IHCL consolidated PAT up 21% to ₹358 Cr; RevPAR-led 15% revenue growth expands margins

The Indian Hotels Company delivered a clean, seasonally-soft-but-YoY-strong June quarter. Consolidated revenue from operations rose 14.6% YoY to ₹2,339 Cr and net profit attributable to owners climbed 20.8% to ₹357.9 Cr (₹296.4 Cr a year ago), with EPS at ₹2.51. There were no exceptional items on either side of the comparison, so the print is fully underlying — profit growth outpacing revenue growth is genuine operating leverage, not an accounting one-off. The sequential fall (revenue −15.4% and PAT −40% vs Q4's ₹2,765 Cr / ₹645 Cr) is pure seasonality: Q1 is the weakest quarter and Q4 the peak for Indian hospitality, so the QoQ decline is expected and not the story. Margins expanded on the back of rate-led RevPAR: management/investor slides cite ~14% like-for-like domestic RevPAR growth, EBITDA up 18% to ₹753 Cr and EBITDA margin up ~80 bps to 31.1% (from 30.3%). Net profit margin improved to ~16.7% from ~16.1%. The revenue driver is rate hikes rather than pure volume, consistent with the FY27 plan. Notably, standalone PAT jumped 37.9% to ₹337 Cr on 17.9% standalone revenue growth — materially ahead of the consolidated +21% — because the consolidated line absorbs newly-added, still-ramping entities (Brij, ANK, Pride consolidated during/after the quarter, ₹192.76 Cr provisional goodwill on Brij) and minority interest; readers seeing the ₹337 Cr standalone figure elsewhere should treat consolidated ₹358 Cr as the primary, group-wide number. Against the street this is a beat: Nomura flagged a revenue and EBITDA beat and "likely above-guidance FY27 revenue growth" (Buy, TP ₹830), and Jefferies reiterated Buy (TP ₹875) on strong RevPAR and earnings upgrades. Against management's own FY26-concall guidance of 12-14% FY27 revenue growth with sustained margins, Q1's 14.6% topline is tracking at/above the upper end while margins expanded rather than merely held — an on-track-to-ahead start. Corporate momentum supports the trajectory: the portfolio crossed 645 hotels with 20 signings/openings in the quarter and the Brij acquisition (51%, ₹221.8 Cr) closed on Apr 21, feeding the capital-light-plus-selective-M&A expansion the company guided to. This quarter confirms, rather than contradicts, the confident/optimistic tone from the May 2026 call.