Overview
Agarapatana Plantations cultivates, manufactures and sells high-grown black tea through 20 estates in the Western High and Uva High regions. It also operates factories, timber plantations and hydropower assets, with value-addition and renewable-energy initiatives forming part of its broader plantation strategy.
The key change is the sharp deterioration in quarterly gross profitability. Revenue recovered year on year, but the latest quarter still ended in a small loss.
Price performance
AGPL closed at LKR 16.00 on 2026-08-07. It rose 10.2% over one week against a 1.1% ASPI gain, but fell 13.4% over three months while the index declined 7.1%, and fell 16.1% over one year while the ASPI gained 9.5%.
The stock sits at 22.0% of its 52-week range, close to its low rather than its high. Recent volatility is above its own annual norm, and 20-day volume is running above its recent average, indicating more active trading without evidence in the data explaining the move.
Valuation
AGPL trades at a P/E of 10.0, around the middle of its sector at the 54th percentile. Its P/B of 1.96 is more demanding, ranking at the 88th sector percentile, although the 18.9% full-year ROE provides some earnings support for a premium to book value.
The dividend yield is 3.1%, also near the sector middle at the 54th percentile. The recorded payout was LKR 1.50 per share in FY2025 and LKR 0.50 in FY2026, but the latest financial year may be incomplete, so this should not yet be treated as a confirmed cut. Dividend cover is 3.2 times.
News and sentiment
Direct coverage is thin: there were no material company articles in the 90-day window, with no positive, negative or neutral items recorded. The share’s three-month decline therefore has no company news explanation in the supplied data.
The latest confirmed corporate action was a LKR 0.50 first interim dividend, with an ex-date of 2026-01-12 and payment on 2026-01-26.
Financials
For the quarter ended 2026-03-31, revenue grew 15.5% year on year to LKR 1.91 billion, but gross margin fell to 2.1% from 10.4%. Operating margin was not reported for either comparison period, so operating performance cannot be assessed on a like-for-like basis.
Net margin improved to negative 0.3% from negative 8.3%, as the net loss narrowed by LKR 131 million to LKR 6.6 million. The latest gross margin was the worst of three comparable March quarters, while the net margin ranked among the company’s best March results at 2 of 3, showing that the loss was much less severe than the prior-year March outcome.
The latest group filing reported owners’ equity of LKR 4.08 billion on an unchanged 500 million shares. Below-line drag was not reported for the latest quarter. The latest full-year record was stronger, with revenue growth of 1.0% and net profit growth of 72.3%, but those figures describe the year ended 2025-03-31 and do not offset the deterioration in the newer quarterly gross margin.
Risks
The main risk is operating-margin volatility, with the latest gross margin at 2.1% and no operating profit reported for the quarter. This leaves earnings highly sensitive to tea prices, production costs and estate productivity.
The balance sheet is less stretched than a year earlier: FY2025 gearing was 21.3% of owners’ equity and interest cover was 8.38 times. However, the current ratio was 1.32, while cash conversion was only 0.96 times, meaning operating profit did not fully arrive as operating cash. The company also faces sector-wide labour pressure, with exporters reporting 143,087 departures, while tea’s year-to-date national sales average was lower in US dollar terms despite stronger July rupee prices.
Outlook
The next event is the filing for the quarter ended 2026-06-30. As at 2026-08-08, it was due now and the exchange-based expected window runs from 2026-07-28 to 2026-10-26; that filing will supersede the March figures used here.
The filing matters because the March result showed revenue recovery without gross-profit recovery. Sector data provides a mixed backdrop: July tea auction prices strengthened in rupees, but the year-to-date average remained lower in US dollar terms, while reported labour shortages constrain capacity. The supplied data cannot establish how either factor affected Agarapatana specifically.