India's Torrent Power posts higher Q1 profit on robust demand from gas-based plants

BENGALURU (Reuters) - Torrent Power Ltd on Thursday reported a 3% increase in June-quarter profit, aided by a rise in contribution from merchant power sales in gas-based plants.

The power arm of Torrent Group said consolidated net profit rose to 5.17 billion rupees ($62.58 million) in the three months ended June 30 from 5.02 billion rupees a year earlier.

The company's power generation segment clocked a growth of nearly 52%, driving the rise in consolidated revenue from operations to 73.28 billion rupees from 65.10 billion rupees a year earlier.

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KEY CONTEXT

India's power demand is expected to grow twice as fast over the five years ending March 2027 as the use of air conditions and industrial activity increase. (nL1N38F08A)

Last month, peer Power Grid Corporation of India reported a fall in profit, dragged by weak demand in its core transmission business.

PEER COMPARISON

Valuation (next Estimates Analysts'

12 months) (next 12 sentiment

months)

RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue growth profit growth Mean rating # of analysts Stock to Div yield (%)

price

target

Torrent Power Ltd 13.58 8.13 -0.86 6.05 HOLD 8 1.19 1.97

NTPC Ltd 10.54 8.36 4.66 17.54 STRONG BUY 15 0.92 3.33

Power Grid 10.75 6.97 2.67 5.25 BUY 13 0.94 5.95

Corporation of

India Ltd

* Mean of analysts' ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell ** Ratio of the stock's last close to analysts' mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT

APRIL - JUNE STOCK PERFORMANCE

**

**

-- All data from Refinitiv

-- $1 = 82.6140 Indian rupees

($1 = 82.6140 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Yagnoseni Das in Bengaluru; Editing by Sohini Goswami)