India’s leading apparel conglomerate Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd. (ABFRL) performed well during the third quarter of the current fiscal year ended 31 December 2020.
It reported consolidated net profit of Rs. 58.55 crore for this quarter while it had net loss of Rs. 37.64 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
During this period, sales grew more than double of Q2, FY21, recovering to 80 per cent of last year.
The company’s sale during the Q3, FY21 was Rs. 2,076 crore (fall by 20 per cent year on year basis) while the same was Rs. 2,583 crore during the Q3, FY20.
The company said in a release that the third quarter saw a significant acceleration of business recovery along sequential quarters. Consumers started coming back to stores and continued to buy more online due to buoyant festive mood and visibility of a declining infection spread.
The company delivered a consolidated EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) of Rs. 422 crore, almost same as last year levels despite lower sales.
During this quarter, Pantaloons, the large format fashion retail division of the company noticed the business recovering to 75 per cent of pre-COVID levels and reported the highest ever EBITDA margins in the history of the company.
This was driven by improved product mix, superior inventory management leading to lower discounts and stringent control of fixed costs.
The company, which generated nearly Rs. 588 crore cash during this quarter, also announced that its debt projected to be down by 90 per cent by the end of the fiscal from the start of the financial year.
With revenue of Rs. 8,788 crore in FY19-20, ABFRL is India’s first billion-dollar pure-play fashion powerhouse with an elegant bouquet of leading fashion brands and retail formats. It has a network of 3,157 stores across approximately 29,900 multi-brand outlets with 6,835 point of sales in department stores across the country.
