RIL Shares Slip 4% Post Q3 Results

On Monday, shares of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) declined 4% to Rs 1,952.55 on the back of its financial results for the December-ended quarter. The heavyweight on benchmark indices caused Sensex and Nifty to erase gains made at the start of the trading day.

The oil-to-telecom conglomerate reported a 12.5% rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 13,101 crore for the third quarter of financial year 2020-21 when compared to Rs 11,640 crore in the corresponding period last year.

The Mukesh Ambani-led company's consolidated revenue fell by 22% to Rs 128,450 crore as compared to Rs 160,447 crore in the year ago period.

The company said that it reported highest ever quarterly consolidated profit before exceptional items at Rs 15,015 crore, while consolidated EBITDA before exceptional items stood at Rs 26,094 crore.

However, it recorded a sharp fall in revenue at its dominant oil-to-chemicals business. The consolidated revenue from operations declined 22% to Rs 1.23 lakh crore as against Rs 1.57 lakh crore in the year-ago period.

"The outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic globally and in India is causing significant disturbance and slowdown of economic activity. The Group's operations and revenue during the period were impacted due to COVID-19," RIL said.

"We have delivered strong operational results during the quarter with a robust revival in O2C and Retail segments, and a steady growth in our Digital Services business," said Chairman and MD Mukesh Ambani.

"With effect from this quarter, the Company will disclose Oil to Chemicals (O2C) as a separate business segment," RIL said in a stock exchange filing.

"Our Oil-to-Chemicals (O2C) business has formally reorganised its reporting segments to reflect our new strategy and management matrix for this enterprise. The reorganised structure will facilitate holistic and agile decision making and enable us to pursue attractive new opportunities for growth, with strategic partnerships with the best and the biggest in this business globally. The O2C platform will increasingly move further downstream and become closer to customers. It will create planetfriendly and affordable energy and materials solutions to meet the growing needs of every sector of the Indian economy," said Ambani.

While oil-to-chemical or O2C business improved quarter-on-quarter, its earnings were lower than a year-ago but this was more than made good by a spurt in consumer-facing businesses of telecom and retail which now contribute to 51% of earnings as compared to 37% a year back.