Indian agricultural chemicals firm Coromandel International reported a nearly 35% fall in fourth-quarter profit on Thursday, hurt by subdued demand in its mainstay fertilizer and nutrient chemicals business.

Net profit fell to 1.60 billion rupees ($19.2 million) for the quarter ended March 31 from 2.46 billion rupees a year earlier.

Revenue from operations fell about 28% to 39.13 billion rupees, making it the company's fourth consecutive quarter of decline.

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KEY CONTEXT

Factors such as excessive inventory in the domestic market, water scarcity in southern India and unfavorable subsidies hit the financial performance of agrochemical and fertilizer companies in the fourth quarter.

Analysts, however, expect above average monsoon rainfall and more chemicals subsidies from fiscal year 2025 to change the fortunes of firms including Coromandel.

The company is the first among its peers to report its quarterly results.

PEER COMPARISON

Valuation (next Estimates (next 12 Analysts' sentiment

12 months) months)

RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue Profit Mean No. of Stock to price Div yield

growth% growth% rating* analysts target** (%)

Coromandel International 16.40 10.27 8.11 19.44 Buy 9 0.92 1.09

Ltd

SRF Ltd 40.46 22.58 18.22 43.42 Buy 25 1.04 0.28

Deepak Fertilisers and 9.54 6.14 16.50 NULL Buy 1 0.83 1.80

Petrochemicals Corp Ltd

Sumitomo Chemical India 42.30 30.46 19.31 40.83 Buy 8 0.94 0.30

Ltd

* Mean of analysts' ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell ** Ratio of the stock's last close to analysts' mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT

JANUARY-MARCH STOCK PERFORMANCE

-- All data from LSEG

-- $1 = 83.3028 rupees

(Reporting by Yagnoseni Das in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema)