VST Industries Q2 FY27: standalone PAT down 31% YoY to ₹41 Cr, margin pressure persists

VST Industries' standalone PAT for Q2 FY27 (quarter ended 30 September 2026) came in at ₹41.04 Cr, down 30.7% year-on-year from ₹59.21 Cr in Q2 FY26, and down 3.25% sequentially from ₹42.42 Cr in Q1 FY27. EPS fell to ₹2.41 from ₹3.49 a year ago. Headline revenue from operations of ₹844.06 Cr looks like +87.4% YoY growth versus ₹450.37 Cr in Q2 FY26, but the company explicitly flags (Note 6) that this is not a like-for-like comparison: effective 1 February 2026 the government cut Compensation Cess on cigarettes to nil while raising GST and Excise Duty significantly, which grosses up both reported revenue and the excise-duty expense line without reflecting underlying volume or pricing growth. On a like-for-like sequential basis (both quarters post the tax change), revenue actually declined 2.05% from ₹861.71 Cr in Q1 FY27. Margins read better on the sequential, tax-comparable basis: net margin was effectively flat at ~4.9% versus 4.8% in Q1 FY27, but operating margin compressed to ~3.8% from 5.8%, as excise duty rose to ₹602.74 Cr (versus ₹114.25 Cr a year ago, before the cess-to-GST/excise swap) and widened the expense base alongside a ₹53.30 Cr PBT (tax expense ₹12.26 Cr, effective rate ~23%). No exceptional items were reported this quarter, so the YoY PAT decline reflects underlying cost/tax pressure rather than a one-off; Q1 FY27 had already shown a comparable pattern, with PAT down 24.4% YoY on a tax hike per our records, making this the second straight quarter of a double-digit YoY profit decline. Our records carry no prior management guidance or concall commentary to grade this print against, and no press release accompanying this filing, so management's own framing of the quarter is not available. A web search for Street/consensus estimates specific to VST's Q2 FY27 did not surface a usable PAT or revenue estimate, so vsStreet is unknown. The quarter's other corporate developments — the 19 October board notice and the 28 October board meeting that approved these results, and the pre-results trading-window closure from 25 September — are procedural and don't bear on the operating numbers. Price Waterhouse Chartered Accountants LLP completed the limited review with an unmodified conclusion; the company has no subsidiaries, so standalone is the sole basis for this result (Note 4).