Pudumjee Paper standalone PAT up 34% YoY to Rs 22.7 Cr as margins expand, down 33% QoQ

Pudumjee Paper Products' standalone PAT for Q2 FY27 came in at Rs 22.72 Cr, up 34.3% year-on-year from Rs 16.92 Cr in Q2 FY26, on revenue from operations of Rs 227.30 Cr, up 9.7% YoY. Profit grew faster than the topline on margin expansion: net profit margin widened to 10.0% from 8.2% a year ago, and the EBITDA margin (OPM) expanded to 17.0% from 13.2%. The results are unaudited, reviewed under SEBI Regulation 33; only a standalone statement was filed, no consolidated numbers exist for this company. Sequentially the picture reverses — PAT fell 32.6% quarter-on-quarter from Rs 33.72 Cr in Q1 FY27, even as revenue rose 12.0% QoQ from Rs 202.92 Cr, because EBITDA margin compressed to 17.0% from 25.2% in Q1. The swing traces to cost of materials consumed rising to Rs 116.65 Cr from Rs 102.69 Cr, and a roughly Rs 12.2 Cr unfavourable turn in inventory movement (an Rs 8.74 Cr inventory drawdown added to cost this quarter versus an Rs 3.46 Cr build that had reduced cost in Q1). Other income also normalised, falling to Rs 7.46 Cr from Rs 15.61 Cr in Q1, which had benefited from larger investment fair-value gains. Since revenue itself grew QoQ, this reads as a cost/mix reset rather than a demand problem. By segment, Hygiene Products — the smaller of the company's two businesses — had the stronger quarter: segment profit more than doubled YoY to Rs 2.05 Cr on revenue up 20.0% to Rs 20.29 Cr, while the core Paper segment (93% of revenue) grew profit a more modest 5.8% YoY to Rs 31.24 Cr on 8.6% revenue growth. The stock carries no active analyst coverage or consensus estimates (per SimplyWall St tracking, 0 of 1 covering analysts submit estimates), so there is no street number to grade this print against, and the company has issued no formal guidance or concall outlook on record — this quarter cannot be benchmarked against either. The only other disclosed context from the quarter was procedural: BSE sought clarification on unusual trading-volume activity in the stock (queries on Sep 8 and Oct 13), to which the company responded with no undisclosed price-sensitive information; separately, it divested its MITCON Solar stake for Rs 2.4 Cr on Oct 7, immaterial to this quarter's P&L. Going into Q3 FY27, the markers worth tracking are whether the EBITDA margin recovers from this quarter's 17.0% back toward the 20-25% band seen over the past year, whether cost of materials (roughly flat at ~51% of revenue versus Q1) stays contained, and whether the Hygiene Products segment's YoY growth rate continues to outpace the core Paper business.