India's Tata Chemicals posts first loss in 9 years on one-time charge, poor soda ash demand
BENGALURU (Reuters) - India's Tata Chemicals reported its first quarterly loss in nine years on Monday, hurt by a one-time charge incurred in its UK operations along with lower prices and demand of soda ash.
It reported a consolidated net loss of 8.5 billion rupees ($101.9 million) in the quarter ended March 31, compared to a profit of 7.09 billion rupees year ago.
Tata Chemicals said it incurred a non-cash write down of assets aggregating to 9.63 billion rupees as an exceptional loss in respect of its UK operations.
Revenue from operations fell 21% to 34.75 billion rupees, making it the company's third consecutive quarter of decline.
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KEY CONTEXT
Soda ash - which amounts to two-thirds of Tata Chemicals' total sales volume - is facing lower demand as falling caustic soda prices make it more appealing for the silicate market, prompting the company to cut prices of its soda ash products at least five times since April 2023.
According to analysts at Emkay Research, prices of soda ash have fallen by 21% in the March-quarter from a year ago. The chemical is used to reduce the melting point of silica to produce glass, along with the soap and detergent industries.
Tata Chemicals is the world's third-biggest soda ash producer, according to its website and analysts at HSBC.
PEER COMPARISON
Valuation(next Estimates (next Analysts' sentiment
12 months) 12 months)
RIC PE EV/EBIT Revenue Profit Mean No. of Stock to Div
DA growth growth rating analysts price yield
(%) (%) * target** (%)
Tata 28.64 12.49 -0.37 -20.64 Sell 7 1.27 1.56
Chemicals Ltd
Deepak 32.96 21.16 12.41 29.56 Hold 15 1.08 0.30
Nitrite Ltd
SRF Ltd 40.83 22.77 18.23 43.44 Buy 25 1.05 0.27
GHCL Ltd 6.13 3.73 7.44 4.24 Buy 1 0.81 3.29
* Mean of analysts' ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell
** Ratio of the stock's last close to analysts' mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT
JANUARY-MARCH STOCK PERFORMANCE
-- All data from LSEG
-- $1 = 83.4433 rupees
(Reporting by Ashish Chandra in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K)