Hindalco Industries Ltd. (HNDL), India’s second-largest aluminum producer, reported a 0.6 percent decline in second-quarter profit, which missed analysts’ estimates, due to lower metals prices.
Net income dropped to 3.57 billion rupees ($56.1 million), or 1.85 rupees a share, in the three months ended Sept. 30, from 3.59 billion rupees, or 1.87 rupees, a year earlier, the Mumbai-based company said today in a stock exchange filing. That missed the 3.85 billion rupee median of 26 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales at Hindalco, which also produces copper and its byproducts, rose 2.3 percent to 63.05 billion rupees.
Earnings were hampered by weaker prices of aluminum and copper on the London Metal Exchange. The average price of aluminum, the lightweight metal used to make aircraft and beverage cans, was 6.7 percent lower in the period, while copper fell 8.8 percent.
Hindalco, which pegs its domestic sales to the dollar-denominated price of metals on the LME, benefited from the rupee’s 11 percent decline against the greenback in the last quarter, with revenue from aluminum rising 11 percent to 23.43 billion rupees. Copper sales declined 2.3 percent to 39.74 billion rupees.
Costs rose 2.4 percent to 59.6 billion rupees in the three-month period, according to the filing.
To contact the reporters on this story: Abhishek Shanker in Mumbai atashanker1@bloomberg.net; Rajesh Kumar Singh in New Delhi at rsingh133@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jason Rogers at jrogers73@bloomberg.net