(Eds: Adding details with management quotes)

Mumbai (PTI) Leisure and education travel group Cox & Kings today reported an over fourfold spike in consolidated net profit for the quarter to December at Rs 84.46 crore on the back of higher margins under the new taxation regime, despite a dip in revenue.

The companys revenue was marginally lower at Rs 1,370.91 crore, against Rs 1,391.99 crore in the same period last year, the company said.

Explaining the dip in revenue, its chief financial officer Anil Khandelwal told PTI that total income from operations may not be strictly comparable with previous quarters as some business contracts had undergone review and restructuring in line with the goods and services tax (GST) implementation.

Therefore, a better way to analyse the growth would be to compare gross margins (or income from operations less cost of tours) on a sequential basis, he said.

"As can be seen, during this quarter, gross margins from leisure business from the country grew 7 per cent while international leisure business also grew at the same clip, and education rose 10 per cent and Meininger (a European hotel company) reported 56 per cent growth in margins, taking the overall, gross margin growth to 17 per cent," he added.

The leisure and education travel group operates in 22 countries across four continents mainly in three verticals-- leisure, education and hybrid hotels.

Cox & Kings Group chief executive Peter Kerkar said, "our leadership position across various segments of our business got strengthened further in the quarter.

"Our leisure business continued to report robust margins. The rapid expansion of Meiningers is on track and all our operations chugged along well," he said in a statement.

The Cox & King counter closed down 1.54 per cent at Rs 252.10 on the BSE whose benchmark Sensex slipped 0.42 per cent in late sell-off.

 15 Feb 2018, 02:31 PM