(Reuters) -Indian chemicals and polymers maker SRF posted a 93% year-on-year jump in second-quarter profit on Monday, boosted by higher demand in its mainstay chemicals business.
The company’s consolidated profit after tax rose to 3.88 billion rupees ($44.1 million) for the quarter ended September 30.
SRF’s chemical business, which consists of specialty chemicals, fluorochemicals and agrochemicals and accounts for nearly half of its revenue, rose 22.8%.
Overall revenue rose 6.3% to 36.4 billion rupees.
KEY CONTEXT
Analysts expect SRF to benefit from robust demand for refrigerant gases and continued growth in its specialty chemicals business.
However, they anticipate the broader Indian chemicals sector to report mixed second-quarter results, citing muted pricing, margin pressure for commodity players and selective gains in export-focused segments.
PEER COMPARISON
Valuation (next Estimates (next Analysts’ sentiment
12 months) 12 months)
RIC PE EV/EBI Revenue Profit Mean # of Stock to Div
TDA growth(% growth( rating* analysts price yield
) %) target** (%)
SRF 40.57 22.91 13.30 36.47 Hold 25 1.01 0.25
Coromandel 24.61 16.01 9.97 28.44 Buy 10 0.82 0.55
International
Deepak Fertilisers 15.19 8.58 NULL NULL Buy 1 0.80 0.69
and Petrochemicals
Corp
PI Industries 30.77 21.28 9.51 7.88 Hold 23 0.91 0.45
* 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 IBES
— ($1 = 87.8950 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Aleef Jahan; Editing by Sumana Nandy)
