EIH Associated Hotels Q2 FY27: PAT +37% YoY (+78% adjusted), margins expand, Jaipur shut

Standalone PAT came in at ₹3.80 Cr, up 37.1% YoY from ₹2.77 Cr. Adjusted for a ₹0.84 Cr one-off gain sitting in the year-ago quarter (disposal of property, plant & equipment at the then-shut Trident Jaipur), underlying YoY PAT growth was closer to ~78% — stronger than the headline, not weaker, because the one-off inflated last year's base rather than this year's print. Revenue from operations grew 17.6% YoY to ₹68.59 Cr. Sequentially, PAT fell 44.9% from Q1's ₹6.89 Cr while revenue rose a modest 4.0% from ₹65.98 Cr — a seasonal pattern the company itself flags (note 6: results for the half year "are not indicative of the full year's performance due to the seasonal nature of the Indian Hotel Industry"), not a deterioration in the business. Margins expanded on a YoY basis: net profit margin rose to 5.18% from 4.41%, and operating margin to 7.39% from 6.03%. Both compressed sharply QoQ (from 9.60% NPM and 10.82% OPM in Q1), consistent with Q2 (Jul-Sep) being a structurally softer quarter than Q1 for Indian hotels. The YoY expansion came despite other expenses rising 18% YoY (₹38.50 Cr vs ₹32.63 Cr) and employee costs roughly flat (₹18.33 Cr vs ₹18.03 Cr), pointing to pricing/mix gains outrunning cost inflation. Our records hold no prior concall read or formal guidance for this name, and no verified analyst consensus for the quarter turned up in a web search — this is a thinly covered small-cap, so vsStreet is unknown. Management had, however, publicly flagged robust demand momentum through Q2 and FY27 on MICE-driven events and a premium average-room-rate strategy; this quarter's YoY revenue and margin expansion are directionally consistent with that framing, so the print reads as "met" against that qualitative outlook rather than a clear beat or miss. No press release accompanied this specific filing to quote management's own framing of the quarter directly. Capital work-in-progress more than doubled to ₹99.33 Cr from ₹47.44 Cr at FY26-end, and half-year capex payments jumped to ₹66.93 Cr from ₹23.58 Cr YoY, consistent with ongoing renovation spend at Trident Jaipur, whose reopening the company has pushed out to October 2027. Half-year operating cash flow turned marginally negative at ₹(0.48) Cr (vs +₹12.22 Cr YoY), driven by working-capital swings (trade payables down ₹13.02 Cr) and higher tax outflow rather than any operating deterioration. This sets up FY27 as a renovation-capex-heavy year, with the Jaipur reopening timeline the key swing factor for future capacity.