Feb 3 (Reuters) - India's Kansai Nerolac Paints reported an 82% fall in quarterly profit on Tuesday, weighed down by higher expenses and a one-time charge of 447.2 million rupees linked to the country's new labour laws.

The paint manufacturer, owned by Japan's Kansai Paint Co, reported a consolidated net profit of 1.21 billion rupees ($13.41 million) for the quarter ended December 31, down from 6.81 billion rupees a year ago, when it had recorded a one-time gain of 6.3 billion rupees primarily from a land parcel sale.

The company's revenue from operations for the quarter rose 3% to 19.82 billion rupees, while expenses rose 3.5% to 18.11 billion rupees.

"The positive effect of the GST rate cuts done towards the end of September has led to good demand... but overall demand conditions remained subdued for decorative paints, in addition to a shorter festival season," said Kansai Nerolac Managing Director Pravin Chaudhari.

For further earnings highlights, click here. (FULL STORY)

KEY CONTEXT

Asian Paints, India's largest paintmaker by market share, also reported a profit drop last month after a similar charge outweighed strong volume growth in its core decorative paints segment.

Indian paint makers have seen uneven profit trends in recent quarters, driven by a mix of demand conditions, cost pressures and other company-specific factors.

PEER COMPARISON

    Valuatio Estimates Analysts' sentiment

n (next (next 12

12 months)

months)

  RIC PE EV/ Reven Profit Mean # of Stoc Div

EBI ue growth rati anal k to yiel

TDA growt (%) ng* ysts pric d

h (%) e (%)

targ

et**

Kansai KAN 24. 15. 7.84 16.36 Hold 11 0.84 1.09

Nerolac E.N 52 27

Paints S

Ltd

Asian ASP 48. 32. 6.94 10.69 Hold 35 0.88 1.03

Paints N.N 59 31

Ltd S

Berger BRG 40. 25. 8.69 13.82 Hold 21 0.83 0.82

Paints R.N 67 50

India S

Ltd

Akzo AKZ 27. 17. 2.17 18.67 Buy 2 0.78 3.57

Nobel O.N 07 36

India S

Ltd

* The mean of analyst ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell

** The 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 STOCK PERFORMANCE

-- All data from LSEG

-- ($1 = 90.2070 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Surbhi Misra and Komal Salecha in Bengaluru; Editing by Jonathan Ananda)