Prince Pipes and Fittings Ltd was up 4.68% at Rs 612.65 in morning trade on May 26, after recording a 7% year-on-year rise in net profit to Rs 94.11 crore in the quarter ended March.

The piping solutions and multi-polymer manufacturing company posted a net profit of Rs 882.3 crore in the same period last year, the company said in a regulatory filing after the market closed on May 25.

However, operating income fell 15% to Rs 764 crore from Rs 901 crore in Q4FY22. Sales also fell 2% to 44,317 tonnes and 45,287 tonnes in the same period last year.

Its EBITDA rose 6% to Rs 148 crore from Rs 140 crore in Q3FY22. The EBITDA margin was 19.4%.

For the full FY22-23, the company’s profit after tax has halved to Rs 121 crore from Rs 249 crore in FY22. The company’s revenue performance improved slightly at Rs 2,711 crore.

“FY23 results were adversely impacted by a sharp drop in PVC prices, resulting in destocking and inventory losses that heavily impacted H1FY23 results,” the company said.

After a sharp correction of Rs 66 per kg from April 2022 to November 2022, PVC prices recovered in December and remained largely range-bound until March 2023.

Prince Pipes said it delivered healthy profitability in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023, led by stable input prices and a focus on improving its product mix.

“The year saw unprecedented input cost volatility in PVC prices, resulting in significant inventory losses that adversely impacted our profitability in 1H FY23. We were able to mitigate this through our cost and inventory optimization efforts,” said Joint Managing Director Parag Chheda.

The stock was trading at Rs 611.90 on the National Stock Exchange at 11:17 am, up 4.5% from the previous close.

The share is up 3% year-to-date but down 2% over the past 1-year period.