Conference Call with Deepak Nitrite Management and Analysts on Q4FY20 and Full Year Earnings Performance and Outlook. Listen to the full earnings transcript.
Call Participants: Mr. Umesh Asaikar - Executive Director & CEO, Mr. Sanjay Upadhyay - Director, Finance & CFO, Mr. Somsekhar Nanda - Sr GM, Finance
Key Highlights from Umesh Asaikar
Good day everyone and a warm welcome to you on Deepak Nitrite’s Q4 and FY20 results conference call. I hope everybody is safe at home during this pandemic situation. Do take very good care of your family and yourself. Wish you all good health and strength during these difficult times.
I am pleased to inform you that despite the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, we have ended FY20 on a solid note with strong topline growth and have reported the highest PAT ever.
Our revenues for the quarter stood at Rs 526 crores, up by 8% when compared to Rs 488 crores in Q4FY19. We have witnessed volume growth, improved realization while also being able to drive efficiencies in the operations. As a result, EBITDA for the quarter stood at Rs 185 crore when compared to Rs 111 crore in Q4 of last year FY19. Registering a growth of 67%, this quarter witnessed a substantial reduction in finance costs and we also benefited from our more favourable rate of corporate tax which helped to alleviate the profitability.
PAT for the quarter stood at Rs 116 crore, higher by 106% when one compares with Rs 57 crores in Q4 of the earlier year FY19. Deepak Nitrite has continued to benefit from the favourable developments taking place in the global chemical industry. With China de-emphasizing chemical manufacturing and global market players looking to establish supplier arrangements in alternate markets including India, we as a company will leverage our vast industry expertise to capture the market share. With the global spread of the novel coronavirus, we believe there may be some movement and a shift to diversify and deviate supply chain.
We believe we are well placed and globally competitive with established operations, and a high degree of forward and backward integrations.
To give you an update on the performance of Deepak Phenolics i.e DPL made its full year of operations, with phenol production volumes just short of 200,000 tons or 100% capacity utilisation. The shortfall was due to shutdown of the plant for 10 days in March 2020 due to the nationwide lockdown. To almost reach 100% capacity in its maiden year of operation, validates the scale of effort and preparedness backed by the efficient management of complex material logistics. Performance has progressively improved in these quarters of the financial year 2020. Had the shutdown not been imposed, the volumes and revenues in Q4 would have exceeded the watermark we achieved in Q3 of FY20.
Moving on to the operational performance, in Q4FY20 our domestic revenue stood at Rs 264 crores as against Rs 345 crore in the corresponding period, last year. The revenue growth was due to the national lockdown which was enforced by the Government of India. During the quarter, we decided to take advantage of favourable pricing conditions in the given market and to enable this, we focused more on volume. Revenue from exports stood at Rs 257 crore in Q4FY20 as against Rs 138 crore in Q4FY19, delivering a robust growth of 85% YoY. This growth was mainly driven by solid demand for our fine and specialty and our performance product segments in the exports markets.
Looking at the segment wise performance in Q4FY20, the basic chemicals revenue moderated due to closure of production facilities and due to the national lockdown. Revenue growth in the Fine and Specialty segment came in at 30% in Q4FY20 owing to strong demand and favourable realisations in the export markets. The performance product segment reported growth of 22%. The performance was driven by the recalibration of the mix of geographies and end-user industries for this segment which has resulted in better product acceptance and enhanced realisations. Leveraging its backward integrated operations, the company has also capitalised on favourable demand-supply situation for DASDA caused by disruptions in China.
Another key development was the DPL, Deepak Phenolics commercial production of Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA) at its manufacturing facility situated at Dahej, Gujarat effective April 21, 2020. This facility has capacity to manufacture 30,000 MT of IPA annually. This in line with the plans to develop capacities to produce value added derivatives of phenol and acetone through forward integration. This is the first step towards achieving the vision of developing a comprehensive basket of downstream derivatives.
We started production at our plants from mid-April and current capacity utilisation across various plants is around 70%. We are taking all safety precautions for the health and safety of our employees. Logistics and labour availability did face some disruptions. However, this is getting increasingly normalised as we speak. Order improvement from customers both domestic and international remain unaffected. There were deferments which were unavoidable. The company has not witnessed any significant order cancellation due to Covid-19 pandemic. As a best practice, we have also restocked all our customers with a status of their shipment and tentative delivery timelines throughout this period.
After completing 12 years with Deepak Nitrite, I will be retiring on May 31, 2020 and as approved by the Board of Directors, Shri Maulik Mehta will be elevated to the position of Executive Director and CEO with effect from 1st of June, 2020. Let me conclude by saying that we remain confident in the agility and nimble footedness of our business operations and we are well positioned to rebound quickly as the operating environment stabilizes.