By Aditya Raghunath
Investing.com -- UltraTech Cement Ltd (NS:ULTC), which is part of the Aditya Birla Group, announced that it had cleared long-term debt to the tune of Rs 5,000 crore. “We are pleased to inform you that the company, during the last week, has prepaid its long-term loans amounting to Rs 5,000 crore,” said UltraTech.
UltraTech said it had made through the payments thanks to the free cash flows it generated over the last few quarters “despite the challenging circumstances and severe business interruptions during the first quarter of the current fiscal year,” it added.
The company, the third-largest cement manufacturer in the world, had said that it aims to be debt-free by FY23. This announcement means it has around Rs 18,000 crore as gross debt pending on its books at the end of FY21.
Brokerage firms ICICI Securities and Sharekhan are both bullish on the stock. Each of them has given UltraTech Cement a target of Rs 8,000, an upside of almost 18% from its current price of Rs 6,794.4.
Sharekhan says it has a ‘buy’ on UltraTech stock “owing to high probability of upward revision in earnings estimates in the near term and strong visibility of long-term demand growth.”
ICICI Securities is positive that the FY22-FY23 estimates will go up by 2-3% taking it to 12-13%.