JOIN USReliance Industries on Wednesday reported its highest ever quarterly net profit in July-September as record earnings from petrochemical business and bumper earnings from retail business and telecom arm made up for a decline in refinery margins.
The oil-to-telecom conglomerate also announced an acquisition of majority stakes in Den Networks and Hathway Cable and Datacom for Rs 5,230 crore to bring under its fold 27,000 local cable operators who would help strengthen its rollout of fibre-based broadband service to households for offering high definition entertainment on large screen TVs.
Its consolidated net profit of Rs 9,516 crore, or Rs 16.1 per share, in the second quarter of current fiscal, was 17.4% higher than Rs 8,109 crore, or Rs 13.7 a share, in the same period of the previous financial year, the company said in a statement. Revenue jumped 54.5% to Rs 1,56,291 crore.
Its retail business, which comprises of 9,146 stores across 5,800-plus towns and cities, saw pre-tax business profit jump 213% to Rs 1,392 crore on the back of more than doubling of revenues to Rs 32,436 crore.
Reliance Jio, the group’s telecom arm, posted a standalone net profit of Rs 681 crore, which was 11.3 per cent more than the previous quarter as subscriber base swelled to 252.3 million. It had a pre-tax loss of Rs 271 crore in the second quarter of 2017-18.
The petrochemical business saw pre-tax profits jump by 63.7% to Rs 8,120 crore after the company stabilised operations of a new refinery off-gas cracker and other downstream units. The operator of world’s largest oil refining complex saw pre-tax earnings from the business decline for the second quarter in a row. It fell 19.6% to Rs 5,322 crore as margins dipped. In the first quarter the pre-tax earnings had fallen 16.8%.
It earned $9.5 on turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel as compared to a gross refining margin of $12 per barrel. The GRM was also lower than $10.5 per barrel earning in first quarter.
This it attributed to significantly higher crude price (up 47% over last year) and tight product cracks.
The pre-tax loss of oil and gas business widened to Rs 480 crore from Rs 272 crore in the second quarter of 2017-18 due to the continued decline in production.
With telecom continuing to drain investments, Reliance said its outstanding debt rose to Rs 2,58,701 crore as on September 30 as compared to Rs 2,42,116 crore on June 30 and Rs 2,18,763 crore on March 31.
Cash in hand was marginally declined to Rs 76,740 crore, from Rs 79,492 crore in the previous quarter.