Raymond slips post drop of 86% in Q2 profit

NEW DELHI: Shares of Raymond slipped over 4 per cent in Thursday morning trade after the company reported a 86 per cent drop in September quarter profit at Rs 9 crore compared with Rs 68 crore reported for the same quarter a year ago. The earnings came in after market hours on Wednesday.

Total operating income of the diversified group stood at Rs 1,492 crore, up 2.19 per cent from Rs 1,460.74 crore reported for the same period a year ago. Ebitda, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, margin fell to 10 per cent for the quarter against 12 per cent reported for the same period previous year.

In reaction to the earnings, the stock slipped 4.41 per cent to Rs 424.55 in early morning trade.

"The Q2 of FY2015-16 witnessed subdued consumer demand with extended end-of-season sales. In addition to these factors, our continued investment in brand building and retail network expansion besides under-performance of the engineering business impacted the quarterly results," Raymond whole-time director H Sunder said in a statement to BSE.

The company has posted a consolidated net loss of Rs 4 crore in the first half of FY16 against Rs 35 crore profit reported for the first half of FY15.