Good day. Welcome to the UPL Limited Q3 FY 2023 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participants' lines will be in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Miss Radhika Arora. Thank you. Over to you, ma'am.
Thanks, Vikram. Good morning and good evening to everyone. Thanks for joining us today for the results for the quarter and nine months ending Decembe r 31st 2022. On this call, we will be referring to a presentation that is available on our website, and we take as having read the safe harbor statement. From the management team, we have with us today Group CEO, Jai Shroff; CEO of Global Crop Protection Business, Mike Frank; Group CFO, Rajendra Darak; Global CFO, Anand Vora; Supply Chain Officer, Raj Tiwari; CEO of Advanta business, Bhupen Dubey; and the Head of India Region, Ashish Dobhal. We will start with an overview from Jai and Mike and a financial update from Anand. With that, let me now hand it over to Jai. Over to you, Jai.
Thank you. Thank you, Radhika. Thank you. Good morning to everyone. UPL continues to deliver strong quarter three numbers, all within 21% of growth. The global crop protection platform grew 22%. Advanta Seeds business grew 31%, while the Indian AgTech platform, UPL SAS, remains flat despite unfavorable market dynamics in India. The Rabi season, however, looks promising for India. All over the three regions, the global crop protection business, except for Europe, reported double-digit growth, with America particularly witnessing strong traction, growing by almost 30%. In fact, in Europe as well, we grew the business 10% in EUR terms. The growth in Advanta Seeds was supported by both volume and price realization, primarily in sorghum, sunflower, and field corn.
I'm pleased to share that the minority stake sale in the Advanta Enterprises has been successfully completed. For the stake sale in UPL SAS, we received all approvals, and the entire process has been completed. We expect to receive investment from investors in UPL SAS in the fourth quarter. Lastly, one of the platforms, the specialty chemical business, is scaling rapidly. Over the last four years, we have grown this business revenue from INR 600 crores to INR 1,500 crores in 2022. So far during the last nine months of 2023, our specialty chemical business grow by 22% to over INR 1,250 crores. We believe that this platform will continue to grow at a 25% CAGR over the next three-five years to scale rapidly.
We are entering into new chemistry platform, expanding capacity for existing molecules, and operationalizing recently acquired Kudos Chemie manufacturing plant, among other initiatives. UPL is creating a unique platform of capabilities to create, cater to the growing Indian specialty chemical market demand as this market continues to grow in all sectors in India. On sustainability front, as most of you are aware, one of our key focuses areas has been to drive sustainable farming practices globally. It's heartening to see that UPL continues to be ranked number one agrochemical company in sustainable performance by Sustainalytics for the third year running. Finally, looking ahead to the fourth quarter, we are confident of continuing our growth momentum and ending the year on a strong footing. As stated earlier, we are confident of achieving committed reduction in net debt to $2 billion by March 2023.
On that note, I now hand over the floor to Mike, who will take you through the detailed overview of the global business performance. Over to you, Mike.
Thank you, Jai, and hello, everyone. I'm now pleased to share some highlights for our third quarter of fiscal year 2023. As you can see from our numbers, the team at UPL once again delivered strong performance despite a number of challenges across the agricultural landscape. At the core of our strategy, we are serving farmers and growers across the globe, bringing new technologies and services that help them improve productivity, reduce risk, and to grow the food and crops they produce more sustainably. To activate this strategy is our customer-centric and agile organization, our unique factory integration and supply chain excellence, all of which have constantly helped us deliver impressive performance quarter after quarter.
I'm very proud of the overall efforts and focus across our organization this past quarter. Moving to the financial results, our growth was driven by improved price realization across regions and strong overall demand, which was supported by constructive grain commodity prices. The key regions that drove the growth in this quarter were Latin America, North America, and India, each of which had strong growth versus last year in the same quarter. In fact, Latin America alone accounted for 54% of our total growth in revenue this quarter. Overall, our revenue has grown by 21% compared with the same quarter last year. Contribution margins are up by 20% and percent margins are about the same, which is at 42%. Our EBITDA grew by 14% on a year-on-year basis.
This was achieved despite significant and very specific investments we made in enhancing our customer relationships and farmer connections. These investments will provide us with the teams and capabilities we need to drive our differentiated and sustainable portfolio. Overall, we delivered strong EBITDA and net profit. Let us talk about performance of our regions in the quarter. In Latin America, we achieved 28% revenue growth. Brazil growth was especially impressive, driven primarily by insecticides and fungicides. Key insecticide products among those were Perito and Feroce, with higher volumes and price realization. Also in Brazil, our growth was supported by the ramp-up of fungicides such as Evolution, a new product for us, a fantastic fungicide and a key product in our differentiated offerings. For Mexico, growth was driven by fungicides and our Natural Plant Protection biosolutions business.
Growth in Argentina, despite challenging weather, was very good through our herbicide products. In North America, revenue grew by 30% in this quarter, driven by equal mix of improved pricing and growth in volumes being further supported by favorable exchange rate. Herbicides and our NPP sustainable solutions were key drivers for this growth. In Europe, our revenue grew by around 2% versus last year, impacted primarily by the euro devaluation, product bans, unfavorable weather, and ongoing conflict in the region. Despite such external challenges, we grew by an impressive 10% in the region in euro terms. Differentiated products with this overall growth in that region primarily through our insecticides and fungicide portfolios. In India, our strong Q3 growth of around 19% versus last year was largely driven by our seeds business at Advanta.
On crop protection, we were flat versus previous year due to unfavorable weather and overall high channel inventory leading to lower volumes. This impact was compensated through improved price realization. Going forward, Q4 in India is expected to be a strong quarter for us, driven by our sugarcane portfolio and fast-growing seed treatment segment. We also expect to see strong traction in volumes in our newly launched multi-crop fungicides and insecticides. In the rest of the world, our business was up around 12%, driven primarily by improved pricing despite high channel inventories in parts of Southeast Asia, and also unfavorable and specifically wet weather in several parts. Growth was primarily driven by insecticides in Southeast Asia, which was partly aided by the acquisition of PT Excel in Indonesia last year, as well as our herbicide business in Australia and New Zealand.
We remain committed, as Jai mentioned, to reimagining sustainability and also to mention and reiterate, as Jai mentioned, UPL was ranked number one in our industry for sustainability performance by Sustainalytics for the third year running, which is a fantastic recognition of the hard work and great work our teams are doing across the board. Before I hand over to Anand, our Global CFO, I would like to highlight that we are well-placed to deliver strong growth for the full year on the back of our very strong order book. We are therefore confident of delivering at the higher end of our FY23 guidance of 12%-15% revenue growth and 15%-18% EBITDA growth. Q3, as you can see, has been a successful quarter for us, wherein we continued to deliver growth following our strong first half performance.
Consequently, in the first nine months of FY 2023, we are focused on achieving overall quality growth with improved product mix and major pricing actions, which has enabled us to improve our margins and deliver robust 24% year-on-year growth in EBITDA. Going forward, as we look ahead to the fourth quarter, the demand for agrochemicals continues to be strong, especially in the Americas. Our pipeline for volume growth. Our pipeline for volume growth in Q4 is supported by our new differentiated launches, such as Evolution in Brazil and Preview in North America, plus several launches in India. While concerns related to crop protection product bans in Europe remain, we are well poised with our NPP biosolutions offerings there. We will continue to be diligent with SG&A spend despite being in an inflationary environment across various expense items.
Finally, I'd like to congratulate our team for their resilience, dedication, and unified focus in delivering such a strong performance this quarter. I'll now turn it over to Anand to take a deeper dive into the financial performance.
Thank you, Mike. A warm welcome to all of you who have joined us today. I'll begin by discussing the key financial highlights for the third quarter and the first nine months of the year, followed by an update on working capital and debt. We continued to deliver a strong performance in quarter three, with revenues growing by 21% year-on-year to INR 13,679 crores. This is in spite of the challenging environment we faced, marked by pricing pressure on few molecules, the unfavorable weather, and high channel inventory in some regions, including India, and the continuing geopolitical uncertainty in Europe. Most significantly, we also saw a strong year-on-year growth of 20% in contribution profits on the back of an improved product mix and rationalization of sales of low-margin products. The contribution margin for the quarter stood at around 43%.
EBITDA at INR 3,035 crores showed a growth of 14% over that of the previous year. The EBITDA margins for the quarter stood at 22.2% as we continue to invest in SG&A. The team is in line with our expectation of the guidance provided for the full year EBITDA growth. Net finance costs increased by 49% from INR 493 crores to INR 732 crores, with almost entire increase coming primarily due to significant rise in benchmark rates globally. We saw on a ballpark 400 basis point increase in benchmark rates in line with the increase in U.S. Treasury yields. The FX impact for the quarter was in line with that of the same quarter previous year, despite the decrease in cost of hedging during the quarter, largely driven by increasing benchmark interest rates.
Overall, the net profit for the quarter stood at INR 1,087 crores, showing a healthy 16% growth. Coming now to our first nine months performance. Revenue crossed the INR 37,000 crore mark, recording a growth of 22%, while the contribution profit grew by 24%. Contribution margin at 43% showed an improvement of 90 basis points over that of the previous year. Since the beginning of this fiscal, our emphasis has been on delivering quality growth with a better product mix and rationalization of sales of low-margin products. Besides, the cost pressures also led to higher pricing as is reflected in significant positive price mix over that of the previous year.
We expect to see healthy volume growth in Q4, with the prices now stabilizing around current levels, further supported by new product launches and strong demand in Americas and India, as alluded by Mike earlier. On the operating profit front, EBITDA rose sharply by 24% to INR 8,145 crores, with margins improving by 40 basis point to 22%. This is in line with the guidance provided for the full year. Net profit costs increased by 60%. Sorry, net finance costs increased by 60% to, from INR 1,231 crores - INR 1,980 crores of which almost INR 432 crores or about 58% increase coming primarily due to significant rise in benchmark interest rates.
We saw a ballpark 400 basis point increase in benchmark rates throughout the nine months over that of the U.S. Treasury yields. Effective tax rate for the first nine months stood at 11% and should be around the guided figure of 15% for the full financial year. We saw a robust expansion in our net profit, which was 24% higher at INR 2,777 crores for the first nine months. Our earnings per share for the same period grew by 26% at INR 35.1. Coming now to the working capital. Given the seasonality of our business, as most of you are aware, the working capital increases through the year, peaks in Q3, and decreases substantially in Q4. In addition to this, our inventory levels are higher primarily on account of. Excuse me.
Our inventory levels are higher primarily on account of our current decision to sell closer to the season and thereby offering more credit terms to improve the receivable days, also because of the strong demand in Q4 along with the uncertainties in supply chain. As a result of these factors, working capital days increased to 121 days at the end of December 2022, an increase of 13 days over that of the previous year. Considering the strong demand and push for low credit terms, we expect to end the year in line with the guidance of 70 - 80 days of net working capital.
What is important to call out here is that the first nine months of the current fiscal, the business generated cash flow of $636 million with the help of cash generated by business and additional net cash inflow of $59 million coming from the corporate realignment. As a result, we reduced our debt by $173 million sequentially to less than $3.3 billion as compared to September 2022 levels of $3.5 billion. On a year-on-year basis, this gives us confidence that we will of course, we are on course to reduce our net debt by $500 million and bring it down to $2 billion as guided as of March 31st 2023.
With this expected reduction in debt, the Net Debt to EBITDA ratio would stand below 1.4 x by the end of financial year. As regards the corporate realignment, which briefly Jai updated, the update is that as far as the realignment is concerned, we have closed the seeds business by transferring it to Advanta Enterprises Limited, effective December 1st, 2022. We also have bought out 22% of ADIA, TPG in the international seeds business and our other non-profit section business for $241 million. Post both these transactions, we are receiving a net inflow of $59 million. The pro forma numbers of Advanta Enterprises for the third quarter and nine months have been provided in the presentation on slide 14, for the next quarter onwards we shall be providing audited numbers.
Some key financials of Advanta Seeds for the third quarter are: revenue stood at INR 912 crores, reporting a robust growth of 31% over that of the previous year. While growth in EBITDA was much faster at 54% to reach INR 275 crores. EBITDA margins improved significantly by 460 basis points to 30%. On a year-on-year basis, Advanta delivered a strong performance, with revenue increasing by 31% to INR 2,736 crores, with EBITDA growth of 41% to INR 772 crores. Now give you an update on the realignment of UPL Sustainable Agri Solutions business. The state sale in UPL SAS is expected to be completed very soon, and we have already received the requisite approvals.
As stated earlier, the net inflow of $200 million on, the stakes on the sale of stake in UPL SAS will be used to retire the debt in Q4. With this, now I ask the operator to open up the floor for question and answers.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on your touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets when asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. To ask a question, please press star one now. We have our first question from Jiten Doshi from Enam Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening, Anand. My simple question is that are we expecting this $500 million debt reduction at the gross level or at the net level?
We're giving it at gross level.
Okay. We would say about INR 4,000 crore plus gross debt gets reduced.
Yeah. Of course, that will reflect in the net debt also.
Right. What would that translate into interest cost saving for the next year?
Roughly our average interest cost is about 7.5% in dollar terms.
Oh, it's very high.
Let's say about. Yeah. No, I think that's the best with LIBOR at almost 5%. We have the finest cost of borrowing compared to pretty much anybody in the industry.
Do you believe that our working capital cycle, you've got a good grip in, so this will now be an annual feature in terms of debt reduction?
We expect to... As you know, we have internally started several initiatives to bring down our working capital. As you are aware that we announced the joint venture with Bunge in Brazil as one way to go to the market, which will help us to bring down our working capital in Latin America. There are several other initiatives which we are taking internally to bring down the working capital. It's work in progress and we will continue to use the cash generated from business to reduce the debt.
Sure. Going forward, this is kind of going to be a recurring feature in terms of debt reduction.
Yeah. I mean, as you have seen, you know, you have been a long investor with us. Whenever we have surplus cash, we have used to reduce the debt. This happened in 2013 - 2015. For sure we will use whatever surplus cash we generate, we'll use to reduce the debt.
Okay. This means the balance sheet shrinks in terms of the ROC, we are not able to see the reflection. If there's a shrinkage in the balance sheet, then the real ROC of the business comes out.
It will, for sure. It will just, ... Yeah, it definitely that's how it will.
I think that the incentive, to manage working capital tighter when interest rates are higher. The whole industry as such is a much stronger incentive. When interest rates were near zero, there was no incentive for the industry to really tighten up credit because it was a much easier way for smaller companies also to give credit. W e believe that generally as interest rates become stronger, the industry will get much more disciplined because there is a real cost to giving longer credit terms.
In general, we believe that the cash flows and working capital for the whole industry will get tighter because the cost of capital is now real capital. Before it was nothing. You will see the whole industry tightening up, and we will benefit from that. Obviously working capital cycles will reduce.
Sure. This now becomes a trend. You know, on the contrary, it's very good because cash flow keeps on getting released.
That's right.
Okay. Wishing you all the best. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. We have next question from the line of S. Ramesh with Nirmal Bang Equities. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good evening and congratulations on the good numbers. My first thought is, when you look at the margin decline in the EBITDA margin, while you talked about increase in the revenue from sustainable and differentiated products, if you can throw some light in terms of how this has happened, because if you're looking at increase in the contribution from your higher margin products, the margin pressure shouldn't have been so much, 140 basis points. If you can shed some light on that, it will be useful. The second thought is, all the kind of trends you have in terms of the trend for commodity prices, and the excess inventory carryover, and the potential slowdown in the growth in volume.
Because the volume growth has been at a premium, although global companies are talking about, sustained strength in commodity prices. Is there any risk to your volume growth aspirations, say, in the next couple of quarters, given the volatility in weather? How do you read that over the next few quarters?
Yeah. Mike here, maybe I'll just take a first pass at this and Anand, you can make some comments as well. As you can see from a contribution margin standpoint, our margins are relatively flat at close to 42%. You know, I think based on the mix of our sales, you know, we're seeing very similar margins. Obviously, last year this time, feedstocks were going up. We were pricing into that marketplace, but we were also, you know, liquidating inventory a year ago that was at a lower, you know, average cost of goods. At this point in time, I mean, that was a benefit that we got last year that we, you know, we weren't able to enjoy this year.
Overall, we're quite pleased with our contribution margins at 42%. If you go down to EBITDA, as I mentioned, we made some significant investments in our customer relations, specifically in Q3. You know, these were customer events, farmer promotions, and we did that specifically to really benefit our business over the next several years. We made that investment. We think it was the right thing to do, but obviously it did have an impact on our EBITDA margins. Now, with respect to your second question, you know, from an inventory carryover standpoint, obviously, you know, we're gonna continue to de-inventory as we go through Q4. We're expecting strong volume growth in Q4.
As we commented a quarter ago, across the year, we're expecting mid-single-digit volume increase. We still have that expectation. You know, we are expecting a really strong volume growth in Q4. That will put us in a position where most of our inventory is fresh, at the right cost of goods, based on the durability of our supply chain. I think that sets us up quite going into FY 2024.
Maybe just on commodity prices, I mean, the good news in our business is the grain commodity prices, whether it be, you know, wheat or corn, soybeans or a lot of the major commodities, the commodity prices are remaining very strong, and that's having a solid impact on the demand side of the equation. We expect overall demand to stay strong. We're seeing it right now play out with soybeans in Brazil. In the near future, they're gonna be moving to spring in corn, where we would also expect to see higher spring in corn acres. Again, that'll create opportunities for us from an overall volume perspective. You know, at this point we see this setting up well.
I'll just follow up to that. Jai made some comments on your plans in specialty chemicals. Where is that reflected in your numbers? Is it something which you expect to contribute to your EBITDA and net profits in a meaningful manner, say, in the next two years? Where do you see that?
Yeah, that's a profitable business segment, and it's growing. As we said, we expect it to continue to grow. It will contribute to the EBITDA. As we start sharing more details, we will start disclosing segment by the report. You'll see that.
Yeah. Is it something like a custom synthesis business or is it more of a merchant sales with your key customers across the world? What are the kind of growth one can expect, say, in the next five years? What are the investments you need to make? That will give us a good perspective on that.
That business is, as we said, going to grow about 25% a year. We are constantly making investments. We expect to, you know, we've not disclosed the numbers of exact investment, but it's gonna be substantial.
Okay, thank you very much. I'll rejoin the queue.
Thank you. We have next question from the line of Vishnu Kumar from Spark Capital. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Thanks for the time, sir. In the press release you have highlighted that there is channel de-inventory taking place in certain markets. Any thoughts that you could just give on this particular point?
Yeah, sure. you know, if you think back over the last 24 months, you know, starting with COVID and then the conflict in Europe.
I'm sorry, there is a little issue. We're not able to hear your voice clearly. If you could probably come closer to the mic.
Okay. Yeah. On channel de-inventory, if you just go back in time over the last +24 months, you know, there was supply chain concerns. We did see manufacturers also build up inventories, but also at the distribution and retail level. You know, if you look at this, it's really probably a pretty much a global reality that distribution levels for Ag chemical products are a little bit higher than normal. In addition to that, obviously, as we talked about interest rates, those companies are also trying to manage their working capital. We do expect over the next two -t hree quarters, you know, some level of de-inventory back to normalized inventory levels.
When we look at our business and our products specifically, we've been very disciplined. You can see that in our volume growth on a year-to-date basis. We haven't been oversupplying the channel with our products. We believe that while we will have some headwinds, because this will be an industry-wide impact, in our portfolio, we'll be well-positioned, I think, versus some of the rest of the industry.
Do you expect the pace of this to further increase or we are just start of the de-inventory situation? The inventory destocking, is it starting or we expect it to quicken pace in the next couple of quarters?
Yeah, I think it can balance out within two - three quarters. We probably saw a little bit of it happening already in our Q3. As we came to December, we would expect it again to be a feature in Q4. Again, we have, you know, guided to a strong Q4. This will be an industry impact that we do expect it to play out over the next several quarters.
Understood. In terms of our growth, most of it has been pricing and obviously effects. I mean, we have taken commodities have gone up a lot in the first half, and our pricing has kind of caught up. Over the next couple of quarters, if the commodity, if the crude and other related commodities soften, should we see a price reversal next six, nine months? Do you see that as a trend or? Just your thoughts again on this.
Yeah. I mean, at this point in time, and maybe I'll have Raj from the supply chain perspective make a few comments. You know, we are seeing that overall feedstock costs have come down a little bit, but I would say they're generally stabilized at this point. Unless we see further decline in feedstocks, I wouldn't expect to see much much further price erosion. Raj, you wanna make some comments?
Well, I think you are right that, basically the prices are actually, you know, at a plus level today. Unless there is some significant, you know, development happening on the geopolitical scenario that the price is going to be at this level. Then from the quarter one onwards, when the demand starts picking up, then we feel that the prices may start going upwards. At the current level, they have bottomed out.
Okay. should we expect a double-digit pricing even in fourth quarter?
Yeah. I would say expectations we're gonna continue to see some price growth. It may not be in the double digits, but it'll be solid. I think what we'll see versus the first few quarters, more growth through volume. That's based on our order book and our sales plan. That's what we would expect to happen in Q4 .
Understood, sir. One last question on the debt. I think you see the final million reduction target. What would be the factoring or the receivables, I mean, if we have factored by end of March, rough understanding of what that number would be? Last year, I think March was INR 12,000 odd crores. How much would the number probably be by end of 2023?
You know, we show on there, as we had guided earlier, we try to peg it at about $1.6 billion. You could see some increase, although the increase will be lower than the growth in sales. Increase in our non-recourse factoring with all over last year would be lower than the increase in sales growth.
Okay. Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. We have next question from the line of Sonali Salgaonkar with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is just a bit on the clarification on the debt levels. As per your press release, currently as of December 2022, we have INR 275 billion of debt. That's about $3.3 billion. We are expecting to get that down to $2 billion by the end of March quarter. How much reduction are we expecting in Q4?
That's the data. That's close to $1.3 billion.
$1.3 billion. Okay. From a year-on-year basis, that's March 2022 - 2023, we are expecting $500 million of debt reduction. Is my understanding correct?
That's right.
I understand.
Yeah. What is the Net Debt to EBITDA target that you are targeting?
I think I said that in my commentary. It's going to be around 1.4x. If we deliver $2 billion of net debt, it should be in the range of 1.4x net debt to EBITDA.
Understand. Sir, and you also did mention in the initial comments that you are expanding capacities. In light of that, what is our CapEx guidance?
We guided for about INR 3,300 crores of CapEx, both tangible and intangible. We may end up with a little bit of less, but we are close to that level.
Got it. Sir, lastly, you did mention that there is some amount of high SG&A, as per your press release. Where should we expect the SG&A to settle down at or do you expect it to keep on increasing in the coming quarters, if you are wanting to, increase your brand visibility?
Sonali, we generally don't guide for SG&As. You know, we guide for the EBITDA and that's something which we focus on. We will deliver, as Mike alluded, we will deliver. We'll be on the higher side of our guidance for both say revenue as well as EBITDA growth.
Got it. Sir, just one last question from my side on the volume growth, which is this quarter has been almost flattish, that's 1% volume growth. With the channel destocking happening in Q4, how do you foresee the volumes?
As I mentioned, we are expecting a strong volume growth in Q4. Again, the way we work with our channel partners, we haven't loaded prematurely. In fact, if anything, we're trying to place the product closer to the sales window to help the entire [audio distortion]. As I said earlier, we do expect strong volume growth. I think based on our again, our order book and our relationships with our channel partners, we have the path to achieve that.
Got it, sir. Thank you very much and all the best.
Thank you. We'll take the last question from the line of Rohan Gupta from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Yeah, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, just continuation from the previous question on the volume growth. Generally, when we guide in the start of the year, we only factor primarily volume-led growth. Thankfully that this year our price-led growth has been very solid. That has helped. Otherwise, even on the district basis also we had roughly just flattish or on a nine-month just 2% kind of volume growth. In terms of this inventory destocking which you're talking about, do you see that it is across and, or we have lost market share or the market itself has been just flattish in the this year?
Yeah. You know, I would say from an overall POG or, a product that's sold on ground and put on ground by farmers, the market's probably slightly up this year in the, in the low single digits. Again, as we think about our volume that we're placing, where we're expecting on our year to be up about, you know, mid-single digits. We, we will maintain our share or maybe grow it a little bit, with respect to, product that's sold only to farmers and put on the ground. Again, we're being very disciplined in terms of the timing of our product, to our distributors and then working with them closely so that we can all manage our working capital. Yeah.
I would say, you know, we're very focused on not losing market share, but at the same time managing working capital and being very smart in terms of where we have opportunities to take price and margin. We are doing that as well.
Sir, to maintain our target or in guidance of a single-digit volume growth, if that all has to come from Q4, it means that we are looking a very solid or maybe high double-digit volume growth for Q4. Only probably single-digit volume growth should be possible for the entire year. Is that understanding right? That is one. If that's so, even if you're looking at double-digit volume growth, and we are on the other hand, we are also looking at the working capital or the overall debt reduction to come down by almost $1.3 billion. Even in Q4, the volume growth so is strong that is going to drive the revenue growth significantly.
On back of that, we are still looking at $1.3 billion debt reduction. Slightly contradictory in terms of understanding. If you can just give some explanation on this, it will be very helpful, sir.
Sure. You know, as we come through Q4, there are a lot of moving parts. We will be inventory at the UPL level. We will have solid volume growth in our sales. We also have by far our strongest month of collections. As Anand just mentioned earlier, we have some headroom from a factoring standpoint. All of those things will come together, help us manage working capital, help us reduce our debt, and again, I think, finish the year strong from a performance standpoint, but also set up our FY 2024.
Fine. Sir, just last question from my side. On a factoring, you mentioned that, looking at a target of close to $1.6 billion, slightly maintaining. I get your point that it will not be in line with the increasing sales increase, so it will be slightly less than that, but it still probably will be slightly higher than $1.6 billion. What is the factoring number, sir, right now when we end this quarter?
$1.1 billion.
$1.1 billion.
That's right.
Okay. We are looking close to the sort of $500 million kind of increase in factoring, that to support, release some working cash on the balance sheet. That is helpful, sir. Sir, if you can just give some further breakup of this factoring number, because we have been focusing on reducing the factoring from Brazil and moving to other markets. Some broad number in terms of share that, out of this $1 billion right now, how much share is from Brazil market and how much is from other world markets?
Brazil is about $450 million. The rest is global markets. We will peg it at around that level, and that's fine with me and in Brazil. The rest will be all in the global markets.
Okay. Thank you, sir. Thanks a lot for answering the question. Thank you.
Thank you. We take the last question from the line of Dhruv Muchhal from HDFC Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you so much. Sir, you mentioned about the excess inventory across the industry. At the same time, we are seeing that the technical prices from the Chinese market or from even Indian markets have started to come down. The combination of two, do you think this could be a cause of concern for the industry as a whole? Also, how is UPL positioned? This probably could be a near-term thing or a very short-term thing, but just wanted to understand the situation.
Yeah, very good question. Again, the way we manage our business and work with our channel partners, I think we're well positioned coming into Q4 and setting up for FY 2024. You know, I think if you look at, you'd have to look at it company by company. At the industry level, you know, I would not expect to see as strong growth across the industry coming into this next year. I think it's gonna be a tighter market. There will be some de-inventory. As you said, there'll be some price pressure coming out of the Chinese manufacturers, and so that'll have some impact industry-wide.
You know, I think again, from our perspective, we're focused on delivering a strong Q4 and getting set up for next year.
Sure. Probably, the second question was on the interest cost. Should we believe the Q3 interest number about INR 890 crores ex of the FX? I'm not sure what the FX amount there is. Should be the peak number from given all of the interest increase. I mean, I'm trying to understand, is the interest cost increase largely factored in in the Q3 number, or can there be further upside to this?
With the debt reduction plan for Q4, I think, this should be the peak at least on a quarter-over-quarter basis. We should see a reduction in interest costs as we move forward, purely because we are reducing the debt.
Okay. From an interest rate perspective is largely everything factored for in Q3 numbers or there's still some lag effect still remaining?
No, no. Everything is factored in.
All right. Perfect.
Yeah. I mean, LIBOR and SOFR we don't control. We will seek guidance from you on that.
We are as clueless as you, sir. Thank you so much. All the best. Thanks.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, everybody.
Thank you, sir. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Anand Vora for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. Thank you, everybody, for joining us on this call today. If you have any follow-up questions, you can reach out to Radhika Arora or you can reach out to me.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of UPL Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.