Ladies, and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Styrenix Performance Materials Limited Conference Call. We have with us today from the management of Styrenix Performance Materials Limited, Mr. Rahul Agarwal, Managing Director; Mr. Bhupesh Porwal, Chief Financial Officer, CFO; and Mr. Chintan Doshi, Manager, Legal and Company Secretary. As a reminder, all participants' lines will be muted, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please press star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. Further, on behalf of management of the company, we would also like to remind the participants that this call is being conducted subject to and in line with the disclaimer mentioned in the investor presentation as it is available on the stock exchanges.
I now hand the conference over to Mr. Bhupesh Porwal, thank you, and over to you, Mr. Porwal.
Ladies, and gentlemen, Namaste everyone. I am pleased to welcome you to our Q2 and period-ended September 2025 conference call. Our expansion plan is going on as per schedule. We will update on these more once further details are available. Coming on to our financial performance about the quarter financial year 2026 highlights, sales volume for Q2 was 45.2 KT versus 51.8 KT in quarter one financial year 2026. That is, it has decreased by 12.7%, and it has increased by 8.1% compared to Q2 financial year 25, which was 41.8 KT. Revenues stood by 615 CR in Q2 FY 2026 versus 721 CR in quarter one FY 2026. That is, decreased by 14.7% and decreased by 5.8% compared to Q2 FY 2025, which was 653 crores.
PBDIT stood at 81.8 crores, that is 13.3% versus 86.1 crores, 11.9% in quarter one FY 2026, and 105.2 crores, 15.9% in quarter two FY 2025. For the half-yearly highlights of the standalone sales volume for H1 FY 2025 stood at 97 KT versus 90.1 KT in FY 2025. That is, it has increased by 7.6%. Revenue stood at 1336 crores versus 1352 crores, that is a decrease by 1.18% compared to H1 FY 2025. PBDIT stood at 167.9 crores, that is 12.6% versus 197.4 crores in H1 FY 2025, which is lower by 1.9% compared to H1 FY 2025. The company had incorporated a wholly owned subsidiary, Styrenix Performance Materials FZE, in Jafza, Dubai, UAE on September 10, 2024, and during the quarter and half-year ended September 30, 2024, no transactions had been carried out in the wholly owned subsidiary.
The group had acquired Styrenix Performance Materials Thailand Limited in January 2025, and the consolidated results of the year-ended March 31, 2025, and half-year ended September 30, 2025 includes financial results of the subsidiary. Therefore, the financial results for July to September 2024 and half-year ended September 2024 are not comparable with the July to September 2025 and half-year ended September 2025 consolidated figures. Consolidated numbers now for the quarter two, sales volume for quarter two was 57.5 KT versus 67.2 KT in Q1 FY 2026, that is, it has decreased by 14.4%. Revenue stood by INR 799 crore in quarter one versus INR 943 crore in quarter one FY 2026, decreased by 15.32%. PBDIT stood at INR 88.4 crore, that is 11.1% versus INR 99 crore, that is 10.6% in quarter one FY 2026. Consolidated H1 highlight, sales volume of H1 is 124.7 KT. Revenue stood at INR 1,742 crore in H1.
PBDIT stood at 188 CR, that is 10.8%. This is all about highlights for the quarter and H1 ended September 25, and to answer the questions you may have. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies, and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Aditya Khetan from SMIFS. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you, sir, for the opportunity. Sir, during the quarter, we witnessed like a growth spread on quarter-on-quarter basis has improved. But sir, when we look at the raw material price performance, like for styrene, acrylonitrile, most of the prices have declined quarter-on-quarter. So ideally, sir, this quarter there should have been a component of inventory loss plus lower product mix, but the numbers are looking quite good. If you can highlight, sir, so what has been the reason that we have been able to buck this trend?
Hi, Aditya, this is Rahul. Can you ask all your questions at one go so I can answer all of them?
Yes, sir. So second was what could be the numbers for Thailand? I made the initial remarks, so what could be the volume figure for Thailand in this quarter, and consequently, what are the EBITDA on that business? And third, sir, my question is pertaining to our outlook for the growth in the upcoming years. So most of the expansion which we have highlighted, like for phase one of ABS, is that scheduled to come on stream by next year of ABS, so by the mid of 2026? And any change in the capex plans, any upward revision in the capex? So that is the third. And sir, fourth question is pertaining to how you see the ramp-up of Thailand. What numbers are we looking for volumes for this fiscal FY 2026 and for FY 2027? Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Aditya. See, with regards to the growth spread, essentially, if you look at the volumes in terms of a product mix, we have actually had a very flattish kind of a polystyrene business because there has been a significant impact on household appliances, and air conditioning, for instance, has got more severely impacted, and the sales in polystyrene have been, in spite of that, flat for us. We have not kind of had any reduction, but no growth either. In the case of ABS, there has been some growth so overall, product mix has been more. In the case of ABS, there is a larger percentage in this versus the last quarter. While the prices have come down of raw materials, even the finished product prices have come down as a result of that because a lot of the business, as you know, is formula-driven.
So the overall spreads are better because of a larger kind of an ABS component that we have. In terms of inventories, we don't carry very large inventories, so we don't see very large kind of inventory gains or losses, at least in the case of India. So we don't have that issue here. Going forward, with regards to Thailand, our volumes have essentially kind of declined a little bit over the last quarter. So overall, for this first half, we have done about 32 KT. We had 17 in the first quarter and 15 in the next quarter. Overall, for this year, we are estimating the growth to be flattish in Thailand. I think next year also is when we will start seeing some uptake in volumes.
Overall, there is a positive contribution so far in Thailand, but overall, in the entire year, we are not giving any kind of forward-looking level of uncertainties around Thailand. We do believe Thailand to be a medium to long-term value addition for the business as opposed to a short-term gain that we see for the organization. I had mentioned earlier the logic for Thailand has been around technology, around market access, around several areas, which obviously will yield results only after a period of time. Going back to your third question with regards to growth for this business, we are anticipating to be in line and finishing the year, at least for India, how we have mentioned in the past.
So to the extent we have expanded some of our capacities, we do believe we'll be able to get the benefit of those capacities translated into sales for the entire year. So there have been some sales which have been lagging, I would say, in the case of polystyrene, especially in the first two quarters. But we do believe that this kind of some seasonality effect and some issues which have happened will get resolved, and we will see the next six months to be generally better in that case as well. So overall, volumes, we will still be able to catch up to the levels we have indicated earlier. So we'll still have a reasonable growth over last year. In terms of capex, I think we have mentioned some of that in terms of cash which has been used for investing activities in our presentation as well.
Capex has already started. We do believe that whatever capex we have planned for phase one for ABS will be completed more or less in time, which is sometime during the next financial year. It is hard to pinpoint an exact date and month, but we do believe it will happen maybe in the mid to the end of kind of next financial year, so around that time. With regards to, I think, Thailand volumes, you have asked, and I've answered in the question again, but since you have mentioned as your fourth question, I'm again addressing it, that we do anticipate the volumes to be flat in what is done in the first half. Similar volumes we'll see in the second half.
But as our validations come through for our product, and we are able to take benefit of the entire sales teams which have been set up in those regions. As we mentioned in our investor presentation, that in addition to Shanghai, we have also opened an office in Vietnam, and we've also got our marketing reps in Japan and Korea and other places as well, as well as Indonesia. So all this will take a little time to yield results, but we do believe in the coming year, in the medium, the volume growth.
Thank you, sir, for that explanation. Sir, just two follow-ups on this. Sir, you mentioned on the raw materials part that we are keeping very minimal inventory. But I believe, sir, most of the raw materials like styrene and acrylonitrile are imported. So ideally, they should be having a longer time because we are importing it, and there is always a transit time. Plus, we should have it in our inventory pipeline. So ideally, that would be higher. Other things, the due timing would be lower. So still, you feel like this raw material management is quite easier. In times of falling RM prices, we can easily manage the things then quickly.
So if I look at even styrene monomer prices, while they might have fallen, if I look from January till this month, if I look at the average of the last quarter versus this quarter, there has not been a significant decline. In acrylonitrile, of course, there has been some decline, but acrylonitrile, again, is a smaller percentage of our overall volumes. And so is the case of butadiene. Because if you look at the entire business, I think styrene is again a little bit larger component between polystyrene and ABS. And there, the decline quarter on quarter has not been as significant as it has been, say, from January to this part. So we have not seen a much bigger difference there.
Again, while we are importing the styrene, and styrene is, of course, significant in terms of our overall inventory, it is not very significant or very large in terms of our overall sales. So we are still able to manage that quite judiciously.
Got it, sir. Sir, just one last question. Sir, your commentary around Thailand has become more on the cautious side. You had also highlighted that there are some uncertainties, and we are expecting slight uptake in FY 2027 in next year. If you can, sir, elaborate more what changes have we seen, like all the acquisition, what changes on the ground, and anything surprise has come to our notice, or anything new which we have found out, which is why our guidance has a bit changed here?
So we have never given any guidance around Thailand earlier. We have always stated that in the case of Thailand, as far as the operations are concerned, and the exact value that you will derive from the operations in terms of added tonnage volume will take a little bit of time to stabilize. There is no change from that commentary to now what I'm saying. It is the same. And in fact, I've always stated that as far as that value which will come from Thailand is a significant long-term value, and that is for most shareholders, I think that is of vital importance. So we're reiterating the same thing.
I've always stated that in terms of short-term, which is like two quarters or three quarters from, not even three entire quarters from when we have acquired the business, there is going to be a little bit of time which will be required to get that full benefit. So it is exactly the same what I've been stating in the past. There is no change in it.
Got it, sir. Thank you, sir.
Yeah.
Line of Dhaval Shah from Girik Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thank you for the good set of comments on the EBITDA margin front. So my first question is regarding the incorporation of a wholly owned subsidiary in Dubai. So what is the purpose of this? So that's the first question. Second question will be on the third quarter outlook which you've given in the presentation. So this translates into a sort of a Q1 type of performance in terms of volume, what we have done. So is my understanding correct? And third question will be in terms of competitive intensity as our ABS capacity has come on stream, and then further ramp-up will happen in the ABS capacity over the next two quarters. So do you see some pressure in the market in terms of margins on the ABS side as its capacity gets ramped up? These are my three questions. Thank you.
Your first question is around Dubai. Essentially, when we took the business from INEOS Styrolution in Thailand, it seemed that the advice that we got was that eventually Dubai would be a good destination from a long-term business structuring perspective for Styrenix as a whole. As you know, currently in Styrenix, we don't have any export sales in India. Thailand, we do, of course, have some sales going to Asian regions. But if you look long-term in terms of sales to the Middle East, to Europe, to the U.S., we believe that Dubai would form a good base for the organization long-term. And keeping that in mind in terms of future planning, which would be efficient from functioning, operations, tax, all the above, it makes sense to incorporate this.
So that net-net, we see an advantage of this kind of a structure and entity which we have formed in Dubai.
Basically, it's like a sales office for exports, right?
Yeah. So it's also kind of a holding company for the Dubai entity. And also, it will work as a sales function, right? So there will be a lot of sales which will happen into the Middle East, which is an area which we have now started exploring from India as well into the GCC. There is an opportunity there. And Dubai, of course, is a correct base for us to engage in those activities for GCC, for some of our capacities, say, like you mentioned, how PS, comparative intensity, and that kind of ties in there, where we do believe there are more opportunities which will come for PS also in that region, also with ABS, and that may materialize quicker once we have additional capacities to operate in ABS as well.
In the case of PS, for instance, we've already started looking at exports in that region, and again, Dubai becomes a base for that. So there are multiple benefits of being in that region, and I'm just enumerating a few of them in the interest of time here. When we look at the third quarter outlook, firstly, we have not given any guidance, firstly, in any of our presentations. All I've mentioned is if you look at the annualized volumes that are available to us for sale versus what we will be able to sell, right, in terms of capacity versus sales, I think we will have an opportunity to sell more, and we will be able to do that because we do believe that the demand will remain robust, right?
The outlook is a generalized outlook for the industry as opposed to an outlook for our company specifically because we have spoken about appliances like refrigerators. We have spoken about auto industry. We have spoken about small appliances. And we do believe that there has been muted demand in the last few quarters, especially on PS, and somewhat in ABS also, of course, the demand has been good for us. But PS specifically, we do believe that the demand will be better, right, going forward, which is generally the case year on year as well. So essentially, that cover-up we will do in the next two quarters. It's not just Q3, but even Q4 for that matter. So overall, that is a market outlook. And as far as our outlook is concerned, for ABS, we are running relatively full, and we anticipate that will be the case.
With whatever competitive intensity has been, we have not seen any significant increase in that so far. And with whatever competitive intensity, we have not seen any significant change either in terms of our margin profile for ABS. We'll see how that pans out as that comes. As far as our own capacity augmentation is concerned in ABS, that again, we have some time before that happens. Like we have mentioned, it will happen in the next financial year at some point of time between the middle of the year to the end of the year. So till that time, whatever ABS capacities we have available, we don't believe there will be any challenge in being able to utilize that entire capacity.
Noted, sir. And sir, one question. As you mentioned, your PS sales could be higher for next two quarters. So does it mean that the EBITDA per kilo, what you've done in second quarter, could be softer given the PS sales will be higher?
So it can happen, but again, very difficult to predict exact numbers, Dhaval, because what also happens in Q3 and Q4, specifically if I look at Q4, the overall margin profile also improves slightly. Specifically, there is a lot more sales in the air conditioning and the refrigerator market. A lot more HIPS is sold as well at that time. The volumes effectively are much, much higher than what we are doing today, and there, again, the EBITDA per kg is higher than, say, for general-purpose polystyrene, for instance. So there are those things also which play into it, so to give exact numbers of how that would play out versus the first half is a little bit difficult to give, but generally, you would be correct that there would be some potential impact on the blended EBITDA per kg.
No pressure. Thank you very much. I'll get back in touch with you. Thank you.
Sure.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dhavan Shah from Alf Accurate Advisors.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, sir. So first, my question is on the standalone business. Despite there being some headwinds in the domestic market in terms of the auto volumes and then the consumer business also, still we have shown the 8% volume growth that is really a great part. And going forward, once the GST has already been cut, and there is also an assumption then that the second half can be good in terms of the auto volume growth. So you already mentioned that ABS, we are already running at peak. But in terms of the overall volume perspective, is it fair to assume that we can end this year by around plus 10% of the volume growth, or is it likely we'll remain at the same level like we have done in the first half?
Yeah. If you look at year-to-date, last year versus this year, year-to-date, we mentioned the total sales volume on standalone basis last year was around 89.8 KT, which is now around 97 KT, right, for the first half. When I mentioned also the fact that polystyrene has been largely flat, which means all of that growth has essentially come from ABS, or most of it has come from ABS. You can derive very quickly that the growth is probably more than 10% or thereabouts as far as ABS is concerned, right, if I look at ABS standalone. We don't give segmented numbers, so I'm not able to share that with you, but one can derive that in a rather straightforward manner. Going forward, also, we anticipate the same to be the case. Yes, like I mentioned, polystyrene will also do potentially much better in the second half.
So overall, our volumes will remain to the tune of whatever 10% growth as well because we've already seen close to between 7.5% and 8% growth or 8% growth in the first half. We do anticipate in the second half to be a little bit better than that. So thereabouts 10%, not committing to a specific number, we should look to achieve. GST cut, yes, we will. We are anticipating also to see some benefit from that. But again, we are not sure exactly when, how that kicks off. The demand that we have seen for our products has been robust. We also anticipate auto growth to remain robust going forward. Especially Q4, we see auto growth is generally quite good. And even for the next quarter, for both the four-wheeler and two-wheeler, again, we are expecting reasonably good growth.
All these sectors will ensure that we don't have any problem meeting our volume targets.
And also because of the volume growth can be good compared to the H1, and the raw material price is already stabilized. So is it fair to assume that the spread will also improve because the demand market, I mean, the market demand will improve. So eventually, I think the spread will also improve. Is it a fair assumption? I mean, or we will pass on to any decrease in the raw material to the end users, or we'll keep some benefit in terms of the sales price?
So generally, as we have mentioned in the past as well, we do a lot of formula-based pricing with a lot of our customers. And in that, it's passed through, right? So if the prices go up or down of raw materials, generally, that's agreed upon wherever there is a contract. Now, even if there is no contract, with a lot of the other customers as well, we have some kind of a formula. So we do believe it will remain passed through. Wherever we have some business on the spot market, yes, there could be some opportunity. But the competitive intensity right now in the market, and has been the case in the past as well, has ensured that there is no significant upside, right, over there. So we don't anticipate any major changes, frankly, going forward.
Understood. In terms of the Thailand, if I look at the other costs and the employee cost, if I annualize both of these things, I think employees roughly INR 65-INR 70-odd crore on the annual basis, and the other cost is roughly INR 200 crore on the current revenue, annualized revenue of INR 800-odd crore. You already mentioned that the next year can also be soft, maybe for Thailand in terms of the volume growth. So is there any room for restructuring this and other costs to improve the EBITDA pattern over there?
So in Thailand, we are doing something. But today, to translate that into significant numbers and trying to factor that into a calculation is not something which I would recommend strongly to do, whether the employee cost or the other expenses. Now, there will be areas of productivity improvement. There will be areas of technology improvement. And of course, there will be significant areas for improvement in sales, right? So it will be a stepwise process. It will be a gradual process. And like I said, there is a way of working in that region which we need to respect. And we need to be able to ensure that the kind of the asset is able to deliver how we want in the long term as opposed to looking for short-term gains.
That's very interesting because I was comparing the standalone other costs, which is also around INR 240 crore on annual basis, versus our revenue in standalone is around INR 2500 crore on annual basis. And if I compare it with Thailand, Thailand's other cost is also INR 200 crore right now. So I understand that the inflation is lower there.
Right. So I think that is the biggest challenge, right, in Thailand is the capacity utilization. But one must understand one thing here that we have also shifted from INEOS's brand previously, Novodur to Absolac, which in that region has not been a well-known brand. And in spite of that, we have had a relatively good success in terms of conversion to our brand, right? Going forward, we do believe that as the sales efforts take place, the total volumes will go up. But yes, it's a process which we have to follow and we have to respect. And making too many sharp changes can be very detrimental to the organization.
Sure. And sir, by when do we expect the incremental sales from Dubai or the GCC country will start?
So again, this will take a little bit of time. We have started the process. And this is going to, of course, be more for the Indian operation only. So polystyrene, typically what happens is you tend to run much fuller in the third and fourth quarter. So you would want to utilize that capacity when they're available again. And that potentially would happen again next year. So we have to do a little bit of balancing in terms of when we see the value in those markets versus when we have capacity. So we have started the efforts. We will start feeding the market a little bit.
But the real benefit where we can get operating leverage or capacity utilization benefits would be times when potentially those volumes are a little bit leaner in India, which will again probably happen more next year as opposed to trying to push it for the next few quarters where anyways the demand in India is much more robust.
Understood. And the EBITDA pattern would be better in those countries versus the India?
It depends on grade. But overall, what I believe is that the realizations in India are better.
Okay, but EBITDA pattern would be better over there?
I think the realizations, which means EBITDA pattern is better in India.
Okay. Understood. Got it.
Specific grade specific realizations, but yeah, generally this would be the case.
Sure, sir. Thank you. That's all from my side.
Sure.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, please restrict yourselves to two questions. The next question is from the line of Tushar Raghatate from Omega Portfolio Advisors. Please go ahead.
Sir, good afternoon, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. I just wanted to know more about the Indian industry structure. A little elaborated answer would help a lot. Sir, earlier there were two players. Now it's become a three-player industry, the ABS. I just wanted to understand the profit rate for us in the industry. And secondly, in terms of the emulsion and the mass ABS manufacturing process, what's the difference in that in terms of client stickiness or any risk you are seeing from that, from the mass-grade ABS? If I'm not mistaken, one of your peers, the raw material styrene capacity just next to their plant. So in terms of logistic benefit or how we are placed in the industry of the ABS, that would be my first question. Just wanted to understand the Thailand business. And I'm asking from the midterm perspective, not the near term.
For INR 800 crore loss booked, we have here about less than INR 200 crore with the tax benefits there. I understand turnaround takes some time. Just wanted to know in terms of the capacity utilization and the profitability contribution to the consolidated level, then we can see the material contribution from the Thailand business. Third would be, sir, you did some polystyrene de-bottlenecking and ABS de-bottlenecking efforts historically. What was the cost for the same? And do you see that delta with the capacity added? Do you see that utilization happening to the extent which we thought earlier?
Okay, so with regards to your first question, when you spoke about profit sharing, I'm not sure how I can answer that question. I don't think I'm qualified to answer the profit sharing between different players in an industry. But I can share only the profits that we have, and that is readily available to you. With regards to emulsion versus mass ABS, so currently, to my best knowledge, the ABS market in India where we are present in Styrenix is dominated by emulsion ABS. Mass ABS product being sold in some other parts of the world. Of course, one of the players has come out with mass ABS. We are not sure exactly which customers in terms of positioning mass ABS will occupy. But so far, we haven't seen a very big risk.
One thing also for you to understand, if you look at the overall industry dynamic, is that the total market for ABS is still underserved by the existing or the earlier incumbent two players, right? So the third player addition, I think there is scope for to do. Don't believe there is a major risk associated with potential mass ABS also coming into the market, though we haven't really seen it so far. We will see how this pans out over the next few quarters. When you talk about the other player having SM capacity or styrene monomer capacity next to the plant, I do not believe that is correct because there is no styrene monomer plant in India. Entire styrene monomers so far is imported into the country.
There is some announcement of some capacity which will come in, but I do believe this will take a few years at least. So there is no such comparison that we can really discuss at this point. With regards to Thailand, you mentioned that you are more interested in the medium term. So normally short term, I look at next few quarters of one year, and medium term would be beyond that. So I've already addressed that question where I've mentioned that in the next year, we will see some growth, and then real growth we'll see beyond that. So in terms of capacity utilization, also right now, we are operating at much lower capacity utilization. So we did about 32,000 tons in the first half and similar, say, next half also. And the total capacity, I think, of Thailand that we have stated is around 120 KT.
It's only about 50%, right? That is where it stands. Material contribution, I've already mentioned, will not, it's going to remain where it is. If you look at the first half, it is not going to significantly contribute to the consolidated results in terms of the EBITDA or anything like that. This is going to take a little bit of time before that there is any real contribution that we see. With regards to ABS and PS de-bottlenecking, I don't have the exact numbers in terms of the breakup of what we spent. But we do believe when we look at ABS de-bottlenecking, for instance, we have been able to increase the volumes. When we took over the business in 2022, the volumes that we were doing in ABS were close to 60,000 tons in a year.
Last year, we closed closer to 90,000 to 100,000 tons. This year, we are, of course, doing even numbers higher than that. In PS also, we have seen similar kind of a growth pattern where earlier the volumes were to the tune of 40,000, 45,000 tons. Last year also, we have seen an increase in that, and we are seeing further increases this year as well. All the de-bottlenecking exercises have been successful for Styrenix. Going forward, whatever we have done, we will be able to utilize the operating leverage out of those capacities.
So just to clarify, in the profit mix, basically the industry profit mix, do you see any risk going forward? Why? Because one of your competitors has reduced their capex plans substantially. So just wanted to know the incremental growth of INR 7-INR 8 crore. Do you see that coming in for us?
So I can't comment on what the competitors are doing from a strategic perspective. I can state that for Styrenix, going forward with the expansion is going to be vital. We do believe that we want to remain in a leadership position in this market. We want to be able to cater and serve all our customers effectively. India is growing well. There is a robust demand for all our products. And we are just answering the customer's call essentially by doing the expansion which is needed. We do believe that with whatever current margin profile and profitability profile we have and whatever capex plans we have planned out, we are getting a reasonably acceptable and healthy IRR on the capex investments which has been cleared by our board.
So we do believe that we are sticking to the path that we have already announced earlier, and there is no deviation from that.
Thank you, sir. It was dealing with you.
Yeah.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, please restrict yourselves to two questions. The next question is from the line of Nirali Gopani from Unique PMS. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Rahul. Thanks for the opportunity. So Rahul, again, my question is a little broader, and I believe you have answered in bits and pieces. But so when we took over the company, our belief was we'll go with import substitution. The import will eventually come down. But now, as we see that we are increasing capacity, our domestic competitors are putting on further capacity. And we have also heard that China is also going very aggressive in adding capacity. So eventually, not in the near term, but three years out, do you see any pressure due to imports or global and chances of overcapacity happening in the next few years?
Nirali, any more questions you have other than this?
Yeah, and secondly, on the Mass ABS, so just wanted to understand that our belief was that getting an approval with Auto OEM is a little long distance in SPL. But our competitor believes that they can get this in three to six months. So any view, in your view, how long does it take to get a clearance from an Auto OEM? Yeah, that's it from my side.
Okay. So with regards to domestic capacities, I think most of the information is in public domain wherein we are, of course, going ahead with what we have planned. With regards to competitors, I don't feel it is right of me to comment, but we know what is happening with the other two competitors, what is going on. So we do believe that as far as domestic capacities are concerned, in fact, there is a kind of a cutback in the earlier view where their overall capacities would have been higher, in fact. So the capacities are going to be actually lower based on whatever recent commentaries there from the three now players. As far as China is concerned, so my interesting information that I can give you is that even from Thailand, we do sell to China.
So in the sense that while China may have significant capacities, which you are right, and they are putting in even more capacities, there is certain markets in China for which certain kind of ABS is required where we are better equipped to produce and deliver. And we have been doing that in India as well. So a large part of the Indian market is in that segment. And we do believe that we will remain not only relevant, but we would have a leadership position in those segments going forward. So while imports always pose some kind of threat to the competitive intensity ecosystem, that will remain the case as it has remained even earlier. So competitive intensity has been from the Far East. I won't name specific countries, but there have been imports coming in from everywhere.
And in spite of that, we have been able to carve out our niche and position, and that will remain the case. So there is already overcapacity globally, but that's not today or tomorrow. It has been there for quite some time since we have taken over, in fact, or even before that. And in the context of that, I think we have still managed to increase our business. So that's something that I think we should be able to. As to mass ABS, again, I will refrain from commenting. I've already explained what I know about mass ABS. But as far as we are concerned, with all the auto approvals, we are already approved in almost all the auto companies. When we come up with new products as well, we are part of their qualification process.
We are part of their value addition process where they're looking at new materials, so it depends on, of course, specific grade, specific product, but there is a great deal of confidence in what the companies that we are working with have already in our ability to not only produce, deliver, but also kind of guarantee, not in terms of legally guarantee, but guarantee in terms of what the performance will be of the product from a long-term perspective, given the conditions that we have, say, in the Indian context, and our products are well proven, right, so we may enjoy a slightly shorter lead time also from that perspective, so there are many factors which play here in automotive, which are very critical in terms of equipment qualification, I mean, in terms of part qualification and consequently the raw material which is used for that part.
So again, validations can range anywhere from six months to two years, depending on the part, depending on the company, depending on the difficulty, or depending on the challenges associated with incorporating a new material in that part.
All right. No. And just one more clarification. So since you said that we are and we were aware that you have been onboarded with most of the OEMs, and you have been working with them for many years now. And they are very satisfied. So have you ever received a demand from their side to do mass ABS or any thoughts on that side?
No.
Okay.
Thank you.
Very reassuring. Thanks a lot. Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Santosh Keshri from SKK HUF. Please go ahead.
Thank you for giving me an opportunity. I just have one question. This is regarding borrowing level that we are seeing now in the balance sheet. So it is for capex, and I can also see that there's a reduction in the supplier credit or trade payables. So are we using this borrowing to pay off the creditors for a while, and then later on, we are going to use this for capex extension? If you can just clarify this.
I'll let CFO answer this question, Bhupesh?
Yeah. Sure, sure, sure. So first of all, regarding the loan positions, I think what you are mentioning is maybe INR 300 crores is not our loan. So we have roughly INR 120 crores of overall loans which we have. Plus, the another loan which we are mentioning is that is of the acquisition loan which is there. This is the non-long-term loan which is mentioned. So these are two separate loans. So one is for acquisition, one is for working capital. Second, regarding the creditor side, yes, the creditors have reduced, but the creditors have reduced because of some of the optimization of the buying patterns. Maybe it happens maybe some vessels come on 27th or come on 5th. So maybe on this particular 30th of September, these were paid. And maybe some goods in transit were also reduced.
So it has happened by chance, it is reduced by INR 180 crores, definitely in the standalone books. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dhaval Shah from Girik Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity again. So, sir, Bhupesh, can you just confirm? So we spent INR 75 crores in H1. And how much will be for H2 and next year and the year after? What is the roadmap?
Regarding the capex?
Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
We have not mentioned any figure up till now. What we had mentioned is that we will be spending roughly INR 350 crores for the phase one, which will be happening up till next year because it is not the spend is difficult to assess what we are doing because a lot of things are committed by raising some purchase orders or giving some advances. And a lot of payments are done after project is complete about because we have terms after successful completion, after three months we pay. So capex outflow is something different. Committed of PO is something different. And we are not mentioning those numbers because it is too complex to understand right now how much PO is given and how much this will be too complex. But as I also mentioned and MD has also mentioned, the capex plan as per schedule is going on.
Okay. As per the cash flow statement, INR 75 crore is towards insurance under investing activity. For the next six months, this is to understand how the debt on the balance sheet will move in relation to the Capex spend and the operating cash flow expected. Can you help me understand that?
Can you repeat it, please? Because you are referring standalone or the consolidated one?
Consolidated.
Okay. So these are the two different things because when you are talking about India capex, we should talk about the cash flow of the India standalone, correct? Which has INR 40 crores right now, what we have paid in this quarter. What was your question, sir? Again, can you repeat, please?
Yes. So on a consolidated basis, we spend INR 75 crores, right, in H1. So in the remaining part of the year, how much we will be spending? And on a consolidated level, what is the debt? I just missed the previous conversation with the participant regarding the debt on the books. So what is it right now, and how will that look up to next six months, up to March?
At the consolidated level, means maybe at Thailand, we will not be having more investments anywhere now because initially, we had some investments in terms of IT infrastructure and related things. We will not be having any capex. We don't have any capex plans for Thailand at present. It is not required also. In regards to India standalone, as I mentioned just now, the capex plan, which is there of INR 350 crore, which we will be spending up till next year, that will be continuing as such. As I mentioned, in India, it was INR 20 crore was the loan position, yeah? INR 20 crore. Up till now, whatever capex payments we have done, we have done from our internal accrual. There will be borrowing definitely in near future, looking to the requirements and all that.
But right now, it is not there up till 30th of September for any capex requirements separately.
Understood. So there's INR 350 crores. So how much have we spent out of that?
So as I told you, out of INR 350 crores, if you really see the spending, the overall spending in this capex plan for up till in these six months is INR 40 crore, yeah? But it's more dependent on how much purchase orders we have raised and how much we have committed to the vendors for those things. So all long lead items have already been placed with some advances and all that. And the cash outflow will flow after the projects also, depending upon the terms, what we are keeping as retention money for complete and good implementation of that project or particular equipment.
Okay. Because I thought this 40 will have some maintenance capex also for our existing capacities and yeah.
So you are correct. It will be there. So maybe last year also, in the last quarter, we had given some long lead item advances. So as I have been telling again and again, we are not publishing separate figures every quarter how we are spending on those things, yeah?
Correct. Correct.
Nobody can do that and does that also, correct? Yeah.
No, no. I just wanted a broader picture because for us, what matters next two, three years. Yeah.
The capex spend is for two years. We will do within those two.
So we'll be spending INR 350 crores entire capex till next phase one, which will be coming by H2 of FY 2027, as sir just mentioned, correct?
I didn't mention H2. I mentioned it will be in the next financial year between the middle to the last part of the year. We don't know exactly which month and which quarter, but it will happen next year sometime in the middle of the year.
Understood. Understood. Okay, sir. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Krunal Shah from Enam Investment . Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. And congratulations on the good number, I have three questions . One is, if you see there is an INR 85 crores increase in short-term debt in added entities, I just wanted some clarification as to why the debt was increased. Then the second question is on the working capital cycle. So where do you expect it to settle by FY 2026 end? And the third question is on the management bandwidth. What are the key three or four areas where your bandwidth is being occupied currently? Thank you.
Yeah, so Krunal Shah, thanks for the question. Yeah. I'll answer the first one, and so about the cash flow, yes, INR 90 crores has been utilized for the working capital. The requirement comes because we had built up some inventory. There are two reasons for that. First of all, we were trying to see whether the assets which we have bought can run at a full pace when it is required. You know right now, capacity utilization is not there, but we wanted to be sure about what happens when it does, so for two to three months, we have run and we have built up inventory, which will definitely be utilized for the future, and this is the main reason why working capital was required, and we have utilized that working capital, so going forward, when this all sales will be done slowly, and this requirement will come down. Yeah?
In terms of management bandwidth, Krunal, of course, there is a fair amount of project work which is going on in India. There are setup challenges when we are doing greenfield expansion within India. We want to ensure that we do a timely execution of these projects and bring up the capacities as and when required. That obviously takes up some amount of time. I won't give you exact percentages, but you'll get a sense of it. In terms of Thailand, of course, increasing sales there, ensuring that we are able to correctly leverage and position with a lot of the key customers in that region, which can also help us in India and vice versa, that is more effectively utilized in terms of the synergistic benefits is another area which has to be properly handled.
Again, in terms of executing in both the sides, wherever we are lacking in terms of capabilities, those have to be augmented, right? So we have done that in terms of the sales function. We have done that in terms of projects. And of course, in other areas like supply chain and R&D as well. So there is a lot of development happening, new products, new grades. So there is bandwidth which is required across these three or four, I think, critical areas where we are spending most of our time.
Great. Thank you .
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aditya Khetan from SMIFS. Please go ahead.
Thank you, sir, for the follow-up. Sir, my two questions are, first, on the Thailand acquisition. What was the headcount reduction, sir, we have done? Like we were highlighting, we have done some headcount reduction. Second, sir, what was the product mix in Thailand earlier and what it stands today? And continuing on this, sir, I believe we have mentioned earlier that we were having a 25% market share in Thailand. If you can, sir, give this number, like what was this in 2021, and how much has been the loss in market share today?
So we have not really had any headcount reduction in Thailand, Aditya. In fact, Thailand is a fairly lean operation in terms of headcount. We have only about 164 people in Thailand across all functions, which is a relatively lean structure. In fact, we have added some salespeople because earlier, our sales organization was different in terms of there was the INEOS global system, which was working as a sales organization, but we have added our own salespeople. Net net, in terms of the total cost to the company, there is no significant impact. There is some small reduction. In terms of product mix, there is no change because, again, we are not making polystyrene over there. We are only in ABS and SAN. So that product mix is very similar to what it was.
Of course, if you ask me what it was a few years ago, I don't have that data also because that is data which has not been necessarily shared by INEOS. We only know bits and pieces again. But there is no significant change from what I understand. In terms of market share in Thailand, what I meant is 25% of our sales actually go into Thailand. And that is also the same. Thailand itself is a larger market, and we have a smaller market share in Thailand than 25%. Maybe closer to like 10% of the Thailand market, which is also similar to what it is today. So we haven't really lost much market share, 10% loss in overall volumes. But that is kind of evenly spread between China, Thailand, all those places.
And that has been mostly on account of the transition that we have had from the INEOS brand to the local Indian brand, which is Absolac, which is now a global brand. So that transition has taken a little bit of time again because of validation. Even though if you look at the 4Ms between man, method, machine, and I'm forgetting the 4Ms , but anyway, between the 4Ms, all of them are essentially the same. But the brand has changed, right? So that has required some validation, and we are confident we'll get that business back as well. So overall, there has not been any significant loss, but yeah, 5%-10% market share has been lost on account of that transition, which we will recover.
Sir, so for this acquisition, have we added any new customer? And what has been our discussions with customers? Like, is it better compared to earlier? Like, what is the feedback from customers we are getting in terms of procurement of volumes and providing the continuing support? Is it better compared to earlier, or is it more or less the same?
We obviously have positive feedback from customers. We have positive engagement with customers. We have been able to retain, I said, a large part, like 90% of the business we have been able to retain, right? Which basically means there is some level of confidence that the customers have because they know the product is coming from the same plant, it's coming from the same set of people, all of that, with the same formulations and the same quality. We are maintaining that. And hence, we also don't want to make any too many sudden changes over there. We want to maintain that also our customers. And that also will bring about the confidence that we need to increase the market share. There is no difference.
But all those discussions, some of the new customers that we've also brought in, will have not really translated to very large volumes today, right? Which we can see in the numbers. But that will happen over a period of time. So again, like I said, this is a gradual process for which we need to give a little bit of time.
Sir, onto the Thailand plant, what is the outlook? When can we reach the peak utilization from the current plant? Two years, like five years, six years down the line?
Yeah, it will take some time. So again, we are not giving any forward-looking statements in India or in Thailand. And I will refrain from doing that. But like I mentioned, in the medium to long term, the capacity utilization will definitely be significantly higher from where we are today.
Got it. Thank you, sir.
Yeah.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Chintan Doshi for closing comments.
Yeah. Thank you everyone for taking time and showing interest in the company. And we look forward to answering you in the next investor call, which will be announced at a suitable time. Thank you.
On behalf of Styrenix Performance Materials Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.