MUMBAI : After reporting a steep 71% fall in net earnings in Q4, shares of NTPC Ltd lost 2% on Monday. Profit plunged as the company incurred additional expense toward settling tax disputes. Adjusted for this, net profit would have fallen just 0.5%, said analysts.
“NTPC did a one-time settlement of ₹2,700 crore on past taxation cases, of which ₹1,800 crore is recoverable in tariffs and ₹900 crore is not,” Jefferies India Pvt. Ltd analysts said in a note.
Revenue grew 28% year-on-year, reflecting better realizations. Importantly, the results indicated a significant reduction in revenue loss due to cost under-recoveries. Revenue loss due to shortage of coal (fuel) dropped from ₹800 crore in FY19 to ₹249 crore in FY20. The overall generation readiness of plants, known as plant availability, improved 2.56 percentage points to 89.67% last fiscal year.
