United Spirits (USL) reported its financial numbers for the fourth quarter of FY14 on Thursday. USL succeeded to finalise upon its Q4 results after three unsuccessful attempts by the management.
The company reported a net loss of Rs. 5,380 crore on revenue of Rs.1,917 crore in the Q4 of FY14. USL had reported a net profit of Rs. 56 crore on sales of Rs. 1,866 crore in the same period last fiscal.
Sunita Sachdev, executive director – equity research at UBS speaking to NDTV said revenue decline of 7 per cent year-on-year is due to 10 per cent decline in volume.
Its net profit was hit on the back of provisions for bad debt worth Rs.1,027 crore and exceptional items worth Rs. 4,321 crore.
The exceptional items include provision for intra-USL group loan worth Rs.3,614 crore and Rs. 707 crore towards reduction in value of investments.
UBS says the write-off also includes the impact of Whyte & Mackay sale. But however she said “It is not entirely clear that this is the end of all the provisions, we still need clarification on that.”
UBS believes there may be more disputed amount which the company may or may not have taken fully on the write-offs.
On an adjusted basis USL’s reported ebitda came in at Rs. 115 crore as against estimates of Rs. 180 crore.
Total debt of the company continued to remain high at over Rs. 8,000 crore as of March 31, 2014.
As of 9.58 a.m. shares in United Spirits traded 0.47 per cent higher at Rs.2,410.35 outperforming the Nifty which was down 0.25 per cent at 8,094.45.
