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India's JK Lakshmi Cement reported a 69% rise in third-quarter profit on Thursday on healthy demand and higher prices.

The company, the construction materials arm of JK Group, said net profit after tax rose to 1.24 billion rupees (around $15 mln) for the quarter ended Dec. 31, from 735.9 million rupees a year earlier.

Revenue from operations rose 6.6% to 15.86 billion rupees. Power and fuel costs, JK Lakshmi's biggest expense, fell around 25%.

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KEY CONTEXT

The housing and infrastructure sectors have seen a demand surge, aided by higher government spending ahead of the national elections, boosting cement makers' bottom lines.

Cement prices also saw a 2.5% sequential rise during the quarter, brokerage Systematix said, helping cement makers earn more from their sales.

Larger rivals UltraTech Cement and ACC Ltd beat December-quarter profit estimates on price hikes and strong infrastructure demand.

On the other hand, Ambuja Cements and India Cements saw subdued demand in the quarter.

PEER COMPARISON

Valuation (next 12 months) Estimates (next 12 months) Analysts' sentiment

RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue growth Profit growth Mean No. of Stock to Div

(%) (%) rating* analyst price yield

s target** (%)

JK Lakshmi Cement 14.48 10.02 10.86 28.16 Buy 11 1.09 0.41

UltraTech Cement 33.00 18.67 11.14 31.14 Buy 34 0.97 0.37

Shree Cement 39.21 19.34 10.31 23.67 Hold 17 1.01 0.37

ACC Ltd 22.09 11.82 4.61 20.09 Buy 15 0.94 0.37

* 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 STOCK PERFORMANCE

-- All data from LSEG

-- $1 = 82.9620 Indian rupees