HPL Electric and Power has reported a 20.79 per cent fall in revenue in the third quarter of FY2016-2017 compared with the corresponding quarter in the previous fiscal.

In a press release, the company said demonetisation has affected the retail business.

“Metering sales declined on a year-on-year basis due to a lower off-take of metering orders by utilities,” the press release stated.

The company’s Joint Managing Director, Gautam Seth, told BusinessLine that demonetisation has impacted the B2C segment. He further said that nearly 60 per cent of the company’s business is in this segment, and roughly one-third of these directly deal with household consumers.

Highlighting the impact of demonetisation, Seth said: “Demonetisation has affected the retail part of the business; and to some extent, in November-December, secondary and tertiary sales have also been slower mainly because of the same.”

The company reported a higher Profit After Tax (PAT), while Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) fell on a year-on-year basis. Explaining the same, Seth said: “This is because of our interest costs coming down after we had an IPO in September-end. We got the fund in October-end, and have repaid ₹320 crore of our debt. The interest savings alone stand at ₹9 crore. We are left with a net debt of ₹268 crore.”

Seth is optimistic for his company and banks on the strong order book and the up-tick in tenders. “The drop in sales of the second and third quarters is largely because of delay of large-scale meter procurement tenders. We have submitted bids for 10 million meters, and are in the process of submitting bids for another 9.5 million. The gains from these sales will reflect after another quarter. We have a strong order book of ₹342.2 crore, with metering orders of ₹227.5 crore, switchgear orders of ₹54 crore and lighting orders of ₹57.1 crore.”

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