Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q4 FY 2025 EPL Limited 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 this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Prateek Tholiya. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Yeah, hi. Thanks, Amshad. On behalf of Systematix Institutional Equities, I would like to welcome all the participants who have logged into this conference call of EPL Limited to discuss the fourth quarter and the remaining FY 2025 earnings. At the outset, I'd like to thank the management for giving us the opportunity. On the management team, we have Mr. Anand Kripalu, MD and Global CEO, Mr. M. R. Ramasamy, COO, Mr. Deepak Goyal, CFO, Mr. Srihari Rao, President AMESA region , and Mr. Onkar Ghangurde , Head Legal, CF and Compliance Officer. I would like to now invite Mr. Anand Kripalu to begin the proceedings by giving his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you very much, Prateek, and hello everyone. Very good evening to you, and thank you for joining us for EPL Q4 FY 2025 earnings call. I'm delighted to share the fact that we had a strong quarter in the midst of a challenging microenvironment, reflecting the strength of our strategy and the rigor of our execution. Our revenue for the quarter grew by 7.4%, EBITDA grew by 17.7%, and PAT grew by 42.4%. This marks the 11th consecutive quarter of EBITDA margin expansion, supported by sustained double-digit EBITDA growth. Our margins remain robust at 20% plus, reflecting specific management actions to correct Europe and the Americas while ensuring operating discipline and product needs improvements. Revenue growth during the quarter was 7.4%, driven by solid performance in the Americas and the EAP regions, while Europe recorded modest growth.
In Americas, particularly India, while overall growth remained flat, the underlying business performance is encouraging, negated partly by lower intercompany laminate sales, which helped optimize inventory levels and improve our overall net working capital. The underlying demand trend in Q remains positive. Within personal care and beyond, beauty and cosmetics witnessed over 20% growth, fueled by focused investments in capability and technology, adoption of new themes, deeper customer engagement, as well as sharper execution. This segment continues to accelerate quarter on quarter, reinforcing our strategic direction and all the efforts that we have made on beauty and cosmetics over the last year. EBITDA performance was encouraging across all regions. In India, margins have shown a clear recovery in line with our commitment. We saw 100 basis points year-on-year improvement and a 170 basis points sequential increase, driven by operational efficiencies and improved product needs.
Looking at the full year, we delivered a well-rounded performance. Revenue grew by 7.6%, EBITDA rose by 17.5%, with margin expansion of 169 basis points. Underlying PAT grew by 44.6%. Our category mix continued to evolve in the right direction, with personal care and beyond growing at 10.3%, nearly double the 5.6% growth in oral care. This segment now contributes to 48% of our total business. Stronger EBITDA and PAT, combined with solid cash flow generation, have helped reduce our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio to 0.54x, with ROC improving to 18%, expanding by 335 basis points. Consequently, our EPS has improved from INR 7.88 in FY 2024 to INR 11.38 in FY 2025, an improvement in EPS of 44%. As a result of our consistent performance and focus on returning value to our shareholders, we are pleased to propose an increased final dividend of INR 5 per share.
Sustainability remains a cornerstone of our long-term vision. As of FY 2025, 33% of our overall portfolio is now recyclable, and we are seeing strong customer engagement and conversion momentum in this area. During the quarter, EPL was awarded an A-rating by CDP for both climate change and water security, which is actually their highest rating. Further, we were honored with the UNGC Forward Faster Sustainability Award 2025 under the category of Sustainable Supply Chain Excellence, reinforcing our leadership in responsible packaging, along with multiple awards for our people practices. Looking ahead, I would like to highlight four key areas of focus. First, beauty and cosmetics growth. We are excited to build on the momentum in our beauty and cosmetics segment. Our order pipeline remains healthy, with new customer wins across geographies, backed by Neotheme tubes and superior printing capabilities.
We are also making selective investments in extruded tubes to further strengthen our product offerings in this segment. This will remain one of our key focus areas as we continue to leverage our competitive advantage in sustainability and innovation and deliver strong double-digit growth. Two, expansion in high-growth markets. We see promising growth potential in Brazil, where capacity expansion is underway and expected to be operational in this quarter itself. Similarly, our Thailand greenfield project is progressing as planned and will contribute from Q2 onwards. We will continue to explore further greenfield expansion and M&A as and when it's available. These initiatives demonstrate our ability to scale operations as we look ahead. Number three, sustainability. Our sustainable tube mix has risen to 33%, up from 21% last year. This shift is helping us gain volume share with large global brands focused on ESG.
We expect this trend to continue strengthening our competitive position in the medium term. Number four, margin expansion. We are in a strong position, having demonstrated consistent improvement over the past several quarters. Europe and the Americas region continue to show solid momentum through restructuring and cost optimization. Overall, we remain confident of delivering EBITDA growth ahead of revenue growth, and our sharp focus on CapEx and interest costs positions us well for continued PAT growth and ROC improvement. Further, we expect, and importantly, we expect minimal impact of U.S. tariffs as we have local manufacturing in the U.S. Also, our exports to the U.S. is relatively small. Further, EPL has contractual pass-through of duties with most customers. In summary, FY2025 has been a year of strong execution, solid financial delivery, and strategic progress.
Our ability to navigate global challenges while advancing our goals in sustainability, margin enhancement, and innovation puts us in a strong position for FY 2026. We remain confident in our ability to deliver double-digit growth and continue improving margins. With that, we will now open the floor up for questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone 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. The first question is from the line of Sanjesh Jain from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening, sir. Thanks for this opportunity. I got a few questions. First, on the Brazil and Thailand Greenfield expansion, what we are doing, what is the total capacity addition this expansion will lead to as a company?
In Brazil, we are adding capacity essentially for beauty and cosmetics because we have already sold out our existing capacity on beauty and cosmetics. Okay? We are adding that. Now, specifically, in terms of volume contribution, it is going to be about 40 million cubic meters, which is the expansion of Brazil, right? Thailand, we are making an entry, as we said, and the objective in Thailand actually is to start small but scale up fast. Okay? We will start small, establish our factory on the ground. It will affect or impact positively our H2 numbers, but once we are on the ground, as we get more and more customer orders, which actually we have a reasonably rich pipeline, we will expand rapidly. That is how we are thinking about it, Sanjay.
Very clear, sir. Second question on India. You did mention that India's underlying growth was increasing while we were hurt because of laminate sales. What was the underlying growth except laminates?
Sanjay, we are not actually splitting this. I talk all this out to explain. The fact is we have trimmed our inventory materially, right, and that has helped our overall working capital numbers. All I can tell you is that the tube revenue growth, which is the core of our business, right, the rest is kind of trading and WIP, work in progress, right, is decent.
Is it going to be a decent number for you?
Sorry?
Will it be mid-single digit kind of a number?
Sorry, your voice is breaking, Sanjay. Can you say that again?
Is the tube revenue growth in mid-single digit for us in India?
Yeah, it's mid to high single digit.
Oh, mid to high single digit.
Yeah.
Okay. Okay. The next follow-up question is on the EAP. There is a sharp drop in the EBIT margin sequentially in EAP. Any particular reason there?
Yeah. Sequentially, I would urge you not to look at the numbers. Q4 in EAP is the Chinese New Year quarter, okay, and typically has the softest margins in the year. Okay? Our business is best looked at seasonally, which is quarter on year on year rather than quarter on quarter.
Sanjay, EAP EBIT margin would make a lot of sense on a full-year basis. There was quarter on quarter fluctuation because of the high technology tax benefit that we get. However, on a full-year basis, it is equalized. So full-year to full-year EBIT margin will make a lot more sense. Very clear. Very clear. The next question is on double-digit growth guidance. This year, the EBITDA grew thanks to the cost optimization margin improvement. I think we have reached where we wanted to reach in terms of EBITDA margin. Now, probably most of the growth will come from the revenue growth. Where we are now at 1%, how should we see double-digit growth guidance for next year in that scenario?
Ladies and gentlemen, we seem to have lost the connection with the management. Please wait while we reconnect the management. Ladies and gentlemen, we have the management back online with us. Please go ahead.
Sir, you want me to repeat the question?
Yes, the last one. I couldn't hear you, Sanjay.
Okay. See, my question was on the double-digit EBITDA growth guidance for next year. In terms of EBITDA margin, we have reached where we have targeted for almost 20.5%. Next year, most of the EBITDA growth should come by the revenue growth, where we are at mid-single digit today for the whole year FY 2024 as well. What gives us the confidence of a double-digit growth in FY 2026?
First of all, we still have margin improvement opportunities in select geographies. Okay? I do not think the full margin improvement has played out in the Americas or indeed even in Europe, and there are some corrections to be done in India. There is still opportunity for margin improvement. I think your point about double-digit revenue growth, I think, is an important one. Now, the way I was thinking about it, and listen, we cannot deal with macros, right, and what happens with macros, given that there is some softness in FMCG in India and so on and so forth. What I can tell you is this.
One is, first of all, that our beauty and cosmetics growth, where there is massive headroom for expansion, we have been working on this over the last year, probably 15 months, and we are now beginning to see this momentum coming. The day we get to mid to high teens consistently in beauty and cosmetics growth, our branded growth will come into the double-digit zone. The second point I want to make is that while there are certain challenges with macros, particularly, let's say, in India and China to an extent, there are various things we're doing to mitigate this. Just as an example, in China, for instance, we are looking at driving extruded business, right, and we have made a selective investment in extruded capability, right?
While we drive conversion to new themes, we head-on start taking share in extruded, and actually, we are seeing very, very good signs of success by going head-on with extruded tubes. In India, for instance, we are mounting a lot more aggression on exports out of India, okay, and we have the Middle East and the Africa region as part of EMITA, right, and those are opportunities for growth. When you look at all this put together, I think we have a clear line of sight for double-digit growth. If the macros were a little more enabling, that would have happened earlier, but we are doing things to make sure that even if we do not see a major reversal of that, we get there in quick time.
Clear. One question. What is the CapEx increase we took for Anand for the last three years?
What's that, Sanjay?
Okay. Is it audible now?
Yes.
I was looking for a CapEx for FY 2026. For the last three years, it has been in the range of INR 360 crore-INR 380 crore. That should be the number for FY 2026 as well?
Right, Sanjay. That is how we are looking at the CapEx plan right now. The CapEx is sufficient, as I have been mentioning, is sufficient to fund our double-digit growth ambition.
Very clear. Just one on the U.S. tariff side. We do export laminates from India and China, [audio distortion ]
[audio distortion]
Sorry, your voice is breaking again. Is it clear now?
Hello?
If you're using a headset, I would request you to use a handset. Your voice was breaking.
Hello? Can you hear me? I'm on speaker, not hello?
Okay. Yeah. Please try again.
Okay. So I was looking at US export and the tariff impact for the laminates, which we from India and China to the US. Can it bring down our competitiveness in the US market?
No, it will not bring down our competitiveness. I mean, we are producing on the ground, right? Our customers, we have a contractual pass-through, right? I think we have cost optimal total delivered cost anyway. As far as we are concerned, I think it will just remain a kind of stable competitive environment.
If I could add, Sanjay, also the laminate capacity in the U.S. is hardly there. Most of the supply locations also have these similar tariff impacts. Hence, when we are looking at our laminate landing cost versus competition or versus other geographies, it would still remain competitive. As we believe that if this tariff increase of 10% and if further tariff increase happens, then it would most likely get passed on to the consumer because in such a short span of time, it would be very difficult for any industry to really bring in new capacities.
Very clear.
One more point. Actually, I think there is a sort of competitive advantage for us. A lot of tubes in the U.S. come from China. We have local production in the U.S., and we have capacity in the U.S. We actually, and there are many customers of ours, including distributors and so on, who have been reaching out to us, right? Actually, there could be a sort of competitive advantage, right, as this thing plays out.
Do you have a number of how much of tubes get exported of China?
Can you join the question queue?
This is just a follow-up. I will come back in the Q. Any idea how much of the tubes in US get exported from China?
Do you have an idea? Listen, it's a very significant part of what sells on the West Coast of the U.S., right? It is about a material percentage of total U.S. sales, which means definitely double-digit % contribution to U.S. sales. Specific percentage numbers we won't have.
Very clear, sir. Thank you. Thank you for patiently answering all those questions and the circle for the coming quarters.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sameer Gupta from India Infoline. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, and thanks for taking my question. Sir, firstly, I heard your piece on intercompany laminates, which has affected EMITA growth, but my understanding would be that these are lower margin categories, and it should have had an impact on a margin improvement. Now, with that not happening, would it assume that going forward, as this intercompany laminate issue goes away, we would actually see a margin tapering off from here on?
See, first of all, I would just use this as an explanation because what happens is, on a full-year basis, there is not much difference between, generally speaking, the tube revenue growth, the laminate growth, and the total growth. Quarter to quarter, sometimes, there are inventory variations that happen that impact the results that prevent you from reading what's really happening properly. Okay? I think what you have to believe is that we have a range for delivering India margins, right, and we are committed to getting to that range in a stable business environment, right? We have plans in place to make sure we get there, right? Our annual plans and so on have a blended margin, and the historic data also has that blended margin. I only use this for this quarter because the difference is material as we have brought down inventory.
I do not think you need to read more into it than just this quarter's explanation, but it has nothing to do with the fundamental structure of the business on a full-year basis.
Got it, sir. Just a follow-up there. So X of the laminate tubes, the margins of tubes are intact. They are not down. Why or why? Would that be a correct understanding?
That is right, Samir. Also, on a full-year basis, India margin and EMITA margins have been soft, and we said last quarter as well that we have taken specific actions to improve our margins. Those actions are well underway, and we should see improvement as we go along.
Got it. Got it. That is very clear. Sir, on the tariff impact, again, I understand that Sanjay also asked you very detailed questions. Just one bit here. What I understand is that instead of exporting laminates from China, we are going to export it from India because the tariff differential is higher in China versus India. Does that increase costs for us?
No, so that is not what I meant, actually, that I did not communicate clearly. What happens is we are moving laminate to the US already only from India, okay?
Okay.
Because China already had a laminate duty when it went to the U.S. from China. We had moved all our laminate sourcing to India anyway, okay? What I really meant was that there are a lot of tubes, right, made tubes that are exported from China into the U.S. Now, with tariffs on China going up, our U.S. business that sources laminate from India and makes tubes in the U.S. will have a sort of competitive advantage on pricing compared to tubes that are coming in from China. Lots of tubes coming from China directly to the West Coast of the U.S., right, and a little less so on the East Coast of the U.S. With our local production, we will be in a position of competitive advantage.
I understand, sir. That is very, very clear. Thanks again. One last question, if I may squeeze in. Deepak mentioned about the CapEx will be in the ballpark of INR 360 crore-INR 380 crore again, but should not we build in a little higher because in Thailand, you are putting a greenfield, or it is already there in FY 2025 part of it?
Some bit of expense is there, but large part of it will come in FY 2026. In theory, we have been saying that the greenfield expenses would come in higher. However, Thailand is a smaller facility, and also, we are optimizing our CapEx spend through various initiatives. Next year, our plan is to spend around INR 380-390 crore, and that should be sufficient to cover for both the growth plans as well as Thailand's greenfield.
Very clear. Very clear. Thank you, Deepak. Thanks, Anand. I'll come back and let you have a follow-up.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Akshath Bairathi, RSPN Ventures. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Given that there were some headwinds in Q3 and Q4, both in China, and you mentioned that there was Chinese New Year in Q4 as well. In spite of that, we have shown 9% growth year on year in the EAP region. Can we expect a double-digit kind of growth in China for FY 2026 given these numbers? The second question will be a bookkeeping question on the tax rate. For the full year, our tax rate has been very low. Why is that, and what will be the expected tax rate for FY 2026?
We do not give regional growth guidance, just so that we are clear about it, right? We do expect EAP, right, to continue to grow strongly, and it will also get beefed up in H2 as Thailand comes on stream.
Thailand is going to be part of EAP, right? EAP has to continue to perform well for us to achieve our total global ambition of double-digit growth, okay? We are doing everything necessary for that to happen. I'll just request Deepak on the tax question.
Yeah. So the tax rate this year is lower because with the turnaround in Europe, our Poland plant has low tax rate. The mix of that profit has kind of gone up. Also, the high technology benefit that we get in China, this year, there was marginal impact of last year that also kind of came in this financial year. On a steady-state basis, I believe that with the countries' mix coming in, anywhere between 18%-22% is our rightful interest rate or tax rate that we should be delivering.
Okay. Okay, sir. Thank you so much. That's it from my side. All the best.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shalabh Agarwal from Snowball Capital Investments Advisors, LLP. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir. Thank you for this opportunity, and many congratulations for the continuing good results. The first question is, listening to your presentation, slide number 14, where we have given the categories of the personal care and beyond, are there any subcategories on the left side where we are still not present and where our competitors are present and where we may have a scope of launching products in that subcategory?
I mean, there are lots of micro-categories that can sell into. For instance, cockroach repellent, right? Mehendi, and you can call that personal care or whatever you like, but Mehendi. And we are providing tubes for the Mehendi industry. By and large, I would say that the left-hand side covers most of the subcategories because the last one we added there was grease and gear oil. There are these small ones that really keep emerging, but they will not be so material, really. The material ones are the ones that come to the top.
Sure. Are there any material categories in this beauty and care where our exposure is still limited or we are still smaller than our competitors where we can have a much higher scope of growth in the future?
I think we tend to be reasonably good on haircare.
Okay.
I think we have a lot of headroom on skincare, right, at a very broad level.
Sure. Sure. This will primarily be the European market where we'll be behind some of the niche competitors?
I mean, I think, you see, we have relatively lower shares in beauty and cosmetics, certainly in most geographies, okay?
Sure.
Specifically, we have very low shares in Europe and the Americas, right? We have a very aggressive plan to grow in Europe and the Americas, and we are beginning to see traction in both these regions, okay? In China, we still have a relatively small share, but we've been growing at 20% for five years now in a row, okay? The opportunities are growing much faster in the category. I think my main point is the headroom for growth in beauty and cosmetics is significant everywhere in the world, probably a little bigger in some regions and a little less in other regions.
Right. Sir, what will be our right to win in some of these markets, especially in these categories where we are still a little smaller? If we really benchmark ourselves with competitors on cost, can we confidently say that we will be within our size and economies of scale? Are we the lowest-cost manufacturer even for some of these beauty and care tubes? Would that be a good statement to make, at least on 80-90% of products?
As a principle, I can tell you we are the lowest-cost producer in the world, right, by at least 3%, if not more, okay? That is because compared to any other regional competitor, the Indian mindset of frugality as a culture, right, and our ability to extract more from the machines and run our machines for longer than anybody else in the world. Generally speaking, total delivered cost, like for like, EPL is lower, okay? That is why you also see that we have better margins than most other people. Our other right to win, apart from cost leadership, right, is the fact that we are a leader in laminated tubes, and as people convert to laminated tubes, we get a higher share, right, as they convert it from extruded.
We also have Neotheme, which is a very, very cost-effective option to ensure that you have all the bells and whistles of a beauty and cosmetics tube, but at a much lower price than extruded. Selectively leveraging the deep customer relationships we have, we are also pursuing extruded, okay, and with reasonable success. We have a reasonable extruded business in Europe, in India, and now in China.
Sure. Sure. And sir, just lastly, if I may add, if we calculate the contribution of the pharma sector in our sales, it seems this year the growth has been in mid-single digits. Any specific reason why it has not, because the last two years it has been in double digits, given the size of the category, one would have thought that the growth would have been higher. Any particular reason why the growth has come down?
I don't think growth has come down, but we do pharma largely in second markets like India, China, we do more. Whereas Europe and things like that, we are doing very little on pharma. Maybe the segment in some of the places could have slightly a lower size entry that we continue to grow. If you look at internally, when we track, we continue to grow in terms of volume. Maybe the value that is generated because of the size of the tube would have been slightly lower. We need to, we will check and revert subsequently when we speak to Deepak.
Pharma has been the priority.
Priority for us.
Priority for us, and we continue to drive it. We do really well in India. There are a lot of conversions that are taking place, and we lead the conversions as a market leader in India.
Sure. Sure. Deepak, thank you for answering my questions and all the very best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shubham Sehgal from Simple. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning.
Yes.
Yeah. I have two questions. As you kind of asked, I mean, as you mentioned earlier that geography-wise, the growth might matter due to the geographical conditions and also the special geographies. While modeling or while targeting the double-digit growth, do we still keep a growth rate in mind for our different geographies, or how do we look at that?
Internally, we absolutely have an ambition for every geography, but at a global level, it's really the category that we are focusing on, right? We know that the headroom for growth is the biggest in beauty and cosmetics. You're beginning to see that momentum, right? When the macros improve, you'll have the rest of the portfolio also coming back, right? Particularly like oral care. As we establish this kind of mid-teens or high-teens growth for beauty and cosmetics globally, and with some recovery in oral, when you put the two together, it will quite simply get to double-digit growth. Therefore, that's really the thing because in oral, we continue to grow our customer base and grow volume share, but because we are already so large, that's a little more modest.
The big headroom is from beauty and cosmetics, and you can see the momentum picking up for beauty and cosmetics. Actually, I'm very confident that with a little bit more support from the macros, I mean, we will be in the double-digit zone.
Okay. Got it. So yeah, apart from the macros, do we think there are any other challenges that we could face that we could not be able to achieve a double-digit growth?
No. Because you see, apart from all this, we are also expanding Brazil. We are getting into Thailand, okay? Of course, we are very open to M&A, and we are looking as much as we can for opportunities in M&A. If you put all this together, right, I think we have a plan to get there, right? At the forefront of that plan is the acceleration of beauty and cosmetics, where we have put in huge investments as well in terms of resource and capability. I actually think that it is around the corner.
Okay. Got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Nikhil Upadhyay from Simple. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity and many congrats on the results. I think we've delivered what we've been writing. Good to see that. I have two questions. One is on the growth part, which Shubham was just discussing. And Anand, when we think about growth, there are two ways. One is new product launches or getting shares from existing products. So when you say that we are getting confidence on growth, is it like we are getting shares in existing products, or are new products which are about to be launched, and we are the sole suppliers? That's where we believe the growth will happen. Just some sense, if you can give.
Yeah. So listen, all of the above, honestly, we are expanding our customer base very aggressively on beauty and cosmetics, right? In India, we are really going aggressively after all the VTC brands, for instance, okay? So we're expanding our customer base. The second is many of those smaller customers require innovation, right? And the innovation could be in the tube delivery, in the nozzle, or in the nature of the printing. They also require very different service dimensions, right? Your ability to be more agile and turnaround times and service levels that are very different from the oral care customers, okay? Of course, with our existing customers, right, many of our existing large customers, for instance, we have seen them wanting to convert from bottles to tubes in haircare, right?
That meant that earlier, we were not in the market for haircare products like conditioners, and suddenly now we have a large business that is coming in from haircare itself. Really, all of these, all I want to tell you is this: on beauty and cosmetics, the mantra in the company is, "We will do what it takes to accelerate beauty and cosmetics." No size of order is too small for EPL to go and service that order, okay? There is a huge movement in the company. I can tell you a huge management focus to transform us from being an oral company that does beauty and cosmetics to being a beauty and cosmetics company, okay? That is how we are thinking about it, and therefore, whatever needs to be done, we are doing.
Okay. Second question was, and this is the last question, and this is interrelated. If you look at our cash flow generation, it's been very strong, almost average of INR 600-800 crore over the last two, three years. And our CapEx has remained in that range of INR 350-400 crore, depending upon greenfield or brownfield. One point: will our payout ratios remain high? Because there has been a change at the promoter level, so how is the new promoter or the new entity which has come in? How are they thinking about? And secondly, over the next two, three years from this 18% ROC, where do you think this business will stabilize? Because margins will not be a constant trajectory of improvement because then customer will also come back. So where do you think the ROCs will stabilize in the next two, three years?
Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Nikhil, first on the dividend and CapEx, yes, we are a strong cash-generating company, and the cash flow year over year has been improving. In FY 2025 itself, if you see, we have been able to deliver the company by more than INR 100 crore through the organic cash flows after paying for all the CapEx and the dividend. The dividend, we are also a very strong dividend-paying company, and our dividend payout ratios or dividend payout has been improving year over year. In FY 2025, if the final dividend gets approved in the AGM, we will pay an INR 5 per share dividend versus an INR 4.35 that we paid last year. Our dividend has also been improving.
We believe that we will continue the policy of this strong dividend payout and marginal improvement year over year, even when we delever the company a bit, but also look for M&As more aggressively. Your second question was on the.
ROCs. Where will they stabilize in the next two, three years?
See, this business has a potential of improving ROCs significantly. Our policy of CapEx investment equal to depreciation has been working well. It means that our net asset base does not grow, and this investment helps us deliver double-digit revenue growth and consequent EBITDA and PAT improvement, which means that ROC expansion as a model remains. We believe that in the short term, we should definitely cross 20, but long term, this ROC can expand even faster. ROC expansion is something that we are clearly focused on.
Okay. Okay. Where do you think there could be a challenge in terms of improving the margins? Because at the end, your customers are FMCGs and all, which will push back on if the margins increase too much. Is this the right way to think, or? Hello?
Ladies and gentlemen, we seem to have lost the management line. Please hold while we reconnect the management. Ladies and gentlemen, we have the management back online with us. You may proceed.
Deepak, you want to complete the answer that you were talking about ROC?
ROC answer, I completed. Nikhil, I think you had a follow-up question.
Yeah. I had a last question. See, we are at 21% EBITDA margin, and if you look at history in the last 15 years, this business has done beyond 20 very rarely. And the kind of customer profile we have, which is like FMCG, and which would push back if the margins increase too much or if we do make very high margins. So where do you think the margins we may get a pushback from the customers, and there can be a cap on the margins? Or is there a different way of thinking now versus what has happened in the business in the last 15 years?
See, there is a difference in the margin profile this time versus what happened in the past. This time, when we have delivered 20.3% margin in this quarter, we have not done it by huffing and puffing and stretching our P&L. All four regions, if you see, and EMITA and EAP margins are actually lower than prior year, right? Europe is still at 16-17%. Americas is at 18-19%, which we believe is in the right range. Probably with some opportunity, it is still left. We have reached this margin without stretching our P&L, so we believe it is in sustainable zone with some opportunities still left. However, to continuously delivering an EBITDA growth is essential to deliver strong revenue growth also, and that is where all of us are focused on.
I think as a management team, when we are thinking of it, we are looking at delivering double-digit revenue growth and margin growth ahead of revenue, right?
Okay. Sure. Yeah. Thanks a lot. Thanks. That answers my question. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. To ask a question, please press star and one now. The next question is from the line of Shubham Segal from Simple. Please go ahead.
Yeah. I just had a follow-up on the margin itself. We had mentioned that we are beginning to target smaller customers as well to get a good margin on our orders. That strategy, could you just elaborate how it is faring for us as of now? Will it have any impact, will it have any material impact on our margins? Will it support our margins, or will it take a longer time? Could you just elaborate on that?
Yeah. Smaller customers are mostly in beauty and cosmetics, right? As we are getting into beauty and cosmetics, we believe that our margin will automatically get a little bit of leverage because the ASP for beauty and cosmetics is higher. The fixed costs kind of continue to remain as they are, and hence there is a better leverage. That enables us to deliver a little bit of leverage on EBITDA. However, you see, we have a large base, right? For any specific segment to make a material impact on overall level, it will take some time. Is it a positive as a trend line? I think it will continue to remain positive, and that is the reason we as management say that we are looking at delivering double-digit revenue growth and margin growth ahead of revenue.
Okay. Also, to service these smaller customers, did we make any changes in our supply chain or something? I remember in, I think, three or four con calls ago, we had started to mention that we are targeting these smaller customers. Did we have to make any changes at the company level, or we just thought that it would be now better that we can target these?
There are multiple changes that we have made, right? This we have been communicating to our investors now for some time. The first is in the acquisition strategy itself. When we look at oral care as a category, you are generally talking about four large players: Colgate, P&G, Unilever, etc., right? While beauty and cosmetics as a category is smaller regional customers across geography. The acquisition strategy has to be different, and we have hired more salespeople, which we are calling hunters, to really acquire those customers. Second is the backend flexibility. We need flexibility for larger type of queues, more dials, smaller remote queues, and more flexibility in our plants, right? It requires some CapEx investment that we have mostly done in all of our plants, all of our regions. Those are the investments that we are making to deliver to this growth rate.
It's not only focus and effort only. It is on the back of solid investment in the ground and initiatives that will take us to accelerated VNC growth.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor & Co. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Namaskar, sir, and thank you for the opportunity. Can you give some color on how the raw material basket is currently shaping up and the key constituent in the entire value chain?
I would say that raw materials basically have been, I would say, benign, if I can use that word. Prices of all the key commodities have been kind of range-bound, okay? I think it is a stable commodity cost environment that we are in right now.
Sir, can you give the key constituents in terms of percentage that constitute the major raw material basket?
You want to talk about?
Are they crude derivatives? Are they the crude derivatives only?
Are they crude derivatives, sir?
Yeah. Polymers. Some of them are crude derivatives. Some of them are the naphtha. It's primarily polymers. For a period of time, it's a range-bound after the COVID escalation and the supply chain disruption. Now it has become more or less stable. There is some amount of variation, which we pass through. Most of our businesses are contractual businesses. We pass through.
Is it for RM continuity? Do we have long-term contract with [Dow, DuPont, Exxon], or who are the key suppliers from whom we source our raw materials domestically and internationally?
Primarily, we have long-term contracts with most of the polymer manufacturers. You know, global manufacturers are Dow, DuPont, Exxon, that we have long-term relationships with them. It is every time that we will negotiate and do. We do not have a price contract, but we have a volume assurance contract.
Domestically, sir? You are sourcing from Reliance?
Yeah. We buy from Reliance. We buy from other [Haldiya]. We buy from wherever suitable, we buy.
Okay. Thank you, sir, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shalabh Agarwal from Snowball Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you, sir, for giving the opportunity again. Sir, I just wanted to get a little more insight into our business with some of the bigger oral care customers in terms of do we get a similar value contribution or value share like in other businesses in terms of manufacturing laminates and tubes in our factory and selling them and delivering it to their factory? Is that how the model works, or is it any ways different?
No, you're right. That's how the model works. We are one of the companies which is fully integrated from blown films to tube supplies. We also make in some places cap. So it's a fully integrated plan. Most of the oral care vendors have their own buying strategies. In some places, maybe for the same customer, maybe they may be the primary supplier. In some regions, we may be a secondary supplier. That balance depends upon our service levels, our ability to meet our other targets, right? It's a very stable business, contractual businesses. In many places, it's a contractual business. What you need to also importantly note over a period of the last 10 years, we are also moving to supply to many regional oral care players. Like in India, there are many regional oral care players. In China, there are many regional oral care players.
They are country-specific or region-specific. We also have, over a period of time, had a good business relationship with them. Overall, as a category, growth by certain percentage, we will always grow slightly better than that because we continue to add customers.
Sure. Sure. But the entire tube and everything is getting manufactured in our factory and being supplied to them?
Yes. As you know, we make laminates in a few places because laminate is bulky, manufactured, easily transportable. But we make in many places.
Sure. Sure. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to Mr. Prateek Dholia for closing comments.
Yeah. Thanks, Anshad. Once again, on behalf of Systematics Institutional Equities, I would like to thank all the participants for joining us for this conference call and management. Thanks to the management for giving us the opportunity. Would you like to make any closing comments?
No, that's it. I just want to thank everybody for their continued support to EPL.
Great. Thank you so much, sir.
Okay. Thank you. Bye.
Bye.
Thank you. On behalf of Systematix Institutional Equities, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.