Colgate-Palmolive India Q4 net profit rises 3.3% to Rs 204 cr on tax reversals; COVID-19 outbreak hits sales volume

New Delhi: FMCG major Colgate-Palmolive India Ltd on Thursday reported a 3.32 percent increase in its fourth quarter net profit at Rs 204.15 crore helped by tax reversals.

#4QWithCNBCTV18 | @Colgate's EBITDA for the quarter-ended March falls more than 15% YoY while margin slips nearly 250 bps pic.twitter.com/KFMJpKQiyO

— CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18Live) May 21, 2020

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 197.59 crore in the January-March quarter a year ago, Colgate-Palmolive India Ltd (CPIL) said in a regulatory filing.

However, its net sales declined 7.35 percent to Rs 1,062.35 crore during the quarter under review, as against Rs 1,146.63 crore in the year-ago period.

The company witnessed a dip in sales owing to volume decline of 8 percent mainly due to COVID-19 disruptions, CPIL said in a post earning statement.

“Excluding the impact of prior year tax reversals, the net profit after tax has decreased by 3 percent in the current year,” it added.

Its total expenses was at Rs 856.54 crore during the March quarter, as against Rs 885.16 crore a year ago, registering a decline of 3.23 percent.

Commenting on the earnings, CPIL Managing Director Ram Raghavan said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has required us to think, operate and behave differently. The lockdown did have an impact on our business, as seen in our results.”

Raghavan further said that the health and well being of consumers, business partners and employees have always been its utmost priority.

“Our immediate attention is channeled towards fulfilling the continued demand that we are seeing for our products,” he said.

For the fiscal year 2019-20, CPIL’s net profit was up 5.27 percent to Rs 816.47 crore. It was Rs 775.57 crore in the previous year.

Its net sales in fiscal was up 1.24 percent to Rs 4,487.57 crore. It was Rs 4,432.44 crore in 2018-19.

Meanwhile, in a separate filing CPIL said its board in a meeting held on Thursday has declared a second interim dividend of Rs 16 perequity share for the financial year 2019-20.

Shares of Colgate-Palmolive India settled at Rs 1,333.90 on BSE, down 1.31 percent.