Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to UPL Limited Q2 FY 2024 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Radhika Arora. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you. Good day, everyone. Thanks for joining us today for the results for the quarter and half year ended 30 September 2023. The presentation, press release, and the financial statements have been made available on the website, and we take as having read the safe harbor statement. From the management team, we have with us today Vice Chairman Rajendra Darak, CEO of Global Crop Protection Business, Mike Frank, CFO, Anand Vora, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Raj Tiwari, Chief Commercial Officer, Farokh Hilloo , Mr. Bhupen Dubey and Ashish Dobhal , the CEOs of our Advanta business and UPL SAS respectively, and other members of the leadership team. With that, let me now hand it over to Anand.
Thank you, Radhika. A very warm welcome to all of you all. I'll begin by discussing the key financial highlights for the second quarter and first half in the thirtieth September, followed by an update on working capital and debt. The global agrochemical market continues to navigate through a difficult phase, impacted by the high channel inventories globally, as well as the elevated pricing pressure. In particular, the destocking exercise had a significant impact in the U.S. and Brazil, both being among our larger markets. Our second quarter performance, too, was impacted by these market-wide headwinds and erratic weather in certain markets, such as India and some other parts of Asia Pacific. As a consequence of these factors, our revenue for the second quarter were down by 19%. A large part of the decline was due to lower realization.
Having said that, we did see positive volume growth in our international crop protection business, which is quite encouraging given the current market scenario. The volume growth in the international business was driven by good performance of our high-margin, differentiated, and sustainable portfolio, which grew 9% year-on-year, led by strong volume, which were up by 17%. This is quite noteworthy amid the current industry downturn. The share of our differentiated and sustainable portfolio now represents 38% of the crop protection revenue at the group level, versus 30% in the previous year. At the consolidated level, contribution margins declined by 265 basis points to 39.9% in Q2. This compression in margin was due to liquidation of high-cost inventory, higher than usual sales return, and rebates to support the channel partners.
Considering the above factors as transitory, if one were to exclude its impact, the contribution margin for H1 would have been higher by approximately 300 basis points versus last year. Some of the above transitory factors are expected to continue in H2 as well. Led by the organization-wide cost reduction initiatives, our fixed overheads for Q2 came down by 3% versus last year. This reduction was achieved despite the FX translation impact of rupee depreciation against the dollar of 3%. As informed in the last quarter, our cost reduction initiative of $100 million to be delivered over the next two years is currently under execution, and we are on track to realize the cost savings of $50 million for this year. Bulk of the savings, this saving for this year will be realized in H2.
On the operating profitability front, we reported an EBITDA of INR 1,573 crores in Q2, representing a decline of 43% over that of the previous year, largely on account of double-digit drop in contribution profits. However, adjusting for the transitory factors impacting the contribution margin, the drop in EBITDA for Q2 and H1 would have been significantly lower. Before we move on to the items below the EBITDA, I would like to briefly touch upon the performance of two of our platforms, UPL SAS, the India Crop Protection platform, and Advanta, the Global Seeds platform. Advanta continued to see healthy growth in Q2, as revenues grew by 10% to INR 1,070 crores, INR 1,070 crores, and the contribution profit grew by 13% over that of the last year.
On the whole, for H1, Advanta delivered strong performance by 17% growth in revenue and 25% growth in contribution profit and EBITDA. Looking ahead, Advanta remains on track to achieve the FY 2024 guidance. Performance of the India crop protection business, UPL SAS, in Q2 was impacted by high channel inventory, erratic monsoon in August and September month, and higher than usual sales return, and also due to lower acreages for key crops such as cotton and pulses, which form a large part of UPL SAS revenue. Given the above headwinds, revenue contracted by 36% in Q2 versus last year, while EBITDA declined by 88%. However, led by new launches, a strong proprietary product portfolio for the Rabi crop and lower sales return, the performance of UPL SAS in H2 will be much better than that of H1.
Coming now to the financial cost, net cost, net finance costs rose by 18% due to significant increase in interest costs on borrowings. This increase in borrowing costs was mainly driven by the benchmark rates rising by 400 basis points year-on-year. The benchmark reference rate there is that of SOFR, which, as you all know, is a replacement to the LIBOR rates. The average cost of borrowing for the quarter stood at approximately 7% per annum. FX loss for the quarter, that is the foreign exchange loss for the quarter, was INR 229 crores, largely in line with Q1.
The FX loss is mainly attributable to the hedging costs of balance sheet exposure in Brazil and the significant currency devaluation in certain countries such as Argentina, Russia, and Turkey, where the cost of hedge was significantly higher, making unviable to hedge these currencies. Losses from associates and JV rose by approximately INR 175 crore versus that of last year. This was primarily on account of significant decline in profitability at Sinagro, one of our associate companies in Brazil, given the severe downturn in this, severe market downturn in this region. The exception costs for the quarter largely included one-time severance payments, which were required to be paid as per regulations in certain countries. Overall, the decline in EBITDA, combined with higher finance costs.
Losses from the associates and other sister concerns and exceptional items resulted in a net loss after minority interest of INR 189 crores for the quarter and INR 23 crores for H1. On working capital front, the working capital days increased by 25 days year-on-year to 149 days. The increase is primarily on account of sharp drop in payables and reduction in factoring. Payable days were down, were much lower versus them of the last year due to the reduced manufacturing activity in H1. Overall, we are expecting the working capital cycle to normalize in H2, ending the year with a working capital of around 65 days, which is in line with that of the previous year.
To give an update, our net debt increased by $197 million versus last year due to decline in factoring, which was lower by $86 million, and also due to increase in working capital, given the lower payments. The payments were down by $526 million versus the same last year. Going forward, as we look ahead to the second half of the year, we are confident of delivering progressively much improved profitability in H2. Given the adverse transitory impact of the inventory repricing adjustments in H1 and the expected impact in H2, the guidance for the full year has now been revised to flattish revenue growth for that of the previous year, and EBITDA is expected to be in the range of flat to -5% versus that of the previous year.
On the balance sheet front, considering the revenue and the EBITDA impact, we are taking initiatives to improve the cash flow, which will allow us to reduce our gross debt by $500 million by end of the year. Some of the initiatives that we propose to take to reduce the gross debt are: slowing down on our CapEx, which is expected to be lower by $50 million versus that of the previous year, using the existing cash reserves of $200 million to pay down the debt, to pay down the gross debt, and the improved cash generation from operations in H2 should help us to reduce the gross debt by about $500 million by the end of this financial year.
With that, I would like to hand over the call to Mike, who will take us through the performance of the international crop protection business in greater detail. Over to you, Mike.
Thank you, Anand, and hello, everyone. As highlighted by Anand, we've been facing a tough market environment over the last few quarters. While agchem demand at farm gate remains strong, the global agrochemical industry continues to go through a challenging phase. Specifically, there's been a significant price decline versus last year for most post-patent products, and distributor destocking has occurred in virtually every geography, especially material in Brazil, North America, and Europe. Despite this, I'm pleased to highlight that we've increased our market share with overall higher Q2 volumes this year, demonstrating our portfolio strength and our commercial strategy. Moving to results, our second quarter revenue and margins were negatively impacted by price declines in every region, higher cost inventory liquidation as compared to our current replacement costs, as well as sales returns and rebates that we use to support our channel partners.
Among key products, herbicides, such as glufosinate, glyphosate, clethodim, and S-metolachlor, especially in North America and Brazil, accounted for 70% of our total quarterly revenue decline. Among other regions, Europe continued to face challenges due to channel inventory and product bans. Overall, in Q2, our revenue dropped by about 20%, while contribution was down approximately 30% and margin compression of 470 basis points. The EBITDA for the same period declined 56% year-on-year. However, if you adjust for one-time impacts, as highlighted earlier, our contribution margin is up about 100 basis points versus Q2 of last year, which augurs well as we refresh our inventory and the market starts to normalize. Further, I'm happy to share that we've grown our differentiated and sustainable segment by 9% through strong volume increase. The growth has come via newer products such as Evolution and Feroce.
This has also resulted in improved product mix from 27% differentiated and sustainable revenue last year to 36% in this quarter. Additionally, our NPP Biosolutions has grown by 12% in U.S. dollar terms to higher volumes, along with improved margins on a quarter-over-quarter basis, and we expect this strong NPP Biosolutions performance to continue for the rest of the year. Let us now look at the performance of our regions in Q2. In Latin America, our revenue was down by 20% due to significant price decline. Brazil was especially affected due to market degrowth with high channel inventory-related challenges, specifically in herbicides. Key AIs impacted were glyphosate, clethodim, and glufosinate. However, outside of Brazil, the rest of Latin America had volume-based growth across our portfolios.
In North America, herbicides continue to face challenges due to a sharp decline in AI prices, along with channel destocking and tactical purchases by distributors. Herbicides, including glufosinate, S-metolachlor, and clethodim, accounted for about 75% of total revenue decline, driven by lower volumes as well as pricing pressure. We expect the channel inventory to normalize in the U.S. by mid-calendar year 2024. In Europe, revenues declined by 8% in Q2 versus last year due to continued channel inventory destocking and product bans. Among major portfolios, herbicides and insecticides were most impacted. That said, we expect upsides in NPP Biosolutions and in herbicide volumes in H2, leading to an overall, overall recovery in the Europe region. The rest of the world was marginally up by about 2% in Q2, led by very strong volume growth, across this rest-of-the-world region, specifically in parts of Asia and Africa.
Moving forward, we anticipate Q3 to remain weaker than last year due to continued channel destocking, specifically in Brazil, and the price reset in the post-patent segment across geographies. Overall, we expect channel inventory normalization as we come through the second half of the year. On the pricing front, most post-patent AIs seem to have bottomed out in Q2, and we expect them to stabilize at or slightly above this level for the remainder of the year. Overall, we are executing well in this challenging market and making changes in our operating model and cost structure that will further improve our business quality going forward. Finally, we are confident of an improved second half performance versus the first half of the year, as key regions such as North America, Latin America, and Europe enter into their major cropping seasons.
As mentioned earlier, the high channel inventory is expected to subside in the next, in the next six months to eight months, with farm gate demand remaining strong throughout this year. As part of our overhead reduction actions, we are on track to reduce approximately $100 million over the next two years, with major savings this year starting to accelerate from October. We are confident of delivering at least 50% of total savings this year. With the above actions and stronger volumes, we foresee our EBITDA growing in the second half of the financial year. With this, we'll now open it up for a question- and- answer session.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask questions 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 questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Siddharth Gadekar from Equirus . Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, everyone. I just have. My first question was on the glufosinate side. So how should we look at the North America market, given that BASF has launched L-glufosinate, in terms of incremental realization growth and volumes? And secondly, how do we plan to utilize our assets, given the kind of overcapacity that has been created in glufosinate because of L-glufosinate?
Yeah. Hi, Siddharth. Thanks for the question. As I mentioned in my comments, you know, glufosinate has been one of the challenging AIs this year, as the price has come down significantly in this segment. Now, as well as that, though, our costs have also come down. So the way I think about this from a FY 2024 standpoint is this is really a year where we're, you know, rightsizing the amount of glufosinate that we're producing. We've adjusted the price in the marketplace in North America. We've taken our price down significantly to be very competitive in the marketplace. And so we expect that overall, with these lower prices of glufosinate, that we will likely see some level of volume increase just from a price elasticity standpoint.
We are set to take advantage of that as we enter into this next season. So you know, I think the glufosinate business will, you know, be challenged throughout this year. But as we get into next year, you know, I would expect it to improve. From an L-glufosinate standpoint, we don't expect, outside of China, for there to be much L-glufosinate sold this year. And so in North America, this is still gonna be a straight glufosinate business that we're participating in.
Okay. So, got it. And secondly, in terms of our net debt, how should we look at our net debt numbers now going into the fourth quarter? Or is it too early to give any guidance on the net debt numbers?
Hi. Anand here, Siddharth.
Hi, sir.
Yeah. So Siddharth, our net debt, as I mentioned in my commentary, we are looking at reducing at a gross level of at least $500 million as compared to that as of 31st March , 2023. So, largely, as I mentioned, this should come out of improved performance of H2, because whatever we have seen the buildup of debt in order to finance our working capital in H1, as well as to partly fund some of the small losses. We expect much better performance in H2, so there should be better EBITDA realization in H2.
At the same time, we are looking at, you know, as we had mentioned, given the guidance for sales to be flattish by the end of the year, and if we are maintaining our number of days of working capital at 65 days, we don't see any incremental funds required to fund working capital. With the overall cost base coming down, we, we expect some release out of working capital also. That's the second aspect. And third is we are looking at various other items of working capital, largely the loans and advances and other aspects, to see how we can further augment our cash flows.
These are some of the factors, some of the components of cash items which we are looking at, which would help to bring down the gross debt by about $500 million by end of this financial year.
In that, our factoring will be similar to last year?
As of now, we have guided for the same at about $1.4 billion levels. But, we, you know, we are evaluating various options. If we reduce factoring, then probably, to that extent, there could be a replacement by short-term borrowings. But, let's, let's for a moment assume factoring to be at the same level as $1.4 billion.
Okay, so thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Saurabh Jain from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity. Given that we have revised down our revenue and EBITDA guidance, I think it implies almost like an 18% YoY growth in the second half on the revenues, and also almost like 28%-30% growth on the EBITDA. So, do you think that you know, so you earlier alluded to the fact that, you know, North America, Europe, Latin, the high inventory is likely to subside only over the next six months to eight months, but on a very gradual basis. And the second half is a more of, you know, Latin and North American, Europe heavy seasons.
You know, can you help us understand, at 18% revenue growth, does it look like more ambitious and this kind of growth, would it already be, you know, visible in the third quarter, or it'd be more like a fourth quarter loaded growth?
Yeah, sure. Good. Yeah, absolutely, Saurabh, thanks for the question. You know, as I mentioned earlier, we, we are expecting volume growth in Q3, but, you know, overall, on a Q over Q basis, we still don't expect Q3 to, to exceed Q3 of last year. Now, when we get to Q4, obviously we're starting the new calendar year and, you know, I think a lot of the destocking is gonna be behind us. And in Europe and, and Latin America and U.S., distributors are gonna be stocking up for the upcoming season, and so we would expect very strong volume growth to come back in, in our Q4. We don't expect prices to, strengthen, but we also expect to see you know, strong performance out of our differentiated and sustainable portfolio.
And so all of that into the mix would mean that we are expecting, you know, both revenue growth and EBITDA growth in our Q4 over the Q4 of last year.
Okay. And this also implies like an EBITDA margins of more than 21%. Reaching those kind of margins, do you see that kind of possibility? Because these are more like some sort of normalized margins that we have done historically also. So these kind of margins, you know, I understand you have the cost saving plan, but it does not add up too much on the profitability. So, you know, can there be- can you explain some sort of, you know, drivers to this, you know, too much of a good performance on the profitability as well? That can be helpful.
Yeah. And so I think there's two things to take into consideration on that, Saurabh. You know, firstly, the cost reduction program will deliver, you know, in the range of $50 million of SG&A savings, and so that will have a positive impact. And then secondly, as we get into Q4 in particular, we're also gonna be selling fresher inventory. You know, as the price reset happened out of China, you know, for the first two quarters of this year and partly into Q3, we're still liquidating higher cost inventory, you know, relative to our current replacement cost. And so when we get into Q4, we're also gonna see the benefit of that lower cost inventory, and that'll help expand our margins as well.
So yeah, so all of those taken into account, we would expect to see strong EBITDA margin growth in Q4 as well.
Okay, that is helpful. One last question, a little question I have with this. Is the high cost inventory liquidation, that is largely done, or are we still carrying some high cost inventory with us on the books?
Yeah, it's not completely behind us. We're still liquidating some of that high cost inventory. You know, our feed, our feed stocks really started to come down in the first quarter of the year. Raj, maybe you can say a few more words about that, but we'll continue to be liquidating our inventory. I mean, if you think back to it, we started the year, you know, with about just around 100 days of inventory. So a lot of that has been liquidated, but we're gonna continue to liquidate it as we go through Q3 in particular. Raj, do you wanna make some comments on that as well?
No, Mike, you absolutely explained rightly, so yeah, nothing more to add.
Okay, thanks, Raj.
Okay, thank you so much. I'll join back the queue.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Damodaran from Acuitas Capital . Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. I hope, I hope I'm audible.
Yeah, go ahead.
Yeah, just one question from my side. Most of my other questions have been answered. So, on a credit trading side, one of the rating agencies, Fitch, has put you on negative watch, and one of the triggers that they have for downgrade is achieving net debt to EBITDA of 3.5 by FY 2024. And the lower end of your EBITDA guidance kind of puts you at a very close range for that. So how confident are you of meeting your credit rating? Yeah, that's the only question from my side.
Thanks, Damodaran. This is Anand here. So we, as I mentioned, you know, we are working towards the reduction of gross debt, about $500 million. And, this is, clearly, you know, we have identified a few areas where we will work on to see how we can reduce this by about $500 million. Clearly for us also, it's important, and that senior management is committed to ensure that we retain our investment grade rating. And, we are in touch with Fitch, as well as Moody's and S&P.
Considering the overall industry dynamics and the headwinds that the industry is facing, but we feel fairly confident that we should be able to reduce our gross debt by about $500 million and thereby meet the rating agency's requirements.
Sure. Great. That's all from my side.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sanjeev Pandiya from Lancers Impex . Please go ahead.
Sanjeev, you may go ahead with the question.
Yeah. Can you hear me?
Yes, please go ahead.
So could you give us some qualitative comments on your relative standing as far as the other global integrated producers are concerned, particularly, let's say, FMC, Adama, et cetera? As the market reflects back, we might see higher market shares come from those who are projecting higher volumes, but somebody has to lose out. So what kind of player do you think will lose out, and why? I mean, will capital cost, will factoring cost, will debt play an important role? And could we, you know, could we see different attitudes by the banks towards which of the weaker players?
Yeah, Sanjeev, maybe I'll take a first shot at that. So look, I think if you divide our portfolio in, you know, the two big segments, firstly, on the post-patent side, you know, our volume increases and our share gain in that market is primarily gonna come versus the Chinese producers. And so, you know, in that segment, it's - we're not as much head-to-head against the other global companies that you're referring to. And so, yeah, I think the market share will come from the Chinese producers, you know, based on our portfolio and our superior market access. You know, in our differentiated and sustainable business, again, that's -- today, it's a smaller part of our business.
And so I think from a material standpoint, you know, while we are gaining share, as you saw in the results, our volumes were up in that segment 17%, this quarter. And so, you know, based on the destocking, we're definitely gaining share in that segment. But again, based on the size of it, you know, I don't think we're taking market share necessarily from one specific player. And so, yeah, I don't, I don't think about it in those terms, in terms of having material impact on any, on any specific, you know, other global producer.
Thank you.
All right. Thanks, Sanjeev.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aditya Khemka from InCred Portfolio Management . Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Just two questions. Firstly, you know, on the call, you said that you might get some off-patent market share from the Chinese players, and currently, the pricing from the Chinese players has been extremely aggressive. So what is it that leads you to believe that they will get lesser aggressive, or will we get more competitive, you know, in the next few quarters? And how would you win the market share back? If you could just sort of elaborate on that a little bit. The second question I have is on the debt. So obviously, you know, we are guiding for a $500 million gross debt reduction. What would that translate to in terms of net debt reduction?
So other than using our cash reserves, how much cash would we or do we plan to use from operations to reduce debt? Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So let me take the first-
Go ahead.
Yeah, I'll take the first part of that question. And again, I think it's a, it's somewhat of a continuation from the last question we got. You know, if you think back over the last several years, we've made significant investments in getting closer to growers and getting market access. And so in virtually every market, with maybe the exception being China, of course, you know, we would have superior market access versus our competitors in China. And so it'll be that leverage, that access, the strength of our portfolio, that we'll use to compete aggressively in the marketplace.
Of course, you know, in addition to that, in most of our active ingredients that we're based in, we also still have a cost competitive advantage versus our competitors in China. And so we'll be, you know, we'll continue to be aggressive in the marketplace to, you know, allow us to run our plants at capacity, you know, leverage that cost position, and then use our market access to compete and ultimately gain share. So that's really the strategy in our post-patent segment. You know, on top of that, as part of our cost management and our operating efficiency, we're also really looking at how do we lean out our overall go-to-market approach in our post-patent segment.
And so by doing that, it also allows us ultimately to be more competitive in the marketplace. And so I think all of this kind of comes together, and it's proving out this year on a year-to-date basis where, you know, we believe we're gaining share in the marketplace, and we clearly saw that in Q2 with volume increase across the board. Anand, I'll let you take the second part of the question.
Yeah. So Aditya, on the second part of the question, I think if one has to look at last year, that's financially 2023, in H2, we generated close to about $1.2 billion of cash from September to March. And as you would know, Q4 for last year was not. We didn't give that good result. So considering this year, H2, we do believe that the improved performance and other things, we should be able to generate a bit more cash flows from considering normalized operations in H2 like of the previous years. We do believe that we should be able to generate a bit more than $1.2 billion of Free Cash Flows or the cash flows to pay off the debt.
Besides that, if you see last year, we had cash balance of about $700 million. We certainly are looking at releasing at least $200 million-$225 million out of that, which would further help us to bring down the gross debt. Addition to that, as I mentioned earlier, we are looking at reducing, as, slowing down our pace of CapEx, and from the guided CapEx spend of about $300 million-$325 million, we are looking at least reducing it by at least $50 million. So that is the other piece which we are looking at. We certainly be slowing down on our M&A pieces activity.
In addition to that, we, we are, as I said, that we are looking at each and every item of a balance sheet and seeing how we can release some of the cash, which may be stuck in either, you know, taxes or VAP and other associated other items of current assets. So these are some of the initiatives that we are looking at to see, to deliver this $500 million debt, gross debt reduction and, thereby, ensure that, you know, we retain our investment grade rating, at the same time, keep our balance sheet strong despite the difficult year.
Thanks for your responses, gentlemen. All the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Varun Ahuja from BlackRock . Please go ahead.
Hi, management. Thanks so much. I think most of my questions have been answered. Just one, you know, getting a bit more detail on the gross debt reduction of $500 million. I'm just trying to understand how you're managing the debt reduction from the higher, you know, from the perspective of higher working capital usage. So whether the debt reduction is gonna come from, you know, freeing up some of the bank lines so that you can have greater flexibility for your working capital usage, or whether you are looking at some opportunistic long-term debt reduction, you know, including the publicly traded debt, which can effectively, you know, reduce debt much faster than the amount of debt that you can buy back. So that'll be my first question.
And then secondly, if you can throw some light on the underutilized revolver lines that you may have through the banks and the cost of funding for the same? Thank you.
Sure. No, so I think it's going to be a mix of both long-term and short-term debt, which we'll be looking at repayment. As you know, we have certain bonds which are outstanding. We also have the acquisition loan, which of course, some of them we have now swapped them into sustainability loan. But the benefit which we have with these loans is that they can be repaid at a short notice, so that gives us the flexibility. And thirdly, of course, is the bank lines, which we have.
Clearly, we will be using the cash generated to pay off the expensive debt, and which could be a mix of both the long-term debts, as, I mean, the bonds as well as the loans which we have, which are long term. We will use a mix of both this. At this stage, you know, I think since this is not just con- affect, this, the current situation is industry phenomena, where every player in the industry has been impacted. I'm sure you would have seen the guidances coming from companies like FMC, as well as by Corteva and some of the other players. We do believe that this is transitory in nature. Things should improve as we move forward.
So at this stage, we continue to have almost all the bank lines which we had last year. Almost all banks, in fact, we are getting more lines from the bank. That's not a challenge as far as we are concerned. Most of the banks are supportive, and they understand the industry dynamics. So at this stage, all the lines which we had, which you are referring to as the revolver lines, they continue to be available to us.
Thank you. I guess the question on, underutilized lines, the quantum, if you can guide, and also if I can include in another one. I do understand, you mentioning that, you know, you're committed to the IG rating, have spoken to agencies and all that, but I'm curious that, you know, why is IG rating that important? Because the sense I have is you don't have any line that would be linked, like bank line, that should be linked to a rating. So I think, wouldn't you, at this point in time, which is where, you know, the business environment is a bit tough, wouldn't you think about also balancing the shareholder returns, versus just kind of maintaining the IG rating? So I'm curious how you're thinking about that. Thank you.
Well, I think, of course, shareholders' returns are equally important, and we have been, you know, we declared the dividends even this year. And those were paid, so small shareholders were taken care of. We do believe that maintaining investment grade would be something which also the investors, whether be equity or debt, would look at it, because that does help to bring in some level of governance, better governance as in, especially from a financial management point of view. And it's, as the entire senior management, we do feel committed, having got the IG rating, to maintain the IG rating, while we continue to improve the performance.
As well as both in terms of debt returns, as well as returns to the debt investors, as well as to the equity investors. I think, for us, both equity investor returns are equally important, but maintaining the IG is also something which we would like to retain.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Tarang Agrawal from Old Bridge Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. A couple of questions from my side. The first one, what's the absolute volume of inventory that the business would be sitting on as on 30th September 2023, versus 30th September 2022?
Yeah. Tarang, the absolute inventory, it's there in the slide, but I'll repeat it for you. It's about INR 18,246 crore as of 30th September 2023, and in the previous year it was INR 19,457 crore.
No, I understand that, but prices have come off significantly, so that's why I referred to the volume of inventory.
Raj, you want to take that? I think it's about 10% higher, but Raj, go ahead.
Yeah. In terms of volume, it would be about $50 million-$60 million more as compared to last year.
In percentage terms, that would be?
Okay, I would have to check in terms of percentage terms, how much it would be. But it would be around 10% higher. I mean, roughly around, you know, around that number.
Okay. And second, given how, you know, I just wanted to see how conservative are you or what is the probability for you to meet your guidance, of a flat revenue growth for FY 2024 as things stand today? And if that were to be the case, you're essentially looking at a sharp volume-led growth in H2, over the H2 of the same period last year.
Mike, would you take that?
Yeah. So maybe... Yeah, look, I think Farokh, I'll let Farokh talk about it from a global commercial perspective, and Ashish to give some light on that question from an India perspective, too.
Ashish, you want to go? Yeah. Yeah.
Let Farokh, like you said.
H2 is going to be volume-led.
Yeah. From an India perspective, you know, you know, this is right. I think H2 is going to be volume-led. H2 also is a more stable, you know, half for us, because we have wheat, you know, where we have a very strong portfolio. And I think wheat, I think the degrees of weather are relatively less. With that, we also have chili, you know, where also we are better. Cumin, again, is a crop which is not too dependent on rain. So I think we have a very stable H2. And, you know, this is definitely led by volume growth of our, you know, post-patent products.
Also, we have four new launches coming up in H2, you know, which is also as well.
Yeah. Thanks, Ashish. From a global standpoint, I think there are a couple of points that gets us to think that we would be reasonably well high on the working side of it in H2. That's primarily because our H1, we have seen that customers across geographies have been extremely reluctant and slow in filling up whatever they have used in the first half. The second thing that drives us to feel that the volumes would be in our favor is when we are looking at the major geographies, let's say North America, Brazil, Latin America, we are also noticing that the planting, wherever it has happened, has happened at the same acreage of last year, or maybe in certain geographies, slightly more.
So the agriculture across the globe is pretty supportive, except for a few countries like Mike spoke about in the initial stages, like where there is a bit of a drought, and that's a challenge. But if you look at the major geographies, I think they are all good as far as the acreages of the crop circumstances. So these are the two factors where we feel that, you know, and the farmers, the growers are going to use the material sooner or later, the distributors will stock up again. They might not stock with the same drive and gusto that they have been doing in the past, but they would definitely need to do that.
That's the reason why we feel a little optimistic on the volumes maintenance.
Okay, thanks, Farokh and Ashish . Well, maybe I'll just add one more perspective on that. You know, and so if you look at specific markets like North America, you know, our volume degrowth year to date has been very significant, as distributors and retailers, you know, wanna put inventory into their warehouses much closer to the season versus in advance of the season, which they've been doing the last few years. And so, again, I just think when you look at the fundamentals and you recognize that grower demand continues to be strong, eventually, you know, we're gonna see a new, order pattern, which we believe is gonna start playing out in Q3, especially in our Q4 and into Q1 and Q2 of next year.
So I think just the order patterns are pushing back, which is why we have a lot of confidence that we're gonna see the volume growth we're expecting in the second half of the year.
Okay. That's
Tarang, your voice is breaking. We can't hear you.
Am I audible right now? How audible?
Yes. Sorry, we can't hear you very well.
Okay, now.
We'll move to the next question. The next question is from the line of Vishnu Kumar from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Very good evening, and thanks for your time. So you, you, the competition, FMC and Corteva, have mentioned that Brazil market specifically seems to be a bit of a challenge, for the, for their, for their fourth quarter, and highlighted certain issues. Now, where are we seeing the market, specifically on Brazil? Because for us, for second half, Brazil is a very key market.
Yeah. Are you asking on the global level or?
Yeah, the global. I mean, other companies are highlighting, in fact, one of the key reasons they are downgrading numbers, apart from the inventory destocking, also talking about a very negative view on Brazil. So, are we differing or we still think there's an opportunity there? Just to understand what we are differently seeing there?
Yeah. Okay. No, thank you for the question. Well, so firstly, as you may know, Brazil's right now in their planting season for, you know, for soybeans, their big crop. And we are expecting to see a record area planted this year, around 45.5 million hectares or in that range. And, you know, and so far, at least in the south part of the country, and, you know, the rains have actually been higher than normal. And, you know, the weather in the central to north of the country, you know, it is near normal. And so we're expecting to see a very strong demand for herbicides, insecticides and fungicides to go over the top of that crop. And some of that inventory is already sitting in distribution, but some of that will also come in season.
Yeah, so we're optimistic that as growers start using crop protection products for this upcoming season, there will be a demand pull from distributors back to suppliers like UPL. You know, that's why if you look at our Latin America business overall, our volumes are up this year, and so we've got a very strong portfolio. Some of our new products, like I mentioned, Feroce and Evolution, are performing very well and gaining market share in both the insecticide and fungicide market. So we expect that to continue as the year plays out. Yeah, that's why we're optimistic, you know, generally for the opportunity in Brazil through the rest of this year.
Understood. So if, if I look at your absolute inventory over the last two, three quarters, we have been consistently going up, versus the other global companies have either been flat or lower. Is it partly because we have opportunistically bought a lot of stock, and when we place the product in the market, we will probably be cheaper versus our competition? Is that the reason why our inventories relatively are higher, and that's where some of the second half confidence comes, because our pricing may be lower than the others? If you could help us understand on this. Because our inventory positioning, it seems to be slightly different versus the others.
Yeah. Well, firstly, we started from a much lower position. So if you look at where we started on April first, we were in a much lower inventory position than, you know, the rest of the industry combined. So and then secondly, the second half of our business, or sorry, the second half of our year, is a much larger year. And so we build inventory as per our production and demand plans to service that larger second half of the year. So that's why our inventories are higher this year. It's normal in terms of the cycle, where we start the year low and we build inventories through the first half to be able to service the second half of the year.
Now, as we come through Q4, we would expect again to see our inventories reduce to, you know, similar levels to what we had from a days standpoint, days of inventory, to what we had at the end of March last year.
And I think, Raj, you know, you know, Raj here. In fact, you know, Mike, as you alluded, our y ou know, we started the year with the probably lowest inventory in the industry. We were at $1.7 billion.
And even today, you know, our inventory is lower than last year's inventory. Of course, in terms of value, in terms of volume, our inventory is slightly higher, but we are prepared for a much bigger H2, and that's gonna help us then.
Understood. But in terms of taking the hit on either the distributor inventory, the reduction in pricing at the distributor level or at our level, is it like, can we say that most of the pain is already taken, or we still expect that the Brazilian season is going to start? Or specifically in those particular markets, we still have some conversation with our distributor spending, so there could be some one-off events where we would still have to take the hit on the distributor inventory and our inventory there. And why not take it fully, and write it off in 2Q itself?
Yeah. No, that's, that's a good question. So where, where we have certainty in terms of negotiations that have concluded, we, we have taken a provision, and so we are set for that and, and we've taken that pain in, in Q2. That being said, we do expect to see some more negotiations, you know, play out through the second half. So as, just as you said, a lot of it is behind us, probably not all of it. So as we continue to work with our, you know, key distributor customers, specifically in North America and Brazil, we could still see some impact in the second half, but that's yet to be negotiated.
Understood. One final question, if I might. You mentioned that there is a slightly differentiated way in pharma is approaching more in terms of just in time. This obviously puts pressure more on the larger companies like us. Is this model going to be forever, or it's just a two, three quarter window where we see the farmers or, rather, the end-of-line distributors will order more just in time and have lesser inventory with them, or this is just a transitory window for the just-in-time model?
Yeah. So I think if you, if you look back at the last couple years, you know, with the supply chain challenges coming through COVID and, and the Ukraine war, you know, distributors-- And at that time, interest rates were also much lower than they are today. So distributors were pleased to fill up their warehouses, and they weren't thinking about just in time. You know, now we're on the other side of that, where interest rates obviously are higher, and so everyone's trying to manage their working capital, including distributors. And there's less strain on supply chains, and so, you know, I think the assumption distributors have is that they can order in season, like you're saying, just in time, and get products.
Now, historically, that comes with some risk, because if you suddenly get a disease outbreak or an insect outbreak, then if the distributor can't you know have the product available for the farmer customer, then they can lose an opportunity. So look, I think the pendulum is probably swinging a little bit too hard towards this just in time idea, and eventually it'll come back to you know likely where we were kind of pre-COVID, where distributors traditionally try and end the season with you know anywhere from 20%-30% ending inventory. I think that's where we'll get back to, but right now they're trying to run it a bit more leaner than that.
Understood. Thanks, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohan from Nuvama . Please go ahead.
Hi, there. Good evening, and thanks for the opportunity. Just a couple of questions. First is on our performance in India versus other global markets. We are seeing quite a contradictory performance, where the global companies have seen a huge volume degrowth. Our UPL Corporation, which is representation of global markets, have actually grown by 1% in volume terms. All the impact on top line is mainly price-led. However, in India market, you have seen a volume lost by almost as high as 27%, which is quite contradictory, given that domestic markets have done reasonably well in the formulation market. Until then, unless we are not too much in B2B. If you can just give some explanation towards this.
Yeah. Yeah, thanks for the question. I think, this is Ashish here. And so, so I think as compared to the global markets, you know, it's a very, very, very interesting question. The structure of the India market is very different. I think it's a B2C kind of a business, where we are the market leader, and I think even for some of the post-patent products, the kind of, You know, we, we sort of set the benchmark in terms of prices. So you would see our price correction in India is way less as compared to the global markets, because, you know, it is, you know, in India, the, the price that, that we would set, the competition remains, you know, 5%, 6%, 10%, below, below that, thing.
So I think in India, this whole, you know, the way prices play out and is very, very different from the, from, from more B2B structures. So in India, even, you know, our B2B business, the small portion of B2B business we have has grown big. But, you know, we have tried to make sure that we have not lost too much in terms of prices. So our price variance, you know, has been relatively less as compared to our volume variance. Because we are pretty sure that as and when this higher price inventories, you know, sort of liquidated, we would again then, you know, come back into business.
So because, you know, if we reduce the, you know, for most of the post-patent brands that we have, the only option for the competitor is to, you know, reduce it further. So I think it's a lose-lose game, and we have played it slightly differently as compared to the global markets. Now you would see the impact of that in Q3, where India has a very different commentary as compared to global in terms of Q3. I think starting from October, we would start see an uptrend in most of the products for the India business.
But actually, the volume degrowth of 27%, I actually didn't get the explanation.
Yeah. I think that there are two, three other factors for that. One was that in India, you know, our strongholds are, you know, cotton. Because India industry is a big, you know, cotton is a big part of the Indian industry, I think cotton is our w e are the leading company in cotton. The other product, you know, the other crop where we are leading is a segment on summer pulses. That's a segment that, you know, we had created in the last three, four years. I think, you know, what happened in both these crops is that in cotton, also our stronghold was north, and in north, you know, you would have all heard about, you know, would have heard about pink bollworm.
Because of the pink bollworm, that particular segment where we were market leaders went down big time. I think overall, the cotton segment in north was big time. It grew in the west, but west is relatively low chemical usage. Similarly for pulses in the March, April, sorry, in the April, May, June, you know, the whole pulse segment, green gram and you know black gram segment, which is there in MP, Maharashtra, North Karnataka, was totally washed off because of the drought conditions and after that, flood conditions. So I think that's the segment which we lost big time. You know, we got a lot of returns because of that. The third piece, of course, is, you know, glufosinate. You know, we were the only players till last year.
We, you know, this year we had 13 generic-14 generic entrants in glufosinate, so we did lose volumes on glufosinate, but that's once again because we've tried to maintain a price parity and not started competing in terms of prices. We will, you know, once again see the impact now as the, you know, the inventories have been washed off. We'll start seeing the impact of volumes rising again. Because that initial impact, you know, each company in India would have some loyal distributors and they do place some product there. But, you know, purely in terms of the brand equity that we have, we will start seeing the impact of now glufosinate going, our brands going up once again in the third quarter and the fourth quarter.
Because for the generic entrant, just to come in India and start straightaway selling the brand is not easy at all. So we have incurred pain in the first half because of a very, very weak cotton, a very, very very weak pulses, where we have absolute leadership positions and the glufosinate generic entries of 13 companies-14 companies, which initially they were able to place some, but you know we feel that they've not been able to liquidate you know all these products. And that sort of also explains you know some of the indifferent results that we would have as compared to some of the other companies, because we are you know we are a little bit of a cotton and a pulses heavy company.
As compared to that, a rice company, a company having a bigger portfolio in rice would, you know, apparently look a little bit better.
Your presentation, sir, also mentioned that, you know, in domestic market further, where EBITDA margins have come down from almost 20% - 12%. You mentioned that it is all mainly led by the inventory write down. If it would not have been there, then our contribution margins would have only been 100, 100 basis points lower. So, I mean, it seems that roughly close to as much as INR 200 crore-INR 220 crore rupees kind of markdown or inventory write down you have taken. Do you see that there is still any scope for inventory write down, or it's all over and the raw material prices have started going up? So what kind of inventories we are sitting, and can we expect some kind of margin gain here?
The inventory evaluation only has been INR 100 crore, is what we reported, not INR 200 crores.
Okay. So just a second. Next question is on our, debt numbers. So, Anand, sir, during your giving the earlier, answer to earlier question. Sir, can you repeat the net debt number? I mean, after $500 million, I understand that you mentioned $300 million will be basically cash reduction. So net debt repayment only will be $200 million? Can you just clarify that?
No, no. We are talking of gross debt reduction. And, as I said, $200 million, we had a $700 million cash sitting as of 31st March 2023.
And this we said we will bring it down to $500 million. So about $200 million of that cash will be used to pay off the gross debt. Basically, what we are trying to say is that we, what we are saying is that we will reduce our gross debt by $500 million, which should flow down to the net debt reduction also.
Net debt reduction will be $300 million, actually?
To that, yes. To that extent, it, yeah, if you were to reduce your right from $500 million to $700 million to $500 million.
Okay.
And out of that $50 million we are talking about, we have reduced from the CapEx number, and balance will be primarily coming from the working capital reduction, because we are looking no growth in full year, and a very small amount can come from the Free Cash Flow generation in second half. But largely, it's the working capital reduction only which we are still aiming to reduce $300 million net debt.
No, I mean, if you look at what we are talking about, the numbers, you know, with a very good robust H2, you should see some good cash realization coming out of H2, besides the working capital also. The margin improvement, the volume growth, which we are talking about, all those things, you know, Mike also alluded upon that we are selling more of differentiated and sustainable products, which are better margin products. So all those factors should bring in additional, the higher EBITDA, which we refer to as somebody's, you know, made a hallmark estimate of 21%-23% EBITDA, for H2. So that should generate additional cash, which should help us to also pay off the debt.
There are several things we are working on, and this should help us to bring down our gross debt by $500 million, what we are aiming to achieve.
Fine, sir. Just one further clarification. We are talking about $100 million cost reduction as well. Of that, roughly, you are looking $50 million to be achieved this year?
That's right.
Okay. Out of that, only first half, I think we have only seen some $8 million-$9 million of reduction. So-
You know, we started-
Second half.
We announced this initiative at the end of quarter one. The execution has begun. As we said, we have taken the initial steps, and we have $9 million already coming by end of Q2, and we should see large part of this coming in H2.
Oh, fine, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijit Akella from Kotak Securities. . Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for taking my question. Just, with regard to the outlook for the second half of, you know, fiscal 2024, region-wise, if you could, you know, please just share your perspective on which regions you would expect to show year-over-year growth, you know, out of your portfolio?
Yeah, so.
Just for the second half of the year. My apologies. Just for the second half of the year.
For the second half.
Yeah. So I, I would say on the second half of the year, we'd expect growth in every region, with potentially the exception of, the North America region. So, again, yeah, so across Latin America, as we said earlier, I mean, our performance in Brazil in the first half was down. In the rest of Latin America, it was actually up in the first half of the year, and so we've got really good momentum, and so we would expect that to continue. Europe, you know, had a, a generally a good start to the year, but as we see, volumes get pushed to the second half, we'll be able to participate in that, and so that should, should benefit us on a, a year-over-year basis.
In the rest of the world, again, we've got very good momentum, strong volume growth on a year-to-date basis. You know, the only things that are concerning right now are really kind of some dry conditions in parts of Australia and parts of Southeast Asia. But you know, overall, we would expect growth in that region as well for the second half of the year. North America, we would expect Q3 to be, you know, somewhat similar to Q3 of last year. And then Q4, again, because of the price erosion that we've seen in the market and with our portfolio, in particular in North America, I think Q4 will be a challenging quarter just on a comparative basis, and so we may not see growth in North America in Q4.
Got it. That's very helpful. Thank you so much. And just one other thing I was hoping to understand. You know, you expect destocking to continue for another six to eight months, as you mentioned at the beginning of the call. And yet, you know, in the second half of this financial year, we're expecting strong volume growth for ourselves. So I'm just sort of trying to reconcile those two statements and see how they might tie in together. Thank you so much.
Yeah, that's, that's a good question. So look, I think for the most part, in a lot of regions, the destocking is mostly behind us. That would be true in the rest of the world region. It would be true in most parts of Latin America, with the exception of Brazil. We think it's largely true in Europe by this point in time. So I think it really still comes then down to some more destocking that we would expect to see as the year plays out in Brazil and in North America. I think, again, it's almost on an active ingredient by active ingredient basis, and so, you know, it's really hard to look at it even across the entire marketplace.
But when we look at our portfolio and the products that are critical to us, we would expect in North America, in particular, to see the inventorying have some impact through the next six to eight months. In Brazil, we're hoping that the impact of, of the inventorying is, is largely behind us by the end of this fiscal year. So again, it's a little bit on a, on a product-by-product and market-by-market basis.
Understood. Thank you so much, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nitin Agarwal from DAM Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the question. Mike, I just one question. You know, again, when you look through the next few quarters, at what stage do you see the industry or, and for, for the matter, our portfolio starting to get into positive, you know, value growth from a, from a pricing perspective?
Good. I think that's a good question, Farokh. Our Chief Commercial Officer, do you wanna take a first stab at that?
Yeah, I can, Mike. Thank you very much. Well, I think, like, like we have, we have had several rounds of discussion internally, and, and really, like in one of the meetings also, Jai also had mentioned that we should now accept the fact that this is really the new normal. And, we, we would expect the volumes to grow, we would expect the business to grow, but the prices might improve, marginally, but they are definitely not going anywhere close to the prices of 2021 and 2022 that we had, we had seen. Because there is so much of excess capacity that has come up in China, that, we, we...
And it's really a lopsided balance at this particular point of time as far as economics is concerned. We have got so much more capacities versus the demand globally. So the prices are not going to go up anytime soon, but we expect the business to show an improvement. That's more or less from my side.
If you can sort of expand that a little further, I mean, the fact that we're looking for the environment, but we will not be getting pricing growth, what implication does it have for the gross margin trajectory for the business?
Well, I think the gross margins would come back, come back to where it was earlier, for the simple reason is that, we are also seeing the compression on, the raw material, prices. The cost of raw materials have also come down, so our overall manufacturing cost has come down. So we do not see a compression on, margins going forward. We expect that to expand to the, to the normal state that it was earlier. But, but, you know, it's not - the prices are not going to go to, to the levels that they were.
Thanks. Thank you, very helpful. And if you can squeeze in one more. You know, on the interest cost, now interest cost is a portion of our EBITDA as a much higher component than they used to be, say a couple of years back, even after the, even the post-acquisition period. I mean, how are we looking at, you know, that interest cost component versus in reducing the salience of that on our EBITDA?
I mean, sorry, within interest costs is... I mean, you're saying interest cost as a percentage to EBITDA?
Yeah, it's become a much larger component than it used to be earlier.
I mean, listen, I mean, yeah, we do expect... you know, until last year, interest costs were average 4%, and we saw that so far going up. So, while we continuously have been reducing debt, if you see last year also, we reduced by $400 million. We are looking at the reduction of this year also by $500 million. So, and, you know, looking at where the interest rates are, and from what we are seeing from global, from what we are hearing from the Fed and various other central banks, we don't seem to think that, or we don't seem to believe that the interest rates would come down in a hurry. So the only way to bring it down is to reduce your debt.
As you see, we have also taken up the initiative to reduce our debt by about $500 million at the gross level. So that seems to be the only way at this juncture to bring down our interest costs, which is by reducing the debt. We do try to get better credit terms on our purchases of raw material, considering the size of operation that we run today. But these are some of the few tools which are available to us. We are not very much in favor of structured products and other things because one way or the other, they eventually turn out to be much more expensive. So, keeping it simple, we are looking at reducing our gross debt to bring down our interest costs.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We have the last question from the line of Mark Tan from Sawdust Investments. Please go ahead.
Hey, hey, management. Thank you very much for the call. Just two questions from me. The first question is with regards to your gross debt reduction. Given that you mentioned that the rates environment has caused the interest costs to be quite high, would it be fair to say that your gross debt reduction is largely under floating rate loans? What do you think about the USD bonds and the perpetuals? That's the first question. The second question is, can you elaborate a bit more on the factoring situation? Because I think first half, the factorized amount has come down. From the call earlier, you also mentioned that you expect your working capital to be stable, but potentially you might reduce a bit of the factoring.
So just wondering, can you comment a bit about the receivables quality or the factoring cost, and why, why are you choosing to factor less instead of factoring more to improve your cash flow? That's the two question. Thank you.
Sorry, I didn't get the first question, Mark. If you can repeat the first question? I didn't understand.
So gross debt reduction, would you fair to say that it's targeting those floating rate loans, or would you actually be looking to buy back some of the USD bonds as well? That, that's the first question.
Yeah, I mean, we look at what is the, you know. Listen, diversion of the bond, I mean, the buying back of the bonds requires a, you know, procedure to be followed, where we have to announce, as a part of our liquidity management, to announce and give a fair chance to all the bondholders to this. And it's a process which can be a bit lengthy process. As compared to that, the loans, which today, you know, as you see, the bonds are, you know, at a fixed LIBOR rate, and we have issued it, and the cost of it is much lower, whereas the loans are at a more expensive rate because they're linked to the LIBOR, and we can repay it whenever we want.
So, that prepayment option is available to us, so we would evaluate both and see what is best, you know, possible, considering also the tenure of the bonds as well as the loan tenure. So that's something which we will look at and decide based on the cash flow generation as to what should be paid off. That's one. Two is, you know, again, that doesn't mean we are ruling out paying off the bonds. Second is, on your point on the non-recourse securitization, that tool is always available to us. We have the banking limits in place for non-recourse securitization. However, you know, as you know, the rating agency considers that it as a debt, and therefore, we...
And that's, again, a short-term debt, so we would look at the options on to see whether we borrow on working capital if we can get it cheaper, which is really for a very short term, vis-à-vis the non-recourse securitization. Although our preference is for non-recourse securitization because it also takes care of our credit risk of our customers. So that's a preferred option for us. However, since the rating agencies consider that as a short-term debt and adds up to our overall borrowings, we remain indifferent, and whatever is best and what helps us to release the maximum cash flows, we'll use those tools available to us.
Are you able to share on the factoring cost, on you can't really share that number?
No, it's the same, about 150 basis points-200 basis points above SOFR. So these are SOFR-linked, non-recourse securitization,
Okay.
Leads which we have at our disposal. Some of the banks do charge us similar rates for short-term borrowings also.
I assume it's quite comparable to your short-term borrowings. Okay. That's all the question for me. Thank you very much for the briefing.
Yeah. The additional thing is you get your risk covered, so that's, that's the additional benefit of non-recourse securitization. Okay, thank you. Since this is the last question, thank you very much, all of you all, for joining us on this call. If there's any follow-up questions to be asked, please, please reach out to Radhika Arora or myself, and we will be happy to provide you the whatever information as well as the necessary answers. Thank you once again for joining us. On behalf of all the management, thank you once again for joining us on this call today.
Thank you very much. On behalf of UPL Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect your lines.