Godfrey Phillips

Godfrey Phillips India has been hitting life-time highs almost every day for the past 15 days or so. Today, it soared to a new high at Rs.1407.85; a rise of over 40% within the month of November itself.

The stock price has been up in the green ever since the promoter of the company, Good Investment (India) stated on 10th Sept 2015 that it had acquired 1.27 lakh shares of the company from the open market. With this now, Good Investments holds 8.29% stake, Phillips Morris holds 25.10% and the KK Modi holds 38.67%, taking the total holding to 72.06%. FII holding is at 11.41% and Domestic Institutions is at 0.92%. Floating stock is only 15.61%.

This apart, the market was also enthused with the company’s Q2FY16 performance. It posted a very strong 53% (YoY) jump in net profit at Rs.50 crore, mainly on the back of operational efficiency. Its net sales stood at Rs 566 crore, up 2%. EBITDA almost doubled up from Rs.32 crore to Rs.62 crore. What really helped boost the bottomline was the over 3% drop in total costs, led by a 17% drop in advertising and promotion expenses. Its interest outgo also dropped from Rs6 crore to Rs.2.5 crore. Debt as at 30th Sept 2015 has come down from Rs.206 crore to Rs.58 crore (YoY).