Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Ion Exchange (India) Limited's Q4 and FY 2024 earnings conference call. 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. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Anuj Sonpal from Valorem Advisors. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and a very warm welcome to you all. My name is Anuj Sonpal from Valorem Advisors. We represent the investor relations of Ion Exchange (India) Limited. On behalf of the company, I would like to thank you all for participating in the company's earnings call for the fourth quarter and financial year ending 2024. Before we begin, let me mention a short cautionary statement. Some of the statements made in today's earnings call may be forward-looking in nature. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated. Such statements are based on management's beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to management. Audiences are cautioned not to place any undue reliance on these forward-looking statements when making any investment decisions.
The purpose of today's earnings call is purely to educate and bring awareness about the company's fundamental business and financial quarter under review. Let me now introduce you to the management participating with us in today's earnings call and hand it over to them for opening remarks. First, we have with us Mr. Aankur Patni, Executive Director, Mr. Vasant Naik, Group Chief Financial Officer, Mr. N. M. Ranadive, Group Head of Financial Planning and Risk Management, Mr. Milind Puranik, Company Secretary. Without any further delay, I request Mr. Vasant Naik to start with his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Anuj. Good afternoon, everybody. It is a pleasure to welcome you all to the earnings conference call for the fourth quarter and the financial year ended 2024. For the fourth quarter under review on a consolidated basis, the company reported an operating income of INR 7,818 million, an increase of 21% year-on-year and 41% Q-on-Q. EBITDA reported was INR 921 million, representing a decrease of around 13% year-on-year, but an overall increase of 31% quarter-on-quarter. EBITDA margin stood at 11.78%, and net profit was INR 725 million, a decrease of around 11% year-on-year, but an increase of 54% quarter-on-quarter, while the PAT margin was in the region of around 9.27%. For the financial year ended March 2024, on a consolidated basis, the operating income stood at INR 23,479 million, an increase of 18% year-on-year.
The EBITDA stood at INR 2,720 million, an increase of 6.7% year-on-year, and the EBITDA margin was reported at 11.5%. The profit after tax was INR 1,954 million, an increase of 0.2% on a year-on-year basis, and the PAT margin was reported at 8.32%. Let me take you through to the quarterly segmental performance on a consolidated basis. In the engineering division, the revenue for the quarter was INR 5,290 million, an increase of 17% year-on-year. The EBIT for this segment was INR 537 million, a decrease of 4% year-on-year. The segment witnessed strong international order inflows during the quarter. The domestic inquiry bank is robust, and we are hopeful that the finalization of some of the large value opportunities would accelerate in the next few months. The engineering segment recorded sequential improvement in turnover on the back of execution of large EPC jobs picking up during the quarter.
At the end of the financial year, March 2024, the total order book for the engineering division stood at INR 3,546 crore. Coming to the chemical segment, the revenue for the quarter was INR 1,990 million, an increase of around 21% year-on-year. The EBIT was INR 478 million, a decrease by 1% on a year-on-year basis. The segment recorded improved volumes while maintaining healthy margins. Coming to the final segment, the consumer division segment, the revenue for the quarter was INR 728 million, an increase of 41% year-on-year. The loss for the quarter was INR 28 million versus INR 7 million loss in the same quarter of the previous year. The company's merger process with two of its Indian subsidiaries, namely Global Composites and Structures Limited and Ion Exchange Environment Management Limited, was successfully completed during this quarter.
The merger application of Ion Exchange Projects and Engineering Limited was withdrawn by the company and will be considered for refiling in due course of time. With this, we now move to the Q&A session. Anuj.
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 touchtone phone. 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. Our first question is from the line of Ranodeep Sen from MAS Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. Sir, we need to understand, can you give a flavor of the INR 8,000 crore bid pipeline that you mentioned? Like what kind of projects are expected there? If you can also comment on the success ratio of bidding to the bagging a project. Thank you.
Most of the bid pipeline is to the private sector, and to a much lesser extent, to the PSUs. The government sector, the municipal sector is insignificant as a part of this entire pipeline. Again, a major portion of this is in the domestic segment. We are specifically excluding here, as we have been reporting along the quarters. Any mega opportunities are not included in the bid pipeline as declared.
Sure. In terms of the success ratio, sir, traditionally, what has been our success ratio in terms of the bidding for these?
It could be between 15%-20%.
Sure. My next question was, we've seen the list of clients when it comes to the hotels, Taj Group, Leela, Hyatt, and even Oberoi, right? Given we are seeing a huge CapEx going around from the entire hotel industry, have we seen traction in this regard when it comes to them as a client for us?
You're right. We work with almost all the major hotel brands, we do expect growth from that segment in times to come. As such, the opportunity size from each of these hotel properties is not very large, so they won't get reported in the normal course. We are witnessing a bump up in the overall pipeline from this segment.
Sure. If I can just squeeze in one last question, sir. When do you see the turnaround of our consumer business happening in terms of its profitability? Thank you.
We are investing significantly in the business, as we have been reporting over the last few quarters, whatever surplus that the business is being able to generate, we are deploying it back into the business in trying to ramp up the volumes to a much higher level than what it is currently. We have benefited from that during the year and the quarter under review. As you would see, the numbers have gone up. However, there is a lot of investment which happens before the final outcomes are visible in terms of the turnover and the bottom line. Hence, the breakeven has not happened. I do not want to give you a guidance today on when the breakeven will happen. The investment in ramping up this volume to a much more significant level will continue.
We do hope that we would be able to start seeing the black in the bottom line soon. As of today, I don't really want to give you a guidance on when exactly. I can confirm that we will see significant volume growth.
Sure. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your responses. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Pratik Kothari from Unique PMS. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Good afternoon, sir. First question on engineering part. The execution seems to be much slower than what we had anticipated or what we had maybe planned for. Your thoughts, what's happening there? What is causing this delay?
The engineering segment, while it saw a good growth in terms of execution over the quarter, we did witness a significant shortfall compared to what we were expecting to happen. One of the significant contracts was the UP contracts, where because of the elections which are underway and the ramp up towards the election, we did witness a slowdown there. I would expect that during this Q1 of the current financial year also, we would be seeing continuing pressure because of the elections. While we anticipated a bit of slowdown, but the slowdown was more than what we had anticipated. That's one of the significant drops in terms of the engineering growth.
It's only timeline deferment which has happened, right? Nothing else has changed in terms of contract terms or
No, it's only timelines.
Correct. Sir, second question, in the presentation, we have mentioned this, we have won some significant orders in international market. Also, we are seeing some large orders in domestic. If you can just throw some light, what kind of orders are they? What kind of customers? How large is this international which we won? Some comment on orders which we have won and also the pipeline which we see in front of us.
We've been declaring this to the exchange, any significant order which comes in. Have been declared. I'm just giving you a couple of examples. We've got a significant order from Saudi Arabia, which is for setting up a water treatment plant, including demineralization plant. This is roughly around INR 120 crore. There's another one which is coming in from UAE, and that value is roughly in the range of INR 250 crore.
Correct. You have mentioned this domestic order, some large domestic orders, which you said comes from anything where Is this BPAT? Is this something else?
There are significant orders under discussion, and we will obviously, in the normal course, make a declaration on the stock exchange as and when we get finalized.
Correct. Sir, last, we are seeing some sequential improvements in chemicals. Sir, your thoughts? I mean, we saw some tough phase for the last two years. I mean, from a growth perspective, we have obviously maintained margins. Is there any change in terms of demand trends that you see out there?
Over the last couple of quarters, we have seen good growth in volume. As we disclosed during the first quarter, the numbers from the international markets were a bit subdued. There has been a sequential pickup in the volumes from the international market, and we anticipate this to continue over the coming quarters also. That's what has led to the recovery in the top line. The margins have remained stable and that's because of the continuing environment of stable prices. We are seeing a bit of impact over the last maybe few months of the crisis in the Middle East, which has impacted costs to some extent, and also the shipping times have gone up. To that extent, there is a little bit of an impact. Overall, we do see that the volumes in the resins would continue to improve over the coming years.
Margins also, if all things remain equal in terms of the global environment, in terms of the raw material prices we should be able to maintain the current levels and round about these levels.
Correct. Great. Thank you and all the best, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohit Shah from Ladderup Wealth Management. Please go ahead.
Hello, am I audible?
Yes, sir. Please go ahead.
Sir, my first question was on your engineering segment margins. They're again, kind of the last two years, we've kind of shown reducing margins in quarter four as well. What is the reason for that if you can throw some light?
The engineering margins have suffered during the current year and the quarter under review. We have seen some dip in the overall numbers and compared to what our expectations were. There has also been one specific contract where we have witnessed unforeseen cost increases. This is an industrial EPC job, and that has impacted the overall margins significantly. If you look at the consolidated numbers, there is also an impact which is coming as we have built up infrastructure in one of the subsidiaries to execute some of the large orders, and those revenues have not come through to the extent that we were hoping that they would. Therefore, on the consolidated level, you would see that there has been a cost impact which we have taken in. These are the primary reasons for the engineering margins having been shrunk. We do anticipate two things.
Overall, the rest of the project margins remain healthy. This one contract where we have witnessed unforeseen price increases, we expect that this drag will continue for maybe one or two quarters, and thereafter things should improve significantly. Margins would also improve because the overall volume of business that we are going to execute during the year would go up. On both of these counts, we should see an improvement in the coming years.
Thank you, sir. Is there any relation between your receivables which have also gone up and the slowdown in engineering segment that has happened?
Can you repeat? Sorry, couldn't get your question. Can you repeat, please?
My question was that your receivables have gone up from around 120 to 145 days. Is there a relation between the receivables going up and the slowdown that has happened in the engineering segment?
No, it is not really related to the slowdown in the engineering segment. Rather, it is more our majority of the fourth quarter billing has taken place in the month of March. That has contributed to the overall increase in the receivables level as of the year-end.
What would be a normalized level? Last year as well, you said that a lot of billing happened in March, and then it recovered in the months of April and May. What would be a normalized level that we can look at?
I think similar to what we witnessed in the last year, I think we should have a normalized level as you approach the mid-year at the half-year level.
One last question, sir. Out of your chemical segment growth that has happened year-on-year, how much is due to organic, and how much is due to addition of MAPRIL in the numbers?
MAPRIL consolidation impact.
Yeah. This I'm asking for quarter four, not for the full year.
Yeah. On our overall, for the quarter, sorry, full year, the revenue impact of MAPRIL is in the region of around INR 92 crore.
Okay. Okay. Joining back in queue. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rahul Dhruv from Pegasus Growth. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon. Thank you. Sir, I had, I think, kind of a derivative of what the earlier participant was asking. I think if you look at the last two years, we've had almost a 3% increase in our revenues from engineering, but the profits, or what we call a PBIT, is basically almost flat, which means that we've been sacrificing margins incrementally on most of the projects. Now, can you explain this in context of the fact that we used to be as much as 10% margins at one point in time? What would be the outlook going forward? Will we ever go back to the 10% PBIT margins in engineering?
We do expect to improve on this significantly. On a consolidated basis, we saw for the full year roughly 7.7% margin. For FY 2022, 2023, this number was around 9.1%. We do expect that we will at least come back to that level. We will be happy to share more light as the year progresses, and we will see how the contracts pan out. Certainly, we should be improving from where we are.
Sorry. The 9.1% is something which you expect for FY 2025 or over a period of time?
FY 2024, 2025 is what we are talking about.
Okay. The second thing was, again, what I think was very strong about the balance sheet of Ion Exchange at one point in time was the cash conversion cycle, which was almost, if you add advances, then we're almost negative or was negative. That has changed consistently over the last three years. If I just look at inventory receivables and payables netted off, we have gone from 10 days to 74, every year increasing. I just wanted to know if there is a policy change over here or is there something that we are doing which is going to be structural, and are we going to continue to be having such a high, not very high, but yeah, high cash conversion cycle going forward?
I think if you're comparing with the years 2021, 2022, or before that, we had a large portion of the Sri Lanka contract where the advance was lying in the books, and the Sri Lanka contract value was $194 million. The advance was also disproportionately higher, 20% on that contract. As that execution of the contract is almost at the finishing end, the advance from customer levels have come down from those high levels. As we have mentioned, going forward, we expect that the working capital level largely to be in line with what we have been experiencing at the FY 2023 end March, and also what we are showing now at FY 2024 end.
We will have these kinds of levels of working capital because as the EPC segment invoicing and the share in the overall revenue increases, we will have this kind of working capital levels going forward.
The normalized level, for example, on the receivable side, is what you should see around mid-year because end of the year receivables are always at its peak. Most of the invoicing takes place for that last quarter in the month of March. They just cancel on the balance sheet. You would see a more normalized level around the mid-year mark.
No, I agree, sir. In fact, I'm actually even tracking it on a half yearly basis. Even on a half yearly basis, it has been consistently going up. I'm just saying, is there a structural change in terms Of course, there is an increased share of engineering, and which may be contributing to it, but are we giving out better terms than before, is what I want to know.
No. As Vasant just explained, there was a significant advance from customer which was lying in our books, and that was for the Sri Lanka contract, which obviously the figure was pretty large in context of the overall working capital levels. The more normalized level is what you would have seen roughly around the mid-year mark.
Thank you very much, sir. I'll come back in the queue.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shyam Garg from Ladderup Finance Limited. Please go ahead.
Well, thanks for the opportunity, sir. My first question is with respect to the execution timeline of the order book in our engineering business. What is the expected execution timeline?
This should be roughly around a two-year period. For some of the significant contracts which have been declared on the exchange, we have also given execution timeline as a couple of the large international jobs have much shorter periods of execution. On an average, it would be fair to say roughly a two-year period.
Can we expect a 20% growth in our engineering business year-on-year in FY 202 5?
Yes, we should see a good growth, and I am being cautious in giving out exact guidance at this point of time. As you can see that we are carrying a good order book, and I would expect that the growth should be at least what we saw last year. At this time, I would only want to give you a subdued projection of roughly around 15%-20%.
Okay, sir. No worries. Thank you for answering my question.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor & Company. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Namaskar, Patni ji, and thank you for the opportunity. Sir, firstly, in the engineering segment, you articulated to the point of some cost overrun in one of the projects. Was that understanding correct? Can you quantify what was the impact?
While we are not giving out project-specific numbers, yes, you heard it right. There was one significant contract where we saw an unforeseen cost increase, and we had to therefore take that extra cost provision in our books. That has led to an adverse impact on the margin reported by the engineering division.
Okay. Sir, my reason for asking was that it will be a mean reversion for us, at least on a ballpark margin trajectory. If we could have articulated the ballpark number in the absolute amount, that would have been added back, we would have calculated our normalized margin for the quarter as a one-off event. Sir, this project is domestic or in foreign land?
It's a domestic project.
Sir, you did mention about the UP part of the story also slowing down, I think so in your presentation, you mentioned about INR 830 crore worth of contract being left. You also mentioned that first quarter will also be slow. When are we expecting the UP project closure, sir?
We are expecting by the end of this financial year that contract should be executed, and we await the resumption of pace after the election process has been completed. As far as the overall numbers that we have been reporting on margin in the contract which we referred to for cost increase, we are not talking about the UP project. That's an industrial domestic project, but it's not the UP project.
Right. Sir, now coming to the chemical segment part. Firstly, sir, about MAPRIL, you mentioned about INR 92 crore revenue contribution. That gets clubbed under the consolidated chemical segment?
Yes.
Okay. What are the likely margins, sir, there?
You would see that on the consolidated level, the margins for the chemical segment are lower than for the standalone level. There is, for MAPRIL, the margins are lower than what you are seeing for the standalone.
Okay. The utilization level for that unit, sir? What can we anticipate going ahead, any CapEx that they're doing in that subsidiary to augment capacity?
Not immediately. That's planned in the future.
Sir, coming to our greenfield projects, I think earlier we alluded to the point of going ahead. Any more color you can give, what kind of numbers are we looking for? Also in the capital work in progress or whether when we look at the cash flow part, the plant purchase of PPE, the property, plant, and equipment has gone up to INR 120 crore for this year. If you could just provide a breakup where have we attributed this increase to.
Yes. Coming to the total CapEx what we have done for the current year, which is in the region of, as you mentioned, INR 115 crore if you take into account all the elements of the capital expenditure. Largely the CapEx is majorly into the Roha plant of what we are currently undertaking for our retail expansion. That is one of the major elements in the overall CapEx. Apart from that, we have done our normal maintenance and CapEx in the chemical segment for our existing facility. Also we have enhanced our engineering facilities in Hosur and Goa. That also has contributed to the overall CapEx of around INR 115 crore.
Sir, broader number can you share, sir, for how much was Roha or major in percentage terms?
Roha, I can share that for the year, the CapEx is around just over INR 50 crore for the year, and cumulatively, we have spent around INR 70 crore on the Roha capital expenditure.
What will be the total sum to be spent? Sir, I'm just completing my question only. No further questions. I'll join the queue. How much more is to be spent for the current year, and when will we see the commissioning of the facility?
We have mentioned in the earlier con call that we are expecting the commercialization in FY 2025, 2026 of this Roha facility. I would expect that the major balance part of the CapEx should get spent out in the current year.
How much is it, sir? Can you give a number? I join the queue.
We have indicated earlier also the overall CapEx for this Roha is just under INR 400 crore.
This year it will be INR 300, closer to INR 300 to be spent?
We can't be very definitive about that as of today, but it should be round about that number of INR 250 crore-INR 300 crore.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Joyl on Loo from Amiral Gestion PTE Limited. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the chance to ask some questions. Maybe just to follow on the previous participant's question on the working capital. You guys have alluded to a normalized level. Could you quantify that, either in absolute terms or in terms of percentage of sales? That's my first question.
What you're asking is the working capital levels in absolute terms. Is that your question?
Yeah. Correct.
Yes.
Mr. Loo, do you have any further questions?
The total working capital in terms of days will be 99 days.
99 days for, you're talking about receivables, yeah?
The total receivables will be in the region of around 154 days. This further detail will be there in the presentation which we have uploaded on the site in terms of the exact numbers of the working capital in terms of absolute numbers also.
Okay. No, actually my question is more. The working capital is elevated right now because of the billing cycle and is guided that you'll be coming down somewhere in the middle of the year. What is that normalized level that we have replied to in the previous participant question? Is it by number of days? What is it, by absolute amount? What is it? Could you just clarify and quantify that working capital number?
The normalized level, if I understood your question correctly, it should be in the region of around 70 to 75 days.
INR 72 crore-INR 75 crore, yeah.
70 to 75 days of revenue.
Okay. Actually, that's my main question. Okay, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohit Shah from Ladderup Wealth Management. Please go ahead.
Thank you, sir. Since you've already given guidance on engineering, can you also share what will be the growth for chemical and consumer a lso the margins for the segment for this year.
As we mentioned, even while speaking on the engineering segment is, we do not want to give out a guidance at this stage. We are just giving a directional view about the kind of growth that we should be witnessing. On the chemical segment also, we should be maintaining the momentum and the growth trajectory, and likewise for the consumer segment. As far as the gross profit numbers for the consumer segment is concerned, they remain at a very healthy level. On the bottom line number, I specifically mentioned I do not want to spell out a definitive figure because we are continuing to invest on the business for growing it further. We will come back to you with more details on the bottom line, maybe sometime later during the year.
As far as the chemical segment is concerned, we should be seeing margins at similar levels as today, provided that we continue to witness stable prices and the overall dynamics on the geopolitical front do not alter significantly. It's also a function of the product mix that we see, and if as and when there is a significant change in that, there is also an impact on the margin levels. Largely you can assume that it will be in a similar range as it is today, given that all factors remain same.
Okay. Thank you. One last question is that, can you share the number for the full year, for advances from customers, including those unearned revenues from AMC as well?
The customer advance as of March end was around INR 180 crore, the unearned revenue was around INR 224 crore.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your touchtone phone. The next question is from the line of Rahul Dhruv from Pegasus Growth. Please go ahead.
Hi. Sorry. I just wanted to again, quickly go through the numbers on the order book as of last year end as of March. A little bit of a color on how much of that is international and how much of it is domestic, if you have a percentage.
International order book as of March 2024 end is around 27%.
The total book is, you said INR 1,450?
No, it is INR 3,546 crore.
Sorry, INR 3,546 crore. Okay. Yeah. Out of that, 37% is foreign.
No, 27%.
27%, okay. That's all I had. Sorry. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Tushar Vasuja from Yogya Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. Am I audible?
Yes, sir. Please go ahead.
Okay, sir. My first question is on how do you plan to utilize your cash? Because you have somewhere around INR 580 crore of cash. How do you plan on utilizing it?
We have a significant CapEx plan, as you would be hearing, for the resin facility which is coming up at Roha. Apart from that, there is a significant portion of advances which are very project-specific, and we deploy it for execution of the project. Almost 40% of the total cash in bank is held as margin money with banks for bank guarantees.
Okay, sir. You mentioned the CapEx at Roha. You mentioned that it's somewhere around INR 400 crore total CapEx. How much of that.
Team, for executing a higher quantum of projects and also participation in further projects, the employee cost as a percentage of sales also and on a total absolute number has also gone up significantly year-on-year also. What should be this number rationalizing once we start further execution, higher pace of execution as a percentage of sales?
As a percentage of sales, it will go down quite a bit. That's the reason I mentioned that there is a bit of an overhang of the expenditure that we are making on infrastructure, including build-up of manpower. Once we see the project execution scale back to the levels where we expect them to, the percentages will drop significantly.
Yeah. Come again, sir.
There's also a ramp-up in manpower for the consumer segment. Again, the numbers would become lower, as a percentage would become lower, as the revenues scale up in that segment also.
We will be expecting the run rate, just to conclude on this end, we'll see the run rate of INR 80 crore, INR 81 crore going ahead also?
Yeah, that's right.
Okay. Lastly, on the promoter selling part also. I'll join the queue. Yeah. Please provide an opportunity for closing also.
The next question is from the line of Suhas Naik from Creda Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Sir, we are operating in one of the most exciting areas in the infrastructure side. Could you just let us know your path that we are going ahead with in the next two, three years. Where do you see Ion Exchange actually, in terms of scale of operation?
You rightly pointed out that this is a very exciting area, and there's a lot of development, not just in India but across the globe. What we are doing is building up our capabilities, both within the country and internationally. That's one of the reasons why we saw the acquisition in Europe. We are improving or increasing our presence in other geographies also in order to best capitalize on the opportunities. There's a different flavor to the opportunities in various geographies, and accordingly, the infrastructure is being built in each of the countries. You will see a significant portion of engineering opportunities emanating not just from the government segment, but also substantially from the PSU and private sector, which is now becoming more aware and more conscious of the responsibility towards the environment.
There is also regulatory pressure to improve the industrial infrastructures to treat the water and the waste. We do hope that we will be able to get a lot of orders from the various parts or the various segments of the market, both the government, the PSU, as well as from the private segment. Again, both Indian and international opportunities.
Is it possible for you to quantify this number? Actually, say at least the visibility in terms of say next one year or two year. What size of opportunity are we talking about here?
What we would manage to grab out of this is a very difficult thing to qualify.
No, opportunity size, I'm talking about. How much we will get is independent of that, it's separate. At least what are we chasing in terms of orders, what size of orders we are likely to chase in the next couple of years. Some number in terms of market size here that we are addressing.
If we exclude the municipal segment and also the purely civil or construction-oriented jobs coming from the government, we would expect the market size in India to be in the range of around INR 20,000 crore -INR 25,000 crore per year. If you look at the international market, this is many times over of this number. Of course, it is widely distributed amongst various geographies. The geographies which we focus on is the Middle East, Southeast Asia and the African region, which is where I feel a lot of the engineering opportunities will come for us. As far as the chemical part of the business is concerned, it is across the globe from all of the geographies.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Tushar Vasuja from Yogya Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the follow-up opportunity, sir. I just had a few follow-up questions. When would the Roha facility be available for commercialization?
In FY 2025, 2026.
Okay, how long would it take for you to ramp it up to optimal utilization levels?
We expect to fully utilize the facility over the next three to four years once the commercial production commences.
Okay, sir. Just one more question, I want to confirm. For the Roha capacity, for the Roha CapEx, 80% would be from internal accruals and 20% would be from debt. Is that correct?
No, 80% will be from debt.
Okay. Sir. Thank you for the clarification. That's all from my side.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor & Company. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. The closing question, sir. On the consumer product, you did allude to the fact that we have hired new team and we will be posting the better set of numbers here. Can you give some more color? Because for this year also, sir, our turnover has gone up, but so has the losses at the PBT level. Some understanding of how are we dealing with this situation in this space.
The buildup of manpower for the consumer segment, we have been trying to do over the last few years. As I mentioned, we would continue to undertake this exercise because we are aspiring for much bigger numbers to come in from the segment. The losses that you see are not at a gross margin level. They are more a function of the manpower cost and the infrastructure cost that we are accounting for. These do not reflect only the current level of operation, but these are for the planned level of operation, which is much higher than today. That's why you are seeing the bottom line in the red.
As I mentioned, we do expect, or we do hope that, in times to come, once we have scaled up the operation to a significant enough level and our investment in the infrastructure has stabilized, we would see the bottom line turning significantly in the black. As of today, I am not trying to give you a projection of when exactly this is going to happen. I can only assure you that we will keep investing in future growth of the consumer segment, and we are seeing extremely good traction in the market for the products.
For this year, sir, can you allude about how much have been invested to this category? Going along with your line of thought, what should we expect in terms of at least the revenue growth trajectory for this segment?
You would have seen that we have delivered roughly around 21% growth for the current year. We do expect that we would maintain momentum in a similar range of growth. As far as investments is concerned, whatever losses that you are seeing for the segment are effectively expenses which we are bearing to augment our presence in the market, which is on manpower and infrastructure.
Right. You did not give any percentage number for the growth trajectory for the engineering segment, but that kind of work we have been doing in the segment in terms of addition and creating the infrastructure. Can you give us some trajectory of what should we look forward for the engineering? In the chemical segment, my closing question is on the margin profile. We have seen a 200 basis point improvement in the standalone chemical segment. Are these margins sustainable or do we have any impact of lower raw material that got added to the margin for this year?
Engineering segment, as I have mentioned earlier, while I do not want to give you a guidance, but we certainly expect growth to a reasonable extent. Given that we are carrying a very healthy order book, 15%-20% growth we would certainly hope to achieve, if not more. As far as the chemical segment margins are concerned, we have benefited from a stable raw material pricing for the last few quarters, and we've also not witnessed any significant variations in the exchange rates or significant negative impact because of the geopolitical scenario, which has remained as it is. This is what has helped us to maintain the margin levels. If we are going to see a stable environment in the future also, the margin levels are sustainable.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you all for participating in this earnings call. I hope we have been able to answer your questions satisfactorily. If you have any further questions or would like to know more about the company, we will be happy to be of assistance. We are very thankful to all our investors who stood by us and also have confidence in the company's growth plan and focus. With this, I wish everyone a great evening. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Ion Exchange India Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.