Deepak Fertilisers Q4 Results: Cons profit rises on robust demand

India's Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals posted a 23.2% rise in quarterly profit on Thursday, supported by strong demand for its crop nutrition products.

The company's consolidated net profit rose to 2.77 billion rupees ($32.2 million) in the fourth quarter, from 2.25 billion rupees a year earlier.

Fertilisers and chemicals each contribute nearly half of the company's revenue, which rose 27.9% in the quarter to 26.67 billion rupees. Revenue from the fertilisers business rose nearly 89%, while that from chemicals declined 4.9%.


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KEY CONTEXT
Analysts said fertilisers companies such as Deepak Fertilisers outperformed their agrochemical peers in the fourth quarter, as volume growth, price hikes and demand for complex fertilisers lifted profitability.

Unlike agrochemical firms, which continue to face demand volatility in both domestic and export markets, fertilizers are showing resilience in demand.

PEER COMPARISON
Valuation (next 12 Estimates (next 12 Analysts' sentiment months) months)

RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue Profit Mean No. of Stock to Div growth (%) growth (%) rating* analyst price yields target** (%)

Deepak Fertilisers 16.70 8.81 10.69 17.14 Buy 1 0.95 0.62 and Petrochemicals Coromandel 32.18 20.28 7.29 29.24 Buy 9 1.01 0.50 International SRF 49.25 24.46 13.69 45.53 Hold 27 1.06 0.24 Sumitomo Chemical 41.00 30.15 17.78 22.69 Buy 7 0.91 0.17 India

* 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

JANUARY-MARCH STOCK PERFORMANCE

-- All data from LSEG IBES

-- $1 = 86.0225 Indian rupees