Birla Corporation net profit up 66%
Kolkata: Birla Corporation Limited, flagship Company of the MP Birla Group, on Friday announced its financial results for the quarter and financial year ended March 31, 2019.
The March quarter EBIDTA grew by 15 per cent to Rs 333.95 crore (Rs 290.09 crore the previous year) on the back of growth in sales and better realisation. The full-year EBIDTA at Rs 1,027.08 crore was 18 per cent higher than the previous year. Cash profit for the full year jumped by 33 per cent to Rs 657 crore and net profit was up by 66 per cent over the previous year at Rs 256 crore.
Volume growth for the March quarter was at 13 per cent and 10 per cent for the full year, which combined with a sharp increase in the sale of premium products and blended cement in the portfolio. In the quarter till March, blended cement contributed to 92 per cent of the Company's sales by volume.
The share of trade (channel) sales has now crossed 80 per cent of the Company's total sales volumes of which premium products account for 38 per cent.
MP Birla Cement is now a co-leader in the fast growing Central India markets and Bihar in the East—with a strong brand-folio straddling across different price segments. MP Birla Cement's flagship premium cement brand, Perfect Plus, launched after the acquisition of the RCCPL units, has now been extended to other geographies where the Company has a marketing footprint, namely North and East.
The Company's production units are now operating at more than 90 per cent of their installed capacity. The benefits and synergies of RCCPL acquisition have now been fully assimilated. The newly acquired RCCPL plants have one of the best efficiency parameters in the industry.
The Company's obsessive focus on cost rationalisation continues unabated. Increase in fuel prices have been partially off-set by improving energy-usage efficiencies in plants and economical sourcing of other raw materials such as fly-ash & gypsum and relentless focus on lowering logistics costs for both inward and outward movement.
A significant achievement of the quarter has been a turnaround in the performance of the Chanderia unit, despite low prices prevailing in the North markets throughout the year by a series of cost reduction measures and marketing initiatives. The Chanderia unit has systematically enhanced its capability of mechanical mining, thereby reducing dependence on purchased limestone, which has resulted in significant savings in the cost of production.
As a part of "co-branding" initiatives, the premium brands MP Birla Cement Perfect Plus and MP Birla Cement Ultimate are being manufactured at Chanderia for the North markets, Western MP, Gujarat and Western Uttar Pradesh. This had a notable positive impact on the unit's profitability.
Consistent with the Company's "Cement se Ghar tak" strategy of focussing on the "Individual Home Builder" in the value-adding retail segment, there has been a thrust on increasing the share of "eco-friendly" blended cement.
