UltraTech Cement Limited an Aditya Birla Group Company announced its unaudited financial results for the quarter ended June 30th 2011. The results for Q1FY11 have been recasted to include Samruddhi Cement Limited’s performance for a like for like comparison. The results are strictly not comparable with the corresponding period of the previous year.

Financials
The company’s net sales stood at INR 4,365 crores as compared to INR 3,990 crores in the corresponding period of the previous year. Profit before Interest, Depreciation and Tax is INR 1,254 crores and Profit after Tax is INR 683 crores vis a vis INR 1,086 crores and INR 558 crores respectively, in the corresponding period of the previous year.

The combined domestic cement and clinker sales of grey cement was 9.46 million tonnes while it was 0.195 million metric tonnes for white cement and wall care putty.

The quarter was adversely impacted by the 30% increase in the domestic coal price in March, 2011. Alongside, imported coal price rose by 30 per cent YoY resulting in a substantial escalation in costs.

CAPEX
The Company has a capital outlay of over INR 11,000 crores to be spent over the next three years. The CAPEX pertain to a number of projects. These include clinkerisation plants through Brownfield expansion at Chhattisgarh and Karnataka together with additional grinding units; installing waste heat recovery systems; instituting bulk packaging terminals and setting up of ready-mix concrete plants. Orders have been placed for major equipment for setting up of the projects. These expansions are expected to be operational by Q1FY14 and will enhance the Company’s cement capacity by 9.2 million tonne per annum.

These projects will be funded through a judicious mix of internal accruals and borrowings.

Outlook
The surplus scenario is likely to continue over the next 2 to 3 years resulting in the selling prices remaining under pressure. With commodity prices rising, input costs will be affected, which will squeeze margins.