Ashish Kacholia stock dips after reporting a net loss of ₹8.4 Cr on lower income, Board declares dividend

Small-cap firm Best Agrolife operates in the fertilisers & agrochemicals industry. One of the leading manufacturers of agrochemical pesticides in India is Best Agrolife Ltd. The stock opened today at ₹938.95 apiece and went to hit an intraday low of ₹912.05 logging a fall of around 3%, this downside came after the company declared poor Q4 results. 

Best Agrolife Ltd, an agrochemical company, recorded a consolidated net loss of ₹8.40 crore for the January-March quarter as opposed to a net profit of ₹38.16 crore during the same period last year. The total income decreased from ₹310.35 crore in the same quarter of the previous year to ₹254.58 crore in the quarter ended March 2023.

During the entire fiscal year FY23 the net profit climbed to ₹192.14 crore from ₹104.76 crore in the previous year or FY22 whereas total income rose to ₹1,748.27 crore in 12MFY23 fiscal from ₹1,212.57 crore in 12MFY22 fiscal.

Vimal Alawadhi, Managing Director, Best Agrolife, said: “We have delivered strong revenue from operations of ₹1,746 crore which is a robust growth of 44% over FY22."

"Our constant focus on introducing innovative products to cater to farmers' needs has resulted in company introducing many specialised combination products including patented novel combination Ronfen in FY23 which drove the growth during the year. We have also expanded our margins by 427 bps during the year which was driven by change in product mix," he added.

"Q4, FY'23 was difficult for the industry at large due to higher channel inventory and excess supply from China at lower prices," Alawadhi said.

"We were also affected by this as our branded product portfolio is more focused on the kharif season. We are working towards introducing more branded products which are focused on Rabi season which will improve breath of the portfolio and will also make the portfolio more balanced which is currently skewed more towards kharif season," he added.

The Board has recommended a dividend of 30 per cent (i.e. ₹3 per share) each for the financial year 2023.

As per the shareholding pattern of Best Agrolife for January to March 2023 quarter, ace investor Ashish Kacholia held fully paid up equity shares of 5,32,526 or 2.25% stake in the company.

With inputs from PTI