Chemicals maker BASF India's Q4 profit jumps, shares hit record high

SRF

14/05/2024 11:08

BENGALURU, May 14 (Reuters) - 
    Chemicals maker BASF India  BASF.NS  on Tuesday posted a
fourth-quarter profit that nearly doubled, helped by strong
demand for its materials and agriculture solution businesses.
    Profit rose 96% year-on-year to 1.62 billion rupees ($19.4
million) for the three months ended March 31 from 823.9 billion
rupees a year earlier.
    Revenue from operations rose 2.5% to 33.60 billion rupees.
    The materials segment of BASF India, which comprises of its
performance materials & monomers businesses used in segments
like transportation, appliances and footwear reported a 13.3%
rise in quarterly revenue while the agriculture solution
segment, which includes insecticides, herbicides, fungicides
among others grew 12.4%.
    This helped offset the 11.2% and 1.7% fall in quarterly
revenue of the nutrition & care and industrial solutions
segments respectively.
    The Indian arm of Germany's BASF  BASFn.DE  posted its third
straight quarterly profit at a time when most other chemical
companies are still grappling with high inventory and destocking
for the past few quarters. 
    Earlier this month, peer chemicals and polymers maker SRF
 SRFL.NS  posted a drop in profit for the fifth quarter in a row
as its chemical business, which consists of specialty chemicals,
fluorochemicals, and agrochemicals among others continued to
face weak demand.
    BASF India also declared a dividend of 15 rupees per share
for the fiscal 2024. Share of the company rose as much as 14.5%
after the results to hit a record high of 4,690.75 rupees.
        
    
    
($1 = 83.5080 Indian rupees)

 (Reporting by Ashish Chandra in Bengaluru)
 ((ashish.chandra@thomsonreuters.com; +91 7982114624;))