(Reuters) – India Cements reported a bigger second-quarter loss on Friday as prices fell to five-year lows.
The company, majority-owned by market leader UltraTech Cement, said its consolidated loss swelled to 3.39 billion rupees ($40.2 million) in the July to September quarter, from 855.4 million rupees a year earlier.
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KEY CONTEXT
The industry has struggled with low prices and demand failing to recover from the previous quarter, when elections had slowed construction activity.
Still, cement makers are upbeat about demand in the long run and are ramping up capacity and intensifying dealmaking.
Last month, UltraTech flagged early signs of a price recovery after reporting a sharp drop in its second-quarter profit and its first revenue decline in four years.
PEER COMPARISON
Valuation (next 12 Estimates (next 12 Analysts’ sentiment
months) months)
RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue Profit Mean # of Stock to Div
growth (%) growth rating* analyst price yield
(%) s target** (%)
India Cements 127.66 24.94 5.52 Sell 5 1.43 0.00
Orient Cement 28.78 13.03 6.12 21.82 Sell 7 1.39 0.66
Ramco Cements 38.51 13.58 8.44 32.55 Hold 19 0.99 0.29
Dalmia Bharat 32.53 11.11 7.58 24.11 Hold 26 0.89 0.50
* 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
JULY-SEPTEMBER STOCK PERFORMANCE
— All data from LSEG
— $1 = 84.3660 Indian rupees
(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza)
