Will not tinker with FY22 estimates of cement stocks owing to CCI probe, says HDFC Securities

HDFC Securities said it will not tinker with FY22 estimates of cement stocks due to the probe carried out by the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

The CCI on Wednesday and Thursday (December 9 and 10) conducted search operations at the offices of some cement companies. The searches were conducted based on suspected price cartelisation by these cement majors, sources privy to the developments told CNBC-TV18.

The, investigations, however, are still underway based on the data collected from these searches, said the sources.

"Will not tinker with FY22 estimates of cement stocks owing to Competition Commission of India (CCI) probe," said Rajesh Kumar Ravi of HDFC Securities in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

According to Kumar, cement demand continues to remain strong throughout the nation except for southern India.

“Our channel checks suggest that north market has grown 5 percent, central more than 10-15 percent in this quarter, east is growing at 20-25 percent, west is also up by 5 percent and south is down around 10 percent year-on-year (YoY), but south is on a recovery phase versus last quarter," he said.

On cartelisation, he said, “There has not been much dent earlier as well in stock prices and even this time I do not see other than a normal profit-booking maybe 3-5 percent.”

For the entire interview, watch the video