABUJ.NS  and ACC  ACC.NS , have benefitted as their acquisition spree helped
bolster volumes.
    However, smaller companies such as Shree Cement  SHCM.NS  and Dalmia Bharat  DALB.NS  succumbed to low prices.
    
    PEER COMPARISON (WITH OTHER CEMENT MAKERS IN KEY NORTH, EAST REGIONS) 
                                 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**       (%)
 JK Lakshmi Cement     JKLC.NS   23.99  10.09           12.67       42.45     Buy      11       0.92           0.83
 Shree Cement          SHCM.NS   57.36  20.64           13.11       39.16     Hold     18       1.04           0.37
 Dalmia Bharat         DALB.NS   36.30  11.84           8.83        41.50     Hold     28       0.99           0.48
 Nuvoco Vistas         NUVO.NS   54.07  9.95            7.68        1477.99   Hold     16       0.95           -
 Corporation                                                                                                   
 * 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 = 87.5510 Indian rupees

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JKLC Q3    https://tmsnrt.rs/4hJGiDQ
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 (Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)
 ((Hritam.Mukherjee@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: @MukherjeeHritam;))