Informist, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024

By Sunil Raghu

AHMEDABAD - Higher volumes of cargo handled, primarily containers, coal, crude, natural gas, and liquids, helped Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd to somewhat overcome losses due to cyclone-related supply disruption at the flagship port of Mundra in August. The company posted a 39.89% on-year jump in its consolidated net profit to INR 24.45 billion in the September quarter, against INR 17.48 billion a year ago.

The consolidated net profit was slightly below the estimate of INR 24.96 billion, as per the average from four brokerages. Sequentially, the net profit was lower by 21.45%. The net profit's on-year growth for Jul-Sept was also the lowest in the last four quarters.

The consolidated revenue from operations for the largest private port player rose 6.33% on year to INR 70.67 billion in Jul-Sept, from INR 66.46 billion a year ago. The revenue from operations too was lower than the Street estimate of INR 71.70 billion. It was 1.6% higher than a quarter ago.

Of the total revenue, the company earned INR 64.21 billion from port and special economic zone activities, with the remaining INR 6.79 billion from the logistics and transportation business. During the quarter, the company's other income was almost flat on year at INR 3.05 billion.

Total expenditure, including finance costs, fell 0.96% on year to INR 44.34 billion in Jul-Sept. Finance costs fell 3.74% to INR 6.89 billion in Jul-Sept from INR 7.15 billion a year ago. The tax expense of the company fell 37.73% on year to INR 4.73 billion, from INR 7.59 billion in Jul-Sept of last year.

The company said its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation or EBITDA, excluding foreign exchange, rose 12.6% on year to INR 43.69 billion. Domestic ports contributed INR 40.89 billion to EBITDA, logistics INR 1.56 billion and international operations contributed INR 1.07 billion to the company's Jul-Sept EBITDA. The EBITDA excludes forex loss of INR 1.32 billion in Jul-Sept, compared to a forex loss of INR 2.16 billion in the same quarter a year ago, the company said in its presentation accompanying its filing on Jul-Sept earnings.

OPERATIONAL UPDATES

Adani Ports has already announced that its port volumes during Jul-Sept were at 111 million tonnes, up 10% on year from 101.2 million tonnes in the same quarter last year. In Apr-Jun, the company's ports clocked a volume of 108.9 million tonnes. Of the total port volume, the Mundra port handled 50 million tonnes of cargo in Jul-Sept, while non-Mundra ports handled 55.5 million tonnes of cargo.

The company, which has a portfolio of 15 ports across the nation, handled a total of 220 million tonnes of cargo in Apr-Sept, up 8.5% on year. This growth in cargo was primarily driven by containers, whose volume rose 19% on year.

The company's flagship port at Mundra, Gujarat, achieved the milestone of crossing the 100-million-tonne mark in 181 days, despite losing up to 2 million tonnes of cargo to bad weather in August. Mundra handled 101.1 million tonnes of cargo in Apr-Sep, up 18% on-year. The second-biggest port in the company's portfolio in volume terms, Krishnapattanam port, accounted for 29.4 million tonnes of cargo handled in the same period, recording flat on-year growth.

Adani Ports, while announcing its Jul-Sept earnings Tuesday said that it expects to handle 460 million tonnes-480 million tonnes of cargo in 2024-25 (Apr-Mar) and earn a revenue of INR 290 billion to INR 310 billion, with EBITDA of INR 170 billion to INR 180 billion and capital expenditure of INR 105 billion to INR 115 billion.

BUSINESS HIGHLIGHTS

During Apr-Sept, Adani Ports reported a consolidated net profit of INR 55.58 billion on consolidated revenue of INR 140.23 billion. A year ago, the port operator's net profit was INR 38.63 billion on a revenue of INR 128.94 billion. The company claimed that during Apr-Sept, it handled 27% of the country’s total cargo and 45% of the container cargo.

During the first half of the current financial year, the company completed the acquisition of Gopalpur Port in Odisha and acquired an 80% majority stake in support vessel operator Astro Offshore, adding 26 offshore support vessels to its fleet.

Adani Ports also signed a 30-year concession agreement to operate and manage a container terminal at Dar es Salaam port in Tanzania. It also signed another 30-year concession agreement with Deendayal Port Authority to develop berth number 13 at Kandla in Gujarat.

While it added 11 new container services across three domestic ports, Adani Ports expects to start commercial operations from Vizhinjam port by December.

On the logistics front, the company handled 310,000 containers, up 11% on year in Apr-Sept. It also handled 10.7 million tonnes of bulk cargo, up 20% on year during this period. volumes handled at multi-modal logistics parks too rose 21% on year to 215,958 containers. The company also increased its warehousing capacity to 3.1 million square feet, from 2.9 million square feet at the end of Jun. 30.

On Tuesday, shares of the company closed 1.52% higher at INR 1,372.70 on the National Stock Exchange. End

Edited by Tanima Banerjee

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