BENGALURU (Reuters) - India's National Fertilizers reported a fourth-quarter profit on Thursday on lower expenses.

The state-run agricultural chemicals maker reported a consolidated profit of 2.08 billion Indian rupees ($25 million) for the quarter ended March 31, compared to a loss of 2.36 billion rupees a year ago.

Revenue fell 15.9% to 52.84 billion rupees from 62.57 billion rupees, marking fourth straight quarterly revenue decline.

However, total expenses fell 25.1% to 50.68 billion rupees.

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KEY CONTEXT

Indian fertilizer companies have been grappling with high levels of domestic inventory for past few quarters as well as weak demand. The higher-than-average temperatures in the reporting quarter, along with water shortages in parts of the country, also added to the challenge.

However, analysts expect a change of fortunes in the sector as Asia's third-biggest economy is expected to receive above-average monsoon rains this year.

Peers Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals and Coromandel International reported quarterly profit declines. Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals, however, posted a profit rise despite fall in revenue due to lower expenses.

PEER COMPARISON

Valuation(next 12 Estimates (next Analysts' sentiment

months) 12 months)

RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue Profit Mean No of Stock to Div

growth( growth rating* analysts price yield

%) (%) target** (%)

National NULL Null NULL NULL NULL 0 Null 2.65

Fertilizers

Chambal 10.31 6.05 1.19 24.24 Hold 3 0.97 1.85

Fertilisers

and Chemicals

Deepak 9.40 6.03 16.50 NULL Buy 1 0.82 1.83

Fertilisers

and

Petrochemicals

Corp

Coromandel 19.60 12.62 6.70 14.92 Buy 9 1.01 0.46

International

* Mean of analysts' ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell

** Ratio of the stock's last close to analysts' mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT

JANUARY-MARCH STOCK PERFORMANCE

-- All data from LSEG

-- $1 = 83.2731 rupees

(Reporting by Ashish Chandra in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K and Janane Venkatraman)