Cochin Shipyard making waves

Cochin Shipyard is making some waves today. The stock was up after three consecutive days of fall. Today, it rose 2.5% to an intraday high at Rs.342.70. Its 52-week high is at Rs.491.70.

The company did not have a very good Q2FY21 – it reported a 48% (YoY) decline in net profit at Rs.108 crore on a 32% drop in revenue from operations at Rs.657 crore. The company said that in this quarter, due to the pandemic, it extended hours of operations by working in two shifts and this impacted depreciation to the tune of Rs 134.88 lakhs during the quarter.

But the market is probably looking beyond the earnings and on its news that it has launched five vessels at one go from its building dock at Kochi and also laid the keel for two vessels. T

he vessels launched are two 8000 DWT mini general cargo ships for JSW Shipping & Logistics and three Floating Border Outpost Vessels (FBOP) for the Indian Border Security Force.

The mini general cargo ships launched are part of a series of four similar ships being built for the JSW Group, and will be used for transportation of dry bulk cargo such as coal, iron ore, dolomite, and limestone.

The company said that it is also expanding and has commenced ship repair units at Mumbai, Kolkata and Port Blair in addition to its Kochi facilities. It is also setting up fully-owned subsidiary shipyards at Kolkata and Malpe, Karnataka to cater to construction of small and medium vessels as well as inland water vessels.

It is investing Rs.2800 crore to build a new dry dock at CSL and a ship lift based ship repair yard at Willingdon Island, Kochi.