Grasim Industries, the flagship firm of Aditya Birla Group, on Monday reported a 40% fall in its net profit to Rs 899 crore during the October–December quarter, as compared to Rs 1,514.4 crore in the same quarter a year ago.
The company’s revenue from operations was, however, up 8.8% to Rs 34,792.9 crore.
Its consolidated Ebitda fell 9% to Rs 4,668 crore, the company said.
The business was impacted mainly by lower realisations in the cement business and initial investments towards Birla Opus, its paints business.
The company said that even as the cement business weighed on performance, its chemical segment reported a 25% rise in Ebitda. This was due to improved realisation of caustic soda and better profitability in the chlorine derivatives segment.
Moreover, for the paints business, the commercial production has already started at Chamarajanagar (in Karnataka) in November, while production at Mahad (Maharashtra) is expected to begin in the current quarter.
At, Kharagpur (in West Bengal) the trial run production is expected to commence in Q1FY26.
The company’s board also approved a capital expenditure of Rs 1,350 crore for setting up the first phase of a lyocell fibre plant at Harihar, Karnataka.
With this investment, Grasim’s total lyocell capacity, marketed under the ‘Birla Excel’ brand, will increase to 153,000 tonnes per annum (TPA).
The first phase of 55,000 TPA will be executed by mid-2027.
On Monday, the shares of Grasim Industries closed at Rs 2,470.75 on the BSE, down 0.71%, ahead of the earnings announcement.