Feb 13 (Reuters) - Chemicals maker BASF India reported a 1.5% rise in third-quarter profit on Friday, helped by modest demand for specialty chemicals.
Germany's BASF India unit said its profit rose to 1.05 billion rupees ($11.6 million) from 1.04 billion rupees a year earlier.
The company posted a 6.8% increase in sales.
Revenue from its materials segment -- which includes the performance materials and monomers businesses -- edged up 0.88%, while sales in its agricultural solutions unit, which sells fungicides such as Priaxor and Merivon, fell 11.7%.
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KEY CONTEXT
The Indian specialty chemicals sector is poised for modest demand growth in the reported quarter, according to analysts.
Despite lingering global headwinds and continued inventory destocking in end-use segments such as agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, companies in the chemicals sector are still expected to post low-single-digit revenue growth.
Growth is supported mainly by steady domestic consumption and a slow recovery in select export markets.
This stability is being driven by sustained volumes in high-margin product categories and incremental boosts from new capacity additions.
PEER COMPARISON
Estimates Analysts'
(next 12 sentiment
months)
RIC PE EV/EB Rev Prof Mea No. Stock Div
ITDA enu it n of to yiel
e grow rat ana price d
gro th(% ing lys target (%)
wth ) * ts **
(%)
BASF 31. 18.30 7.7 57.8 HOL 1 0.89 0.52
India 00 4 8 D
Ltd
SRF Ltd 38. 21.77 13. 26.7 HOL 26 0.95 0.31
49 32 2 D
Pidilite 56. 39.40 10. 11.3 BUY 17 0.91 0.68
Industri 23 60 2
es Ltd
Coromand 24. 16.19 9.3 28.1 BUY 10 0.87 0.66
el 62 4 9
Internat
ional
Ltd
* Mean of analysts' ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell
** Ratio of the stock's last close to analysts' mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT
OCTOBER-DECEMBER PERFORMANCE
-- All data from LSEG
-- $1 = 90.7160 Indian rupees
(Reporting by Yagnoseni Das in Bengaluru; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair)
