: Reliance net falls by 15% #FinanceIndia #StockMarketNEWS #Business Press Trust of India New Delhi Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 15% drop in its net

@StockMarketNEWS Tue 24 Jan, 2023

Posted in: #FinanceIndia #StockMarketNEWS #Business

Reliance net falls by 15% #FinanceIndia #StockMarketNEWS #Business
Press Trust of India

New Delhi

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 15% drop in its net profit for the December 2022 quarter as higher finance costs, the new windfall profit tax and depreciation neutralised strong operating performance.

The oil-to-retail-to-telecom conglomerate’s consolidated net profit of Rs 15,792 crore or Rs 23. 34 per share, in October-December compares with Rs 18,549 crore, or Rs 28. 08 a share, earnings in the same period a year back, according to company’s stock exchange filing.

The firm plans to raise Rs 20,000 crore more to fund expansion across the business from building Giga factories for a new energy ecosystem to 5G telecom service rollout and retail expansion.

While finance cost soared 36. 4% to Rs 5,201 crore, other expenses were up by Rs 5,421 crore. Debt, which the company is using to fund its massive green energy foray and expansion in telecom and retail business, soared almost Rs 59,000 crore to Rs 3,03,530 crore in the third quarter of the current fiscal year when compared to the year-ago period.

Depreciation increased by 32. 6% to Rs 10,187 crore due to an expanded asset base across all the businesses and higher network utilisation in the digital services business, a company statement said.

Gross revenue was up 15% at Rs 2,40,963 crore.

Sequentially, the net profit was up 15% from Rs 13,656 crore in July-September2022.

Operationally, all businesses were firing all cylinders. EBITDA at Rs 38,460 crore, was up 13. 5% year-on-year led by consumer businesses and higher oil and gas prices aiding the upstream segment.

While digital services, which includes telecom, EBITDA at Rs 12,900 crore was 26 per cent higher, retail EBITDA was up 25% at 4,786 crore. Oil and gas EBITDA almost doubled to Rs 3,880 crore.

However, the mainstay oil refining and petrochemicals business, called O2C, was muted with a 3% rise in EBITDA to Rs 13,926 crore, hurt by a margin squeeze in the chemicals segment.

Reliance said the windfall profit tax on the export of diesel and ATF impacted the profit for the quarter at Rs 1,898 crore.

The government had in July 2022 slapped a new tax on the export of petrol, diesel and jet fuel (ATF) as well as on domestically produced crude oil to scoop some of the gain being made by companies from higher global energy prices.

Telecom arm Jio reported a 28. 6% jump in net profit to Rs 4,881 crore on customer base swelling to 43. 3 crore and a 17. 5% increase in per-user earnings.

Retail business net profit was up 6. 2% to Rs 2,400 crore on the addition of 789 more stores, growth across consumption baskets, and rising contribution from digital channels led to a rise in retail segment profits.