Majority companies report 5% revenue de-growth in Q4FY20: SBI Ecowrap

Almost all companies across sectors have suffered a revenue de-growth of 5 per cent for Q4FY20, a SBI Ecowrap report said on Friday. The report pointed out that sectors also suffered from around 30 per cent dip in operating profit as well as bottom line.

"Overall, we feel no sector is untouched with the impact of Covid-19 and subsequent lockdowns even after opening up will prolong the economic pain," the Ecowrap report said.

"Results in Q4FY20 (in listed space ex BFSI and refineries) reveal a de-growth of 5 per cent in revenue and around 30 per cent both in operating profit as well as bottom line."

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In particular, the report cited sectors such as automobiles including auto ancillaries, textile, steel, non-ferrous metal, real estate, construction and capital goods, amongst others, to have reported double digit negative growth across parameters.

"However, we believe in the current exceptional circumstances, it is futile to look at profit and loss parameters. What will be more important will be to closely observe the balance sheet strength. Ideally, corporates with such strength will be able to navigate through this exceptional times," the report said.

"Subsequently, we observe that sectors such as automobile, FMCG, consumer durables though have reported negative growth in all key parameters in Q4FY20, have the requisite balance sheet strength to come out of the current situation."

On the other hand, the report said that sectors such as sugar, steel, telecom services, construction, realty amongst others do not have the balance sheet strength and may face difficulties in this uncertain period.

Besides, the report pointed out that the pandemic has resulted in unprecedented rating downgrade across sectors.

"We had 182 rating upgrades and 2996 rating downgrades, for the select sectors, during Q1FY21. Further, it is important to understand the current rating downgrades in comparison with FY14 taper tantrum crisis," the report said.

"It may be noted that unlike taper tantrum, almost all sectors face a significant rating downgrade: fertiliser, textile, automobile, consumer durables, realty, construction, sugar, capital goods etc to name a few."

In addition, it said that all such sectors have a predominant reflection of consumer demand and "it is thus imperative that policy makers are cognisant to give a meaningful push to demand as we meander through the current crisis".