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Indian cement maker Orient Cement on Tuesday reported a lower profit for the quarter ended June 30 as mounting costs outpaced strong demand.

Standalone net profit for the CK Birla Group's cement business slid to 370.3 million rupees ($4.50 million) in the first quarter, compared to 374.2 million rupees a year ago. Total expenses rose more than 17% to 7.72 billion rupees.

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KEY CONTEXT

Indian cement manufacturers are trying to strike a balance between surging domestic demand buoyed by a push in infrastructure spending and higher raw material and energy costs.

Profits for peers like Ultratech Cement, Shree Cement and Adani-owned ACC rose on robust domestic demand and volumes, while those at JK Lakshmi Cement and Dalmia Bharat declined on higher costs.

PEER COMPARISON

Valuation (next Estimates (next 12 Analysts' sentiment

12 months) months)

RIC PE EV/EBITD Revenue Profit Mean # of Stock to Div yield

A growth growth rating* analysts price (%)

target**

Orient Cement Ltd 12.67 6.05 9.06 49.61 Buy 8 0.92 1.02

JK Lakshmi Cement 12.80 7.19 11.05 32.77 Buy 11 0.82 0.82

Ltd

ACC Ltd 20.74 11.33 -6.73 38.32 Buy 29 0.95 0.46

Shree Cement Ltd 39.01 18.98 12.53 45.78 Hold 17 1.01 0.41

* 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

APRIL-JUNE STOCK PERFORMANCE

-- All data from Refinitiv

-- $1 = 82.2775 Indian rupees