Hotel Leela up over 4%

Hotel Leelaventure is seeing some traders and investors checking-in today. Opening a bit higher at Rs.19.10, the stock hit Rs.20 and is now at Rs.19.30, up over 4%. Some 1.43 lakh shares have changed hands since morning v/s two-week average of 80,000 shares.

This turnaround in the moods was on account of the turnaround in Q4FY15 numbers. Its net profit for the quarter came in at Rs.44 crore v/s loss of Rs.57 crore (YoY) and this was on a 3% rise in total income at Rs.228 crore. But costs, up 29%, kept EBITDA under  a lot of pressure – it was down 35% at Rs.43 crore and margins slipped from 30.1% to 19%.

Interest write back of Rs.195 crore and then a deferred tax of Rs.53 crore is what really helped the Hotel post profit or else, purely on operational performance, it would have been a loss.