Hindustan Unilever reported 11% higher net profits at Rs2,289 crore on a standalone basis for Q1FY23.
Revenues were up 20% yoy at Rs14,409 crore. HUL also reported healthy volume growth of 6% in the first quarter. EBITDA margins were healthy at 23.2% despite commodity inflation as price hikes compensated. The company is likely to benefit from forecasts of a normal monsoons and its salutary impact on rural demand. Home care delivered 30% growth on s yoy basis. The stock of HUL has been robust at Rs2,566.
Ambuja Cements surprised the street with net profits of Rs1,048 crore against street estimates of Rs650 crore for Q1FY23. Revenues were also higher than street estimates at a healthy level of Rs3,994 crore.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) was marginally higher by 1.1% at Rs685 crore. EBITDA margins were lower by 16 bps at 17.14% in the June 2022 quarter. Like other cement companies, Ambuja Cements has also faced pressure on its margins due to higher fuel and freight costs.
The much awaited IPO of online medicine portal, PharmEasy, has been already put off due to unfavourable market conditions. However, the company is in talks with investors to raise $200 million, at a discount of 15% to 25% over its previously anticipated valuations. PharmEasy is now likely to be valued at $5.1 billion. PharmEasy is in talks with Prosus, TPG and Temasek for the funding round. The start-up IPO mania suddenly ground to a halt on the back of stock market uncertainty and a compression in digital valuations.
Vedanta Ltd, part of the Anil Agarwal mining and metals conglomerate, has announced its 2nd interim dividend of Rs19.50 per share. It has now paid Rs18,960 crore as the first 2 interim dividends. Just a few days back, it subsidiary Hindustan Zinc had also paid out a liberal dividend of Rs21 per share. It has already paid more than Rs50 per share as dividends so far this fiscal. The liberal dividends will take care some of the cash pressures that the parent faces with big pay-outs coming up shortly. The stock trades
at Rs238.
The stock of recently listed Delhivery surged 7% to touch Rs635. It has bounced sharply from its recent lows on healthy business growth outlook. The stock has gained nearly 36% in the last 1 month and is currently trading 30% above the issue price of Rs487 per share. Delhivery is a high-growth logistics service provider catering essentially to e-commerce marketplaces, D2C e-tailers and SMEs. Meanwhile, Delhivery is collaborating with Welspun on a 700,000 SFT mega-gateway in Mumbai and with GMR in Bengaluru.
Reliance Jio added 31.11 lakh mobile subscribers in May 2022 cementing its leadership position in the telecom space. Bharti Airtel also added a total of 10.27 lakh users, according to TRAI data. However, there were big losers too. Vodafone Idea lost 7.59 lakh mobile subscribers while BSNL lost 5.3 lakh subscribers in May 2022. Currently, while Reliance Jio has 40.87 crore subscribers, Airtel has 21.23 crore and Vodafone Idea has 12.32 crore. Jio plans to expand its franchise by bidding aggressively in the 5G upcoming auctions.
As the rupee briefly crossed the Rs80/$ mark, it has hit Indian businesses both ways. One casualty has been FPI selling, which has been in excess of $35 billion since October 2021. The weak rupee has also led to energy burgeoning costs since India relies 85% on crude imports. Gold imports are also becoming more expensive due to a weak rupee, and the same applies to scores of other imported items like chemicals, rubber, wood, glassware etc. However, export driven sectors like IT, Pharma and textiles are
likely to gain.
Grasim announced the launch of a new B2B ecommerce platform for building materials. It plans to invest Rs2,000 crore in expanding this business over the next five years. Grasim sees this as a huge scalable business opportunity. According to Kumar Mangalam Birla, “The foray into B2B e-commerce is yet another strategic portfolio choice and crystallizes the intent to invest in new-age, high growth digital space”. Grasim will take this opportunity to leverage the expansive B2B ecosystem within the Aditya Birla Group.