Comments
Hindalco Industries, an Aditya Birla Group company, has reported that its net profit in the June quarter was down 40 per cent at ₹2,454 crore, against ₹4,119 crore registered in the same period last year, on the back of lower volumes and fall in realisation.
Revenue from operations dipped 7 per cent to ₹52,991 crore (₹58,018 crore). EBITDA was down 29 per cent at ₹6,109 crore (₹8,640 crore). The company has tied up with Tata Motors to build the first-ever all-aluminium cargo body for the new-generation Tata Ace EVs, designed to enhance last-mile deliveries.
Satish Pai, Managing Director, Hindalco Industries, said the company is in talks with two-three other automobile companies to supply cargo body, and production capacity will not be a constraint if the order picks up.
The company has already supplied 1,000 cargo bodies to Tata Motors and it will deliver 300 bodies a month going ahead, he added, without getting into the size of the order.
The profitability in the June quarter was impacted by lower LME on the back of slowdown in China, even though the cost has been coming down, said Pai.
The company expects volumes to bounce back next quarter and margins to improve with the fall in prices of coal and other raw materials.
Capex plans
Hindalco plans to set up a greenfield aluminium manufacturing plant of one million tonne per annum in Odisha and is in talks with the government for securing a bauxite mine.
“An announcement on this front will be made soon,” said Pai.
The capex of $350 million put on hold in China will be reviewed after one year as there are lot of uncertainties, he added.
The company intends to spend ₹4,500 crore in capex this fiscal with major portion of it going to complete the expansion at Sambalpur rolling mill and Aluminium extrusion plant at Silvassa.
Hindalco has won a couple of coal mines and bagged the Meenakshi West block in Odisha with reserves of 950 million tonne. With captive mines going on stream, buying from Coal India will be reduced substantially, he said.
Gross debt of the company was down at ₹57,382 crore (₹64,023 crore) with a cash in hand of ₹18,919 crore; the net debt was down at ₹38,463 crore (₹42,193 crore).
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.