Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Navin Fluorine International Limited Conference Call hosted by MUFG. 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 then zero on your touchtone phone. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Pooja Swami from MUFG. Thank you. Over to you, ma'am. Please proceed.
Thank you, Shailendra. Good evening everyone and welcome to Q4 and FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call of Navin Fluorine International Limited. Today on the call, we have with us Mr. Vishad Mafatlal, Chairman, Mr. Nitin Kulkarni, Managing Director, and Mr. Anish Ganatra, Chief Financial Officer. Before we proceed with the call, I would like to mention that this call will contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are completely based on beliefs, opinions, and expectations as of today. Actual results may differ materially. These statements are not the guarantee of our future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict.
A detailed safe harbor statement is given on page two of the investor presentation of the company, which is uploaded on stock exchanges and on the company's website. With this, I hand over the call to Mr. Vishad Mafatlal for his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good evening, everyone, and a warm welcome to Navin Fluorine International Limited's Quarter Four and Full Year FY 2026 Earnings Call. I am joined today by our MD, Mr. Nitin Kulkarni, our CFO, Mr. Anish Ganatra, along with Ms. Payal Dave, our investor relations advisor from MUFG Intime. FY 2026 has been a resilient year for Navin Fluorine, marked by strong deliveries despite a challenging global environment and geopolitical uncertainties. By staying focused on our long-term priorities and leveraging capabilities, we remain committed to navigating these uncertainties with discipline and agility. I am pleased to report that the company has delivered six consecutive quarters of revenue and profitability growth, reflecting the strength of our business ethos, consistent execution, and sustained demand across key segments. This momentum underscores management's focus on disciplined growth, market expansion, and long-term value creation for our stakeholders.
I am glad to inform you that the board in today's meeting has declared a final dividend of INR 8.6 per equity share, 430% of the face value of INR 2 per share. The growth in this fiscal is supported by contribution across the business verticals, led by structural demand drivers and constructive pricing environment. This diversification across products, customers, and geographies remains central to Navin Fluorine's long-term strategy. Our strong balance sheet continues to provide flexibility, while our robust order book across verticals underscores the confidence our customers place in us. With proven capabilities and operational efficiencies, we believe that innovation-led companies like us are best positioned to capture long-term growth. As we look ahead to the new financial year, we see commissioning and ramping up of additional HFC capacities of 32 MPP and the upcoming KMOS project.
These projects will transition from investment phase to revenue generation in this year. We will continue to focus on a balance of product and service play with emphasis on niche chemistries to drive differentiated growth and value creation. We will continue to deepen and broaden our customer relationships across geographies. We will maintain a strong balance sheet with continued focus on capital allocation to deliver long-term shareholder value. I would like to thank our customers for trusting us, our employees whose dedication has made every achievement possible, our board for their continuous guidance, and our shareholders for believing in us. With this, I will now hand over the call to Nitin to take you through the operational and segment-wise performance in more detail. Thank you.
Thank you, Vishad [ji]. Good evening, everyone. Let me walk you through the segmental performance and key operational developments. I am pleased to share that we have reported a growth of more than 2x in EBITDA and PAT for the year. Across all three business verticals, our performance is a continuation of operating momentum and execution discipline. Starting with our HPP business, Q4 FY 2026 revenue grew 20% year-on-year at INR 393 crore, driven by improved realization and volume growth. Our AHF plant was successfully commissioned, and commercial supplies have commenced during the last quarter. Our additional HFC capacity expansion, equivalent to 15,000 MTPA of R32, remains on track for commissioning in Q3 FY 2027. The HPP business continues to benefit from a constructive global demand supply environment, increasing adoption of low GWP refrigerants and export opportunities.
Moving to Specialty Chemicals vertical, Q4 FY 2026 revenue grew 39% year-on-year at INR 360 crore, reflecting strong execution in both existing and new molecules. We continue to see scale up in ongoing products supported by customer confidence and long-term contracts. Our Dahej MPP debottlenecking CapEx is progressing well and is targeted for commissioning in Q3 FY 2027. The KMOS project is on track and expected to be completed by end June, early July. Specialty Chemicals growth is backed by order visibility and a robust pipeline for FY 2027. Turning to CDMO business, Q4 FY 2026 revenue grew by 61% year-on-year to INR 186 crore. This growth was driven by balanced mix of early, late stage and commercial molecules across therapeutic areas such as oncology, respiratory, cardiovascular, neurology and animal health.
To sum up, FY 2026 has reinforced our belief in the strength of Navin Fluorine's integrated platforms. Our near-term priorities are efficient execution of announced CapEx and improving return ratios while scaling growth. Before concluding, I would like to take a one minute to address the current geopolitical environment. We are closely monitoring and navigating the developments with agility, particularly given implications on energy prices, logistics and supply chain disruptions. With that, I would like to hand over the call to Anish for his remarks.
Thank you, Nitin. Good evening, all, and I welcome you all to the Earnings Call. Moving on to the financial performance of the company in Q4 and FY 2026, let me begin with the financial highlights for the quarter ended March 31st. Consolidated revenues stood at INR 938 crore, registering a 34% year-on-year growth. Operating EBITDA increased 80% year-on-year to INR 321 crore, with margins expanding to 34.2%. Operating PBT grew 118% year-on-year to INR 251 crore. Profit after tax stood at INR 213 crore, reflecting a growth of 124%. For the full year FY 2026, net operating revenues grew to INR 3,314 crore, reflecting a growth of 41%, supported by broad-based momentum across specialty chemicals, CDMO and HPP.
Operating EBITDA more than doubled to INR 1,082 crore, with margins at 32.6%, an expansion of 992 basis points, reflecting a favorable mix in operating leverage. Operating PBT grew 142% year-on-year to INR 815 crore as against INR 336 crore in FY 2024-2025. Profit after tax stood at INR 664 crore as against INR 289 crore. Our net working capital days have improved to 74 days versus 90 days, reflecting a stronger operational efficiency and better conversion cycle. Going forward, the net working capital is expected to be in the range of 75-80 days versus our previous indicative guidance of 90 days of sales.
As of 31st March 2026, our net debt to equity stood at 0.01x, negligible, while both ROE and ROCE improved at 20% and 21% respectively. Thank you. We can now open the floor for question and answers.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Sanjesh Jain from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good evening, Nitin and Anish. I got few questions. Let me start with the Middle East situation right now. I got two question there. First, from the availability of raw material, including but not limited to sulfur and methanol. Have you faced any challenge on the key raw material availability, if our contracts have not been returned or suppliers have not been performing? How is the situation there? I think it remains very volatile and uncertain. A related question is on the inflation of the raw material. We have been maintaining a 45 days inventory. We sailed through probably a better March and April, but we should be hitting a level where inventory is now completely depleted.
That means it necessitates the increased pricing to the contracts which we are working, spot prices probably adjust much faster. How should we think about the passing on inflation on the contracts like HFO, agrochemical and CDMO? That's number one. Number two, on the refrigerant gas, there is a notification which government has put up, and now I think the plant can come up till 2027. There could be a situation where the competition was not earlier looking significantly at the capacity. In 2027, probably we are adding a capacity now in excess of 130,000 metric ton in India. That situation is very different than what we were earlier looking for CY 2026. How does it changes the scenario for pricing?
Because, in our presentation, we are talking of a revenue potential from new R32 of the tune of INR 600 crore-INR 825 crore. At a lower end, we are looking at a price which is INR 400 crore, probably half of the price what [Red Sea] is trading at. What do you think you're looking at INR 400 as a bottom pricing? Number three is probably on the margin. We appreciate that you have been calling out margin, some benefit coming up in currency, can you help us with the numbers? What is the margin benefit which is coming purely from the currency? These are my initial questions. Thank you.
Sorry, Sanjesh. Can you repeat your last question on margin?
We have been calling out benefit because of the currency depreciation, which has adding to the margin of 34%. What is that margin benefit purely coming from the Forex?
Okay. Okay. You've got a couple of questions. Thanks again.
Yeah.
With starting from your comment on the Mid East situation and the availability of raw material. Again, as we all know, the situation continues to remain volatile. As we mentioned before, our focus is on ensuring that we remain sort of vigilant to this, focus the efforts of the management with a lot of discipline, and at the same time maintain agility in how we respond. To be honest, this in some ways feels like the COVID day, yeah, where you had a, you know, call every day morning with the leadership, and you would sort of look at what's happening in the market and how you sort of mitigate any events. So far, we have not seen any disruption.
We have seen inflation go through. Fortunately, we've also been able to pass on a lot of these back to the customer. There could be some lag effect. Other than that, we are pretty confident of passing on the price increases to the finished product, yeah. We don't see a material risk, save for what may happen tomorrow, I don't know, yeah. As we talk now, we don't see a material risk coming from there. On your question on inflation and inventory depletion, we are maintaining healthy level of stocks. So far, we've not had a situation where we've not been able to get materials. Yes, the pricing has gone up, and that is kind of universally known.
We've not had a situation where we've had to shut anything down for want of raw materials or anything like that.
Customer demand?
Customer demand has remained robust during this period.
Yeah. Okay. [croostalk]
Refrigerant gas. There is no demand disruption because of inflation, is what we are telling. It's just a restocking demand, anticipating an inflation.
In fact, I mean, post the situation, there may be further restocking, demand that will come up, because there will be some pent-up thing that will open up once situation improves. Currently, we're not seeing any disruption of demand as in our numbers as we speak now as well, right? Your point on refrigerant gas notification, you know 27% is the asset for bringing any new capacities. I mean, that notification still doesn't change the position on the quota, yeah?
You should remember that that quota is only going to be available as aligned with the Kigali Amendment, which is 24%, 25%, 26% average production, and 65% of your GWP equivalent of HCFCs of 2009 and 2010, right? That doesn't change. You know, while we can bring in capacity, I think the key question is, you know, is the quota available or not to anybody bringing in those capacities. Margin, in terms of-
Yes.
Sorry.
No, no, just one related question on gas. Is it clear from the government side that the R22 quota which company had, only that company will be eligible or government can redistribute the R22 quota on a pro-rata basis? Do we have the clarity?
I think, Sanjesh, I mean, again, our understanding of the Kigali rules, our understanding of how this is meant to play out clearly indicates that you must have a right to win in this, you know. Your right to win comes from the quota that you have. That's exactly what we've always been saying, and which is why we put our capacity to consume our quota fully.
Very good. Thank you.
Yeah. Your margin on the number, specification, I know you said there is a currency tailwind, there is a currency tailwind. If you analyze the currency tailwind with the inflation figures that you know, you will find that a lot of this is a wash between currency and inflation. What we are now seeing in terms of the growth of the EBITDA, I think it's about 990 basis points from FY to FY. You will see 70% of that for Navin is coming from our capacity is coming on the ground, our volume is going up, and 30% is coming from affirmative actions on pricing that we've taken. You know, this sort of, you know, I was reading something, this basically implies that Navin's sort of operating leverage is meeting his capacity. That essentially was happening out here, man.
Very clear. Two related, two other questions.
Yeah.
Anish, two questions. One on agrochemical application. The commentary is pretty weak from the innovator. Are we seeing that play out for us in FY 2027? Second, can you help us with CDMO late-stage contract, how many are we working? 1 we know it's commercial with the European client. But we have supplied two clients, if I remember, one in Europe and one in the U.S., on the commercial. Can you throw some light on late-stage contract we have in our pipeline and how should we see them becoming commercial for us?
Yeah. On agrochemical, again, you know, I mean, if you look at the global scenario, there is a slow sort of reset happening. You know, you're seeing some indication of volume recovery. Pricing is always going to be lagging that. You know, that I think all of us understand. Navin sort of, you know, as we said before, our strategy was to work on newer molecules, et cetera, from a longer-term point of view. If you look at FY 2026, we have done in all, I believe, close to about 13 new molecules during the year. That along with the demand sort of resurfacing gives us enough confidence to say that, you know, as we look into FY 2027, we have visibility almost up to about 80% of our capacity utilization.
I think we are well covered for FY 2027, and as we move into 2027, we'll get further clarity on how this is reshaping into 2028 and beyond. In terms of CDMO late stage, early stage, I mean, we have a healthy balance of mix. I mean, if I was to tell you in terms of number of molecules, I think we are working close to about 50, 55 molecules, half of them being in late-stage commercial and half of them being in early stages. There's a very healthy balanced portfolio there. As we look into, you know, coming into our FY 2027 number that we've always said is INR 100 million, you know, this number that we've delivered this year of INR 541 crore is again a solid sort of journey to kind of get to where we want to get to by FY 2027.
Like I said before, we have been inching closer to it. With this quarter, we've further inched closer to that number. You know, there is very good confidence that we will push for hitting the number, and we'll see where we get to at the end of the year. There is a lot of work happening on the commercial molecules as well, and we've indicated broadly the therapeutic areas that we talked about on the slide. If you see, it's oncology, if I remember, neurology, cardiovascular, you know, animal health. You know, in all of these areas we are playing in sort of a good balance, frankly. Very confident on the CDMO growth stage, you know.
Very clear.
Mr. Sanjesh?
I think. Thank you. Yeah, yeah.
Mr. Sanjesh-
Thanks.
I request you to restrict to two questions per participant. Thank you. You can rejoin the queue.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
We have next question from Naushad Chaudhary from Aditya Birla Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. First on the Chemours option for doing the project, assuming it goes well, what size of CapEx it can even trigger, and by when we can even have some visibility that it should go in the favor of us?
Okay. Okay. Chemours, I mean, again, we've already said the project is on track for commissioning end of June, early July. As I stated previously, this is the initial capacities to accelerate adoption in the market. As we move to that over the next sort of 18 months, we get a better understanding of what that market size looks like. Accordingly, there will be a CapEx that will be rolled on the back of that understanding.
Premature to talk what it will be today, but I think, you know, it's fair to assume that, you know, we are the only manufacturing site for Chemours, given the nature of the product, that it is essential to support the AI growth in the that we are seeing around us, you know, and the unique benefits of the product. It should be a reasonable one. No?
Second, on the pricing side.
Can you speak a bit louder, if you don't mind, Naushad?
Yes. Second, on the pricing side, especially, on the Fermion and other portfolio as well. Apart from rest, which all portfolios are you're seeing price uptick, and what is your near-term outlook there? What is the when is the price revision expected in the Fermion portfolio?
Yeah. I don't know what's driving that question, Naushad. I mean, Fermion opportunity is quite publicly known because it's, it is published both by Orion as well as Bayer. Would encourage you to have a look at it actually. But the last I remember, it's about $5 billion, peak sales in 2028 or 2029. Like we said, you know, we are very firm believers of the projections that Fermion and has shared with us, and there is solid growth momentum to come on that as we look into the future. Pricing and all, I don't know, where the question is coming from. If you have a particular point on pricing, I would request you to elaborate on it.
See, it's been two years to this contract, and we have scaled it up. I was just thinking, should we keep working on the initial pricing which you would have, you know, contracted? Would there be any point where the price revision would trigger because your scale and volume is going up in this particular project?
I will leave you to your judgment there. These are commercial things, we deal with it, but it's not something we can talk on any sort of forum outside the company.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Yeah, thanks.
Yeah.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rohit Nagraj from 360 ONE Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, and congrats on strong set of numbers. First question, unfortunately on the pricing part, given that there is a raw material price inflation and some of our contracts for HFO as well as for CDMO would be calendar year contracts. Will there be a price rejig or passed on immediately? Will it be a transitory phase that for a couple of months, we'll be charging the previous price and then maybe a couple of months later, the newer price incorporating the higher raw material cost? Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Rohit. I mean, Rohit, see the pricing and RM price inflation, et cetera, you know, these different contracts cover it in different ways from a commercial standpoint. We have both a product play and a service play. In service play, typically you have pass-through mechanism, this will fall into that pass-through mechanisms. How and what we are doing to accelerate that recovery is something that is being worked upon, discussed. You know, it's not a surprise to both the, both us and our customers about the price rise. There is a good reception to that. The second question on... What was the second thing? You said transitory months or something around.
You answered. Yeah.
I think I answered that, right?
Right. Right. Right. Right.
Okay.
The second question is slightly on R32 in terms of broader structure in the domestic market. What is our understanding in terms of the current consumption of R32? Given that the newer capacities, even if we don't consider the ones who don't have quota, and we are adding, there is another player who has got quota, and they will be adding, how this incremental volumes which is coming into play will be placed? Will it, again, I mean, unfortunately asking the same question again in terms of pricing, will there be any impact given that these additional capacities will come on stream?
R32, again, I think we've gone through this several times. You know, you have to look at the overall GWP cuts that are happening in the world and the blend play that R32 is uniquely positioned to behave, you know. That drives the pricing conversation. I mean, if I remember correctly, China prices currently are close to about $9, yeah. There is a significant sort of reason why they are stronger than and getting stronger as we speak, okay? One has to read into those dynamics. The point about I think it was Sanjesh Jain who had asked, and maybe I didn't address it at that point in time. You know, there was a question on the par range that we've given, INR 600-875.
Frankly, as part of our investment approach that we take to the board, we always present the downside case too. We have only translated that in full transparency to how we have reported to the market. It's a downside case that we always do more as a math rather than our belief. Our belief is really driven by the demand supply dynamics. Which again, I've said this before also, that the first R32 capacity came in when prices were sub $2. If the economics stood then, they will stand now, yeah.
Just one clarification on the numbers front. Our employee benefit expenses have been up only 4% on a YOY basis, and there has been a significant scale-up in terms of operations. Will it be normalized during FY 2027, maybe inflation adjusted plus the newer capacities coming on stream, which earlier probably were capitalized in the CapEx first? Thank you.
I think when we started the year or some point in last year, I think it was again, a lot of the analysts asking us the question when our employee cost was, I think, 12%, 13% of sales. We took some affirmative actions to bring it down. What you see in the numbers is they look almost flattish, but those reflect, you know, typical increments. They both reflect typical sort of new joiners coming in, and those also reflect the affirmative actions taken by management to optimize, right? That's a combination of all. I think we're done with the optimization where we are. Going forward, you will see the increase largely. You will see.
Sure.
You will see the normal increase coming, yeah, the normal increase. I think, you know.
Sure
if you had to put your model in, I would model it in the range of between 7.5%, 8.5%, 9%, not more than that.
Got it.
We're very firm on maintaining it in that threshold.
Perfect. Perfect. Thanks a lot, and all the best, sir.
No worries.
Thank you. Participants are requested to ask two questions per participant. We have next question from Vivek Rajamani from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead, sir.
Hi, sir. Thank you for the presentation, congratulations on a strong finish. Just wanted to get a sense with respect to the customer conversations that you're having. Do you get a sense that you could move to increased restocking on a more sustainable basis with customers potentially building up more buffers versus the just-in-time sentiment that we've gotten used to for the last couple of years? Just with respect to agrochemicals, given the dislocations that we've seen in fertilizers, and obviously we don't know how the situation will resolve itself, do you see any risk of that flowing into, you know, potential off takes for some of the AgChem products? Thank you.
So Vivek, see, our portfolio on AgChem is mainly export-driven, right? As you know, in the export-driven, you start getting solid visibility before the end of the calendar year. That visibility translates into orders, which then translates into deliveries. We're not seeing any disruption on that front. I mean, to be honest, everybody will be managing their supply chain disruption. How they do it frankly is not something that they would share with us in our customer interactions. We've definitely not seen any demand disruption as yet in terms of, you know, if that's your question or if that's where you were going with it.
Sure, sir. No, it's actually going the other way where you could see more restocking potentially with what's happened, not specifically on demand disruption.
No. As I said, see the ag market, you know, and we've always maintained this, that fundamentally that market has structurally good demand in the long term. In the near term, it's going through a reset, and it's going through a reset in a slow manner. You are seeing some volume increases and prices are kind of still sort of subdued. But my understanding and my expectation is that as we go through the year, you will see price rises lesser than volume increase. It's gonna look like flattish in terms of price rises. But you know, that's where we are, to be honest. Beyond that, I don't think I have much to add.
Sure, sir. That's helpful. Thank you and all the very best.
Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ankur Periwal from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, Hi sir. Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations on a consistent and good set of numbers there. First question on the CDMO bit. Just sort of, you know, trying to understand the growth outlook better. Have we expanded our capabilities on the CDMO side versus let's say maybe 10 months back, or is it largely the same? In the related part here, how has the revenue mix changed between the late stage molecules and the early stage molecules for us?
Capability expanded, certainly the case. If you mean capability through acquisition of new technology, et cetera, no, not yet. You know, we have definitely expanded our capability because every therapeutic area that we've stated out there is an area where we are actively working on molecules, some in commercial stage, some in early stages. I mean, to be honest, when you're looking for a revenue mix between early and late stage, you should look at more at the number of molecules because commercial molecules will tend to have a larger footprint in terms of the value. Like I said, therefore, you know, we have got about 50% and close to about 55-60 molecules that we are actively working as we speak on.
Sure. Okay. Because this molecule number has been largely consistent if I look at last two, three years around that 50, 55 odd number. Which is where I was referring to from a, from a revenue emphasis perspective.
No. The molecules on commercial side, you're right, because it takes long time to sort of go through the cycles which you're aware of. The early stages is campaign-driven largely, and they keep moving. You know, our sort of endeavor is to, you know, kind of hold it at a good balance, and that's why you probably see the numbers like that.
Sure, Anish. No worries . Just second, more of a bookkeeping. Few clarifications there. One.
Sir, we will request two questions per participant, sir. Please rejoin the queue, sir.
Okay. No worries. Thanks.
Ankur, finish off, yeah. Let him finish off, no? Maybe next time we will. The next one can we hold the question.
I think, he has joined the queue.
Okay. No worries.
Mister, we have next question from Jason Soans from IDBI Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks sir for taking my question. Sir, just wanted to know, I mean, you have grown really phenomenally well in the specialty chemical segment as well as the HPP segment as well for this year, growth in excess of 35% and 45%. Just wanted to know from this higher base, when you look into the next year, FY 2027, I know you gave a lot of color on the AgChem side as well. Just wanted to know, can we kind of clock in high double-digit revenue growth for both these segments going ahead in FY 2027?
Jason, I think I've given apart from just not giving you the specific number. Let me sort of reiterate the growth blocks going into FY 2027. You know, if you look at it, we've said the HS plant has already been commissioned. It was commissioned in February, you should see the revenues for that kicking into FY 2028. You should see the revenues for Nectar that we've talked about, the dedicated, the chlorochemical plant. We've always said that our endeavor would be to be around 50%, 60% capacity utilization this year. That would go to about 70%, 75% in the coming year. You would see the new sort of CapExes coming on stream, you know, the debottlenecking, we've again given you the bar for that and the timeline for that. We've given you R32 and the timeline for that.
Again, you can model your numbers from what you have as in available data from the market. You know, you start putting all this together, and obviously we've talked about the Chemours project as well. You know, cGMP-4 was commissioned last quarter again, and you would see that on December, if I'm not mistaken. You will see the revenue sort of kicking in this year too again, from that point of view. Fermion growth is very solid. Again, you can factor in those numbers too. You will have enough to see the trajectory of the growth. I would be surprised if it's not double-digit, but I'm happy to clarify if it is not separately.
Sure. Thanks for that, sir. Just one question. I wanted to understand, with the Middle East crisis going on, any impact you saw in terms of ref gas volumes, you know, for that region?
Middle East, frankly Our export footprint is very little. you know, mainly the R22 gases, and those hadn't gone in March, and they are still in the schedule but not yet gone in yet. to be honest, we are working on numbers for Q1 excluding the Middle East movement at all. If any of that comes in, will be an upside. you know, the demand across the globe is pretty robust and also no logistics issues on that front.
Sure. Thanks a lot for answering my questions, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sucrit Patil from Eyesight Fintrade Private Limited . Please go ahead.
Good evening to the team. I have two questions. My first question to Mr. Partha is a forward-looking one. How are you positioning Navin Fluorine to capture the evolving demand in specialty fluorochemicals and the CDMO space while mitigating risk from global regulatory changes and raw material volatility? What strategic levers will differentiate the company from its peers in the coming quarter? That's my first question. I have a second question after this. Thank you.
Yeah. Sorry, who did you direct your question to?
Mr. Rohit.
We don't have any Rohit. You'll have to wait forever.
No, let me answer that anyway.
Let me answer that. So it's Anish here. On the Adchem front, see again, we have a service play, right? In the service play we work with global innovators. Frankly, their regulatory risks of the intermediates we supply to them are managed by them. We are working on some new innovator molecules which are part of the strategic pipeline of these global innovators. I would suspect there is not any sort of issue over there . Sorry, did I lose you? I was just sitting here.
Sir.
Yeah.
Sir, he is right now off the queue.
Okay.
Okay. We have next question from Arun Prasath from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Good evening, Anish, Vishad, and Nitin-ji. Couple of questions. First is, you spoke about demand. You are not seeing any kind of a disruption. I'm sure you would agree that there are two parts to this. One is, the, you know, one set of customers who would be restocking. Second set of customers, maybe they may be little bit going slow and maybe doing on the wait and watch. You, your read on the demand situation, is it more because that some of these customers are restocking and probably the issues with respect to demand on the higher prices, will it come with a lag? Is that the right way to look at our business at this point of time?
The way I would look at it, I mean, if I look at 28 and the order visibility we've talked about coming to 80% utilization. Sorry, Arun. Sorry, Arun. What I was saying was, if you look at the, you know, visibility we've talked about on FY 2028 in the agro specialty, I mean frankly, the capacity utilization at 80% is probably as best as one would go in an MTPA environment, you know. Then doing 13 new molecules last year and sort of working that through in the coming year, we don't see what you are saying, some restocking, some not restocking. I mean, frankly the way it manifests for us is in the order visibility and in the order books, that continues to be solid.
Of course, I'm sure, so your pharma category would be relatively insulated.
No, I'm talking of agro. I'm talking of agro. I'm talking of agro.
Okay.
Pharma again, I frankly, you guys will know far more than I do because Fermion numbers are out there and, you know, you will see the growth they are seeing annually year on year as well as the peak projections, as well as the further label expansions that they're working on.
Anish, outside pharma and agro, which categories you would say that, you know, at a risk because higher prices eventually lead to the demand destruction at a later stage? Not long term, but at least, one or two quarters, there will be a demand destruction. Can you call out some categories where, you know, this from your category probably you would have seen it?
I think again, this is a economics question or theory, you know, there are several articles one can read at. You know, at $150 sustained oil prices, I think there is a concern that the global demand may slow. Today we are not seeing that. We can't factor that. What we are doing today is making sure that we are resilient. We are working hard at what we can do. We maintain our discipline, and frankly, in this environment we maintain significant agility as well to respond to situations as they arise. That's what we can do. That actually will prepare us in the best possible way to whatever is thrown at us. That's our focus.
No, no, I understand, Anish. What I'm asking is, what categories we should be looking out for outside the category, outside the pharma and care growth? Because as an outsider, we do not have much insight, you know, what's happening on a...
Arun, it's very simple. At $ 150, if there is demand destruction, you will see interest rates, inflation, everything go haywire. That will be a global scenario of slowdown. I'm sure you're reading the world, the, you know, reports from the World Economic Forum, et cetera, et cetera. You know, that's not something I am planning on. That's not something in my gift to control. As management, we are doing what is within our gift of influence, what is within our gift of control.
Understood. On the Forex benefits you spoke earlier, there are two costs associated for you. One is a dollar-denominated cost, and another is a rupee-based cost. Is it fair to assume when the contract goes for the renewal, customers would be negotiating only to the extent your rupee cost will not be, you know, repriced to the same extent?
Commercial negotiations are never linear. You know, you can't have one attribute and you relate that to another attribute. These are holistic contracts where you would look at everything, how a contract is structured, how you would sort of attend the risks of inflation. You know, if you want to do a rupee-based contract, well, then you will have to take inflation in your stride, right? There are several such nuances to it, and it's not a subject I think we can cover here, guys.
Sir, one final bit, bookkeeping question. HPP segment, sequentially there is a revenue decline. One would expect that with the AHF plant scaling up and a better ref- gas filing, at least-
Sorry, can you repeat? Arun, can you repeat? Where did you see the decline? Just heard the word decline.
HPP segment, QOQ decline, sir. Sequentially, not YOY.
Oh, yeah. Okay, okay. You're talking of Q2, Q3 to Q4, right?
Yes, yes.
We had, you know, these are things in terms of, you know, every of these plants have plant shutdowns, right? We had taken a plant shutdown in our Q4, and we also took an opportunistic exercise to recharge the catalyst in one of our plants. This is ahead of the heat season to maximize the value in quarter one of this year. That's just normal routine activity.
Okay.
Middle East, obviously, as you know, and I've said this before, that we had no shipments in the Middle East, which was close to about INR 15 or INR 15-16 odd crore.
Any quantification possible for those shutdowns?
Thank you. Arun Prasath, I will request you to restrict two questions per participant, sir. Please rejoin the queue. Thank you. We have next question from Keyur Pandya from ICICI Prudential Life Insurance. Please go ahead.
Go ahead.
Hello.
Yeah, Mr. Keyur.
Yes, sorry. Am I audible?
Yes.
Yes, you are.
Okay. sir, two questions on the HPP side. First, the Honeywell contract, I mean, we have always talked about, say, annual some quantum. Have we any scope for growth or expansion from current levels, both in Honeywell and in our current R32 plant? Just wanted to understand before the new R32 plant, what growth levers do we have in the HPP? That is first question.
Okay. Before on the growth levers in HPP, I'm sure you should certainly count the growth coming in from HFO plant which is currently being commissioned. In terms of your question on Honeywell contract, I mean, you know that HFO has applications primarily in the construction area, but also ancillary applications in the refrigerant cooling space too. Whatever we are doing on demand today, it is at an 80% capacity, as I have told you before. There is room to expand within that same capacity by another 20%. I mean, that's nothing new that I'm saying today. It's been something we've always been telling you guys. What was the other question? You had something on R32.
Basically, the question was, growth levers ahead of new plants. You mentioned, Honeywell additional 20% and, AHF, right?
No, no.
Uh, before-
No, Keyur, I didn't say ahead of R32 plant. I said there is opportunity to grow that at some point whenever that demand comes through. Today we are at 80% size. Before that, you should certainly count in the HF capacity and the growth coming from.
Understood.
R32 will come in on time, as we've said that before.
Okay. Okay. Second question on the segment two, I mean, specialty chemicals. There, for this, Project Nectar, I think there are some change in the product from the client. Now under the new scope, what is the visibility we have for, say, merchant sales, which, I mean, outside the contracted volumes?
The contracted volumes are fully covered. The additional molecule actually gives better risk management to that plant. We have also made shipments outside of the contracted revenues for qualification. Those qualifications are under progress. Besides, there are also possible downstream applications of that product that we are working on. We're not duly concerned about utilization. Yes, it has been. We would have liked to have a full utilization by end of FY 2028, which would be by two years. I think we are realistically talking about 75%-80% is where we will get to by end of FY 2028.
Okay. Just lastly...
Thank you, sir.
...Overall profitability...
Mr. Keyur . I am really sorry, sir. Please just stick to your question. two questions per participant.
Sure. Noted. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Please rejoin the queue. We have next question from Mr. Abhijit Akella from Kotak Securities. Please proceed.
Good evening. Thank you so much for taking my questions. First question on the margins. The gross margins this quarter are stable on a sequential basis, 58% odd, even though the CDMO business has ramped up substantially on a sequential basis. Just sort of trying to understand, you know, what the dynamics are there. You know, I mean, we could expect that normally the margins to have expanded a little bit more.
No, margin expansion, you know, in a diversified business is linked not just between business mixes but also the portfolios that you play within the each vertical. Specialty has different molecules. This has different, you know, molecules. There's both an intra-business play and an inter-business play, yeah. You should factor in both. It's sort of a combination of both that results in that number. It wouldn't be fair to just take one equation and jump to that conclusion. It could depend on what product we've done this quarter versus what we did last quarter. Like I said before, there were 13 molecules we did in FY 2026 in the specialty business. three of them were done in Q4.
Okay. Thank you.
Yeah.
The other one was just with regard to the margin guidance for FY 2027 in the context of this inflationary environment. Is 30% still, you know, a good benchmark to work with? That was just one. Just the other quick thing from my side. The HPP vertical seems to have shifted markedly towards India in the past two quarters in terms of sales. What might be driving that? Thank you so much.
To answer your first question on the margin guidance, we've always maintained that we will endeavor to do 30%. Given what we know today of the business circumstances, plus minus 1%-2%, which we've always said. That we will hold for the whole year. This is not a quarter number. We've always maintained that you should look at the margin from a full year perspective. Your question on HPP sales shifted to India. Actually, HPP has had a bigger shift. That one needs to understand that it was a business that we were doing in the range of about INR 250, INR 300. That's per quarter. That has moved to clearly in the INR 400 mark.
In the coming years with the new R32 capacities, HF capacities, that will further go up in terms of contribution. You should look at the increase in India. We've done R32 contracts in India. We've done global reach. If you look at the export data, you will see that we've reached new geographies, new customers. You know, a lot of it will change as you grow the business in the pace at which we are growing.
Thank you.
Thanks.
The next question is from Archit Joshi from Nuvama Institutional Equities. Please proceed.
Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Two questions from me. First one, wanted to get a bit more understanding on Project Nectar. Believe that 50% was towards one of our marquee customers, and the balance 50% was something that we're still trying to figure out in terms of how to dispose those volumes. Believe that the first 50% should definitely be in line with our expectations. Given whatever we are seeing in the global agri industry, would you have any understanding on how we should be placing the balance 50% of that plant? That would be number one.
Second one would be, we have recorded about INR 211 crore of contract liabilities on the balance sheet, including current and non-current ones, which have increased from about INR 139 crore if I calculate correctly. What could be the attribution to that? These would be my two questions. Thank you.
Okay. Sure. On Nectar, you know that apart from the marquee customers, there are two to three other customers, right? We are going through qualification campaigns. We are not figuring out. We are actually working on a plan, and that plan is to get the qualification done and then the sales. We think it is slower than what we would have liked it to be. Therefore, we are talking of the 75% part this year and then the balance next year. We've also talked about the fact that, and I just said that before to the previous respondent, that we would be looking at, you know, sort of downstream applications with the product.
Given whatever, if your question is more around the pricing of that product, et cetera, to the Chinese markets, et cetera, we are confident that even at that price we would make reasonable margins that would not be deteriorative to our overall margin profile. Yeah. Contract liabilities. As you know, contract liabilities actually reflects the monies that we receive from our customers towards the capital contribution, both on Chemours project and the Marti project for the additional molecules. Therefore you see the increase that you see primarily.
No, sir, that's great. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dhara Ganatra from ValueQuest. Please proceed.
Thank you for taking my question. Sir, I would like to understand more on the Fermion contract, since now the cGMP-4 is commissioned from this quarter onwards, from Q4 onwards. Do you have visibility for more volumes to offtake in the next year, so both will be utilized?
The Fermion block was a dedicated block, so obviously what we are currently doing elsewhere will go into dedicated block because that's why we've created the dedicated block. That answers your first question. The second question, do we have visibility to more volumes? Yes, of course, we do have visibility to more volumes, and that will trigger off a decision in terms of where do we place them, et cetera, as and when those volumes come into play.
Okay. there could be a possibility of a cGMP-5 as well if you have more visibility for the contract.
Yeah, there will be a phase II and, you know. Obviously we are working with other molecules too. You know, we've got space for five, six and seven, I believe.
Okay.
Yeah. We are scalable. If we need to do it and there is a business case, we will do it.
Can you mention the quantum of CDMO contribution that is coming from Fermion for the full year of FY 2026?
Can I mention the?
Quantum of Fermion contribution.
Sorry.
Fermion contribution.
No, no. We... Dhara, we don't commercially talk about these values. We're kind of quiet on those. Like I said.
Okay. Thank you.
I mean, you all have the benchmarks. You know, you know there's whatever 2%, 3% of the sale value, et cetera, in terms of the intermediate. That all you know, right?
Mm.
Eventually it will be in the partner. That also you know. You have enough what you need to know in that way.
Sure, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, this will be last question. We now hand over the line to Mr. Anish Ganatra for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
All right. Thanks a lot, everybody, for taking the time to interact with us today. A very useful session from our perspective, certainly, hope you had the same outcome as well. Thank you again, have a good evening all.
Thank you. On behalf of Navin Fluorine International Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.