Q4 Results: Coal India Profit Falls On Higher Employee Cost
Higher staff benefit costs hit Coal India’s bottom line.
Coal India Ltd.’s reported profit missed estimates in the March ended quarter as employee cost soared.
Net profit fell 52.3 percent to Rs 1,295 crore as compared to the same quarter last year, Coal India said in its filing with the stock exchanges. That fell short of the the Rs 4,341 crore estimated by analysts tracked by Bloomberg. The bottom line was hit by an 80 percent rise in staff benefit cost to Rs 16,654 crore as the company provisoned for pay revision of executive employees.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation fell 94 percent to Rs 195.5 crore. Ebitda margin contracted to 0.72 percent from 13.92 percent.
However, the adjusted operating profit which rose 94 percent year-on-year to Rs 7579.8 crore surpassed the Bloomberg consensus estimates of Rs 6,460 crore. This included the Rs 7,384 crore provision for increase in the gratuity ceiling which was added in the employee benefit expenses of the company. Price hikes and higher sales volumes also aided the adjusted operational performance.
Sales volume of Coal India rose 4.8 percent year-on-year to 158.8 million tonnes for the quarter ended March 2017. Realisations per tonne grew inline with estimates at Rs 1,581.
Revenue rose 15.8 percent to Rs 26,909 crore on a year-on-year basis, higher than the estimated Rs 24,720 crore.
Shares of Coal India fell as much as 2.9 percent to Rs 276.50 after the earnings announcement. The stock rose 7.7 percent in the January-March period as compared with a 3.9 percent decline in the country’s benchmark NSE Nifty 50 Index.