ITC Ltd has posted a 22.9 per cent jump in profit after tax on a consolidated basis in the fourth quarter of FY23 powered by cigarettes, FMCG and hotel business and a 7.34 per cent growth in revenue from operation, in line with the street’s expectation.
The tobacco to hotels major, which has also now emerged as a strong FMCG player, recorded Rs 5,242.59 crore PAT in Q4FY23 compared with Rs 4,265.87 crore a year ago. Revenue from the operation touched Rs 19,058.29 crore compared with Rs 17,754.02 crore in Q4FY22.
For the full year, revenue from operations stood at Rs 76,518.21 crore, up 17.35 per cent from Rs 65,204.96 crore. PAT was up by 25.6 per cent to Rs 19,476.72 crore from Rs 15,503.13 crore.
The board has recommended a final dividend of Rs 9.5 a share, including a special dividend of Rs 2.75 a share. Combined with the interim dividend of Rs 6 per share announced earlier, the total annual dividend would work out to be Rs 15.50 a share, compared with Rs 11.50 in FY22.
Total cash outflow on account of dividend payout will be Rs 19,255.02 crore (previous year~ Rs 14,171.51 crore), which translates to 98.8 per cent of ITC’s PAT for FY23.
ITC announced a rejig in the board, appointing Hemant Malik, divisional chief executive of the foods division, which accounts for the lion’s share of ITC’s non-tobacco FMCG business, as a wholetime director from August 12, 2023 for three years.
While FY23 marked the return to normalcy after two years of Covid disruptions, inflation, supply chain constraints and climate crisis led to a challenging operating environment, ITC said in a statement. Against this backdrop, the company’s consumer centricity, agility in seizing market opportunities, focus on execution and proactive strategic interventions enabled it to post strong performance across all operating segments.
Among them, the cigarette division continued with a stellar run as the legal cigarette industry recovered during the year with normalisation in the operating environment under a stable tax regime.
Segment revenue of cigarettes stood at Rs 8,082.26 crore compared with Rs 7,177.01 crore in Q4FY22. Abneesh Roy, executive director at Nuvama Institutional Securities, pegged cigarette volume growth at 12 per cent year-on-year.
FMCG revenue in Q4 was Rs 4,951.17 crore against Rs 4148.62 crore in Q4FY22.
The hotels business revenue was at Rs 808.72 crore in Q4FY23 (Rs 407.42 crore)
Revenue from agri business was down to Rs 3607.3 crore from Rs 4375.42 on account of the government’s ban on wheat export. In the paperboard, paper and packaging segment, revenue was marginally up to Rs 2,221.01 crore from Rs 2182.77 crore.
