Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Kirloskar Brothers Limited Q4 and FY 2026 earnings conference call. This conference call may contain certain forward-looking statements about the company which are based on beliefs, opinions and expectations of the company as on date of this call. These statements are not the guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. As a reminder, all participant line will be in listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask question after the presentation concludes. Should you need any assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star 0 on your touch-tone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sanjay Kirloskar, Chairman and Managing Director, Kirloskar Brothers Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of Kirloskar Brothers Limited, I extend a very warm welcome to everyone for joining us on our call today. I hope you've had an opportunity to go through the financial results and the investor presentation, which have been uploaded on the stock exchanges and on the company's website. On this call I have with me Mr. Alok Kirloskar, Managing Director, Kirloskar Brothers International. Mr. Rama Kirloskar, Joint Managing Director, Kirloskar Brothers Limited. Mr. Hemant Shaligram, our Associate Vice President. Mr. Devang Trivedi, our Company Secretary, and Strategic Growth Advisors, our investor relations advisors. Let me begin my remarks by giving some business highlights and talking about our Q4 FY 2026 performance.
For the quarter ended 31st March 2026, our consolidated revenue stood at INR 14,151 million, marking a growth of 10% on a year-on-year basis. For the full-year, revenue was INR 45,380 million, reflecting a marginal growth of 1% compared to the same period last year. For Q4 FY 2026, our domestic revenue stood at INR 9,091 million, registering a growth of 3% year-on-year basis. For the full-year, the revenue was INR 28,281 million, reflecting a degrowth of 3% compared to the same period last year. On the international business performance, our revenue for Q4 grew by 25%, and for the full-year, our revenue grew by 7%.
This growth was driven by growth in the Dutch entity, South African entity, SPP UK and SPP USA on account of a healthy order book execution, along with improvement in overall product demand. Our consolidated EBITDA for the quarter stood at INR 2 . 93 billion, with margins standing at 14.8%. For the full-year, EBITDA was INR 6 . 213 billion, with margins standing at 13.7%. PAT for Q4 FY 2026 was INR 1 . 21 billion, and for the full-year, PAT was INR 3 . 772 million. Our performance during the year was impacted on the back half i f you remember, in Q4, there was a one-time expense of INR 258 million relating to implementation of the new labor codes.
The total impact due to implementation of the new labor code is INR 389 million in FY 2026. This impact arises from regulatory change and is non-recurring in nature, it has been classified as an exceptional item. The group will continue to monitor further developments and revise estimates based on additional clarifications and notified rules. The second point is that in the first half of last year, we witnessed adverse seasonal trends which affected demand in the small pump segment, primarily catering to the agricultural sector. There were delays in Jal Jeevan Mission relating funding issues, funding to dealers, which affected dispatches and the production schedules. You're aware, the company continues to maintain strict commercial policies.
While we were quite hopeful when the center released funds for the Jal Jeevan Mission, dispatches and further manufacturing were impacted due to delays in fund release at the state level. The third point was in addition, we had SAP-based ERP implementation at the foundry operations in Kirloskarwadi. This led to temporary operational disruptions during the transition phase, impacting production levels and execution, particularly in the small and medium pump segment. However, the system has now largely stabilized and is expected to improve operational efficiency, cost control and order execution going forward. However, our domestic order book stands at INR 24.68 billion, registering a robust growth of 30% over the previous year. While the international order book also remains strong, growing 21% year-on-year to INR 14.808 billion.
These results reflect a healthy pipeline and continued customer confidence while reaffirming the strength of our global presence and our ability to capitalize on growth opportunities across diverse markets. Looking ahead, we are optimistic about the company's growth trajectory backed by a healthy mix of domestic and international business, a robust order pipeline and continued focus on operational excellence. The company is well positioned to deliver sustainable growth in the periods ahead. I'm happy to share that the board has recommended a final dividend of INR 7, that's 350% per equity share of INR 2 each for the financial year 2025, 2026. This dividend is subject to shareholders' approval in the ensuing annual general meeting. That's all I have to say. We can now begin the question and answer session. Thank you.
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 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. You may press star and one to ask questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. A reminder to participants, they may press star and one to ask questions. The first question is from the line of Pratik Kothari from Unique PMS. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon, and thank you.
Good afternoon.
First in on our standalone. We have seen very strong order inflow and building up of our order book. Can we just talk about where are these orders coming from, what is going right, which end industry, et cetera?
Sure. Is that the only question or?
No, there are two more if. Second is, I mean, we call out JJM as an issue which is hurting our execution. In previous call, we had called out that JJM was sub 4, 5% of revenue, so not as material. Anything else that is disrupting the execution despite the strong order book that is filling up. These two on India, and then maybe later one to Alok.
Okay. you know, the standalone order book, we are seeing growth in building and construction. I've mentioned that building and construction is the infrastructure is doing very well in India. The company has certain products which the competition doesn't have, and we are able to bundle those products along with others. We are seeing good growth in the building and construction. In marine and defense, as Government of India puts in more and more emphasis on the defense industry. Oil and gas, again, is another area where we are seeing good growth. Some of the best numbers are coming from power. That is because of the different power stations, different types of power stations.
That's both, coal-fired as well as nuclear, which is showing good promise. Water and irrigation, again, is also quite strong at the moment. These are the areas that we are seeing growth in. I think the company's product portfolio is extremely strong. We make some of the most efficient pumps, and I believe that customers have started understanding Lowest Life-cycle Cost and the fact that efficiency, the loss in efficiency with our products is far less than anyone else. Therefore, though we do get premiums for our orders, even against multinational companies who don't have such products.
The other thing which you might think is a little that we are being too strict, but we continue to follow despite all this, we continue to follow our commercial policies. Which is, especially for the small and medium and range of products, we insist on in advance, and we insist on a letter of credit. The retail business, whether it's from the small pumps or small and medium pumps, continues to be done on cash basis. While we are maintaining very strong commercial terms and at the same time the product portfolio is very strong. I don't know, if you are following the company, you would have seen that the Government of India itself recognized one of our products as the Appliance of the Year.
That is what is driving the growth. In fact, all new products that fall into that category, when we improve them or redesign them or come out with new products, we ensure that they meet the European minimum efficiency index norms. I think that also is something that customers appreciate and want to come back to us for or want to give us a premium for. As far as JJM is concerned, yes, we do, though it is 4%-5%, it does affect one of the sectors very badly. That's the water sector. What we've seen is there've been all kinds of investigations which don't affect the company as such, but it does affect the ability to ship out products.
While we do have orders which are unfulfilled and, you know, we've not moved ahead on that. There are other orders where we release the products to our dealers or the contractors only when we are assured of 100% payment, either in advance or an LC. That will, I think, move slowly. Hopefully, the problems will be behind us in the next few quarters. The other thing which we had mentioned some time ago, and I think in the last quarter I'd said, was little difficult, was the implementation of the ERP in the foundry, where we are trying to get exact material accounting and ensure that, you know, orders are followed. Orders go out of our system as they are placed into the system.
You would understand that there are many orders for different types of pumps that come together in different materials. We want to smoothen this process by ensuring that a customer, regardless of the type of pump and the material of construction of pump he orders in, he gets everything together and in time. That has been an issue earlier, but now we expect it to sort itself out. That was something that affected our foundry. Our foundry affected our small and medium pump business. If you have a question for Alok or you have a follow-up question for me, I can take that.
Sure. No, no, thank you for that, sir. Well, sir, to Alok , one, again, very strong order inflow continues. This quarter will be one of the highest. One, what is going right there? Two, on margins, I mean, surprisingly, I mean, we did a lot of corrective actions in the past, but again, I mean, and keeping the SPP Pumps aside, which is where the issues are, but even in, say, U.S. and other geographies, I wonder if you can talk about the margins and the order inflow.
Yeah. I think just to address I'll start with the margins because they're connected to order inflow. You know, when you look at slide 11 of the presentation, the big drop in EBITDA comes only from SPP Pumps, which, you know, moved from INR 95 crores to INR 58.1 crores, INR 37 crore drop in EBITDA. If you look at it compared to the U.S., it's INR 3 crores and, I mean, the others in terms of real value is not very much. I mean, the others are doing better except South Africa, which as a percentage is lower, but as a actual value is higher in terms of EBITDA. I would say that this mainly is coming from the mix of the products.
To answer your question, we have more orders in the U.K., a lot of them coming from oil and gas. As I mentioned in the last quarter, the service booking had reduced because, as you probably know, the U.K. power prices have crossed INR 30 a unit, which means that, you know, manufacturing and, not manufacturing actually for us, but for very energy-intensive industries, for which we would do the service, like steel or chemicals or petrochemicals or, you know, glass industries, et cetera. They're struggling and they're only idling in the U.K. at that level. The amount of service we have done for them, even under a framework, has reduced. Like I mentioned, we have looked to diversify out of industry.
I mean, we diversified into industry in other areas to move away from oil and gas. Unfortunately, because of misguided views of politicians, you know, even industry is struggling because of power prices. We've moved to water. As I mentioned last time, we have won the framework agreement for United Utilities, which controls basically the water supply for most, almost all of eastern England. It takes some time for us to, you know, bring the service work in, because the first, at least a quarter goes in analysis, surveys, agreeing with the customer what requires maintenance, those kinds of things. I would say the mix has changed. The service business has reduced. The product business has increased.
The order book that you see right now coming into the U.K. and U.S. is fueled by oil and gas, water, and data centers. As, as a norm, like we said, oil and gas is the lowest margin. Data centers is great margin, but they're not as close to service. You know, what we're trying to do right now is reconfigure the sales. You know, looking at the order book position, we feel that, you know, and this is just indicative, what I'm saying. It's not our second quarter, which is calendar year second quarter for the international companies, but closer to third quarter, probably we will be able to realign the margins back to what we want.
With that said, you know, we still are very optimistic and we will probably, you know, look to get back to the margin levels that we're looking for, even on a whole year basis. That's what we are trying to achieve.
All right. That's very encouraging. Thank you. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Raj Shah from Enam AMC. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is on the standalone numbers. We were expecting, as you had mentioned in the last conference ended , that Q4, the year should see a back-ended kind of growth, that Q4 should show a significant growth. Well, you mentioned, sir, that there were issues related to SAP implementation in the foundry. If that would not have taken place, do you see this year would have grown at double-digit rate, which was your aspiration earlier?
I think, you know, the growth in the last quarter is indicative of basically the way it'll continue to grow, because quite a few things were smoothened out. Therefore, the double- digit growth that we expected was actually, you know, impacted by the first quarter, second quarter and third quarter. The last quarter, the sale was higher than the previous year's last quarter. Basically, now we do expect that quite a few things have gotten clear. We will continue to grow as we did earlier.
That being said, there's one big caveat in the sense that there is a war, which we don't know whether it has started or stopped or restarted, and how that is going to affect, you know. That's going to affect everyone. Like other people, we did have problems with gas availability, because as you're aware, we do have our own foundry. We were able to quickly change over and ensure that most of the requirements were met by electricity. That really helped us, you know, have far better numbers than could have happened. As you can see, the order book is on there. The company follows a very conservative policy of recognizing orders.
There are many orders that we have which are not recognized because they've not met commercial terms, and therefore, they do not get counted as orders. I would like to make that statement because that's the way we operate, and it might give you a sense that, you know, are these all the orders.
Got it. Got it, sir. Sir, secondly, you mentioned about the problems that we faced under the Jal Jeevan Mission scheme. Sir, recently government laid out the Jal Jeevan Mission second part or second tranche, where the focus will be more towards, rather than infrastructure development, it'll be more towards service delivery and the network. Given all the problems, that exist in the short term, do you see this second Jal Jeevan Mission via our dealers can be an opportunity for the business?
I think any spend on infra will be an opportunity for our business. Of course, we've learned from the first time and so have our dealers. We will be quite careful, and I hope that, you know, the rest of industry also follows because all of us in industry have had the same problem. We need to be careful, and we will see, you know, there will be business out of this as well.
Got it. Got it. Sir, second set of questions around nuclear sector. There are various parts to this. First is, sir, all of us read and congratulated you for the success of the fast breeder reactor that we had supplied few years ago, the primary and secondary sodium pumps. Now when stage three starts, what could be the timeline that it will take, for I know it is very tough to answer, but how much time will it take, and what could be the opportunity over here for us?
I'm the wrong person to ask such a question because I don't give the orders for the nuclear power plants. You know, at the end of the day, as we see it, and I think, I believe I had told you this last time also, we are sufficiently bullish about this sector because the company has developed certain pumps using its own money. We've invested in new designs. We've invested in new, what is it called? prototyping and testing of new pumps which we had not made before. These pumps have been totally designed in India and so the IP is controlled in India.
We worked very closely with the Department of Atomic Energy to ensure that what we make is also, you know, going to be useful for them. I'm quite confident that despite the fact that we have made these pumps, we will get orders for these kind of pumps. The opportunity is quite large. You know, government has announced that 100 GW of nuclear power.
Like 100 W.
could be generated through nuclear power. We believe that it should be closer to 200, because for Viksit Bharat we need something like 1,000 GW of power. Base load, if slowly the coal-fired power plants go out, this will have to be done by nuclear power plants. For the fast breeder, you know, we've developed most of the pumps on the primary side, the secondary side. For the primary pressurized heavy water reactors, we already had the secondary side. We have a large portion of products developed in-house for the primary side. Our primary heat transport pumps, you know, the performance of those pumps is better than what we had bought. We are now ensuring that the full scale prototype will be delivered on schedule to the NPCIL.
The requirements are quite large. I mean, the Shanti Bill has, I believe, ensured that many players who want to generate nuclear power are interested. We see the company has been asked to give budgetary quotes for all types of pumps, which have been given. As soon as whatever constraints they have are cleared, I believe that, we will see, step-by-step, customers placing orders on pump suppliers for the different types of pumps required in a nuclear power station.
Got it, sir. Noted. That's very helpful. Sir, in connection to this, the pumps that we are developing and we have in portfolio, will it also be part of the upcoming Bharat Small Modular Reactor program that is made up by the government?
The Bharat Small Reactor is a 200 MW small modular reactor that is being designed. We are being asked to give quotations for different types of pumps. It is I think whenever that is finalized, we do expect that there will be prototype orders because it's a totally different type of pump. It's the small modular reactors are all light water reactors. Our company has experience in designing light water pumps for light water reactors and has delivered. We expect that we will be asked to participate in tenders for development of this type of reactor as well.
Got it. Thank you very much, sir. That was very helpful.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Gayathri from Catamaran Ventures. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. My question is on the topic of data centers. In the previous conversations as well, you have mentioned that the scale of data centers being established in India is relatively small when we compare it to the likes of USA. However, following just the recent update of there being a mild delay in the execution of data centers even in the U.S., how do you forecast that demand? If we were to set up 1 GW of like a data center capacity, then what sort of a cost element is correlated to the pumps which are required in percentage? Do we have any idea there?
Yes. I mean, just to put it in context, because, you know, as you mentioned, everyone says there are a lot of data centers coming in India and compares it to the U.S. You know, I've had many conversations with people, but I just put some numbers for you. You know, at the current time, there are over 4,000 data centers operating in the U.S. As we speak, over 2,000 data centers in the U.S. have received all planning permissions to proceed for construction. Compared to that, as you would imagine, the number of data centers in India or coming up in India are much smaller. Not to say they are not, but they are, they are data centers.
We are aware who puts them up because, you know, on one side you have consultants like AECOM, et cetera, who we work with on a regular basis, and on the other side, you have the people who finance them, like Brookfield and others, who also we work with. You know, that's generally the ecosystem. Of course, there are a few people like Amazon, which I mentioned earlier, with whom we work in the U.S., and they are one of few who put up their own data centers, Amazon and Microsoft, of course. I would say that's the general landscape. For a 1 MW data center, you know, there are different types of pumps.
I think, just to put it in context, one is the main intake water pumps that bring the water into a data center. These, the value of these pumps varies greatly because it depends whether you're using seawater or fresh water or different kinds of water. That changes the metallurgy of the pump. I would not want to, you know, because it would misguide you. You know, the price of a regular pump could be, I'm giving you an example, $500,000 , but maybe the price of a seawater intake pump for the same sort of installation would be close to maybe $4.5 million , just to put in context. The variation is huge, depending on the intake.
It's probably better to discuss not the intake, not the treatment, because that's the next stage. After treatment, you have the, you know, the HVAC system. You have an HVAC system which basically cools the water where we participate, and that usually for the HVAC side could be around $2 million. You have, this is not just the pumps, this is a containerized system. You have the fire package again, which is about maybe $1 million, which is again, a package system, not just the fire pumps by themselves, because nowadays most of them buy them in a container or modular unit.
You have a booster package, which may be $200,000 or $300,000, which basically takes the chilled water towards the on-chip cooling system. The on-chip cooling system, as a company, we don't have much exposure. Which are the much smaller pumps that go into the attached to the on-chip cooling system. We don't participate so much in that. You have the return system bringing the water back to the chiller. That's the loop. That I think should give you a general idea of what value is there in a hyperscale data center, which usually requires 2 million l of topped up water every day.
Understood. Yes, I'll follow that. Thank you a lot for sharing. Essentially the end part where you said there's the return cooling system, is there pumps involved in that step as well or no?
Yes. It's similar to the booster package.
I see. Okay. Got it.
Yeah.
Thank you very much. That's all from my end.
Yeah.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ashwani Sharma from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello, sir. Good afternoon, and thank you very much for the opportunity.
Thank you.
Yeah. My first question is again on the JJM. After this JJM 2, has there been a meaningful pickup in the tendering or awarding the orders? Any state?
Not yet that I'm aware of.
Okay. You know, we have been reading, news on the releasing of funds, by many states. Any rough idea that how much would be, you know, outstanding at a country level, for JJM?
I think the ministry would be the best people to ask such a question.
Got it, sir.
You know, like I always held, pumps are usually 1%-1.5% of any project.
Got it, sir. Secondly, sir, on the growth, for example, on the domestic and internationally, given the fact that, you know, there has been a meaningful jump in the order inflow and order backlog, is it fair to say that we can grow 15%-20% next year in FY 2027 in both the businesses, domestic and international?
you know, I have been saying that for the last few years that we will show a double-digit growth. Unfortunately, last year, with all its challenges, we could not do that. I will say that we'll strive for double-digit growth this year as well. you know, I cannot predict wars, I cannot predict gas shortages.
Yeah.
Everything that is being done, whether you see, you know, new product development, that's something that the company believes in. We believe that, as a company, we can develop products in India for the world. Increasingly, we see a lot of people from around the world placing orders on us. The operations are being streamlined, as we have mentioned. The distribution network also is being enhanced, whether it's in Southeast Asia or whether it is in India or around the world. Fortunately for us, you know, as a nation, we are in a good place. As a company, then it is our responsibility to take full advantage of that.
Got it, sir. sir, on the you know, given the fact that there's so much of, you know, geopolitical, you know, scenario, are we facing any supply chain issues in the operations of raw material availability challenges? Anything, you know, which are kind of Obviously, it is there for most of the industries, how are you dealing with it?
You know, costs obviously start going up. You've seen. As soon as the Strait of Hormuz closed, none of us realized that fertilizer would be affected, helium supplies would go down, causing all consequential issues. Oil prices, again, will affect food and agriculture.
Right.
You know, each of these actions have consequences. I don't think when Mr. Trump decided to go to war, even he had thought it out very well as to where what would get affected. You know, it's our responsibility as management to ensure that the least amount of impact comes on us. Fortunately, I would say with the kind of product line that we have and the strong distribution network that we have, we are able to pass on price rises whenever required.
Just one clarification. In the JJM, when you take an order, do we have that O&M portion also? It is just the product order?
No, we just take a product order.
We just take the product order.
In most of these cases, you know, sometimes if the project is also large and the products are also large, we would split the product order into a, this, you know, order for the product and an order for installation and commissioning, especially when it is going to take time. Here, you know, the orders have come through dealers or contractors, and usually they can handle it. Our dealers have been trained to install our products properly. We would prefer to be paid for whatever we have provided as soon as possible.
Other than JJM, when we look at the product business, do we have that after-sales service attached to it? Is there a contract for that?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There are authorized dealers and everything that the company has.
If I have to, let's say, out of that domestic product order book, how much would be the after-sales service in that? Is it possible to quantify?
This kind of question does come, whether it is after-sales service or what portion of your business comes from energy or whatever. We don't give these numbers.
Sure, sir. Sure. No problem, sir. Thank you very much for this insight. Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask questions. Next question is from the line of Himanshu Upadhyay from Steadfort. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Alok. The question is to Alok. Alok, one of the places or geographies which has done pretty well for us has been U.S., okay? From INR 300 crore in 2022 to today it is INR 540 crore, okay? The margins are also pretty decent. How diversified is our business in that geography across the segments and products today it means? Do we still depend on one or two particular sectors, let's say 30%-40% of our revenue or it is much more diversified, granular? Some thoughts on that. Again, something on product. From here on, what would be your thoughts for next three years to take that business ahead?
Mr. Upadhyay , thank you for the question. I think like I mentioned in maybe a few calls ago that, you know, the U.S. business started with the fire business. The reason for that was, as we said, when we approached the old U.S. distributors of other companies who obviously been the distributors of those other U.S. companies sometimes up to, you know, a century, multi-generational. They were not keen to take our products at that time when we started this business. You know, we finally made them take the fire product because fire product was one product where, you know, most U.S. companies were not so keen in.
The reason that the dealers didn't want to disturb the existing relationships was obviously because spare parts that they were getting and the ready spare part business were getting from the historic installed base of those American companies. You know, we entered using the fire pump business, and the fire pump business grew and they liked our products, and that's how we slowly widened our scope with the distributors, starting with fire pumps. Of course, fire pumps don't have any spare parts because usually a fire pump should not be used that often unless there's a fire and doesn't require so much service. It was a very fire pump heavy business.
From fire pumps we sort of got larger and got into water and we were having traction issues, that's the reason we bought SyncroFlo. SyncroFlo was more in the municipal business, there were some synergies between the distributors that we had on the fire side and SyncroFlo side. That's how together we could offer a larger basket of products from our overall basket that was available. That said, I would say today, if we look at it, about 35% of our business still comes from fire. As the you know, we were not able to make a breakthrough in the water business because, you know, of the old relationships.
Even though we had an excellent water product, as I've mentioned, in the U.K. water utilities, we have 85% market share in the water business. One of the reasons for that is high efficiency of the product, but also very low downtime, because all the maintenance on our products, which are our LLC products, can be done from the outside. You know, when data centers picked up first on the fire side and we showed this product to them for HVAC on the water side, it was very attractive because as you know, hyperscale data centers stay 99% uptime, which means they only have six hours of maintenance in the entire year.
That's the reason why suddenly this product got traction and in the data center market, and now 25% of our U.S. business comes from data centers. The remainder of the business comes from diversified business in water, utilities, retail packages for high-rise buildings, so what we call booster systems, as well as municipal booster packages, which account for the remainder of the business. That is the key sectors. If I break it up, I'd say fire that goes into commercial buildings, industrial buildings, as well as industrial sites.
Data centers, which by itself is a 25% chunk, the remainder is municipal booster systems for water, and booster packages and HVAC and very small HVAC packages, mainly booster packages that go into high-rise buildings, commercial buildings, golf courses, things like that. Does that answer your question?
Yeah. Alok, that's very helpful.
Yeah. Going forward, I would say our focus is really how can we use our traction in data centers to get into other HVAC areas, because obviously we have an advantage there, into other HVAC areas, and enhance our what in India we call our commercial building services division, our B&C division. We look to, you know, have a holistic approach into that division, on one side. The second side is push harder into the municipal market, which like we have in the U.K., a strength in the U.K.
You know, we push harder into that and start getting the municipal market because the U.S. infrastructure, as you know, has gotten older over the many years, they are investing now in infrastructure, just like AMP8 is coming up in the U.K. where, you know, we expect We didn't see so much movement this year, we do see the inquiries, we do expect movement from next quarter in AMP8. Similarly, there are programs in the U.S. for growth in the municipal side.
We expect that, you know, we can participate in a better way, you know, using these existing relationships because there are a lot of common contractors for the intake water systems of a data center, which obviously come from a river or from the sea, and the big municipal contract, big municipal consultants, because those are usually common because they're working on one side with the government and the other side a private party. They are common consultants. That will help us spec the product and it will get us into the municipal market. Those are the few sectors we're looking at, you know, extending from the base we've already created.
How many distributors would we be having now in U.S. versus, let's say, four years back?
Approximately as distributors, we have about 46 distributors in the U.S. Four years ago we had 12 distributors. We had at that time one national distributor out of those 12, which was Ferguson. Today apart from Ferguson, we also have Core & Main, which is another national distributor. We are adding also a few big national distributors like Ferguson in the new 42, but we are also going deeper now into every state and from the state down to, you know, all the counties to see that, you know, can we now further divide it. Because, you know, when we started in the U.S., we were looking at a very overall country level, state level. Now, of course, we are able to go down to county level.
That's really what we are doing as we deepen our footprint. There still continue to be about 10 states in the U.S. where we do nothing, absolutely nothing. There are probably another seven or eight states which are partially covered. I would say that probably one of the best covered states for us are today on the eastern coast of U.S. and Texas. Those are our best covered states. As you start going to the north and as you start going to the west, our penetration is lower at the moment.
Okay. Thank you, Alok. One question to both, either you or Sanjay can reply. See, one of the segments where we have a pretty wide product profile is on the power side, okay? Which is showing growth in India. Outside India, is there any market where you see the potential for that product and cross-sell or cross-subsidize in those markets and it becomes a large product profile for us overall? Or how are you seeing the situation play out on the power side outside India? Yeah.
I think power is divided into nuclear, thermal and hydro. I would say our strength historically has been, of course, in nuclear and thermal in these. As you know, you know, the thermal power concept in Europe and U.K. has not been very palatable. That's the reason why our power prices today in the U.K. are across INR 30 a unit. Southeast Asia, we do see a limited number of these projects coming up, and we do participate. In Thailand, we have a good penetration. In Indonesia, we have a good penetration in thermal power plants. We do see some coming up in the U.S., but I think power will be very interesting for us connected to data centers.
As you know, they are looking at gas-fired turbines for data centers because data centers are consuming so much power even in the U.S. that they cannot put up a power plant fast enough. They are going for gas-powered turbines. The quickest opportunity for us to use our existing strength would be there, if you ask me, you know, where the quick opportunity and turnaround is.
To give you a little background, you know, when the first independent power producers came to India in the 90s, whether it was Bechtel with Enron or other companies, Rolls-Royce, Marubeni, Doosan, Daewoo, Siemens, all of them participated in the putting up power stations in India. Our pumps are running in every single one of them. This was followed by them using our pumps for their projects overseas. One thing that we saw was other than Bechtel, which used our pumps for two very large power stations in Illinois and Texas and some smaller ones in various, some of those Sun Belt or they call the Sun Belt states.
The Europeans and the East Asians only used these pumps from us for all their projects outside of their home countries. We have supplied to Siemens, we have supplied to Alstom, we have supplied to the Japanese and the Koreans, but it is more in the Middle East, Central Asia. We are also working with many Turkish companies in like Çalık Enerji for Enka for their projects around the world. Because the product line is a very robust product line and a lot of these companies like us to participate. As far as nuclear is concerned, yes, in India, we can provide. Government has been quite liberal 1x or 2 x when we asked them for permission to quote.
They first looked at where the power plant was being set up, what were the safeguards for that power plant, and then gave us permission to quote for our products with those EPC contractors who were operating in certain countries.
Okay. Okay.
Thank-
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Shyam Maheshwari from Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations team on a decent set of results. All of my questions have largely been answered. Just one question on the profitability bit. On the standalone side, on the domestic business, you have taken a lot of measures, particularly on cost efficiency, implementing the ERP systems. Having done all of it, how should we think of, you know, profitability margins improving, especially with, you know, execution of the high order book that we have. That is on the standalone side. For Alok, similar question on the international piece. Of course, FY 2026 was sort of a disappointing year in that sense.
Now again, with the order book coming back and the inquiry pipeline looking decent in AMP8, should we expect the profitability to revert back to our FY 2025 numbers? Those questions basically.
Just to answer your question on the standalone bit. Couple of areas we are working on to, towards growth of the profitability. One is operational efficiency. You know that our plants and our operations are quite complex, so this cannot be done overnight. It'll have to be done in a staggered manner. We are very foundry intense, and we have five foundries. We have concentrated on one of the largest ones this year. We did have a few teething issues, which is why we were hit on the revenue side because we, as you know, we have a healthy order board, but because of some teething issues with the foundry, that did hurt our dispatch. The other aspect was in terms of the war and gas shortages.
There were supply chain disruptions for our retail business as far as gas shortages were concerned. We have now ensured that we hedge risks towards those gas shortages by enhancing capacity internally. This should not be a problem going forward. As our Chairman has mentioned, in this manner, we strive to enhance our performance as far as profitability is concerned. I hope I've answered your question.
Yeah. Yeah, it does. Alok, on the international side?
Yeah. Especially I think, we discussed earlier that the issue was not just the orders but is the mix that we are looking at. You know, the mix needs to move back to services, which is what I said earlier, you know, when this question was asked, I think by Pratik, at the start, that, you know, we are looking to move it back towards FY 2025 in terms of percentage and actual margins. Because, you know, we do expect the service business to come back as We've diversified even further now away from industrial towards more core industries or industries like water, you know, which are imperative for human requirement.
That's the only thing we can do to, you know, keep either dodging volatility or misguided government views. That's really what we have done. We do expect that, you know, we will get back to that level. The order book, as you know, is strong. The order book is more tuned towards, like I mentioned earlier, energy, water and data centers. The margin or the higher margin comes more from services. That's really what we've been focusing on.
We are retuning mainly in the U.K. for moving into services now into enhancing the service percentages from water and power, because that will have a little bit more dependability than in industrials, you know, which we hope will ensure that there is less volatility going forward.
Interesting.
Does that answer?
Yeah, it does. Just 1 follow-up to that. We had seeded, I think, Microsoft in the U.S. as a framework contract in data centers.
Amazon. We worked with Amazon.
Amazon. Sorry, my bad. Have you been able to get any other successes there? Or are you seeing something in the pipeline developing?
Yeah. We actually have many data center opportunities. Even as we speak right now, we have eight data center packages on the shop floor in the U.S. plant, so going to various data centers. The model, as you probably know, has changed, you know, because Google, not Google, sorry, Microsoft and Amazon are the ones who are the most active putting up their own data centers. A lot of the other players are getting data centers put up by, I'm just putting a name out there. There are many companies like this, one of the big names, of course, is Brookfield.
So you know, these are the ones who put up these big data centers, and then these are, basically, these become like a annuity revenue to the private equities when, you know, people like, as an example, let's say SAP or someone else comes and, you know, uses that data center for, you know, putting in their or hosting their customers. So, you know, we are also working more closely with, the large private equities now. And we are also, as you know, a few meetings back, I had mentioned that we work with UK Export Finance for, projects in water.
UK Export Finance is also working with us now with people like Brookfield and others, to approach them for financing, which is ECA financing, Export Credit Agency financing for these kinds of data centers because they are able to give long, long financing arrangements, usually 22 years after commissioning and at very concessional rates. Of course, the requirement is that the product has to come from the country that provides the ECA funding. Let's say for UKEF, then it will have to be U.K. That's quite interesting. They do provide 85% financing for the entire project value as long as 25% content comes from, let's say, in this case, say the U.K.
We are using all the options that are available to get better traction with even the private equities because we do understand what makes them tick.
Interesting. That's encouraging. All the best team for the next year. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ashish from Leo Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. My question has been partially answered. I'll just confirm that 25%-30% of the SPP US revenue is liquid cooling application. Is my understanding correct?
Yes, in data centers, not just liquid cooling.
Data centers.
Data centers.
Yeah.
Yeah, because, like I mentioned, a few categories of data centers, it's data centers.
Segment of order book.
It is in data centers, but not intake water systems of data centers. Just so that, you know, you have a better grasp, yeah.
This comes under which segment of the order book?
It'll come in SPP Inc.
No, no. Order book, order book.
I don't know if we break the order book like this.
I don't believe it.
Yeah, I don't think the order book of company is broken like this.
Yeah. We just give the total.
Okay, it's not that the liquid cooling application of the AI data center comes under building and construction?
No, no.
Okay. Okay. Sorry. Yeah, that's my bad. Who do we compete with in this space in the D.C. liquid cooling application? Who are the U.S. incumbents?
The North American incumbents are the.
Yeah.
Armstrong, Taco, and then Grundfos has a division in America, Xylem. We compete against them.
Are we cheaper on a cost basis from them?
We're not cheaper, but, you know, we changed the model before to a modular model.
We provide a container system to them, you know, which has a pump, it has a control system, it already is pre-piped, it's just plug and play with something that looks like a shipping container or it can look like a house, depending on what they specify. It just sits next to the data center ready-made and plugs in on, let's say for the cooling application on one side to the water source and the other side to the chiller.
Got it. Thank you. That's all from my side.
Since it's a plug and play type of equipment, I think it's better value for them. They don't need to think much. Their architects don't need to think much. All they need to do is tell us the dimensions available, the amount of water they need, at what pressure, what temperature, and we can supply a system, a pump house which has both fire and utility requirements can be met.
Got it. Okay. Thank you.
It's a far, far better solution than a Grundfos or the other companies can give who operate only in one of these segments.
Got it. Thank you.
Also, I think one important aspect is that the lead time for data centers usually is 18-2 4 months. From that point of view, you know, it saves some construction time for them for, let's say, a pump house, because we just drop a container in there next to the main building.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nirmam from Unique PMS. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. My question is again on the international bit. While you mentioned that the profitability was affected by the U.K. operations, if we see for this particular quarter profits across entities, I mean, even the U.S. and the Dutch entities, the South African entity also was lower. Is there any particular reason for this?
Yes. I mean, you'll appreciate that this quarter, while it is KBL's quarter four, it is their first quarter. Normally their first quarter is a little bit slower, in, you know, comparatively. I would say the first quarter, it varies really because it's the first quarter and it depends very often on, what is the spillover from the last, from the previous year into the first quarter. As an example, SPP Pumps, last year had a good spillover from, Q4 into Q1, and that helped their first quarter. That was also similar for the Dutch entities last year. I think that's really where it depends. There's nothing in particular. I wouldn't say that there is, anything that I would say necessarily on that.
I would look at it more from a year-to-year point of view. That's what I mentioned earlier on the same slide 11. With the exception of SPP Pumps, because the mix, you know, like I said, the service is lower, all the others were, you know, better off than the previous year.
Yeah. Got it. Understood. Understood. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Due to time constraint, that was the last question of the day. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Hemant Shaligram for closing comments. Thank you.
Thanks, Pia. We thank you everyone for joining the call today. We hope we were able to provide you the comprehensive overview of our business and address your queries satisfactorily. Should you have any further question or require any additional clarification, please feel to reach out to SGA, our investor relation advisor. Thank you once again for your continued trust and support. Wishing you everyone a very pleasant day ahead. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Kirloskar Brothers Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.