Volatility for Hindustan Unilever to continue

India’s largest fast-moving consumer goods company announced its Q4 results on April 30. The company witnessed a downfall in volume by 7% in this quarter. The performance has been affected by the effects of Covid-19 since the second half of March. As per the Q4 result, Profit Before Tax (PBT) decreased by 10.6% and Net Profit decreased by 1.2%. The revenue of the company decreased by 9.4% to Rs 9.011 crore. The EBIDTA margin decreased by 160 basis points and growth decreased by 7%.

Impact on performance due to COVID-19:

The spread of COVID-19 affected the company from mid-march. This decline is due to the lock-down all across the world to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has impacted the demand and supply chain. Beauty and personal care contributes 42% of sales, which is down by 14%. Other categories like homecare and food & refreshments are both down by 4% and 7% respectively. Only a part of the health and refreshment is a client base which includes tea and coffee. Even the recently purchased diet portfolio of the firm, comprising of Horlicks and Boost, does not count as a market base.

Other elements affecting stock prices are currency and crude oil price fluctuations. According to Sanjiv Metha, Chairman and Managing Director stated the human influence of the pandemic is unclear and they are completely committed to collaborating with the government to ensure that we solve the crisis. Instability in input expenses and currency will increment, with liquidity constrains prone to keep on developing. As indicated by HUL, it is hard to guess the market growth. The organization is currently running at around 70% of the normative standard and is planning to increase this in the coming days.

Strategies to improve efficiency:

Strategies to increase productivity are reduction in non-essential spending, Capex optimization, inventory management, credit allocation, emphasis on receivables, investment stability, etc. HUL has increased production in main categories such as sanitizers and handwashes. They are now working with shorter preparation cycles, improving the supply chain and increasing efficiency.

About the stock:

HUL has a Market cap of Rs.5,15,708 crore. The stock’s last traded price was Rs.2,195 and was 1.65% low. HUL’s 52 weeks low is 1656 and 52 weeks high is 2,614. The stock is likely to be corrected due to its overvaluation and extension of lockdown in the highly affected areas. This is disturbing for financial specialists, proposing that market request can not bounce back long after the lockout has finished.