Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the GE T&D India Limited fourth quarter ended 31st March 2022 for the financial year 2021-2022 conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Suneel Mishra, Head of Investor Relations, GE T&D India Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Mikey. Good day to all of you. Welcome to today's conference call with the GE T&D India Limited management team. This conference call has been organized to present and discuss audited financial results for the fourth quarter and the financial year ended on 31st March 2022. Now let me first introduce my management team available on this call. We have with us Mr. Pitamber Shivnani, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. We have with us Mr. Sushil Kumar, CFO cum whole-time Director. We have with us Mr. Sandeep Zanzaria, who is our Commercial Leader. We have with us Mr. Mariasundaram Antony, who is the Projects Business Leader. We have Mr. Manoj Prasad Singh, who is the Company Secretary. We have with us Mr. Anshul Madaan, who is our Communication Leader. Please note that this conference call is scheduled up to 5:30 p.m.
I hope you would have received the analyst presentation, and the same has been uploaded on our website. I hope you have also read the disclaimer as per slide number two. I would now request Mr. Pitamber Shivnani to begin this conference call highlighting key events of the quarter and the year. Thereafter, Mr. Mariasundaram Antony updating us on operations. Then Mr. Sandeep Zanzaria will take us through the order book and the T&D grid market. Lastly, Mr. Sushil Kumar will present the financials. I now invite Mr. Shivnani to begin the conference with his opening words. Over to Mr. Shivnani.
Thank you, Suneel. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Thanks to everyone for joining us today. We hope you and your families are healthy and safe. 2021 wasn't an easy year for us, majorly because of two reasons. First, the continued impact of COVID-19, and second, its contribution to supply chain disruption and commodity inflation. Just when we thought the pandemic was behind us, the second wave of COVID hit us hard in 2021. However, even during those turbulent times, our teams kept on delivering, and for that, I would like to thank our employees who have been tirelessly delivering for our customers and have been supporting them through their greatest challenges. I continue to be grateful to their extraordinary commitments.
Before we share the company's update with you, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Johan Bindele, who has been appointed as a Director to the Board of GE T&D India Limited with effect from first of June 2022. He has filled the casual vacancy caused due to resignation of Rajendra Iyer. Johan has more than 25 years of experience in energy industry, which includes leading large projects in India, Nepal, Sudan, Switzerland, and the U.S. In his current role at GE, Johan leads grid integration and AC system teams at GE's Grid Solutions and manages a global team of 2,000 employees spread across over 50 countries. Coming back to the company's update, during the year, we contributed to demonstrate our operational excellence by commissioning 21 AIS and GIS substations, strengthening the national transmission network and adding new capacity into the grid.
This includes commissioning of 765 kV gas-insulated substation for PGCIL at Phagi in Rajasthan. This project is a major milestone for the company, given the complexities related to terrain and weather involved. We have Mariasundaram, our ACS leader, with us today. He will share further project updates with you. After the slow start to the financial year 2021-2022, when the opportunities started to unfold in the market, the competition got brutally intensified, pushing many companies to pick orders on a low margin. However, we continued to stay selective in order booking and kept our focus on long-term profitability. On financial front, our overall performance was primarily impacted due to steep increase in commodity prices. We stayed focused on cash and reduced borrowings. Sandeep and Sushil will cover the orders and financials in detail shortly. Lean continues to drive culture change in the company.
We are continuously working to reduce our costs wherever possible. Our teams are acting with humility and leading with transparency, and delivering with focus at every turn, and are doing their best to deliver favorable results. GE T&D continues to play a critical role in solving for the challenges related to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy to meet India's increasing energy demand, which is expected to double over the next 20 years, and support customers in achieving their net zero emission. This includes breakthrough automation technologies as well as equipment and software that builds a more efficient and resilient grid. As a leader in innovation of modern grid solutions, we will continue to work closely with government and our customers to implement solutions that will help India accelerate in its energy transition journey.
This week, we are participating in DistribuELEC 2022, organized by IEEMA in Bangalore from 25th to 27th May. You can follow the updates from the companies as well as IEEMA's social media handles. As of March 2022 end, we have an order backlog of over INR 27.2 billion. With that, I will request Maria to provide further insight on the operations during the quarter. Over to you, Maria.
Thank you. Thank you, Pitambar. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure to really walk you through the operations in terms of the commissioning which we did during the quarter. We continue to make strides in terms of delivering on the evacuation infrastructure, which is critical for our customers. I would like to walk you through some of the major critical commissioning which we did during the quarter. I will kind of walk you through across the different regions within the country, as well as within the South Asia region. Talking about north region, I think we commissioned HPPTCL Himachal Pradesh. Hatkoti, I think this was commissioning of our 220 kV GIS based in Hatkoti.
We have had significant engagement with HPPTCL, and this is definitely one of the continued progress in that area. Second, I would say on the north, another region which was HMEL Bathinda. I think HMEL Bathinda, we commissioned 400 kV 12 GIS bays along with the transformers. This is also another important, I think, reference milestone for us in terms of delivering for our oil and gas customers in the region. Then we also on the north, additionally, we also commissioned the Adani Mohindergarh substation in Haryana, where we actually did the commissioning of the Dhanora line 1 GIS bay and line 2 AIS bay for 400 kV series reactor.
This is an important technology, and definitely we are very proud to be playing an important role in this technology for our substations in the country. With respect to the region east, I think east region, we commissioned three substations in the east, WBSETCL, West Bengal, Manbazar, where we did the full commissioning of the 132 kV 6 GIS bays and 33 kV 15 GIS bays, along with transformers. We also commissioned in Odisha, Hirakud Substation commissioning, where we commissioned 132 kV GIS bays and 33 kV GIS bays, along with transformers. Our continued progress in Bhutan continues to be there. We actually commissioned the BPC Samtse link. Phase one, charging of our transformers along with the distribution panels. We continue to make progress in Bhutan with respect to our execution there.
Specifically on the West region, we had one major substation, GETCO, for our customers in Gujarat. GETCO Shapar, very big substation where we commissioned our 400 kV 12 bays of GIS and 220 kV 15 GIS bays. Then on the South, we had done the Thoothukudi. Power Grid Corporation of India Limited, Thoothukudi Substation, commissioning of the Thoothukudi Substation, where we had 400 kV 2 bays as well as 220 kV 2 GIS bays extension. We continue to make progress, I think, in terms of delivering on the energy transition for the region by setting up the critical evacuation infrastructure for our customers. It was definitely a busy quarter for us in that respect. With that, I hand it over to Sandeep to walk through the order journey for GE T&D India Limited.
Over to you, Sandeep.
Thanks, Maria. If you look at the order book side, it was comparatively a muted quarter, and the overall year was down by about 5% as compared to 2021. The TBCB opportunities which were there, only very few got materialized during the quarter, and we have been able to take some of them. Otherwise, the pipeline has primarily getting shifted, and we expect now the next year to be a very heavy TBCB year. The market looks to be much better. If you really look at last year, the lower market comparatively and the price
Price pressures and cost challenges. As Pitambar has said that we decided to go for selective orders only. The quarter, we were down by about 10% quarter-over-quarter, and for the year we were down by about 5%. The major achievements were from ReNew. They have done two TBCB projects, so this is the second project which we have taken from them for constructing the Gadag substation. Of course, on GIS side, strengthening our position in Gujarat, we have taken the 400 kV and three substations of 245 kV from SMS. That's strengthening our position in terms of install base in Gujarat. From KPTCL, we took the automation package of LDB relays across the various substations to supply and retrofitting the automation in the existing substations.
ADMS control centers, Tata, as you know, that have acquired the Odisha DISCOM, and now they are going for normalization. The ADMS control center for the Odisha DISCOM has been won by GE T&D India. The IT and telecom equipment packages for Manipur has also been won by us. Apart from that, we have won multiple export orders to the tune of INR 125 crore or INR 124.1 million. I now hand over to Sushil for the financial updates.
Thanks, Sandeep. Moving to financials on page six of the presentation. Our results for the quarter are quite subdued. The year and the quarter was quite challenging. In terms of revenue, we did about INR 662 crore of revenue, compared to INR 904 crore in the last year same quarter.
This was mainly due to the phasing of the projects and lower backlog in hand. Similarly, on a 12-month basis, we did a revenue of INR 3,066 crore, which was 11% lower than INR 3,452 crore that we had in the last year. In terms of profit before tax and exceptional item, the quarter number was a loss of INR 145 crore compared to a profit of INR 45 crore, INR 49 crore in the last year. On an annual basis, we had INR 180 crore of loss before exceptional item, compared to INR 85 crore of gain in the corresponding last year. Including the exceptional item, we had a loss of INR 35 crores compared to a profit of INR 27 crore in the quarter four.
Whereas on a full year basis, we had a loss of about INR 70 crore compared to INR 89 crore of profit in the last year. During the year, we have further consolidated and improved our financial liquidity. We generated about INR 80 crore of net cash, which helped us in the reduction of net debt by INR 80 crore. End of the year, 2022, sorry, we had a net debt of about INR 81 crore. Moving to page seven of the presentation. This is a detail about the split of orders and revenue and backlog. As now we have started presenting in every quarterly update. During the quarter, we booked about INR 550 crore of orders, of which, INR 124 crore of orders from the export market, and about INR 425 crore of orders from the domestic market.
Whereas on a financial year basis, we booked about INR 2,166 crore of orders, of which, INR 700 crore were export orders, representing 32%, and balance, 68% of orders were from domestic market. On the revenue front, on the quarter, we had INR 663 crore of revenue, of which 32% was from export and 68% of the revenue from the domestic market. Similarly, on a full year financial basis, the export revenue came at around 27%, that is INR 819 crore. Rest 73% of the INR 3,066 crore of revenue was from the domestic market. End of the financial year, we have a backlog of INR 37 billion , of which 61% is from the private segment customers.
About 18% of the backlog, representing INR 6,661 crore, is from the central utilities and public sector undertaking. The balance, about 21%, is from the state utility. With these financial updates, we will now open up for the questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question answer session. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on your touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have the first question from the line of Bhavin Vithlani from SBI Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is on the gross margins, wherein we saw an all-time low of about 14%, raw material to sales increase to 86%.
Like we highlighted, in the third quarter, there was some one-off provisions which we took in terms of loss orders of 7% of revenues. Was there something of similar sort in this quarter because of the increase in the commodity prices?
Yes, Bhavin. Unfortunately, the commodity prices moved further up during the quarter. This quarter, actually we have two significant items in the gross margin, which basically brought the gross margin to a low level of 14%. The first one being the commodity price increase. Overall, we had about INR 34-INR 35 crore of further commodity price impact. The second being, during the quarter, for one of the contract, we had reassessed the cost to complete due to the change in the technical and other requirements of the project. That had about INR 55 crore of impact in the P&L for the quarter. These are the two major exceptional or maybe you can say a significant charge for the quarter that we had. On the commodity prices, last couple of days there have been announcements by the government.
The one being on the GST, the second being the export of the commodities. We hope that with these, the commodity prices will either stabilize or will soften up in the subsequent quarter.
Sure. Had these impact not been there, what could have been our gross margins in the quarter?
These two items that I mentioned are about INR 90 crore, roughly INR 90 crore. There may be another, let's say INR 15-INR 20 crore of other impact on various projects. We had about more than INR 100 crore of impact during the quarter on various projects, mainly these two reasons and few other reasons. If these INR 100 crore, let's say broadly I take on a revenue of INR 662 crore, this represents 15% as a hit on the gross margin. Excluding these items or these charges during the quarter, our gross profit would have been in the range of 29%-30%.
Sure. Could we expect that this trend of 29%-30% would then come in from the next quarter onwards, assuming commodity prices remain as is where is today?
As we have been communicating in all previous calls and today also, generally when we take an order, we talk about selectivity. We are not very aggressive in taking orders at any competitive condition, because over the last couple of years, we have seen these bumpy conditions not being favorable to the supplier or to our company impacting the profitability significantly. We have been selective. While remaining selective, we target about 29%-30% as a gross margin. Maybe I'll take a higher range of maybe 27%-30% as a gross margin at the time of booking the order. If the commodity prices remain the same and the other challenges in one or a couple of projects that I talked about, they do not happen.
Let's say broadly, the margin variations do not happen because of unforeseen circumstances. The orders that we take, we aim at delivering at 27%-30% margin range.
Okay. The other question is on the outlook for the orders. Now, this is the second year in a row where our order flows have actually been lower. In the opening remarks, Sandeep mentioned about this year could be a better year in terms of bunching up of orders for TBCB. If you could just give us what you see in fiscal year 2023 in terms of the total market opportunity. What was the total market opportunity in fiscal 2022? Because previous year you mentioned it was about INR 16,000 crores. So what was the total market opportunity in 2022? And what do you expect it to be in 2023? There were a couple of large SPDC orders also anticipated in our earlier communications.
Where are these projects currently?
Bhavin, first of all, with respect to the market conditions, we expect at least as compared to 2022-2023 should be at least, if I maybe about 15% the market will be more. This is our expectation because of looking into the list of TBCB pipeline. Today, for example, Khavda, which has emerged as one of the hotbed of renewable projects. There in TBCB you have multiple projects. Apart from not only the on transmission side, even the developers who are going to put the project there, whether it is GIPCL or the GSECL or Adani or NTPC, these customers also would be coming out with the evacuation substations of their renewable plant. We, looking into the large capacity of the plant, the evacuation substations will also require 400 kV evacuation.
If you really look at the conditions, environmental conditions, everything is going to come in the form of GIS. There will be no AIS. This year we would also, we are also expecting shortly the resolution of the GIB issues also. The TBCB pipeline which is already in place for Rajasthan projects would also start undergoing through the reverse auction and then will also be available for the developer and accordingly the EPC players and the manufacturers as well. Also for the HVDC project, the final bidding for the Mumbai project has happened. The final bids have been submitted. The results have not yet been declared because it is still under final evaluation.
The government, as you know, there's already an engagement with the Power Grid for the Leh-Ladakh project with the various bidders of HVDC. Leh-Ladakh is not going to be like 2022, 2023, but it will be more like 2023, 2024 project. Because normally a project of that size would take, after the tenders come, minimum eight to nine months for it to get decided. I think for this year, Adani, the Mumbai HVDC is going to be a project and, for the next year we expect Leh-Ladakh to be there.
Sure. What was the total market ordering pie in fiscal year 2022? In 2021 you mentioned it was roughly INR 16,000 crore or maybe you can correct the numbers if I'm mistaken.
It was INR 16,000 crore only. For example, when we really look at 2021, 2022, we are looking at a pipeline of close to about INR 18,000 crore or similar to that.
Sure. Yeah. Thank you so much for taking my question. I'll come back in the queue for follow-up.
Thank you, Bhavin.
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Rahul Modi from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Just a couple of questions. Just taking cues from the, you know, the ordering in the green energy corridor. What is the opportunity like under the RDSS scheme? Because recently, we believe around six to seven states have signed up for the scheme. If you can throw some light on that. And the second question was more on the within our order book. How much are the older contracts which need to be realigned in terms of the cost increases, and if most are done already? Thank you.
I'll answer the second question first.
Yes.
I'll let Sandeep to take on the question on the order booking. As a part of our accounting policies, all the costs up to the date of close of the quarter are considered as per the accounting guidelines. Which means that the commodity price increase or any such technical requirement or other cost to complete requirement of any contract as known and visible up to the date of 31st of March have been accounted already. What we do not know and can impact is any further risk and opportunities that come our way, which may be dependent on internal and a few internal and most external factors.
However, as I said, in the earlier question to Bhavin, given that government is taking various action to control inflation, to control the significant impact of the commodity prices on various sectors of the economy, which was represented by the positive move in terms of interest rate, GST and other export related restrictions. We hope that, now the prices should stabilize and hopefully there should not be such a significant impact in the future quarters. However, that is, you know, our expectation anticipation. Given that there is lot of geopolitical and other uncertainties in last couple of years, which were beyond the imagination of any organization, like any uncertainty or any such thing comes in future that can impact, the backlog. As of now, 31st of March, all the known charges have been taken as per the accounting policy guidelines.
That's settled then. Please have the next question.
Rahul, I think you're talking about RDSS scheme. Yes, we know that six to seven states have signed up. Our expectation is that in this year, which is 2022-2023, probably we expect a decision making by two or maximum three states. Because, you know, the process of identifying the opportunity, then making the DPR, making the specifications, quoting and then finalizing. Normally when you start a process, once, for example, two to three orders will get finalized, then the process of specification formation, et cetera, will get more streamlined. The initial pain to come out with a tender and assessment and placing the orders is higher.
We expect about two to three orders to be placed under RDSS scheme for the year, and that will also be to the later part of the year. We expect a pipeline somewhere, decision making pipeline somewhere between INR 300-INR 500 crores for the RDSS part.
Sure, sir. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone.
We have the next question from the line of Sumit Jain from ASK Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
You explained the lower gross margins, but what explains the jump in other expenses, from INR 107 crore in the base quarter, that is YoY, versus INR 161 crore in the March 2022 quarter?
Yeah. The other expenses also had few one-time provisioning, a few one-off items. I'll cover them now. The first big one was about INR 180 million of change in the, let's say, increase in the VAT reserve that we created for the old litigations. The second item which had a charge in this year was, or in this quarter was rather INR 75 million of penalty paid to one of our landlords for early termination of lease. This is in line with our objective to reduce the future cost, where we are trying to reduce the office space. The third big item is the bad debt provision of about INR 140 million during the quarter, mainly on account of ECL charge, expected credit loss, and few other specific provisions.
The fourth item is actually reclassed, meaning as of the end of the year, about INR 150 million of Forex gain broadly has been reclassified to the other income. That's why it represents a charge in the quarter, but it's not actually a real charge during the quarter. The last being the reassessment of the warranty cost of about INR 10 crore. If I sum up all these five items that I explained, VAT reserve true-up, the termination of penalty for lease breakage, bad debt, Forex, and warranty costs, all these sum up at around INR 650 million of one-time or specific charges during the quarter. As we have been communicating in the earlier quarter calls, the annual number of INR 390 crore is a more representative number.
We have been communicating about INR 100 crores per quarter being the other expense, and that's the number where we see to be the expense per quarter going forward. Something around that INR 400 crore annually.
Sorry, I didn't get that number. You're saying INR 40 crore per quarter?
INR 400 crore per quarter, INR 400 crore on an annual basis. If you look at the full financial year, other expense is INR 390 crore. That is a more representative number than just the number of quarter four, which was impacted by the INR 65 crore of one-time reserve for exceptional value.
Right. You know, the earlier question which was asked to you, so I have a similar question. Basically, what you've told us is that, up to March end, and you've been telling us every quarter, whatever it is there, according to you would have taken it in the P&L. Is the P&L cleanup finally done for GE T&D? Like, you've done a good job on balance sheet. Are all the legacy costs where you see there would have been some trouble in terms of bidding, higher commodity costs, provisioning, warranty provisioning, all those issues, have they been taken out through P&L?
Sumit, the accounting policies and guidance require it to be trued up based on the available information.
I'm not asking you about the accounting policy. That is understood. I'm saying you have a view of your order book. There would be some legacy orders there, which is clearly evident from the regular P&L, you know, costs that you are taking. Is everything done in terms of that cleanup?
Yes, I was actually trying to answer the same thing. If you look at the commodity price graph, every quarter there has been an increase. The commodities have gone up even in the last quarter, starting January to March and even up to, further up to May. Reason being the Russia-Ukraine war led to a significant increase in some of the processed commodities. You will not see in some of the commodities as a base metal price increase, but when it comes to the processed commodities and the specific commodities being used by the company, there it has been a specific increase, and also there was a significant increase in the oil prices. Having said that, every business at any point of time has risks and uncertainties.
Given the assessment of the risk, all the known risks which could impact as per the accounting policy have been provided up to the March 31st.
Like you see, you take the example of CRGO, which is used in transformers. The price doesn't come out in the commodity prices like copper and aluminum. The way the CRGO price has increased last year and this year for calendar year first quarter is abnormally high. What Sushil is telling, as on 31st March, complete order backlog is corrected.
That will get captured in gross profit margins and the line above that. What happens in other expenses every quarter needs some explanation in terms of what is happening with your legacy order book.
Sumit, I tried to explain the charges in the breakup of items in the other expense to the extent of INR 65 crore. As I said that full-year number of INR 300 crore is more representative, because every quarter when the other expense which have been moving, let's say, positively or negative during the quarter, we always communicated that INR 100 crore per quarter or INR 400 crore annually is a more representative number from the projection or annual P&L point of view. I'll say that, let's for the time being not consider this as a run rate, but consider INR 400 crore as a run rate for GE T&D.
Right. What is the potential size that can come if one were to you know be successful in the Mumbai HVDC project? Similar is the question even for Leh-Ladakh.
Mumbai HVDC project, it is under evaluation, so we cannot talk about it actually. Because we have bid it, the results are not out yet.
Potential opportunity in Leh-Ladakh?
Leh-Ladakh will be a large bid. It will be basically lines plus HVDC terminal and all. I think HVDC terminal may be in the range of $1 billion-$1.3 billion or so, complete project actually. Including the part of the line. Basically HVDC terminal will be in that range, actually. Just a small add on. As GE T&D, we do not have the entire technology. Generally for these projects we partner with our counterpart in U.K. or other entities if possible. The $1.3 billion opportunity that Pramod talked about will be shared between our entity and the global entity. It will have to bid jointly.
Sure.
That is one thing and just one thing here, Sumit. This $1.3 billion is dollars actually.
Yeah, yeah. You know, going back to our project Essar which was stuck. What is the status on that in terms of receivables and the monies that were stuck and in terms of completion and further liability on us?
Essar project, we collected the entire outstanding amount in, I think in the month of June last year, some amount was taken. The outstanding money was fully collected. The project was moved to a new owner or promoter, Adani. So far, whatever shipments we have made, we have been collecting on time, so there has been no challenge of collection from the new promoter. Nonetheless, because the contract was on firm price, the commodity price impact we have to take on this project. I don't have the percentage completion of this project as of now.
Right. The exports, where we've done well, 32% of the order inflow. Which are these markets and within the GE construct as a group, which are the markets that we can cater to? Would they be just MENA and Africa, et cetera, and South Asia? Or you could even target developed nations.
Sumit, we actually have number of markets which are allocated to us. For example, the material is even going to Australia, it is also going to Japan, complete Southeast Asia market. Many of the products, for example, the instrument transformers and circuit breakers, the sole supply chain is from the Indian factories. Then we also have the African market. Apart from the African market, we are also supplying to Latin America also. There are a lot of markets which are allocated to us. In fact, for one or two products we are also looking at supplying to Europe because we have got the factories qualified in Europe as well. This is primarily the markets which are allocated to us.
MENAT is a typical market, Middle East, one, where they prefer the supplies to come from, mostly Europe. MENAT, our presence from India is quite limited, but Africa total we supplied from here, Southeast Asia, Japan, Australia and Latin America.
Right. One last question. A few calls back, I think, you'd mentioned that we have a product that we market for IIoT, in competition with, let's say, Siemens MindSphere and ABB Ability. This is not GE Predix, but some other product. What is the status there? Can we offer IIoT solutions to our clients?
Also basically in the digital space, wherever we are present on the transmission side, on the distribution side, we are not offering Predix. We have a different product which is available with us. We are offering that to the clients who are there in the transmission and distribution. Of course, with that product we are not present in the industry domain and all. For example, if you're going to steel industry and all, there we are not present. Our product is more aligned towards the transmission and the distribution side. In the steel industry, if it's for example, a substation which is there, then our product is there. Otherwise, it's then otherwise for the industry et cetera, then the solution comes as Predix only.
Who is the owner of the IP of this product that we market?
It's GE only.
Okay. What is this product called?
Just hit the other one. I'll just mute you.
Sure, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Kunal Sheth from B&K Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for the-
Mr. Kunal, request you to go off the speaker phone. We can barely hear you on call.
Is it audible now?
Yes, we can hear you now. Please go ahead.
Yeah, sure. Thank you for the opportunity. I just wanted to check on this INR 37 billion of order book that we have. What is the execution period for that order book? I mean, how much of that is executable next year?
This order book is a combination of turnkey project business plus the order flow business. It's very difficult to give one particular time range of this order book. Generally, as a trend, 70%-75% of the order backlog gets executed in the next year. That has been the historical trend.
Sure. Sir, secondly, we talked about the green corridor orders in the domestic market. I mean, what is the status of those orders? I mean, how soon do you think they will get postponed to the second half? We expect them to start pouring in in the first half itself?
Our assessment is that it is going to go to, second half or maybe by the end of first half, like, for example, certain things would start coming in by, August, September. When the developers will, win, they also take practically a month, two months to decide the order. For the EPC or for the manufacturers' OEMs, the decision-making will go to second half only.
Sure, sure, sir. Thank you so much. Those were my questions. Best of luck for the future quarter, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have the next question on the line of Bhavin Vithlani from SBI Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity again. The question is again on the exports. We have seen INR 700-odd crore kind of a run rate on orders. Could we see an increase in the run rate on the export? Because many of the other capital goods peers have been seeing a very strong growth on the exports, and especially couple of quarters ago we highlighted about that a few projects, a few products are where GE T&D could become a sole source base for the global supplies.
Yes, sir. I'm sure that we are going to increase exports in time to come, because for some of the products, our factories are becoming sole suppliers actually. We are exporting a lot of high voltage products from India in various countries like Sandeep mentioned, even Australia, Japan, Latin America and South Asian countries. We are definitely going to increase more and more export.
While not talking about a percentage on the sales or the orders, could we see that the exports could double on a three-year basis from the current levels of orders that we have seen?
Yeah, we can say that within in three years basis it can double exports, but it is very difficult to predict as on date exactly how it will move.
Clear. In general, is the profitability in exports better than what we see in the domestic market?
Yes, yes.
Okay, great. On the competitive intensity in the domestic market, how are you seeing the competitive intensity in the domestic market? There was one comment made that incrementally there is a traction towards the gas insulated substation in the green energy corridor, wherein three or four players inclusive of GE T&D do have the technology. If you could just comment on the competitive intensity and the underlying mix change, so HVDC projects, GIS projects, does it hold GE T&D in good stead, in maybe if one looks at a two to three-year perspective?
Yeah. I think GE T&D is definitely in good stead because we have a GIS portfolio in our product range. We have exclusive factory at Chennai, Padappai. That way we see in a good shape actually.
Sure. Last part. We've seen some improvement on the working capital side also, and we've seen the release in the cash. While the headline profits were negative, but we saw positive cash flow from operations. Could we believe that there is more juice left on the working capital, which is currently around 18%? Or can we expect some increase in the working capital as a percentage of sales as we see going forward?
Yeah. Currently, about two and a half years ago, I remember we talked about becoming debt-free or moving in that direction. At that point of time, our debt was more than INR 500 crore, which we have successfully been able to bring to INR 80 crore level end of March, the net debt. As a direction, yes, our endeavor is to further improve and become debt free and remain in the positive trajectory. However, being in the capital goods business, quarter on quarter there may be some change. Meaning maybe couple of quarters will be negative free cash flow or negative cash, but other quarters will have the improvement. As a direction on a long-term basis, our endeavor is to further improve the working capital and become debt free.
Sure. Just last question from my end to Pitambar. Are you feeling more optimistic now versus a year ago now that I mean the cleanup is done and the ship has been steadied and you can actually see GE on a growth path, maybe on the orders and on the revenues in with some lag? Where we can now see GE T&D actually crossing a level of INR 4,500-INR 5,000 crore top line in two to three years time frame?
Yeah, I'm quite optimistic because of the market and future opportunities to come.
I'll just make an add-on here. I think, with the green energy corridor and all, the order booking, we are hopeful to increase and with corresponding impact on the execution. However, those levels of INR 4,000-4,500 crore revenue comes with the HVDC opportunities only. It will not be from the regular conventional business. As Suneel talked about few HVDC opportunities in the pipeline, hopefully if we get some of them, then definitely, yes, we'll move to a higher revenue level.
Sure. Yeah. Those were my questions. Thank you so much for taking my questions.
Just a small correction from my side to the question asked by Mr. Kunal in the earlier question. The backlog execution in the year is in the range of 60%-65% versus 70%-75% that I talked earlier. When I talked 70%-75%, it was more about 70%-75% of the revenue for the year coming from the backlog. However, if you have to take corresponding number in terms of the backlog, then it is 60%-65% of the backlog getting executed during the year. That backlog is a small correction from my side.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on your touch-tone telephone. We have the next question from the line of Aashna Manaktala from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Good evening, sir. Sir, continuing on the previous participant's question on the competitive intensity, if you could talk about who are our competitors in the GIS substation, what is the current market size and our market share in that segment?
Please reply this question.
Aashna, there are two types of competition which is there. One on the EPC side and second is on the product side. On the EPC side you have multiple competition. Like for example, you have 15, 20 players who are making offerings there. Then you will have some people present on 132 kV segment, some present on 220 kV, some present on 765 kV. But if I really look at GIS as a product, then our main competition actually comes from Siemens, Alstom, Toshiba, and Hitachi. For a very small segment, Crompton's.
Okay. Anshul, in terms of product, what would be the market size currently and what is the expected growth rate given the amount of order inflow that we're expecting to come around in a year or so?
Purely as markets of the GIS product, we are looking at a year of close to about $300 million which will be market size what we are looking forward to. Of course, market share would be in the range of something like 25%+. This is something which is our endeavor to target.
Coming to the EPC proportion of your orders, how much of that would be fixed price contract?
If you really look today in the market, EPC ordering which is happening across the customers, maybe few R&M packages if you exclude from Power Grid or maybe a few packages if you exclude which is coming from state, which would be less than 15% of the total project what will be tendered out. Balance 85% is on fixed price, whether it is TBCB, whether it is private player. Mostly the price variation today which the customers are offering is mostly on the transformers and the reactors.
Okay. Sir, are we able to renegotiate some of these fixed price contracts?
We're trying. We are making the effort, but still the results are not very encouraging today.
Okay. Got it, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. That was the last question. I now hand it over to Mr. Suneel Mishra for closing comments.
Thank you, Operator, again, and thank you everyone for your participation. With this, we conclude today's conference call. In case if you have any other questions, then please feel free to contact me or Mr. Anshul Madaan on the email ID. Thanks again.
Thank you. On behalf of GE T&D India Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.