Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to EPL Limited Q3 FY 2022 earnings conference call hosted by Systematix Institutional Equities. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Pratik Tholiya from Systematix Institutional Equities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good afternoon, Systematix Institutional Equities. I would like to welcome all the participants to this call of EPL to discuss the third quarter and nine months FY 2022 results. From the management team today, we're joined by Mr. Anand Kripalu, MD and CEO, Mr. M. R. Ramasamy, COO, Mr. Parag Shah, CFO, Mr. Amit Jain, Senior Vice President, Corporate Finance, Mr. Suresh Savaliya, Senior Vice President, Legal and Company Secretary, and Mr. Deepak Ganjoo, President, MEA Region. At the outset, I would like to thank the management for giving us the opportunity to host this conference call. Now I would like to invite Mr. Anand Kripalu for his opening remarks and to discuss the financial performance. After, we'll open the call for Q&A. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Kripalu.
Yeah. Thank you very much and hello, everyone, and good evening. Thank you for joining this call. We delivered another quarter of robust revenue growth at 14.9% in Q3, where the underlying growth was 11.6%, so it's robust double-digit growth. This growth was broad-based across regions and categories. As far as the regions are concerned, revenue growth was led by AMESA, which is Africa, Middle East, South Asia, so basically India and the surrounding countries, which grew at 35.7%, which we believe is hugely market-leading. EAP, East Asia Pacific, which grew at over 20%, and the Americas, which grew at over 9%.
Europe continued to be challenged, where the underlying growth of Europe was just over 2%, and that was as a result of a decline in the personal care category due to the COVID situation. However, Europe oral care grew double digits. Importantly, there was no wallet share loss in Europe, so we expect the situation to turn around very soon. Overall, as far as categories are concerned, oral care grew by 7.4%, and personal care, in line with our strategy, grew at a much faster 19.4%. EBITDA margin in the quarter stood at 15.7%. It was impacted by continuing hardening raw materials and freight costs. Margins were also impacted due to higher personal costs due to absenteeism and overtime, particularly in certain geographies because of COVID.
A judicious mix of price increases and cost efficiencies are being realized as we speak. Barring any unforeseen volatility, we believe margins have bottomed out, and we should see margins recover going forward. Net profit declined 19.5% compared to the previous year, but sequentially it grew by 12.6%. Net of one-off, PAT was down by 17.2%. Net-net, I do want to say that the context we are in is no different to the context of the larger industry that is facing not just high inflation, but also high volatility on commodities. With the recent tempering of input costs and all the interventions that we are doing, some of which I will talk about, we feel confident that future margins will be better than the current. Our ambition as a company is to be the most sustainable packaging company in the world.
We believe that this will ensure our long-term performance and be a critical driver of sustainable competitive advantage. We know that most of our customers have made big commitments to become more sustainable and to move to recyclable packaging over the next five to 10 years. This decade we'll see a big transformation in companies that can offer sustainability as a product advantage. Hence, we are driving sustainability as a company with global focus, both for our customers as well as our efforts to internally become a more sustainable organization. Now, as far as customers are concerned, we continue to lead in the area of sustainable solutions. We recently added Vicco to our list of customers who partner us on sustainability, and that adds to the list that already contains Colgate, P&G, Unilever, Hela, and GSK. Apart from the work. Sustainable solutions to our customers.
In this previous quarter, we have also continued to make strides on our journey to become more sustainable as an organization. We joined the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's New Plastics Economy Global Commitment. We became a signatory to UNGC, which is United Nations Global Compact. We were rated B by the Carbon Disclosure Project, CDP, for climate change and water security. Importantly, we won the prestigious Best Governed Company award at the twenty-first ICSI National Awards for Excellence in the category of corporate governance, which I'm sure, all of you as investors would be happy to note. That's really about our performance under review in the previous quarter in terms of numbers and what we are doing on sustainability. Looking ahead, our objective is to drive sustained, profitable growth, and that remains our top priority.
We have a very strong business development pipeline, which will ensure we continue our double-digit revenue growth momentum. In order to drive growth even further, and as part of our continued effort to explore opportunities not just in our existing markets, but also in virgin countries, I am very happy to share that we are making an entry into Brazil on the back of a long-term contract with a leading multinational company. This underscores the trust that EPL enjoys with its global customers and follows a very successful model of new market entry as we have done already in the past in the case of the United States, Egypt, and China. As you would expect, a comprehensive end-to-end company-wide margin improvement program is underway. This includes a fresh round of price increases, as well as driving mix improvement even harder.
Cost-saving initiatives include increased in-house manufacturing of caps and closures rather than buying them from the outside, a global interregional and interplant competition to further reduce scrap and wastage, an improved sourcing strategy being led by experts and a critical relook at our organization design to enhance not just efficiency of our organization, but also to improve effectiveness. These programs will ensure that margins improve. Despite short-term challenges faced by the larger industry, we continue to deliver strong double-digit revenue growth. Barring any foreseen volatility, we also remain confident that margins have bottomed out and that the journey towards recovery is underway. Finally, I'd like to make an announcement. We are going through a change of CFO.
I am delighted that Amit Jain, who many of you have interacted with already in his role as leading investor relations among other things, will be becoming CFO effective April 1. Amit has had a solid career of nearly a decade with EPL and understands this business deeply. He will take on the mandate of driving performance management even harder and in particular, leading the journey on overall margin recovery, which as you will understand, is a top priority. Parag Shah, our current CFO, will be leaving the business for personal reasons. He will continue to be CFO till the 31st of March. I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of all of you on the line to thank Parag for his many contributions over this very critical period. On behalf of everybody, I'd like to wish him the very best in his future endeavors.
With that, we're opening up the line for questions.
Thank you very much. We now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The first question is from the line of Sanjesh Jain from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening. Thanks for giving me the opportunity. Few questions. First, on Brazil, we said that we have signed a long-term contract with an MNC customer. Can you just elaborate what will be the investment which will be required? Are we planning to put up a factory there or, as to start with, we will source the finished product to Brazil? What is the contract we are looking at? Because your presentation say that the opportunity of overall tubes there is INR 3.5 billion. How much of it is laminate, and what is the kind of market share we are aiming to get in Brazil? That's the first question.
Go ahead. Finish your question, please.
Okay. Related question is on the operational base. In Brazil, do we expect to initially start with the losses and then break even at EBITDA level, or it's just a trading agreement and we will supply, so it will directly contribute to the EBITDA? That's an added question. That's on the first set. Second set is on the inflation. The raw material inflation in Q3 looks much more benign than the previous quarters while our margin continues to decline. Have we passed on entirely or we were anticipating all?
We see an increase in commodities, and the tapering of commodities has really started happening in the last 6- 8 weeks, so a little bit after towards the end of Q3 or thereafter. What I have already said in my opening comments is, in this quarter, Q4, we are going for a judicious mix of fresh price increases and also some specific cost-saving initiatives. Now, to your point on pricing specifically, all contractual customers, the pricing will come in automatically. The rest have to be negotiated, but I will say that a good percentage of the rest of the customers, we will get the price increases for, right? We are doing it as we speak, right? Therefore, you know, I can't give you a precise number.
Now, as far as gross margin is concerned, first of all, I'm sure you understand that, we don't really want to have a discussion on gross margin itself, okay? Our commitment is a long-term commitment for growth, sustainable growth and margin improvement, recognizing that we've had some erosion of margin, but we do believe that this has bottomed out, and we should see recovery from here. Please do understand, you know, give a number of 50% or 51%, please recognize that there is a translation loss in margin in a hyperinflationary environment, right? All our cost increases, even if they convert to price increases, will mean an optical margin erosion.
What was a certain margin in the past will not be the same, even if we were to fully protect the profitability and even if we were to fully recover all cost increases by way of price, right? That's just the mathematics of it. I want to raise it so that, you recognize that there will be that kind of, a shift in the optics of the numbers.
Fair enough. Just couple of follow-up on both the questions. First of all, the Brazil side, I can understand you will give more detail later, but just to understand how the Brazil as a market, who is the competition, if you can share some landscape for the Brazil. When you say 3.5 billion tubes, how much of it is personal care, how much of it is oral care? Some color there will be helpful. That's one. Number 2, on the RM inflation, I completely take that optically margins will come down. No doubt in that. The revenue growth of double-digit is also not comparable. The real growth is actually what is gross profit margin growth, which is now at mid-single-digit. Is that a fair way to look at it?
Well, obviously the revenue growth has a price and mix in it as well, right? I just want to state that there is obviously some price in it. There is a good contribution of mix in it as well, right? Volume in it as well. It's the combination of all three. We aren't really sharing the specific breakup of this. However, what we are giving you as a future commitment, right, in a more, on a medium-term basis, is that we have plans in place based on a strong business development pipeline to deliver what we are committing to you. That's what I would ask you to see.
I'm gonna hand over to my colleague, Ram, to share a little bit more flavor, if you like, on the structure of the Brazil market, right, based on information that we are in a position to share.
Yeah. $3.5 billion is the market size of Brazil. Brazil is a high cosmetic market. The haircare products are sold large numbers in Brazil, in their Latin countries. We will have a far better chances with lead customers being our customers globally. We have all the reasons to believe that we will be able to gather, over a period of time, a good market share of those products too. It's a 60/40. 60% will be oral care market. It's a large oral care. 40% will be cosmetics and other areas. Reasonably confident that we will continue to grow over a period of time because the customer base that we are establishing will secure a profitable growth in that country.
I'm sure everyone will appreciate that Brazil is one of the large emerging markets in the world, so it's a very large market, right? Therefore, it gives us a foothold and access to a very large market, right, both from an existing market size and hopefully in terms of growth potential as well.
Thanks. Just one last bookkeeping question on the depreciation. Why the depreciation has been growing at a higher pace for last two quarters, while our CapEx remains under control, which is below depreciation? What's causing the depreciation number to rise faster, if you can explain that.
We made investments last year also, and we continue to make investments this year. In the natural course of business, when assets are put to use, you would capitalize and depreciation will begin. If you notice our CapEx this year, for the first three quarters is about INR 222 crores. It's investment in the natural course of business. This includes Creative, the acquisition that we had done, and therefore the depreciation relating to that company is also included in this base.
Right.
Which is not there in the prior year.
No doubt about it. Well done, sir. Thanks for answering all my questions, and best of luck for the coming quarters.
Thank you.
Thank you. Participants, you may Press Star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Sameer Gupta from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Sir, hi, sir, and thanks for giving me an opportunity. Taking over from the previous participant. Now I understand their margins have pressure because of inflation, etcetera, but I just noticed the deviation in the margin performance across geographies, and it is quite pronounced in Americas and Europe. If you could just offer some bit of explanation for this wide difference in performance on margin front?
I'll start the question, and maybe Parag or Ram can add to it. Yes, we have seen erosion. Well, we've seen erosion of margin everywhere because the commodities are going up everywhere. We have seen a bit more in Europe and America. I just want to say that America particularly, followed by Europe, has been hugely challenged because of labor costs, absenteeism and overtime that we've had to pay, right? Because the choice very often was between running the plant or not running the plant. We have made the choice to the extent we could, and we still haven't fully produced what we wanted to produce. But we have made the choice to pay what it takes to get people in. Now, I have to say this, that in America particularly, we are not the only company.
Pretty much every company in the U.S. is facing this challenge on labor shortage, right, and is having to incur much higher costs. If you see even consumer goods companies in the U.S., they're showing decent top line, but because of high inflation and higher cost increases, they're also showing the tempering of margins. Okay? That's the reason why it happened. I mean, we believe that the worst on COVID-related challenges is hopefully behind us. Nobody knows for sure, by the way, as we all know. Sitting where we're sitting today, we believe that things are slowly coming back to kind of some levels of normalcy. We are confident that we have plans in place both to drive top line in those two regions and also to improve our operating margins as a result of that and through the right kind of operating expense control, right?
Our internal plans are clearly to start the journey of recovery of margins that have eroded in those two geographies.
This would be also true for Europe, a large part of the explanation that you gave for Americas?
It is partly true for Europe, right? As you've seen from the revenue numbers, we've also had a top-line challenge in Europe. That's driven by a sharp decline in the personal care segment that is using laminated tubes. Okay? I called that out in my opening comments. I think in Europe we've had more of a double whammy of slowing top line because one category has really slowed down, and operating expenses as a consequence of what I said. Both those have resulted therefore in significant margin impact, right? Both those we have plans in place to start pulling back.
Got it, sir. Very clear. Second question, sir. You also mentioned that you're very confident of this being the bottom of the margins. Now, I understand that these one-off issues in U.S. and Europe, not one-off, but COVID-related issues, might be over, but we are also seeing hardening of crude prices. I know that, for you it is tempering of the cost of commodities, but a large part of these are also linked to crude and follow with the lag. Just wanted to pick your brains on where is this confidence coming from that these are the bottom of the margins and it cannot really go further down from here.
Listen, I have to underscore the fact that I said barring any unforeseen volatility, right? Right? Because obviously, I would put it this way, whatever inflation has happened on commodities, I think we have plans in place through pricing and cost management, right, to be able to deliver what we're talking about, which is margin recovery having hit the bottom. If volatility is downward, I don't think that's a problem. If you have volatility upwards or prices going up, right, linked to a sudden explosion in crude and so on, then obviously there will be an impact on our numbers. What I'd like to say is this, over the last two months, and I answered this in the first question, we have seen some tempering of our input costs, right?
There are two things where we have continued to see inflation, which is really aluminum and, you know, one of the other polymers. For many of the other polymers, we've seen a tempering of input costs, right? Which means it's not gotten any worse. If anything, it's gotten a tad better, right? On a weighted basis, we've seen tempering. Now, that tells us that, look, at least there's some stability coming because we didn't see that stability earlier. All I'm saying again is barring any unforeseen volatility, because you will appreciate that, we cannot give an unconditional message to you, right? If nothing crazy happens, if it's not boiling over beyond a point, then what we have said stands because I think we have management-driven interventions in place to deliver what we are saying.
Got it, sir. Last question, if I may squeeze in. Can you give a CapEx guidance for the next two years?
We've always maintained that if you take a 3- 4year period, the average CapEx would be in and around depreciation, which should be about INR 250 crore-INR 270 crore if you look at it in a block of about 3-4 years. There is no different view to be given here.
We will spend in line with the current depreciation levels.
Over, over-
Over a longer period of time. Over a block of a few years.
3-4 years.
3-4 years.
Got it, sir. Thank you. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity, sir. May I also take this opportunity to wish Parag all the best for his future endeavors. Thanks.
Thank you, Sumeer.
Thank you.
Thank you. Other attendants, you may press star then one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Suman Kumar from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
My question is for America and Europe, when you talk about the muted growth and 9% growth and the growth in Europe. We were talking about the travel tube business has been impacted. Can you talk about what are the segment has impacted overall the business in America and Europe?
Americas has been impacted significantly by travel tube. Having said that, Americas has continued to grow through this period. Okay? I think pretty much every quarter we have shown reasonable growth in Americas despite a large volume of travel tubes being impacted. As far as Europe is concerned, it's personal care tubes, right, which I have called out already, right? Our confidence on recovery in these two regions comes from the fact that we have visibility to new business opportunities, which is our business development pipeline, right? And what to expect in the coming quarters. Therefore, our confidence comes from that visibility. Okay? Having said that, a little bit of travel tubes is also beginning to come back, had beginning to come back, again stopped with Omicron, right?
We should believe that that also will start coming back as travel picks up and hotel space picks up.
The second question, when you talk about the employee cost was similar and overall impact was there because we were saying employees were not coming to the plant, say for America and Europe. But when we analyze the overall margin impact, majorly despite of growth in America business 9%, our margin has declined 6%. Okay. It seems majorly through the overall when you analyze your P&L, majorly through the raw material cost, not through the fixed cost.
The decline in Americas is essentially coming out of that personnel cost and the lag that is there in terms of pricing because of the fact that it takes a quarter for even the contracted customers and one more month where you agree the prices. It's three to four months after which you get it for the contracted customers. More importantly, I think what I would like to say is again repeat what Anand said earlier, that we are in the process of further taking price increases in the current quarter that is Q4, and that should help turn around things. In terms of personnel costs is also part of fixed costs.
Overtime, you know, and loss of people for related to COVID is a big expense, and that's something that has also impacted the margin. It is very much that. Then there is freight and packaging costs also. We've said this before, that while we made headway, as a matter of routine, we do not recover freight and packaging costs as part of pass-through, but we are kind of making progress there as well.
Okay. Can you talk about overall growth we have seen across geography or overall growth of 15%? Is there any volume growth this quarter?
We're not commenting on the breakup of the growth.
Mm-hmm.
Right? All I can tell you is that all three kinds are there in the contribution to the 15%. There is volume growth also, there is mix also, and there is price also.
Okay. Volume growth is there.
I've already said that all three are there as part of the 15%.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Participants, you may Press Star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Trilok from Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. Just, you know, two quick questions. When I look at the personal care, you know, category, although you have already highlighted in the initial remarks, you know, I'm just very curious to know that personal care was already declining in the Q2 as well, and you guys have, you know, given disclosure regarding that. However, in this quarter presentation, you know, none of that details are available. Any particular reason for that? That's point one. Point two is the. I remember in the last call, you guys alluded to, you know, obviously taking up the price increases and passing on the inflation to the customers. Sequentially, based on your disclosure, there's not much movement in the RM prices.
You know, still not able to get the math on the margin erosion on sequential basis.
The first is on personal care and the second is on margin on a sequential basis. As far as personal care is concerned, I mean, just to be clear, I'm not sure what exactly the question is, because we've grown by 19% in personal care and only Europe we have called out as a challenge on personal care. Okay? What is your specific question on personal care beyond that?
I'm referring to the, you know, geography-wise, personal care growth and, you know, in terms of revenue percentage this quarter, which is not a part of the presentation. That's point one I was referring to. That was on personal care. Beyond Europe decline, is there any other, you know, region which has seen muted growth in personal care? Was the, you know, subsequent question on that.
Two points. America grew 36.9% in personal care. EAP grew 29.3%. America grew 15.1%. Europe was almost flat, negative or decline of 0.7%. I just want to make an important point on Europe. In Q1 of this year, Europe declined in personal care by 20%. Then in Q2, it declined by 4.4, and now we are flat. I hope that with these numbers you are clearly seeing the recovery that is happening in Europe.
Sure. We didn't have the numbers to know, so for the quarter, I did not, you know-
Appreciate it.
Yeah. Yeah, with regards to the sequential, you know, comment on that. Because last quarter you guys, you know, said that you had taken enough price increases for the customers, both on spot as well as contracted ones. Yeah.
Last quarter, we had taken enough prices, right, to cover the cost increases that were there till that quarter started. In Q3, we saw fresh inflation, right? After a certain tempering, we saw fresh inflation. That was not covered by way of price increase in Q3 start. There was a drag as a result of that, right? Now, some of that obviously we are aiming to get in Q4 as we are speaking, right? If commodities don't go any worse, then we will recover a good part of those, cost increases through price increase. Now, that's the reason. Recognize that in this industry there is, you see, in a normal inflationary environment, you know, it's okay.
When you have significant volatility, recognize that it takes three months plus to start realizing price increases for the cost increases that have already been inserted into the business. There will always be that phase lag that's going to happen, because that's how the business model has been constructed, and that has served us well actually for three decades, by the way. Right? It's served us really well, right? We're just seeing this period of not just high inflation but high volatility over the last few quarters, and that's why you're seeing the kind of variation in margins as well.
Sure. Last question, if I can ask with regards to the margin. You know, I remember, you know, in the Q4 call you guys had highlighted, you know, you guys are probably, you know, making a point that Q4 last year, FY 2021, was probably in the bottom of the EBITDA margins. But is there any change that you guys want to, you know, make any statement now? Because, I mean, we have seen what happened in Q3. I mean without getting into, you know, any particular specific guidance, but yeah, from any forward-looking range would be helpful.
Well, that's the reason why I have caveated the bottoming out of margins with the line of barring any unforeseen volatility, right? Because we don't know what we don't know, right? That's the reality of the situation. But barring that, we believe we have programs in place to build on the current situation that we are in terms of the current margin delivery. Honestly, I can't say more than that at this stage.
Sure. Responding to one of the, you know, participants, you guys obviously said that volume growth is still there in this quarter as well. We will obviously make our own assumptions, but it's not flattish. Is that fair to assume at least on a YOY basis?
Yes. As I said, there is volume, there is price, there is mix.
Okay, got it. Thank you.
It is there. That is our practice.
Thank you very much.
All right.
Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Douglas Turnbull from Invesco. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks very much. See if you could quantify for us a bit of where the margin decline has come from and say where we could expect it to go. If you look at the total EBITDA margin decline of something like 400 basis points, how does that split between raw material costs, freight, packaging, staff and other? If we look at where that goes going forward in raw materials, what sort of percentage pass-through do you eventually expect to see given the mix of contracted and non customers? From the other types of cost increases, how much of that can you also get through to customers in due course? What determines that, whether it's competitive environment or anything else? Ultimately help us piece back together the trajectory that you expect margins to take going forward.
I think that's a complicated question. You know, do you want to take this offline and see what we are in a position to share against the drivers of the margin drop that you're seeing, which includes the real margin drop, the optical margin drop, and within the real margin drop, what is it for commodities, what is it for freight and other things, and what is it for operating expenses? Because you're only talking of EBITDA margin. We have-
I'm more than happy to take that.
Because, I don't think we have this ready for you offhand, honestly, and I'm not even sure we can share everything that you ask for. If you send in a mail, we will see what best we can do, to throw some light on the question you've asked.
Thank you. Who should I email?
You can email Amit Jain, amit.jain@eplglobal.com.
Thanks very much.
Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Ritesh from ICICI Direct. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity, sir. My question pertains to AMESA region. We have seen a significant growth. Obviously, the base was also very favorable for us. We have seen good growth in Q1, Q2, and as well as Q3. I just wanted to know what are the growth drivers do you see in this segment? Q4 FY 2021 being the higher base, do you think kind of a sustainable growth what you clocked current quarter in AMESA region? That is the first question. The second question is that obviously you talked about the raw material prices and the delays in that segment that has put pressure on the gross margin.
Despite significant growth for the last three quarters in the AMESA region, we have seen pressure in the EBITDA margin. I just wanted to understand in AMESA region, apart from raw material pressure, was there anything else in the cost front which is dragging the margin in the AMESA region? That's all from my side. Thank you, sir.
On AMESA, I'll come back to the growth drivers and what we can share over there. Just to say that on EBITDA, actually other cost lines in AMESA have been well controlled. Recognize that the cost, operating expenses of CSPL have come into the P&L now, which was not there in the base, right? Other than that, operating expenses in AMESA have been well controlled and managed. The real variation is to do with phasing of price recovery to cover cost increases largely, right? That's the real point about EBITDA in AMESA. Now on the growth drivers, do you have it?
26.5.
If I look at organic growth in AMESA, it is 26.5% against the 36 odd % I spoke about in my opening comments. Okay, 26.5. The growth is solid. It's broad-based, by and large broad-based, but also includes growth of laminate sales, right? There's tube sales and laminate sales in these numbers, and also includes good growth of laminate sales.
Sir, hello.
Go ahead. You're on mute.
Yeah. Sir, my question pertains to the Q4 growth in the current quarter. I mean, we are in the higher base of the Q4 last year. Do you think this kind of growth in the coming, in this current quarter also? I just wanted to know that.
You know, I am not going to go into giving guidance on growth by region. Right? I said this before, we have a portfolio of regions, a portfolio of categories we are dealing with, and we are working towards making sure we deliver an overall, right, kind of guidance that we've given you, we deliver that. One quarter, I may get more from one place, less from another place, and vice versa. Right? We cannot get into a discussion on specific growth ambitions by region.
Clear, sir. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Tanmay Gandhi, individual investor. Please go ahead.
My questions have been answered. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Sanjay Manyal from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Thanks, thanks, for taking the question, Sajeev. First of the oral care category.
Sanjay, may I request, speak louder.
Yeah. Am I audible now?
Yeah.
Thanks. The first question again is on the oral care side. This quarter, it looks like the oral care has declined by 17.6% on a year-over-year basis. The growth, a significant growth in this quarter, apart from personal care, has come from the laminate sales, which have grown by almost 2x in this quarter. What's happening on the oral care? Why there was such a sharp decline in the oral care?
Sorry. Are you talking consolidated results or this question is specifically on MSR?
No, no, this is on the consolidated oral care revenue. This quarter we have declined 17.6% Y-o-Y.
No, no. Sorry. In my opening comments, I said that oral care has grown 7.4% and personal care by 19.4%. So I'm not sure where you are looking at the decline of 17% of oral care.
We have the first half number, which is INR 825 crore, and this quarter we have disclosed for 11 months, we have done INR 11,547. If I deduct the nine months from first half, what we get is INR 3.3 billion, and the same number in the base year was INR 4 billion.
May I request you to send a mail on your specific question for clarifications, because I'm not giving you what's the right number in terms of the overall performance of the business. If you send a mail to Amit Jain and we will answer it to the best of our ability.
Sure. I will send the question across. I will send the math with the numbers I got, then probably we can reconcile the numbers. Clear from my side. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Shivaji Mehta, Individual Investor. Please go ahead.
Thank you for this opportunity. My question was, basically regarding, you know, whether we have explored, all possible synergies, with the Blackstone portfolio companies, including Piramal Glass. Do you feel there is still some opportunities, with the Blackstone portfolio companies or do you feel that we have saturated this?
I mean, I don't know how to answer that question specifically because one's a glass business and one's a tube business, right? To be direct, I'm not sure if we have explored specific synergies with other Blackstone-controlled companies, right? You know, I think it's a suggestion. Let me explore it with the team and see if there are some opportunities to do that, because we don't have any other tube making company, right? The manufacturing processes and so on tend to be quite distinct. Also, the customer profile tends to be quite distinct. Now that you raised it as an idea, let us explore whether we can extract some value from that.
Great. All right. Thanks a lot. That's all from my side.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. As there are no further questions, I now hand the conference over to Mr. Pratik Tholiya for closing comments.
Yeah. Thanks, Neeraj. On behalf of Systematix, I would like to once again thank all the participants for joining this call. I would like to thank the management for giving us the opportunity. I would like to request the management to, if there are any closing comments, you can please make them.
No, I just want to thank everyone for your time, for having joined us on this call today. We hope we've been able to give you clarity on some of the questions that you had. I just want to leave everybody with a message that you know, we are absolutely excited and confident about the future of this business. You know, I think with each passing quarter, we will be able to reinforce that confidence. Thank you.
Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you very much. On behalf of Systematix Institutional Equities, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.