Months after the global beverage company Coca-Cola showed interest in buying stake in Cafe Coffee Day, Indian tobacco major ITC Ltd may also fight for a stake in CCD’s parent company Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd. ITC, Asia’s most valuable cigarette maker, is looking to diversify from the company’s main selling product — tobacco — and has been given access to review Coffee Day’s assets and financials so that it can contemplate on picking stake, Bloomberg reported citing unidentified sources. If ITC goes ahead with the deal, it will be able to reduce its dependence on the cigarette business.

The overall slump in consumption has impacted cigarette sales of ITC Ltd. The diversified business conglomerate has reported around 3% volume growth in the April-June quarter, against 7-8% in the past three consecutive quarters. This growth slowed despite no hike in cigarette taxes for two years now.

Cigarette-to-soap maker, ITC’s June quarter results were not particularly encouraging. The cigarette business, which is ITC’s mainstay, disappointed.

Varun Lohchab, analyst at Jefferies India Pvt. Ltd, points out that “ITC’s Q1FY20 missed slightly operationally as cigarette volumes grew 3% year-on-year (versus our 4% expectation)."

Largely in line with market expectations, ITC on Friday reported a handsome 12.6% year-on-year increase in its standalone net profit to Rs 3,173.94 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, with its gross revenue soaring 6% y-o-y during the period. The diversified conglomerate had posted a net profit of Rs 2,818.68 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago.

Turning down any possibility of a demerger of its different businesses, ITC chairman Sanjiv Puri on Friday said the present structure of the diversified conglomerate “makes sense” as it was “creating synergies out of diversities”.

Addressing shareholders during the cigarette-to-hotel-to-FMCG major’s 108th annual general meeting in Kolkata, Puri said, “The whole philosophy of ITC has been to create value out of the businesses within the system.

ITC’s petition alleging oppression and mismanagement of minority shareholders against Hotel Leelaventure is an ‘abuse of process’, senior advocate Janak Dwarkadas representing JM Financial Asset Reconstruction Company told the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Wednesday, adding that ITC’s waiver application ‘must go’ as well.

JM Financial ARC is a respondent to the ITC petition.

Kolkata: Kolkata-headquartered diversified conglomerate ITC Ltd has drawn up a capex of Rs 20,000 crore in multiple projects in multiple sectors across the country. Of this as much as Rs 5700 crore is being invested in various projects in West Bengal. The entire amount will be invested over the next few years, ITC Chairman Sanjiv Puri said in Kolkata on Tuesday.

The National Company Law Tribunal on Tuesday directed the Securities and Exchange Board of India to wrap up its investigations into the proposed sale of Hotel Leelaventure’s various undertakings to Brookfield by July 8, during a hearing on bankruptcy case against Hotel Leelaventure initiated by JM Financial Asset Reconstruction At Tuesday’s hearing,

Q4 was broadly an in-line quarter led by modest performance in core cigarette business (8% volume growth/2-year CAGR at 2.5% and 10% Ebit growth), sustained profitability enhancement in FMCG and broad-based robust growth in other businesses. Punitive taxation notwithstanding, we believe, improving volume trajectory and pricing action in core cigarette business remain key catalysts. Inexpensive valuations (our reverse math suggests core cigarette business adjusted for other parts in our SoTP valuation trades at 21x Mar-21e earnings) and undemanding expectations lend additional comfort.

ITC managing director Sanjiv Puri was on Monday appointed the company’s chairman, two days after the death of YC Deveshwar, who earlier held the post. Puri, who has been the MD at the diversified firm since May last year, is now its chairman and managing director.

The announcement was widely expected. Puri, 56, was the chief operating officer (COO) before being promoted as chief executive officer (CEO) in February 2017.

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