Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to GE T&D India Limited Third Quarter ended 31 December 2021 for FY 2021/2022. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in a 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, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchtone telephone. 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, Inba. Good day to all of you. Hope you are safe and healthy. Welcome to today's conference call with the GE T&D India Limited management team here. As we know, this conference call has been organized to present and discuss financial results for the third quarter of 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. Further, we have Mr. Sushil Kumar, who is the CFO and Whole-time Director. We have Mr. Sandeep Zanzaria, who is the Commercial Leader. We have with us Mr. Mariasundaram Antony, who is our Projects Business Leader. We have Mr. Deepak Pandey today, who is the Business Leader responsible for digital grid. We have also with us Mr. Anshul Madaan, who is our Communications Leader.
Please note that this conference call is scheduled up to 5:00 P.M. I hope you would have received the investor analyst presentation, and the same has been uploaded on our website. I hope you have also read the disclaimer on slide number 2. I would now request Mr. Pitamber Shivnani to begin this conference call highlighting key events of the quarter, then Mr. Maria updating us on operations. Thereafter, Mr. Deepak Pandey will give us some update on Digital Grid business scenario and the related opportunities. Further, Mr. Sandeep Zanzaria will take you to overall grid market. Lastly, Mr. Sushil Kumar will give us his insights on financials. I now invite Mr. Shivnani to begin the conference with his opening remarks. Over to Mr. Shivnani.
Thank you, Suneel. Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Thanks for joining the call. We hope you and your families are healthy and safe. I would like to start this call by giving you a brief overview about the last quarter and then would request other speakers present in the call to go through the details. During the third quarter of financial year 2021/2022, we successfully navigated a dynamic environment, delivering a solid free cash flow. However, the top-line results were pressurized due to challenges around the operating environment, including continued supply chain disruptions, commodity inflation, and market pressure continued to remain tough. We remain focused on our portfolio, significantly reduced debt in the third quarter, and strengthened our operating performance through lean and decentralization. Orders were pressured due to market dynamics and commercial selectivity.
However, we are fully aware about the importance of growing orders, and we are working on innovative ways to address the market challenges more effectively. Sandeep will talk about the orders in detail. As mentioned earlier, Q3 has been a challenging quarter as everyone was put to test by the commodity inflation and continuing supply chain disruption, and hence the same has impacted our financials as well. Sushil will cover the financials in detail shortly. India is home to one of the world's largest renewable energy programs, with a target of 175 GW of installed renewable capacity by 2022, and a vision to increase renewable capacity by 500 GW by 2030.
Government commitment is clearly reflecting in the increased budget allocation in financial year 2023 to Renewable Energy Development Agency and Solar Energy Corporation of India, which has been increased collectively by 143% as announced yesterday. I firmly believe that grid will play a critical role in solving the dilemma of affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy to meet increasing energy demand and support the country with our customers in achieving their net zero ambition. We are confident about where we stand today and where we are headed. With respect to the order book, our current market backlog stands at around INR 38 billion. With that, I request Maria to provide further insight on operations during the quarter.
Over to you, Maria. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Pitamber. Good evening to everybody in the call. I would like to give a brief update on our operations, covering the key commissioning which we did during the last quarter. We actually continued to play an important role in terms of creating the grid of the future for the country and the region. Some of the key commissioning which we did during the quarter, which was majority of them, significant part of them, were air insulated, AIS substations. If you really see, I think we commissioned our substation, AIS substation, 220 kV substation in DVC Purulia in West Bengal. We also commissioned important substation in Avaada, for Avaada in Bikaner in Rajasthan, which will involve commissioning of 400 kV AIS substation along with 150 MVA transformers.
In the same region, I think in Rajasthan in Khavda, we actually commissioned 760 kV AIS substation for Adani Adani BKTL. Then we also down south, we actually for our customer, refinery customer, HPCL Vizag, we commissioned their AIS bay, which is an extension bay, which is part of the AP TRANSCO Kalpaka substation. On the eastern side of the country in Jharkhand for JUSNL in Meral, we actually commissioned their 132 kV and 33 kV AIS substations along with 50 MVA transformers. Definitely, I think, we continue to play an important role in commissioning the substations, which play an important role for the evacuation infrastructure for the country.
2021 overall, we completed 40 substations throughout the year. In a time when we had the COVID second wave also, we continued to support in terms of improving the evacuation infrastructure in the country. With that, I would hand over to Deepak Pandey to give an update on Digital Grid.
Thanks, Maria. Please refer to slide five, which speaks about digital initiatives of decarbonization and digitalization in GE T&D India Limited. We would like to highlight that more than 50% of India power flow is on GE's digital technology. Currently we have around 100+ control center and data center across India, monitoring and controlling various parameters and stability of grid and improving the reliability of the power systems. We are present in both transmission as well as in distribution landscape. In transmission, GE T&D is managing power grids, transmission assets wide MTMC project, which is the slide of the picture of which is present on the second picture on the left-hand side of the presentation. GE is also managing the national load dispatch center of neighboring countries of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
GE's Wide Area Monitoring System technology is working at a national level to prevent future blackouts. The blackout which happened in 2012. This technology was developed by GE, and it is one of the matured and the largest implementation across the world to stabilize grid. GE is also working on managing renewable challenges because renewable power has its own challenges due to fluctuations of solar and wind. Currently, we have implemented our technology in the state of Rajasthan, which is reaching around 40% of renewable component based on the total installed capacity. This technology is already implemented as is in final commissioning stages.
On the distribution landscape, we are present in both private as well as government distribution utility, where our digital technology for distribution management has been implemented in Tata Power Delhi, which is improving reliability and serviceability of customers. There are a couple of prestigious projects which are underway, right from Jammu and Kashmir to KESCO in Kanpur and then Tata Power Odisha, the three discoms which have been privatized as well as in Nepal. GE digital business is geared up for the new RDSS scheme, which was announced by the Honorable Finance Minister last year. The rollout has started this year, in which the modernization component is worth around INR 17,000 crore with an outlay of five years. We look forward for good opportunities in distribution landscape with this scheme.
I now hand over to Mr. Sandeep Zanzaria for the next slides on order intake.
Thank you, Deepak, and good afternoon, everyone. I would say that in terms of order intake, it was comparatively a muted quarter. Primarily because, of course, there is a lot of action which is happening on the renewable front. Still the projects are getting identified and the TBCB bidding is going on. It is, I would say slightly delayed for the decision-making towards the equipment manufacturers or the EPC players. If you really look in the last quarter, it was primarily only 3-4 projects in the TBCB space which got affected, which was primarily Mangal Bindra, Koppal and Osmanabad for the developers. Of course, out of that, we have already won the project of Koppal in the last quarter through ReNew Power.
I would say that I think going forward, the pipeline looks to be much better than what we have seen in the last nine months. We see there are a lot of reverse auctions now for the projects which were envisaged by the government earlier. The reverse auctions are now happening, for example, Narela, Khavda, and of course with, there is a big pipeline of projects which have now been identified about 20 GW for evacuation of renewable. This is going to create a very good sustainable pipeline, at least for next two quarters. The quarter in which we are and next quarter, at least two quarters, we will have a good sustainable pipeline for decision making.
We are seeing tremendous pressure because of the reverse auction happening on the developer side, which is again coming on the EPC and the product side as well. Still, the good part is that the market has picked up. That is one thing. States we are seeing that still not too much of a traction on the state side. Very limited opportunities coming in the state sector. Another positive thing which is happening is that even the industrial CapEx is now picking up. We are seeing that in the metal side large producers of metals, they have now started talking and coming up with projects which also require enhancement of their grid capabilities. Of course, if you really look, we are about 4% down since last year for the nine months what we did in terms of order intake.
The main successes were again, Koppal. HJBML, of course, we had got some retrofit of our own installed base of 400 kV GIS. We have done some restoration, and some work for Parbati NHPC. There were multiple orders of export tender. I now hand over to Sushil.
Thanks, Sandeep. Good afternoon, everyone. Moving to page seven on the financial performance. During the quarter, revenue was INR 9.1 billion, compared to INR 10.3 billion in the same quarter last year. This is 11.6% lower than the last year. On a nine-month basis, our revenues were INR 24 billion, compared to INR 25.4 billion on a nine-month basis in the last financial year. We had a 5.7% lower revenue in the current period. As Pitamber mentioned, due to continued impact of commodity prices, input cost, and the supply chain disruptions, our profitability for the quarter was muted. EBITDA level, we posted INR 292 million of EBITDA, compared to INR 575 million EBITDA in the last financial year, quarter three.
On a nine-month basis, we had an EBITDA of INR 505 million, compared to INR 1,006 million EBITDA on a nine-month period. Entire reduction in the EBITDA can be directly said to be the result of the increase in commodity price, resulting into the increase in the input cost for the company, which again had an impact on the profit before tax. We had almost a breakeven profitability during the quarter, compared to INR 754 million of profit before tax in the same quarter last year. Out of INR 754 million in the last year, quarter three, we had exceptional gain of INR 259 million on account of sale of one of the property. Excluding that, the profitability was in the range of around INR 450 million in the last year.
The entire change of around INR 450 million on operational performance in the quarter is predominantly, as I said, linked to the commodity price impact and increase in the input cost. During the quarter and on nine-month basis, we had strong improvement in the cash flow. We generated about INR 136 crore or 1,360 million of cash flow during the nine-month period, which helped us in reduction of debt from INR 161 crore net debt, end of March 2021, to around INR 224 crore at the end of December. Good performance of cash by making a strong improvement in the working capital. Going to the page 8, we have shared the information about the split of orders, revenue, and the backlog.
Talking about order booking, we had 5.1 billion of orders during quarter three, of which INR 4 billion was from domestic market and about INR 1 billion orders from the export market. On a nine-month basis, out of total INR 16.1 billion of orders, INR 10 billion was from domestic market and about INR 5.7 billion from export market. On the revenue side, out of INR 9.1 billion of revenue, INR 6.5 billion comes from the domestic projects and about INR 2.6 billion from the export projects, which represents about 29% of the total revenue for the quarter. On a nine-month basis, out of total INR 24 billion of revenue, INR 17 billion or approximately INR 18 billion or 75% of the total revenue is from the domestic projects and rest is from the export projects.
As Pitamber mentioned in the beginning, we have INR 38 billion of backlog. 63% of the backlog is from the private customer, about 20% of the backlog from the state utility, and rest is from the central utility. Moving to page nine, as an update on the GEOD business, t he company had made a disclosure of the revised valuation in the stock section, and subsequently on `12th of January, we had a call with the investors on the update related to the GEOD business. Subsequent to that, the company's board of director on 24th of January approved the sale of GEOD business to GE India Industrial Private Limited with the corresponding assets, manpower and liabilities on a lump sale basis. This is subject to the shareholders approval.
The total consideration is INR 1.06 million, subject to the adjustments, on the completion date as per the terms of the business transfer agreement. The business transfer agreement has been signed on 31st of January. A postal ballot notice has been issued, and the investors can look into the documents of valuation of the business transfer agreement if they want to get into the details of the valuation before deciding on the voting for this particular lump sum. The postal ballot notice was announced on, I think, beginning of February, and it will be open till 5th of March. We request all the investors to go through this and vote accordingly for making a rightful decision for this business.
With that update, we will now move to the question and answer session.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets when asking a question. Anyone who has a question may enter star and one. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Our first question is from the line of Renu Baid from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good evening team. Thanks for the opportunity. Question on the gross margin side, this is clearly seeing significant pressures. Can you help us understand that, you know, while in the quarter we see sequentially there has been growth in export revenues, this gap up in terms of gross margins, is it on the recently secured export orders or these would be largely the domestic fixed price projects where we have been sitting with gaps on under recoveries due to commodity inflation? Give what percentage of the backlog is still sitting with these kind of low margin orders or do you think most of the commodity related hits are already done in this quarter.
Thereafter for the next two quarters, should we at least expect the gross margins to come back to normalize, or they could continue to remain under pressure? That's the first question.
This way the last fiscal year we had a gross margin of approximately in the range of 26%-27%, and that's the margin that the company generally expects at the time of order booking.
Mm-hmm.
As we said or have been communicating last couple of quarters, and you all are aware of the volatile situation in terms of the commodity prices, sudden increase of price and disruptions, t his quarter specifically, we had to take an impact of all that in few projects, which are of course in the nature of firm prices versus the customer. Supplier supply side costs have gone up because of change in the commodity prices plus the demand and supply situation. Having said that, you're right, most of the impact is on the domestic side of the business, not to that extent on the export side of the business.
As a process, we continue to make efforts to finalize the rates or the input prices to the best interest of the company, but as and when the rates or negotiations complete, we take the impact in the quarter. As of now, everything that we have been able to finalize and are able to conclude have been considered. As Pitamber mentioned, the situation remains dynamic. I mean, the supply chain disruptions still continue to impact. There has been a sudden change in the demand and supply situation of certain commodities, leading to the increase in the cost price. If any further inflation happens, that may have the impact on the further quarters. As of now, whatever the company could finalize or anticipate has been provided.
Broadly, if the commodity price, even if they remain stable at the current levels, for the next two quarters while you will be completing some of the previously secured fixed price projects, domestic projects, should we expect the gross margins to come back to that 20-24, whatever those levels, or they would be closer to what we have seen in the last quarter, close to the 18-20% odd levels? Basically, should we expect the next two quarters improvement in gross margins or in the current commodity price scenario, or probably the headwinds will continue in the near term?
Yes, I said that, we work on the long- term projects and the way the long- term projects are, let's say the costings are done, we take the cost to complete for the entire project as a method of accounting. As a result, any foreseen loss in the future is embedded into the profitability of the project and equivalent accounting impacts are taken in the quarter. With your question with regard to, you know, the stabilization of commodity prices, if that happens, then of course we'll not see further impact in the quarter. If the demand supply situation continue or we have further increase in the commodity prices, then it may impact the subsequent quarters.
Basically, can you help us understand what was the quantum of cost to complete provisions that you have booked in the current quarter, probably under the RM head, which has depressed the gross margins? Or it would be. Or you, I mean, whatever.
See, broadly, let's say if we compare the 18% gross margin in the quarter and the 26%-27% in the past, so there's a delta of 8%. More or less entire 8% can be attributable to the commodity and the input price impact. There will be some other factors which will all square off or net off, but this was one significant impact which is getting charged to the P&L in the current quarter.
Got it. The second question is on inflows. Pretty good to see the inflow breakup the way you've shared in the presentation. If you see domestic inflows in this particular quarter was barely INR 100 crore. Coming to the domestic environment, have you seen a competitive intensity from some of the other domestic peers who are now back in the market with aggression? Are they distorting the price levels and making the commercials less viable for GE? Or how do you look at the order inflow pipeline improving, given the fact that Sandeep had mentioned that inflow pipeline is looking to improve? Should we now start to look inflow momentum to improve or cost competitive pressures in the domestic market could continue to put us on the sidelines?
I'll request Sandeep to answer, but just a small clarification. Out of INR 5 billion orders, 80% of the orders from domestic market and 20% from the export market. One billion was from export.
Oh, okay. Probably my bad.
Yeah. Sandeep, please revise.
Yeah, thanks, Sushil. Basically really, one thing is there that, because of the muted market for last about nine months, especially in the substation space, I think there is a lot of capacity which is available, in the market. Not only in terms of product manufacturing, but also in terms of EPC, which is there. The price pressure will continue. There is no doubt about that. As I said that, in fact, now in PBDB projects, we are seeing, for example, in Rajgarh, there are 10 developers who have participated. The developers, the way the developers are now putting the pressure in terms of winning those bids, the pressure of price is now getting transmitted from those developers to the EPC players and accordingly to the product manufacturer.
The price pressure will definitely remain, but the good thing will be that at least, you know, when you have a bad market and then price pressure, compared to that if you have a better market and price pressure, so I would always choose the second option. Probably going forward, we will see the second option which will be coming into play, where we will have a better market, but price pressures will continue to remain.
Okay. That should improve growth process. Lastly, if you can help us understand, Pitamber did mention the company is looking at innovative ways to face the current market challenges. If you can help us understand what are these innovative ways, either on the commercial side or the order flow side in terms of opportunities, where we are looking to ramp up the business portfolio size and scale. Thank you.
I think by innovative means, I think what Pitamber meant was that, of course, how to access the market, so maybe a different commercial strategy. That could be one thing which we are looking forward to. Second, for example, Deepak explained that there is a lot of digital play which is expected to happen in terms of government coming up. There'll be lot of automation investment in the distribution side. That's also going to create a good amount of market for the company to play in that space.
Thank you. Thanks, sir. I will come back in the queue with more questions. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you, Renu. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Bhavin Vithlani from SBI Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. Just continuing on the previous participant's question on gross margins. In the previous earnings call, second quarter, it was highlighted that 28%-30% is a sustainable gross margin that one can expect. Do you see that in the next quarter or two? Or that now looks like slightly difficult given the way the underlying situation on the composite side is playing out?
Bhavin, if the question is on the order side, let's say we will answer in two pieces. One on the commercial side, which Sandeep will answer. Second is on the execution side with the margins that we have or the backlog we have in hand.
On the backlog we have in hand, wherever the commodity prices impact are known, have been booked in the P&L. Generally, in the last call we said average 26%-27%. As we do that after booking the order at those levels, we try to expand the margin by a couple of percentage points. Given a significant and sudden change in the market dynamics, that increase of course is not feasible. On the other side, we have a significant hit of the commodity prices because of the order backlog. A significant part of the order backlog being on the firm prices. We have approached the customer to ask for the compensation for the significant change in the market dynamics. However, we have not been successful.
As discussed in the earlier question, if the commodity prices stay at the current level or the input prices do not change further because of the demand and supply situation, we should ideally go back to the level of 24%-26% in the next couple of quarters. Our endeavor will be to first sustain this level of 26%-27% and try if we can improve further. I request Sandeep to also answer the dynamics on the order booking side.
Bhavin, I think on the order side or on the commercial side, as I said and explained it to Renu, I think for certain products we will see some pressure which will be coming, and for some products we will see will be on a much better price. For example, when I take the examples of transformer reactors, today the demand is quite high and the installed capacities probably would be just equal or slightly lower than the expected demand. Today with the renewable project the expectation of commissioning is also much faster, so delivery cycles are also much faster. In those spaces, we will definitely have a better price realization that is there. But of course, in such high capital intensive transformer reactors, you don't get such high level of gross margins as well.
I think with China going out of the market, due to the Make in India restrictions, I think that is also helping GIS and grid automation. On that side, what we had seen was that the market was muted. Now once the market will pick up and we will see some large projects now coming up in renewable evacuations in Khavda, et cetera, or the other key places in Rajasthan and Gujarat. I think in those sites also there should be a better price realization which will come. At the EPT side and for the air insulated breaker side, the pressure on the margins will continue to remain. I hope I have been able to answer, Bhavin, your question.
Sure. Yeah, that helps. The other question is in the beginning of the financial year, you had taken special approval for the related party where you were expecting the HVDC projects. Any update on that will be useful.
Bhavin, the update on HVDC project is that the Adani are actually moving ahead, but we have seen that there is some news which has come that Tata Power has challenged in the court, et cetera. That is still ongoing, and we expect that the decision on that project to come up probably in the next quarter.
Okay. Understood. Any update on the other HVDC projects now that Power Grid has been given the Leh-Ladakh order?
The Leh-Ladakh project has been awarded to Power Grid on the RTM basis. Power Grid has just started the initial discussions with the participants. Probably looking into Leh-Ladakh, et cetera, the size of the project and the complexity of the project, that will take, I think my assessment is minimum three quarters for it to get decided.
Any color on how large could the addressable opportunity for GE T&D in that INR 25,000 crore project? Because there is some amount of storage also.
I will only put it as that way that my assessment on the overall project would be close to about more than $1 billion. It will also depend on how we decide to approach the market, because the consortiums, et cetera, then we'll have to see and then there will be certain offshore scope which will also be required in terms of thyristor valves and control, et cetera. The overall opportunity will be more than $1 billion, but how much will it be actually coming for GETLD it is too early to be forecasted.
Sure. Just last question from my side. Could you just talk about the export opportunity? Because we are seeing some amount of export green shoot, but they are small and largely from the SAARC. On a slightly longer term basis, maybe a year or two, how do you see the exports panning out? Because in the previous earnings call it was highlighted there are a few products where there could be sole source basis from India.
I will not put it as sole source from India, but I think we have got certain further allocations of the country from there. Also not only the allocation, but of course, it also requires the acceptability of the end customers also from that they are ready to buy from the Indian factories. That's a constant exercise. I would put it as, Bhavin, that looking into the cost structure of India, we globally that exercise that the local people who are based there, they keep on trying to push for the acceptability of Indian factories. Wherever we get it, we will use the local factories from the Indian factory.
Not just putting a percentage of sales, but can we expect that the exports would be to the tune of $200 million in a couple of years, given the effort that you are taking? Would that be an outlandish number or an achievable number according to you?
I would not put a number as of today, Bhavin, to it.
Sure. Yeah. Thank you so much. I'll come back in the queue for any follow-up with you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Renu Baid from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the repeat opportunity. If you can also highlight, I mean, while you've highlighted some of our digital capabilities and offerings on the Grid Automation side, how are we seeing the project prospect list in the domestic market and the neighboring countries with higher grid integration coming into the picture over the next two years? How should we look at the order opportunities and prospects for the next two years for this segment of the market?
Renu, I think we have an infrastructure today in the country. Out of that, there is a certain part of the infrastructure which is quite, I would say, quite aged as well. Of course, in some areas we are seeing that, you know, the customers are really working towards improving that or going for the refurbishment of those aged infrastructure which is there. When we really look at the overall, for example, the overall portfolio level, you know, what's happening actually is that in the transmission side, whatever new projects are coming, the Grid Automation is coming with that. We expect a major investment to come, as Deepak has said, on the distribution side.
Till the time it doesn't come up, because, you know, once you have to make the ADMS systems and things like that, even the field equipment needs to become smarter so that these opportunities or these signals et cetera get captured at the load dispatch centers or the ADMS centers, et cetera. What's happening till the time those investments don't come in, we will not see an explosion in the opportunities of grid automation. It will remain as a consistent market.
Right. Because if you look at the state level, grid is significantly under-invested on the technology side. Now with distribution reforms around the corner, states signing up to invest to reduce losses and improve efficiency, that should actually technically be a significantly large opportunity for us over the next two to four years.
I think that's what I said, Renu. Till the time that investment doesn't come, we will not see an explosion in the opportunity of grid automation. The market will remain consistent. Once we see that type of CapEx coming into the grid automation side or the putting the ADMS into various, for example, cities and circles, et cetera, then yes, the grid automation market, we expect a phenomenal growth.
Just one small question. While the market outlook is now improving in terms of prospects, et cetera, overall inflows are still being soft for us YTD. Any thoughts from the group as well as from the company or ways to look to reduce the overall cost structure of the business and make it slightly more lean to adjust for these kind of cyclicalities in terms of the business opportunities and the size of the group? Anything that we are doing to further cut down the fixed cost or you think the opportunities could be limited on that side?
Yes, we are taking actions to reduce the fixed cost. As well as we have talked in the earlier presentations, there are actions taking Lean Manufacturing actions to improve the product cost as well.
Okay. Any particular initiatives which you would like to highlight, or yeah?
Not at present till the time they are decided, but all opportunities are being explored to reduce the cost.
Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you. Before we take our next question, we would like to remind participants to ask a question, please enter star and one on your touchtone telephone. Our next question is from the line of Dilip Jain from Ayush Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon. My first question, am I audible?
Yes.
Yes.
Okay. For the Adani Mumbai HVDC Project, which you just discussed, I believe the total project is about INR 7,000-8,000 crore. How much of this opportunity will our company address? When we have bid for that, do we have a raw material escalation clause in our bidding? My second question, sir, is there was a reversal of INR 59 crore excess provisioning that has significantly lowered other expenses in the results just announced. Any more room to further lower other expenses going forward in this head or in other heads, in terms of going leaner, like we discussed? Sir, my last question is, we have discussed a lot about the gross margin problem that we are facing.
What percentage of our current order book is without raw material escalation clause at present? Thank you, sir. I look forward to the answers.
I will first answer for the Adani part and then probably Sushil will take over CDP. One thing is that out of INR 7,000 crore, because we are actively discussing it with Adani, it will be very difficult for us in an open call to explain on the commercial strategy and the numbers, etc. Probably we will not be able to answer that question in the call. That, what will be the scope for GE T&D and what will be the value, and those are protected by the escalation of material, etc. Ebcause that's part of the discussion which is sensitive in nature. I hope you understand that. Sushil, I think for balance things.
Yeah. On the other expenses, on an average, on a full year basis, we have about INR 400 crore of other expenses, which means average INR 100 crore per quarter, and that's the trend we have been communicating in last couple of quarter calls as well. Yes, there are actions which we are taking to reduce the overall structure cost. And also at present, we are taking actions, as you see, on the reduction of debt, i f the debt reduction happens, that also helps us in bringing down the financing cost. In addition, the major component and the problem that we saw in the quarter is related to gross margin. Lean Manufacturing and cost out of the product is one of the significant action that the company is planning to take.
On the third question, I do not have immediately the breakup of the fixed price and variable price contract. Probably we can share that in the next update.
Okay, going back to my first question, sir. Of the INR 8,000 crore project, like, how much can GE address? I'm not asking the details of the quote that you have put in, but how much of that, like, is half the project addressable by GE or like 1/4 or the entire? That's what I wanted to know.
No, no. Okay, I understand your question. Basically.
Yeah.
You know, when the project cost is considered, then that considers even the cost of land, the cost of substation, transmission line, cable, financing cost, other overhead expenses. Our scope for that would be less than 50% of the overall contract price.
Less than 50%. Okay. In the second question, sir, for the other expenses, is there a quantum that you could put, you know, going forward? Because this is excellent what you have done. You have reversed INR 60 crore of excess provisioning. It took care of a lot of the hit that we got on the gross margin side. Is there any quantum, like any ballpark quantum that you could put to how much more we could go leaner on the other expenses?
As I said, at present, it is difficult because those actions are in progress.
Sure.
Direction without actions being finalized will not be the right communication. Give us some time. We are taking actions to reduce the cost consistently, and we will probably give more update as and when things firm up in nature.
Okay, sir. We could definitely expect positive surprises going forward.
On one piece I can say yes, you can see the cash and debt position.
Yeah.
Last couple of years, we started communication on the improvement and focus on the cash generation.
Yeah.
At that point of time, the debt was in the range of INR 500 crore.
Yeah.
We talked about being debt free. In this quarter we are, say, around INR 24 crore net debt, which has helped us to bring down the cost to the extent of INR 25 crore-INR 30 crore, if I'm remembering all the numbers correctly, in a financial year. We had about INR 75 crore-INR 80 crore of financing cost two years ago, which has now come down to less than INR 50 crore or in that range.
Yeah.
That is a continuous effort that we are making. Having said that, yes, there will. This is a long cycle project. There'll be a couple of quarters where the working capital will increase depending on the projects need and so on, and we'll try to bring it down further. Directionally, we are taking action, which is helping us in reducing cost of financing and becoming or moving towards debt free. There have been actions in the last year from the other expense where we have communicated that we saved a significant part of the other expenses, which is already baked in the numbers. Give us some time for the rest of the improvements being made.
Sure. For the last part of the question, sir, the future orders that we will be taking, do we have the pricing power to take orders, you know, which are ultimately gonna be more profitable than the current situation? I mean, my whole idea of asking you was that.
That is the endeavor that selectivity and trying to ensure that we take the orders with better terms and conditions and better margins.
Okay. Do we see the order book moving towards the private entities more? I believe currently 63% is private entities. Do we see that moving to, say, 80% over the next two years?
I think today with TBCB, what we are seeing that most of the bids are being won by the private entities only. For example, the Sterlite's and the ReNew's and Adani's of the world. Automatically the whole market is shifting towards the private sector. Now with government also coming at that, for states also, they are encouraging the local governments to go for TBCB. Even the state market, to a great extent, will shift towards the private sector, or in case it's power grid-based, then Power Grid. This is the reason that the ratio of private will be more in the coming times.
Okay, should this help us going forward to maintain our gross margins? I mean, this very shift of trend that you've been talking about from government to private to us, should that help us get back to 26%-28% in the next, say, three or four quarters on gross margin levels?
That will also depend upon the competitive pressures, which it's something which is very difficult to predict at this point of time.
I believe with the kind of work we do, we just have Hitachi as one of our biggest rivals, right? Or do you feel the field is getting more competitive as we proceed day by day?
Because we have multiple competition scenarios that, for example, Hitachi is there. We have Siemens also as competition. We have Toshiba also as competition. We have other manufacturers also where there is competition. For example, in a few spaces like transformers, we have other players also. On the EPC side, we have L&T, KEC, Kalpataru, Techno also as competition.
Anyways in which we differentiate us from the rivals? Because I've heard that GE's technology is probably the best in the world.
I would say that the only place where we differentiate is that we have practically the complete bouquet of products available with us. That is the differentiating factor of what we have. Otherwise, technology-wise, the acceptability of technology which is there is that everybody is manufacturing today in India. The technology is acceptable.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks a lot, sir. Thank you for your time. Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Bhavin Vithlani from SBI Mutual Fund.
Yes.
Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity again. In the budget speech, there was a mention about excluding the exemption, specifically about high voltage power transmission and a few products. Could you help us with this? Would it help us in terms of our competitiveness from the imports that were there from the likes of Chinese, et cetera?
I'm not able to capture your question, Bhavin, but, you know, ultimately what we see is that, because of the various regulations of the government which have come in, already the finished products which were directly coming from the neighboring countries or the land-sharing border countries are already not acceptable into the grid. We don't see any change at least happening on that area. Bhavin, am I audible?
Sir, it looks like his line is disconnected. In the meanwhile, we'll take our next question. That's from the line of Lux Jain, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Hello, am I audible?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Our current order book is of INR 3,800 crore approximately. Our yearly revenue in the worst of times of FY 2021, it is INR 3,500 crore. In the media report, it says that INR 3,800 crore of order book provides a revenue visibility of 18-24 months. Why has there been so much increase in the duration for meeting this order book?
Hello. Generally, there are orders which are booked during the year and also executed during the year, specifically also on the export side. That is the reason where this INR 38 billion order provides us a base level for couple of years, and then we will more order and execute for the couple of years.
Okay. Okay. That's it, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to hand the floor back to Mr. Suneel Mishra for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Yeah, thank you, Inba. Thank you everyone for your participation. We conclude today's conference call of GE T&D India Limited. In case if you have any other questions, please feel free to contact me or Mr. Anshul Madaan on the email ID. Thanks once again. With this, we close.
Thank you, members of the management. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of GE T&D India Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.