Gujarat Heavy Chemicals Ltd (GHCL) reported a 28.94% decline in consolidated net profit to Rs 84.86 crore ($11.2 million) in the fourth quarter ended March 31, on weak sales.
The company had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 119.43 crore ($15.7 million) in the prior year quarter, GHCL said in a regulatory filing.
Revenue from operations in the fourth quarter stood at Rs 750.07 crore ($98.6 million) as against Rs 907.86 crore ($119.3 million) in the prior year, it added.
GHCL said the nationwide lockdown from on March 25 led to temporary suspension of operations of the company and impacted its overall business activities.
On account of this, management has prepared future cash flow projections and also assessed the recoverability of its assets and factored assumptions used in the annual impairment assessment of its cash generating units, using various internal and external information up-to the date of approval of these financial results.
“The company has on a prudent basis charged an additional one-time cost of Rs 20 crore ($2.6 million) to the statement of profit and loss and in the carrying value of the assets,” the filing said.
Commenting on the business performance, GHCL Ltd Managing Director R S Jalan said the current COVID-19 pandemic caused major disruptions in various business segments.
“At GHCL, we complied with all the regulations notified by the government from time to time. We had taken the initiative of ‘work from home’ at our offices and the production facilities also remained closed for a major period of time thus impacting production and sales,” he said.
He further said, “However, we believe that this disruption will create opportunities too. We assure our stakeholders that we will be agile and focused towards these opportunities.”
Full-Year Results
For full fiscal 2019-20, the company said its consolidated net profit stood at Rs 396.62 crore ($52.1 million) as against Rs 350.58 crore ($46.1 million) in the prior year.
Revenue from operations in 2019-20 stood at Rs 3,305.12 crore ($434.4 million) as compared to Rs 3,341.32 crore ($439.2 million) in 2018-19, it added.