Pantaloon Retail Declines After Reporting Net Loss: Mumbai Mover
Pantaloon Retail India Ltd. (PF) declined the most in more than eight weeks after reporting a loss in the three months ended Dec. 31.
The country’s largest retailer declined 6.7 percent, the most since Dec. 14, to 176.9 rupees at close in Mumbai today. India’s benchmark Sensitive Index (SENSEX) rose 0.1 percent. Pantaloon has gained 37 percent this year.
The company reported a 79.6 million-rupee ($1.62 million) loss in the second quarter, compared with a profit of 124 million rupees a year earlier, Mumbai-based Pantaloon said Feb. 10. The median of nine analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg was for a 442 million-rupee profit. Interest costs increased 63 percent to 2.4 billion rupees.
“Interest cost is just killing them,” Abhishek Ranganathan, a Mumbai-based analyst with MF Global-Sify Securities Pvt. said in a telephone interview. “The next few quarters may have low same-store sales growth. High interest costs along with that is not going to help.”
Pantaloon has been affected by rising borrowing costs after the Reserve Bank of India increased interest rates by a record amount from 2010 until October last year to fight inflation.
India predicted its economy, Asia’s third-largest, will grow at the slowest pace since 2009, prompting consumers to spend less. The government on Feb. 7 estimated growth of 6.9 percent for the year ending March 31, following an 8.4 percent expansion in the previous period.
To contact the reporter on this story: Malavika Sharma in New Delhi at msharma52@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephanie Wong at swong139@bloomberg.net
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