Conference Call between Tata Coffee Management and Analysts on Q4FY20 and full year earnings performance and outlook. Listen in to the full transcript.
Call Participants: Mr. Chacko Purackal Thomas - Managing Director & CEO, Mr. K. Venkataramanan, ED - Finance & CFO
Introductory remarks from Chacko Purackal Thomas
Good morning everyone! I would like to thank all the analysts who are on the call. I wanted to mention that as per government advisory on Covid-19, we had suspended our operations but have since resumed the same with the units operating, though at low capacities but following all statutory norms and guidelines issued by the government.
There has been some impact on our operations due to Covid-19 on our Q4 results but mostly on our Indian operations. We are closely assessing the impact for 2021. I would now move forward to comment on the overall performance of the company along with some observations on the trends in the pre and post Covid-19 scenarios.
Firstly, I am very happy to report that in the financial year 2020, the company at a standalone and consolidated level has delivered a steady performance. Our standalone results - the total income for financial year 2020 is higher at Rs 776 crores compared to Rs 757 crores in the previous year. Standalone PAT is higher at Rs 73 crore compared to Rs 71.6 crores in the previous year.
The terminals for the quarter in particular have been varying from 129.95 cents per pound to around 117.35 cents per pound as on April 1, 2020. The London coffee terminals have also been dynamic and have witnessed lows in Q4 from USD 1,382 per metric tonne to going down to USD 1,204 per metric tonne. While the market experienced stress on prices, we have been able to realise better returns for our coffee by improving our operational efficiencies and continuing to drive optimisation in efforts.
Meanwhile, pepper prices have also remained stagnant in the last quarter since export was prevented as a preventive measure on account of the pandemic. Our focus is in driving significant cost control and cost optimisation projects across the company have also resulted in substantial savings for the financial year. As far as our instant coffee operations in India and Vietnam is concerned, I am pleased to report that our instant coffee, India business continues to perform well. Good sales performance was seen across all geographies and we continue to have a very order book in the coming quarters despite all the challenges in the uncertainties that we have seen around Covid-19.
The operations around our Vietnam soluble coffee plant continue to show good performance both in terms of production and sales. In Vietnam, the Covid-19 spread was addressed with stringent preventive measures and hence we did not pause and eventually operated nearly at full capacities towards the end of the year. A very robust sales pipeline is underway and our key customers have continued to show interest in our products.
The consolidated results have shown marked improvement with our subsidiaries registering a good performance on account of increased profit to higher volumes. Consolidated total income went up 9% from Rs 1,987 crores compared to Rs 1,822 crores from the previous year. Consolidated profit after tax was significantly higher at Rs 141 crores compared to Rs 107 crores in the previous year.
To summarize, I would just like to mention that by operating through the blends of volume growth, crossing of operational efficiencies and our fairly good performance across all geographies. We have been able to deliver a stable financial performance for the year despite the extraordinary challenges faced by the business at large. We continue to constantly navigate and evolve in the changing environment by focussing and ensuring smooth operations in our units as well as continue to focus on cost control initiatives all across.
The standalone Q4 results are impacted primarily due to two major reasons. One is that there has been sequential crop drop specially in Arabica and all the three products. Not to forget the Covid impact in the last few days, maybe 10-12 days due to which our shipments had to be postponed and the logistics and operations were impacted.
The harvest of Brazilian crops is expected to commence now. Obviously there is a Covid scare everywhere. Notwithstanding that, the Brazilian crop is expected to be a good crop for the year and so the prices are expected to be steady unless obviously if there is a sudden issue with the Brazilian crops which is unlikely.