Hind Zinc
The company declared its Q3FY15 numbers after market hours and the performance of the company was very good. Led by zinc and lead, silver was the laggard during this quarter. While zinc and lead showed a 13% and 19% (YoY) rise in net sales respectively, silver fell 15%. Net sales for the quarter rose 11% at Rs.3804 crore and EBITDA was up 14% at Rs.2089 crore. The PSU ended Q3 with a 38% rise in net profit at Rs.2379 crore. A 91% jump in other income at Rs.812 crore also helped push up the bottomline.
Mined metal production in Q3 FY 2015 was up by 14% sequentially and 10% y-o-y at 242,417 MT, as compared with 212,575 MT in previous quarter and 220,126 MT a year ago. Integrated refined zinc production was up by 11% sequentially on account of higher mined metal production. However, it was marginally down by 2% at191,785 MT on y-o-y basis due to higher cathode stock, even as total refined zinc production was flat from a year ago. Production of integrated refined lead was marginally down from previous quarter at 24,890 MT and flat from corresponding period of last year. Integrated saleable silver production was up 3% sequentially and down 4% y-o-y to 70 MT. The y-o-y decline was due to accretion to WIP even as the grades from Sindesar Khurd were higher. Integrated silver production in Q4 will be better than Q3 and full year production will be close to last year. The zinc metal cost of production before royalty during the quarter was Rs.50,534 ($817), which is lower by 8% (10% in USD terms) sequentially and 3% lower from a year ago. The y-o-y decrease in cost was due to higher mined metal production, lower diesel cost and higher acid credits, partly offset by lower linkage coal and increased employee expense on account of long-term wage agreement.
The company’s cash and cash equivalents increased by 5% from the end of Q2FY15 and 20% from a year ago. As on December 31, 2014, cash and cash equivalents were Rs.28,980 crore, out of which Rs.26,687 crore was invested in mutual funds and Rs.2,283 crore in bonds.
If the same trend continues, the company is sure to end FY15 on a very high note as its 9MFY15 net profit at Rs.6180 crore is already 90% of FY14 net profit of Rs.6905 crore.