Cost of goods sold rose by 13% YoY, employee was higher by 30% YoY and other operating cost increased by 26% YoY during the period under review.

While EBITDA improved by 2% to Rs 237.9 crore, EBITDA margins declined by 250 bps to 19% in the second quarter as compared with the same period last year.

Profit before tax in Q2 FY23 stood at Rs 212.5 crore, down by 1% from Rs 214.8 crore in Q2 FY22. Tax outgo was Rs 50.4 crore (down 7% YoY).

Cash and cash equivalents at Rs 83.3 crore, down from Rs 314.4 crore at Q1 FY23, with investment in inventory, which was under strain during the pandemic, liquidity continues to remain strong with robust cash flow.

V.S. Ganesh, managing director, said, “We are pleased to report that historically, this has been the best Q2 for the company in terms of revenue. We are well in line with our guidance of delivering robust growth on the back of strong levers such as increased shift in organized retail, increased branded innerwear demand and growing aspirations for global brands.

The company will continue to invest in capacity building, manpower, business process re‐engineering, digital outreach and advertising while building inventory. With a strong focus in the fast‐growing Tier 2‐3‐4 markets and with new product introductions to further strengthen our product portfolio, we see a huge opportunity for retail expansion and growth as we move forward.”

The board of Page Industries has approved the appointment of Jignesh Jaswant Bhate as independent director of the company for a period of 5 years effective 10 November 2022.

Jignesh Jaswant Bhate, aged 51 years, is founder and CEO of Molecular Connections.

Molecular Connections has over two decades of experience in information science, has been using AI-powered proprietary models to achieve digital transformation. Molecular Connections is a leading technology-driven content operations organisation that provides solutions curated by subject-matter experts and technology leaders.

He has an extensive experience of over 20 plus years as a successful entrepreneur and is a regular speaker at many conferences and seminars on the subject of indexing, abstraction, text mining, and semantic tagging. An active office-bearer of the National Federation of Advanced Information Services, Philadelphia, he is a globally well-known personality in the content informatics industry.

Page Industries is the exclusive licensee of JOCKEY International Inc. (USA) for manufacture, distribution and marketing of the JOCKEY brand in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Oman, Qatar, Maldives, Bhutan and UAE. Page Industries is also the exclusive licensee of Speedo International for the manufacture, marketing and distribution of the Speedo brand in India.

The scrip fell 1.36% to end at Rs 48893.20 on the BSE today.