Suprajit Engineering Limited (BOM:532509)
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Q4 25/26

May 26, 2026

Summary

Q4 saw record profit before tax and revenue, with full-year growth driven by Controls and Electronics. Major restructuring and SCS turnaround improved margins, and double-digit growth is forecast for FY27, with significant CapEx planned.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Suprajit Engineering Q4 FY 2026 conference call hosted by Anand Rathi Share and Stock Brokers. 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 this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Mumuksh Mandlesha from Anand Rathi Share and Stock Brokers. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Mumuksh Mandlesha
Equity Research Analyst, Anand Rathi Share and Stock Brokers

Yeah. Thanks, Aler. On behalf of Anand Rathi Share and Stock Brokers, I welcome you all to the Suprajit Engineering Q4 FY 2026 results conference call. I thank the management for taking time out for this call. From the management side, we have Mr. Ajith Kumar Rai, the Founder and Chairman, Mr. N. S. Mohan, MD and Group CEO, Mr. Akhilesh Rai, Director and Chief Strategy Officer, and Mr. Medappa Gowda J, CFO and Company Secretary. Request Ajith, sir, and team to give an introduction review about the results, and then we can follow with the Q&A session. Over to you, sir.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Thank you, Mumuksh, and thank you, Anand Rathi, for hosting this Q4 conf call. Good morning to you all, and welcome to our quarterly and full- year call for this fourth quarter. We have already uploaded the press release and the results, so I hope you guys had time to go through that. We will go through some of the highlights. All our team will talk a bit. It will be a little longer conversation as we have also done some projections or plans for the coming year and change of nomenclature of our group divisions, et cetera. We will give sufficient time for question and answer. From my point, before I hand over to our team is, one, of course, on the dividend. We have declared a higher dividend overall for the year, INR 3.50 per share against last year's INR 3.

Against an automotive growth of about 10%, 11%, our growth has been slightly lower. This is largely because last year we also had to give some price reductions to our customers. Globally, our Controls Division grew nicely despite the global markets did not grow. So that's the positive side of it. Of course, we are currently facing the Middle East geopolitical headwind, which we hope will be resolved in the near future so that businesses don't get disrupted. On the tariff side, I think, both from the customer and from the government, the recoveries are ongoing. We expect a full resolution for all the tariff-related matters, hopefully within next few months. On the quarterly number, I think, one of the interesting things this quarter has been that we crossed INR 1,000 crore threshold as a quarterly run rate in revenues.

Also, what is interesting in this quarter has been that the Q4 consolidated profit before tax of some INR 97 crore was almost double that of last year. I think subsequent to the LDC and SCS acquisitions for the first time, PBT of the consolidated entity is higher than the PBT of the standalone entity. Full year revenue grew about 17%, and EBITDA grew also by about 19%-20%. Other highlight for the quarter has been that Suprajit Controls Division had a 15% growth. Suprajit Electronics Division grew at about 30%. The real underlying change of performance has been largely due to the turnaround at SCS, as we have guided in the beginning of the year that we will be doing a significant restructuring across the Suprajit Controls Division and in SCS in particular.

That with this, SCS will turn EBITDA positive in Q4, and as you would note from the press release, this has been achieved. So that has been one of the very important highlight, which will also, going forward, will aid in a much significantly higher, better performance. With this, I will hand over to Medappa on giving a quick highlight on the numbers. Medappa?

Medappa Gowda J.
CFO and Company Secretary, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah. Thank you, sir. Good morning to all. The consolidated revenue, excluding SCS, for the year ended March 31, 2026 was INR 3,377 crore as against INR 3,106 crore for the corresponding previous year, recording a growth of 8.7%. The consolidated operational EBITDA for the year ended March 2026 was INR 443 crore as against INR 401 crore for the corresponding previous year, recording a growth of 10.5%.

The standalone revenue for the year ended March 31, 2026 was INR 1,840 crore as against INR 1,719 crore for the corresponding previous year, with a growth of 7.1%. The standalone operational EBITDA for the year ended March 2026 was INR 305 crore as against INR 298 crore, recording a growth of 2.4%. The total debt level was INR 785 crore as on March 2026. The surplus cash balance invested in the mutual fund was INR 235 crore as on March 2026. Thank you.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Thank you, Medappa. Mohan?

N. S. Mohan
Managing Director and Group CEO, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah, very good morning, everybody. Thank you, Chairman. Let me start with all our divisional performances and how we worked at each of those divisions. Let me start with the global division, that is our SCD, Suprajit Controls Division. While I am talking about it, I will be talking first about excluding the SCS, because that has been the latest acquisition. I will talk about it separately. SCD revenue grew by around +10% and EBITDA, for the first time, margin went to double digit. We ended the year at 11% there. The key things that happened, because it is very important to understand the story behind the numbers. We said that we have one too many factories in Mexico, we need to consolidate them. Therefore, we embarked upon that, and we completed the Juarez-to-Matamoros Shift .

Now instead of having two factories in Mexico, now we operate under a single consolidated facility, which means it serves both for automotive and on non-automotive purposes in North America. While we were doing it, we also had to do the warehouse consolidation. Therefore, Brownsville, which is just across Matamoros but in U.S.A, became our main warehouse, and it was significantly expanded to handle the bulk of North American shipments, which also meant that the El Paso warehouse also got taken down. I would say that a major restructuring out there in Americas has been completed, and now hopefully with this tariff uncertainties coming behind us, I would say that we will now focus on winning business and establishing ourselves in the U.S. market by strongly positioning ourselves onshore and near shore.

While this is what happened in the U.S. market, SAL India and Shanghai Lone Star in China both grew by 20%. That is another big-ticket wins that we have started having, including in China, winning local customers there. Plants are winning new business in the existing and the new product line, also with STC support. Moving over to the DCD or the Domestic Cable Division, our revenue grew by around 9%. But what happened was, the growth rate was a bit dampened by the year-on-year price concessions that we had passed on to the customer. You know, we always have a lag, so when the commodity price goes down, with a lag, we pass on that. This year was an interesting year where we had to give a price down whereas the prices also increased for us.

However, the underlying volume performance was pretty strong and the numbers reflect this. Overall, I would say EBITDA margins remained robust for the entire full- year and remained unchanged. Aftermarket and also, very importantly, our theme of beyond cable business is growing very well. Very important is in the industry, in the Indian industry, they have started recognizing Suprajit not just as a pure cable player, but looking at us beyond cables. Moving over to Phoenix Lamps, this was, I would say, a small hitch in the otherwise smooth ride that we had. The revenues declined by around 3%, and the EBITDA also declined. This happened primarily because we were not able to pass on the price increases that happened in the commodity market, like moly, et cetera, tungsten. Also the volumes did not grow to that extent. Therefore, there was a pressure on EBITDA.

Trifa brand sales also was down due to Middle East conflict, and also the aftermarket in India was a bit subdued. But the other positive point that took place in PLD is that this division continues to execute specialized equipments, that is making special-purpose machines for our group, that have started regularly supplying both to SAL, our export-oriented unit, and also to our DCD facilities.

Another big positive thing that happened in PLD was we successfully executed the first set of orders of U.S. largest retailer. And we feel that this retailer has awarded significant additional businesses coming forward, and this is going to become a meaningful new channel for PLD. Our electronics division again did very smartly with the revenue being +20% growing on a year-over-year basis. EBITDA also grew substantially. And this happened despite global constraints in electronic supply chain and the price pressures that we had.

Overall, if you look at it, what happened in SCD is that we got a significant business momentum in digital clusters and electronic throttle controls, and this is expected to be carried over into FY 2027 also. SCD is now set to supply complete clusters, throttle, switch assembly for one of the premium EV motorbikes. And we will also be supplying digital clusters to a key off-highway customer in the U.S.A. But obviously, the biggest part of the story, what happened, if I look at the divisions, was the SCS turnaround that Chairman alluded to. SCS t urned EBITDA positive. For us, this was extremely important to prove ourselves in the market, yes, we can do it.

And we could prove this to even critical customers in Europe that we can take over a distressed asset and then with their help, we will be able to turn it around and bring it on the even keel. We had guided this earlier, now we have delivered it. Just to let you know, the quarterly trajectory which happened in FY 2026 was, in Q1, we were at almost -20% EBITDA. From there in Q2, we moved to -6%, Q3 to almost -2%, to Q4, +2%. We see much more consistency coming in the directional improvement, and now we have to start moving up mark much faster. Basically, what happened was our SCS restructuring got completed. We shut down Poland. We moved all the manufacturing to Morocco. We moved the warehouse from Germany to Hungary. We right-sized the operations in Germany.

There was a tool room in Germany, we moved that also from Germany to Morocco. As we are doing all these things, we went into the tranche two. Jiaxing transfer was under turmoil. I think our team did a great job in China in getting it under control very fast. We got Canada under control by moving it into a new plant, fully integrating it into SCD. Therefore, this was a lot of intense effort from the management team, but I would say with a very satisfactory outcome that we had. With these updates now I'm going to hand over to Akhilesh for other portions of the business and also the outlook. Akhilesh, over to you.

Akhilesh Rai
Director and Chief Strategy Officer, Suprajit Engineering

Thank you, Mohan, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with the technology center. Just to remind you, the technology center has almost 150+ R&D employees, 100 sitting here in Bangalore with 43 patents filed and 14 granted. It is part of a global team focusing on brake release, braking and brake release sensors, electronics and displays, and electromechanical actuation. These three product lines have started seeing a lot more attraction in all our businesses. This quarter, with the support of STC, we signed a technical collaboration agreement or a TCA with a global brake system supplier for designing and developing a two-wheeler brake caliper for some of our customers. This is now under development and is also under testing with one of our key customers. We are also working very closely with BluBrake for their ABS, and this is under testing still.

I would say that we still have a few more months before we can come out with a product that we are ready to take to our customers, but development is going well. We are also progressing well with the sunroof cable launch, which is now under testing with multiple Indian and global customers. The new STC building is slightly delayed, but we are expected to complete in Q3 of this coming quarter. Moving on to some other general updates, we have had a very also similar to the kind of infrastructure turmoil that we had, we also had a lot of effort and management bandwidth going into multiple SAP go-l ive. We had DCD plants going live in the beginning of this month. All 16 plants went live in April, and that went very successfully. It also ends a year full of SAP implementations.

We have done almost four SAP implementations just in the last year, and one starting this year. There will be a couple more going through this year as well as we move completely towards SAP HANA across the Suprajit Group. Multiple plants also got awarded multiple good state certifications, which are very important recognitions for our customers, JIPM, the Ford Q1 Award, IATF, eSAC. These are all critical kind of certifications and awards for most of our customers and a great achievement for our plants. With tariff uncertainties behind us, I think we are now seeing that there will be fresh contracts that are coming to us to potentially win under this new tariff landscape, and we are quite confident that we will win quite a few contracts going forward. Next, this is an important update on the renaming of divisions.

I will give you just a brief, but more details are available on, I think, slide 20 of the presentation as an addendum slide. Basically, DCD, we are changing from Domestic Cable Division to ICM or India Cables and Mechatronics. The reasoning behind it is that domestic doesn't make too much sense in a global scenario. So when we go to a U.S. customer and tell them a Domestic Cable Division, for them, domestic means something else. It means made in U.S. So we wanted to specify India. Similarly, SCD is now going to become GCM, which is Global Cables and Mechatronics. Again, specifying where the location will be. We are focusing on global customers. We are also adding mechatronics to our key, well, mechatronics and actuation, which comes under mechatronics, as a key product line for both of these divisions.

Another reason why we are changing it is because SED and SCD sound very alike which was also tough for a lot of our stakeholders and investors to explain the difference. SCD stays the same in terms of the nomenclature. SED is no longer going to represent Suprajit's Electronics Division, but it will represent the products that it does, which is sensors, electronics, and displays. Finally, PLD, which was originally always doing lighting, will now be doing a lot more electrical products, and we will be focused on going beyond lamps. So we have renamed that from PLD to PLE, which is Phoenix Lamp, Lighting and Electrical. Just to be clear again, the financial groupings are not changed. This is just a product focus and a customer positioning-related change.

It is not a structural change of any kind, and you can find more details in the additional pages of the presentation and press release. Now, I will just come to an outlook for FY 2027. Firstly, needless to say, these forecasts are subject to many changes and the Middle East situation and the commodity impact it may cause, the supply chain stability globally and some customer launch timings changing as per what they have given us as a schedule. Firstly, from a group revenue standpoint, we see and expect a double-digit growth this year. Consolidated EBITDA, we are guiding for a 12%-13.5% range for the year, and this is inclusive of SCS, which will now be part of the GCM, Global Cables and Mechatronics division. GCM itself will have double-digit revenue growth. EBITDA margin is expected to improve significantly.

GCM as a consolidated division last year, if you consider SCS part of it was at 6%, and we are expecting that this year the EBITDA margin to be 10%-12%. So this is a really significant margin improvement and a key lever for our year in terms of improving our margin for the entire group. GCM is confident of the tariff recovery from all customers and from the government as well.

Our global division has also got a strong order book, especially in India and China, where both India and China are growing double digits, and our India operation, which is SCS is now planning expansion in Chennai to cater to the growth. Finally, as disclosed, SCS will no longer be separately disclosed, so that will be part of GCM . We will be combining it under the Global Cables and Mechatronics division from Q1 FY 2027.

This will be grouped together. Next is the ICM, the India Cables and Mechatronics division. We again see double-digit growth here despite a single-digit sector outlook. This is mainly going to be driven by gains in market share and beyond cable project ramp-ups that we have already won. We continue to see a lot more good business wins coming in as well. The margin that ICM are expected to be stable. PLE, we are also happy to think and forecast for a double-digit revenue growth with stable EBITDA margins. This growth is partly due to a market recovery that we see. We are seeing higher costs of gray market imports, which is a key competition for us, and also the fact that one of the world's largest halogen lamp manufacturer, in fact, the largest halogen lamp manufacturer, has declared insolvency.

The insolvency means there are a lot of active discussions now underway with multiple new customers who are looking to utilize our low-cost manufacturing in India. SED will have another strong year of double-digit growth. EBITDA margins should continue to be in line with FY 2026, and we also see a lot of good new business wins coming in. Like guided earlier, Sensors, Electronics and Displays is also planning a significant capacity expansion to take care of this new business wins expected.

Finally, just a quick note on the CapEx for the year and to achieve the growth plan we are expecting, we have a CapEx allocated for INR 200 crore. This is covering AURIC, Maharashtra land purchase, STC building completion, SAL's Chennai Plant Two, and the SED capacity expansion. Of course, it also includes all the standard infrastructure maintenance and equipment replenishment and investments that we need to do across the whole group. With that, I hand it back to Chairman for closing remarks. Thank you.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Thank you, Akhilesh. All in all, before I let the questions come in, we had a good quarter. I think the heavy lifting of the significant restructuring is all behind us, hence the outlook is good. Of course, this is subject to what happens in Middle East or the commodity prices, which are the standard carriers, I would say. But we are in a good place now compared to what we were a year ago to pivot our business not only on the existing businesses, but also the new products and new ideas, the new plans of the company, both relating to STC products and our current products. So we expect the year to be a good year. With that, I pass it back to the moderator, and we will wait for the questions to come in. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. We will 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 while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Our first question comes from the line of Viraj Kacharia with SiMPL. Please go ahead.

Viraj Kacharia
Analyst, SiMPL

Hello.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah. Hi, Viraj.

Viraj Kacharia
Analyst, SiMPL

Yeah, it is Viraj Kacharia, I think I said. Anyways, so congratulations on a good set of numbers. Just a couple of questions. First is, so we gave a guidance of double-digit growth and margins improving to about 12.5%-13%+ levels. Now there is a cost inflation due to Middle East war. Is it more of backend you think that the margin improvement will play out for us? Internally, what elements are you looking at which gives you a confidence both in terms of growth and margins, especially at FUD?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

I think, of course, the confidence comes from the businesses we have already won. I think currently the way automotive industry works is that if you get a business today, it gets executed a year after next. So knowing what the contracts are coming into picture, we are comfortable that we will have a double-digit growth. Let me also, the point with all these things is that how the world is operating, right? If there is going to be any, for example, if XYZ customers are launching the project promise is in August, but it goes to October or next January, then there is a delay in the launch. These kinds of things are not in our hands. We are looking at what currently customers are saying when the launch is, and at what time and what volumes.

We have given some amount of, let us say, conservative number on that. If there is a significant change, it will lead to some delays. I think that is on the growth part of it. I think on the margin part of it is, of course, the commodity prices is a problem. But we will be pushing our customers for compensation for commodity prices which have increased, and unless the Middle East crisis comes to an end pretty soon, it will further increase. So that I think we are expecting that a significant or most of it will be passed on to customers because none of the suppliers will be able to bear such increases. So that is the caveat.

But if there is a significant delay in resolution of the Middle East, and if the overall global volume of automotive business comes down, I think these forecasts are subject to change. But we have taken a reasonably conservative look on the numbers, and we feel that this is achievable considering, even if, let's say a month or here and there for the resolution to happen in Middle East.

Viraj Kacharia
Analyst, SiMPL

Okay. Just two, three more questions. On the India business. So if you look at the first half where the reported growth was lower because we had issues in slackness in the aftermarket, and then in the second half, we have this price reduction. So if one has to just weed out, let's say the price reduction impact, what would that be? And adjusting for this, what would the growth we would have seen in the India business? Any share loss or any

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

I think the India business, if you sort of index it back with the price decrease that we give, would have been around 12%. And of course, we had to also normalize Phoenix Lamps Division's degrowth, which we have discussed. If you normalize that, I think we are talking about maybe 12%, 13% growth for India business.

Viraj Kacharia
Analyst, SiMPL

But, sir, if you look at the end market, say the two-wheeler or the four-wheeler business, right?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah.

Viraj Kacharia
Analyst, SiMPL

The production growth for last two, three quarters has been much higher than even adjusting for this one-off. I am just trying to understand are there any share loss, because in the India business we also report beyond cable where the business grow low and we are scaling up. Reported growth seems lower.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Okay. I think we have said this before, that when you look at, let us assume you look just the Domestic Cable Division and Suprajit Electronics Division. Forget about the Phoenix Lamps Division, which has got a much higher aftermarket business. Just take that out. If you look at that growth, it is in line with the industry growth. If you index it to the price reduction, actually ahead of the industry growth. Industry has grown at about 11% last year. We have probably, if you put those two things together and take Phoenix Lamps division out, I think we are talking about 13%, 14% growth.

Viraj Kacharia
Analyst, SiMPL

Okay. Can you give some color in terms of mix and growth trends? When I say DCD between the OE aftermarket and beyond cables, any color for the annual full- year?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yes, I think we can separately give some more data to you, but I think the aftermarket business in cable division has been pretty good. I think the OEM business, you must realize that we have always said this, that there will be some changes in the content per vehicle that will happen in terms of cables. But that will be offset with both how the Suprajit Electronics Division, which is mostly delivering to the two-wheeler business, plus the beyond cables business will do it. If you look at the overall picture, there is a slight growth. It is probably one or 2%, but there is no degrowth.

Viraj Kacharia
Analyst, SiMPL

Okay. Last question was on this new initiative. Whether it be on the braking side, we have signed this TCA with a global brake system supplier for two-wheelers. If you can elaborate more in detail what opportunities it opens up for us. Similarly, also talked about multiple collaborations we are exploring. I think there we have always communicated that we are looking at a three platform, be it actuation, electronics, sensor, throttles. These collaborations are within this more of these two aspects.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Akhilesh, will you answer this question?

Akhilesh Rai
Director and Chief Strategy Officer, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah, sure. In terms of the question about the collaboration, basically we are working with a very strong player in the brake caliper market and designing a proprietary caliper for the India market. This will be for both scooters and motorcycles. This is already well underway. We are working with a couple of OEMs to design this caliper for the India market. We are expecting that this collaboration can grow into.

We have a significant share of, say, off-highway global customers and this partner has a lot of technology and knowledge of all these industries to support us in the future. We are hoping this partnership will grow further. When it comes to your second question about where we are doing collaborations, I think our focus is these three different verticals. When you see some of these, let's say, when these two come to a point where we can disclose these partnerships, they will all be within either braking and brake release or actuation or digital clusters and sensors. I think it is very much in these three pillars.

Viraj Kacharia
Analyst, SiMPL

Okay, and would the nature would largely be-

Operator

Viraj, I would request you to rejoin the queue for more questions. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Gokul Maheshwari with Awriga Capital. Please go ahead.

Gokul Maheshwari
Analyst, Awriga Capital

Thank you for the opportunity. My question was on the gross margins. In the last two quarters, the margins have been slightly lower than the previous quarters. Is this related to tariff underrecoveries, or if you could just comment if they normalize in the current year? Hello?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah. Can you hear me?

Gokul Maheshwari
Analyst, Awriga Capital

Yes.

Akhilesh Rai
Director and Chief Strategy Officer, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah.

Gokul Maheshwari
Analyst, Awriga Capital

No, I can.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah. I will have to look at this, Gokul, why the gross margin between first half and second half. I do not know of anything. Yes, the margin, there are some tariff recoveries are yet to happen. Maybe that is the one that is skewing the whole number. I will have to have a look.

Gokul Maheshwari
Analyst, Awriga Capital

Sure. In your outlook with respect to EBITDA margins for the SCD business, where you guided for 10%-12% margins, are you factoring in these tariff recoveries?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yes, of course. This is a fully recovered situation. Even today, our numbers, what has been disclosed, anything that has not been recovered has been charged off. If it comes as a recovery, it will be an additional bonus for us. The same way, when we projected the number, we are expecting all the tariffs to be recovered, because I think currently the tariff issue is significantly behind. What is also happening with that, the customers are now getting licenses from the government. There is no new tariff is charged to us because we use that license and inward the goods into the U.S. most of the times.

Gokul Maheshwari
Analyst, Awriga Capital

Okay. With respect to SCS , sir, if you could just comment on the capacity utilization for the Morocco factories. We have achieved the positive EBITDA, but what would be the current capacity utilizations? Is it still underutilized? How does the margin recovery play out in FY 2027?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

I think we do not have a capacity utilization issue in most of our places. I think, for example, in Morocco, we operate mostly in one shift, so I do not think that is an issue at all. Executing the businesses and capacities are in place in most of the places. I do not see that as an issue at all. I would say that with one shift operation, we are comfortably meeting the current requirement at Morocco.

Gokul Maheshwari
Analyst, Awriga Capital

Okay. Lastly, just on the tax rate, what could be the effective tax rate for FY 2027 and FY 2028?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Medappa, can you make a guess estimate? Because a lot of that thing depends upon deferred tax, I think. Medappa, do you have any? I think it was some 27% in the last quarter, I think.

Medappa Gowda J.
CFO and Company Secretary, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Medappa?

Medappa Gowda J.
CFO and Company Secretary, Suprajit Engineering

Yes, sir.

Gokul Maheshwari
Analyst, Awriga Capital

That should be the number for FY 2027 as well?

Medappa Gowda J.
CFO and Company Secretary, Suprajit Engineering

It could be.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Sorry, to interrupt.

Operator

I am sorry, Medappa. You are not very clear.

Medappa Gowda J.
CFO and Company Secretary, Suprajit Engineering

Now you can hear?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah, I can hear.

Medappa Gowda J.
CFO and Company Secretary, Suprajit Engineering

27%, then there is no change in the structure for the year 2027 also.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Okay.

Gokul Maheshwari
Analyst, Awriga Capital

Okay, great. Thank you so much, and all the best.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Nikhil Rao with itho ughtPMS . Please go ahead.

Nikhil Rao
Analyst, ithoughtPMS

Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity and congrats on a great set of numbers. Could you provide more details on this CapEx of INR 200 crore that you planned? Could you provide us division-wise what you are planning to do? And-

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Mohan, will you-

Nikhil Rao
Analyst, ithoughtPMS

Especially for the electronics division, how much of the INR 200 crore is allocated for this?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Mohan, will you comment on the CapEx?

N. S. Mohan
Managing Director and Group CEO, Suprajit Engineering

Sure, I will. Out of the total what we are looking at, INR 200 crore, we would be approximately allocating to India operations close to INR 80 crore and about INR 50 crore will go to global operations and about INR 50 and odd crore would be going to STC, and there would be a scale of around INR 15, INR 16 crore coming to corporate, primarily into IT infrastructure and those kind of stuff. So that is one way of cutting the cake.

The other way of cutting the cake, if I can say, is how much we are spending on land and building, plant and machinery, software, IT, and those kind of stuff. So ballpark numbers, if I can give, on land and building, we are looking at around close to INR 80 crore and on plant and machinery, about INR 105 crore, about INR 100, INR 106 crore, and about INR 15 crore coming for software and IT.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

I think to add to what Mohan said, to be a little more specific on Suprajit Electronics Division, what we are planning is that, some of you might have visited our facility. The central part of our facility is a historic old building with a metal roof. What we are planning to do is to relocate that business out to a leased premises for a two-year period, completely demolish that building and come out with, let's say, three-story brand-new building to sort of bring in line with the electronics kind of manufacturing. I think that is the plan that will be spread over two years. The first year's part of it has been allocated for this year. That's the other way of looking at it, specifically on the Suprajit Electronics Division.

Nikhil Rao
Analyst, ithoughtPMS

Okay. Also share how much CapEx is planned specifically for this purpose.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

For the electronics division . alone, I think-

Nikhil Rao
Analyst, ithoughtPMS

Yes.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Sorry?

Nikhil Rao
Analyst, ithoughtPMS

Yeah, that's right.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

I think it will be spread over two years. I think this building, if I am not mistaken, it is about INR 30 crore- INR 40 crore of the investment, but it will be spread over two years. This year allocation may be half of that.

Nikhil Rao
Analyst, ithoughtPMS

Okay. Thanks for that. Could you also provide more details on the order from the Chinese OEM you had mentioned in the previous quarter? The order size, what kind of products you are supplying, timelines.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

We do not give the number, but Mohan, you can talk about the EV customer's current status generally in Lone Star, maybe.

N. S. Mohan
Managing Director and Group CEO, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah. Obviously, I will not be able to divulge the name of the customer. All I can say is it is one of the very leading upcoming local Chinese player who has got global ambitions. We have been able to start supplying to them. This is going to be with the door lock cables and latch cables. We would be expanding the business with them. That is what I can divulge at this point in time. Specific numbers I cannot, or the name of the customer.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

The added part of this is that I think the strategy with which we were able to get this business is that this customer has global plans and our global supply chain footprint meets their requirements. The starting point is in China. We have one, I think nearly two dozen separate cable businesses with them. Three, four of them have been commercialized, and in the next one year, I think the rest of them will go into production. I think that would be a stepping stone to meet their global requirement and the next phase of the growth with this particular customer.

Nikhil Rao
Analyst, ithoughtPMS

Okay. Thanks for that. If I can ask just one last question on the electronics division. How do you see the margins evolving for this business over the next two, three years? We are around, I think 10% currently. Where do you see this going over the next two, three years?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

I think it ultimately depends upon the product mix that it will pan out. We can only comment for one year because the subsequent year projects and prices at the time of implementing those projects will be difficult to estimate at this moment. I think we will be in a comfortable double digit. I think that is all we can say for the coming year. That is exactly what we have also guided in our forecast.

Nikhil Rao
Analyst, ithoughtPMS

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Amit Hiranandani with PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.

Amit Hiranandani
Analyst, PhillipCapital

Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity and congrats to the team for those set of numbers and turning around the SCS successfully. My first question is basically on the margins itself. For margins for the Domestic Cables and for the Phoenix Lamps, it has actually struggled in Q4 and FY 2026 as a complete year, despite Domestic Cable Business as our core strength. Just wanted to understand the reason for the same and how confident are we in maintaining the margins for India Cables, Phoenix Lamps, and the Suprajit Electronics Division for the next fiscal, looking at the cost inflation.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah, I think, in a sense, we have explained this in earlier times also. Let's make it clear. DCB operating margin has remained absolutely strong and the best amongst the group divisions. What is happening in the Domestic Cable Division is that the other overheads have to be allocated somewhere. All Suprajit Technology Center expenses and corporate overheads sit on Domestic Cable Division. Just to give a comparison, the year before and last year, we ended the last year with almost 150 team at Suprajit Technology Center. The previous year end was probably 50 or 60. That is the delta.

Similarly, at the corporate office with the kind of global operations we are doing with the implementation of SAP, the team strength, whether it is at the finance, whether it is the IT, whether at our global monitoring in terms of strategy, those teams have expanded to meet our global requirements. Those costs sit on DCB. When you see the drop, it is not that the operations of DCB has dropped. It is as strong as ever. That's as far as the DCB is concerned. Phoenix Lamps Division, yes, last year has been a little bit of, I would say, yes, you are right, about 200 basis point drop in the margin is very true. This is largely because the top line didn't grow. Obviously, inflationary pressure keeps pushing up. But the important part of that is, both aftermarket in India and Trifa brand sales.

With the brand sales are always at a much higher margins. Both those have been slightly affected, as we have announced in our business update. I think that is the reason why margin slide drop is there 2% at the Phoenix Lamps Division, which is what we are expecting to recover this year. Because this year, first of all, the growth is expected to come back for various reasons, including we talked about the world's largest retail chain has started buying to us. It is graduating to the next level.

We are expecting certainly a recovery in the Indian aftermarket. The new businesses for aftermarket, due to this insolvency in Europe, is also going to aid faster recovery of our top line, which will automatically bring the margins back. We expect the margins to be easily to be in the next, what is in the last year and probably better is what we expect by end of the year.

Amit Hiranandani
Analyst, PhillipCapital

Good to know about this. Secondly, the global piece of the business, which is majorly the SCD and SCS combined entity, the margins for this fiscal was around 6%, 7% broadly.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yes.

Amit Hiranandani
Analyst, PhillipCapital

The guidance which you have been giving is around possibly 400 basis points improvement to 10%, 11% level.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Correct.

Amit Hiranandani
Analyst, PhillipCapital

I wanted to understand where do you see this incremental improvement? Is this only related to the tariff recoveries or there is organically we are doing something?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

No, not at all. I do not think tariff recovery is bringing that kind of. There will be some unrecovered part which will be passed back on by a customer or government will be some part of it. Yes, it will be there, but it is significantly the restructuring that we have done, not only at SCS, but within the Suprajit Controls Division is what is bringing that margin up by, as you rightly say, from last year, 6%- 10%-12% is what we have guided. Just to put the perspective, I think SCS was an insolvent entity, and the first three quarters it had lost money. So only in the fourth quarter they just turned around. So that is in a much better trajectory in terms of operations. What is also important is the consolidation of our business in the U.S.

I think QRS operations getting consolidated into Matamoros. I think the Jiaxing operations in China are starting to resolve all its initial issues and consolidating that business. The issues within Europe of relocating all the warehouses to Hungary from high-cost Germany, the scaling down of German team and two branches. Multiple things have happened. The effect of that will be seen in this year. So I think it is operational excellence, operational turnaround, which is largely responsible for this margin increase.

Amit Hiranandani
Analyst, PhillipCapital

Right. Sir, lastly, sir, now this LED transition is expected to take faster. So just wanted your thought, how do you see the outlook for the Phoenix Lamps division in FY 2027 and beyond? And any plans for now getting into LEDs?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Mohan, do you want to take that question?

N. S. Mohan
Managing Director and Group CEO, Suprajit Engineering

Okay, let me answer the second question first. Are there any plans to now get into LED? I think I have to answer that in past tense. We have already got into LED, so that's the past tense. We are already having Phoenix brand LED bulbs available in the market. That's as a drop-in solution. Now, I come to the first portion of your question. We have stated that our strategy when we bought Phoenix Lamps itself was the last man standing strategy. We said that there would be other players who will be downing their capacity, and once that happens, we will be picking up those orders, and therefore, we will be keeping our lines busy. For me, at the end of the day, when I'm running my business, I have to sweat my assets.

As long as I am sweating my assets, I'm perfectly fine with it. Till date, from the day that we have bought this company when there were naysayers, to now, I would say that I have kept my assets sweating. So I expect the same thing to happen because like what we said, in Europe, there is one big player who's probably now getting into major difficulties, and there could be potential fallouts of that, which would mean that whatever that they were selling in the market would be up for grabs. We should be positioned correctly there with our Luxlite and back-ended operations in India to deliver it. Again, that would mean sweating the assets.

If you look at the Indian OEMs, they were also buying from one of these global majors, and once that started shutting off, these people came to us and started buying from us. So Indian OEMs who still have some amount of elegant tail are buying from us. For me, I would say, is it going to have a sudden death? The answer is no. Is it going to have a slow sunset? The answer is yes. But as long as the sunset is happening and you are switching on other lamps, the light which is available on the road, on the path, would continue to be bright.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

I think just to add to what Mohan said, I think if you see the re-nomenclature of Phoenix Lamps Division, it is now also electricals. So lighting and electrical. All I could say is that as a team, we are working on other projects. In an appropriate time, we will get to know about it. As a first step, you probably may be knowing that we launched our horns as a part of our internally manufactured product into the market. It is a first step. I think, hopefully, in the months to come, you will hear more from us on other products and projects that we will be able to do at PLE, that is how it is being re-nomenclatured.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Rachna Kukreja with SCIL Ventures. Please go ahead.

Rachna Kukreja
Analyst, SCIL Ventures

Thank you for the opportunity. I have questions on the SCD business. Can you give some color on order book and how is it spread in terms of cable and non-cable business? We had a decision to expand SAL plant in Chennai. Is it more for new business or captive business transfer of NDC?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Mohan, will you answer that question?

N. S. Mohan
Managing Director and Group CEO, Suprajit Engineering

Sure. Again, let me start by telling most of the business that we got from outside, that is when we acquired, whether it was Wescon or Kongsberg LDC or SCS, it was a very clear strategic plan from our end and intent from our end that we need to go and buy the cable assets. Because cable is our core competence product and we know about it, so we wanted to be a global player. Therefore, if you are asking me from our SCD division, how much of it is cable and non-cable, I would say a vast majority of it is cable. Having said that, when we went in for LDC, one of the key things which attracted us towards LDC Kongsberg was their actuator business, electromechanical actuator, so EMA, as they called it.

Therefore, to that extent, there is electromechanical actuators coming in as a part of the business. But is it right now a substantial part of the business? The answer is no. Do we want to grow that? The answer is yes. So that answers one part of the question. Now, coming to SAL part of the question on SAL II, that is purely capacity building because we are running out of capacity in terms of physical infrastructure building, et cetera.

Therefore, we have to have an SAL II. Since we already are sitting on a land bank and it is very near to the port there, so our Vallam plant made sense for us. Therefore, we decided to put it up there. So when you say captive consumption, it is basically SAL as a legal entity, having, let us say, unit 2 of its own, operating from Vallam or in Chennai.

I think just to touch base on, I think, another part of the question is that is there any relocation of business from outside of these other units to India? I think that is not really the strategy. I think the customers today want both onshore, offshore, nearshore model. So it all depends upon the customer's expectations and need. When the new contract is ordered, we decide, or in discussion with the customer, where that business is to be executed from. So accordingly, we do it. But SAL II is purely considering the businesses that SAL has one, we need an expansion of capacity.

Rachna Kukreja
Analyst, SCIL Ventures

Okay, understood. One more question. Any resolution to tariff under recovery of earlier years in North American operations? Any update on North American agriculture off-road market demand trends? What are we hearing from them?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

The recovery of this non-automotive side of the business in U.S. is still slow. There are two parts to it. Some of them have got relocated to smaller handheld grass cutters, et cetera, relocated to China, most of it. But generally, the business growth has been very tepid still. That is in line with what is happening in the world. I think in terms of resolution of tariff, on a principle manner, I think we have agreed and got clearances from customers that they will pay. But the question of how the payment happens, I think, with the recent Supreme Court judgment in U.S., that the government has to pay the duties back to us. There is a process has been set into place.

There is an online portal where we need to upload all kinds of stuff there, and eventually, hopefully, in the next three, six months time, some of the duties will come. So we have an issue of timing in terms of recovery of these duties. But if the customer has paid for the duty and we are recovering through this portal, then we have also an obligation to pay it back to the customer who has paid us. So in a sense, there is a lag, and some amount of that lag of that duties and tariffs may have a positive impact on this year. But it is very difficult to say, because quite a bit of it has to be refunded to customers back.

Rachna Kukreja
Analyst, SCIL Ventures

Okay. One more question on the Phoenix Lamps business. How much of sales loss from Middle East market was there? How big is customized equipment business for us? Any thoughts on expanding this to third-party sales? Similarly, the U.S. retail business, what is the opportunity landscape in terms of number of stores versus our current coverage?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

I think the Trifa lost business, I am giving just a thumb rule, off-the-cuff answer to this, maybe about $2 million-$3 million probably because of the loss of business of Trifa brand. In terms of the equipment manufacture, it is still pretty small, I would say, because Phoenix Lamps had a specialized capability to do automation and new equipment building. Equipment means manufacturing setup. They were doing it only for their lamps business. I think with the team being strengthened, we thought that we will try for our cable business also. They probably have already delivered about, I do not know, 10 or 15 equipments in the last one year to our group. It is something that we need to still fine-tune and leverage more. Mohan, you got any other answers on the other equipments?

N. S. Mohan
Managing Director and Group CEO, Suprajit Engineering

No, not really, because fundamentally, this is more a captive, I would say, consumption.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah.

N. S. Mohan
Managing Director and Group CEO, Suprajit Engineering

More so when we do the process technology development, we do not want this process technology to go out, and we want it to be proprietary in nature. That is more the intent that with which we are doing this.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

We are not likely to do it for third parties, no. That is not the plan at the moment.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Chirag Chitrakut with White Pine Investment Management. Please go ahead. Chirag, please go ahead with your question.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

Yeah. Hello. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, two or three questions. I have three questions from my side. One, your clarification on this U.S. tariff. Is it possible for you to quantify what is the amount of tariff that you have provided in P&L? Because that could be also point one.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

No, I think tariff, Chirag, it is very clear. If you have not recovered from the customer, it is charged to P&L. There is nothing.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

Yes. No, sir. What is the quantum? What is the quantum? Because.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Quantum of tariff that is charged to P&L, is it? I mean

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

Yeah

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Net of recoveries, I will have to check this. Net of recoveries for the year, there may have been additional charge of last year, may have been probably INR +1 million into the P&L.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

So that has been taken into account already.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

It could have been INR 1 million-INR 2 million as an additional charge, which is charged to the P&L, yes.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

That has been additional dent on margins, which is not a natural or normal business model, is that right?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Sorry. Yeah. But what's happening, please understand, some of the tariffs are unrecoverable from customers. For example, there is a duty that is charged on steel when it comes into Mexico. When you look at it a per cable, it is maybe INR 0.10, INR 0.20, but when you do millions and millions, it adds to it. For that, we could not go to the customer. So we just have absorbed as an additional material cost. That's it.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

That is unlikely to repeat in 2027, correct? I was just-

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

It will remain. Mexico tariffs are ongoing, so it will continue to be there in this year also.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

Okay.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

Okay. But it will not be as high as $1 million- $1.5 million, right? It could be maybe-

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

No, I think the recovery-

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

A hundred thousand dollars.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

What I'm saying, where we could not pass on is maybe between $1 million- $2 million, which we absorbed. That will be permanently will be there in our material cost itself.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

Okay. In 2027, 2028 also it will be there. Hundred-

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

It will be there. Absolutely. It will be there. Our guidance is based on that only.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

Okay.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Where we are having absolute, I would say, positive impact on P&L is, maybe 18 months ago, we have disclosed about the case with the federal government on recovery of a Section 301 tariff, which is about $6 million. That $6 million is still an ongoing tussle between us and the federal government. We are in the final stages of coming to a resolution by the court, which I am hopeful that in the next three to six months we will hear from. If it comes, it is a complete positive for the company. That, we do not want to say anything about it at this moment.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

That will not be required to be refunded to the customer, right? Because that you have-

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

That is not to be. No. It will not be refunded to the customer, no. Because the customer has not paid for it.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

Okay. And it is provided against the [audio distortion] , right? It is a-

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

It is already provided in the respective times, yes.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

Done. Okay. Just to clarify, sorry for harping on this. In 2027, this INR 6 million will not appear forward, right? Either on a negative side. Your margin guidance, whatever margins that you are-

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Our margin guidance is without considering that, yes.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

Okay. This is helpful. The second is on the China market now that you have started the commercial supply to this one big customer. How is China market in general? If I have to ask you five years out, what could be your minimum and maximum market share potential? Because every country is different. Like in India, you are many customers, you are a 70%-80% range of the supply. In China, five years out, what is the max market share you could have with that customer? Could it be in the range of 15%-20%, or your scope is-

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

You are talking about a particular customer or you are talking about general?

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

No, the customer that you have indicated-

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Okay. Got your question. The point here is simple. I think this particular customer had, I think, two domestic other cable man supplier. They do not have a global footprint as we understand. Maybe they will set up, that is a different point, but currently they do not have. So the opportunity from this EV customer is that they are the largest in the world today, and they have got global ambitions.

Our idea is to piggyback with them to wherever they want to go as a global supplier. This is the first phase of that overall strategy. How much business we will get from them, it all depends. We have just in the last three or six months we started supplying. As I said, we have 20+ projects to execute. I think three, four of them are commercialized. I would say over a period of time, I think maybe in China at least, if you do not get, let us say, 20% of that customer's share of business in the next two, three years' time, maybe we would think that we have not been very successful.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

This is helpful. So five year out, 20% is your aspiration. It is good.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

It could be more. I think it all depends upon how all these launches go. It is such a diverse customer with so many products, so there will be lot more businesses to be won, lot more projects to be executed. It all depends upon how the team does, but based on the conversation-

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

This 20% aspiration is including the local Chinese sales that they do, right? 20% is of the overall share or only the export share?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Typically, every global major, let's say top 10 global customers will have three, four, five suppliers. That's the way it works.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

Okay.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

So, we are just dividing 100 by that. That's it.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

Got it. And one more question if I can have is, if I look at Q4 as the case, SED and SCD, the old classification that is there, have been the saviors and the traditional businesses, even if we adjust for some tariff related issues.

Operator

I am sorry, Mr. Chirag. You are not quite audible.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah, I cannot hear you properly.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

Is it better now? Sorry. Is it better now?

Operator

Yes. A little better. Please go ahead.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

The cost of repeating, if I look Q4, and if I follow that 20 page, SED and SCD have been savior for us.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Have been sorry?

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

Have been savior in terms of the margins and overall revenue performance. Rest of the businesses have struggled both at revenue as well as on the margins front.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

That we have already answered, Mr. Chirag. You are talking about DCB and PLD. We have already explained in great detail just now.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

No, sir. My question is on the revenue side, DCB, can we see the state of that happening?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Sorry, I cannot hear you.

Chirag Chitrakut
Analyst, White Pine Investment Management

I will come back in the queue.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Ravi Purohit with Securities Investment Management. Please go ahead.

Ravi Purohit
Analyst, Securities Investment Management

Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question and congratulations on a good set of numbers, sir.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Thank you.

Ravi Purohit
Analyst, Securities Investment Management

Essentially, just going back to our acquisition at LDC. I think Mr. Mohan had also alluded today that there was actuation-related products that we had got technology for. I think it has been a fairly long period of time since we have acquired, and I think we had mentioned earlier that we are refreshing that entire product portfolio and all those things. If you could share with us in what stage of journey are we in on launch or scaling up of those actuation-related products, right? Because that would have been like the next logical step to expanding our cables business.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Akhilesh, will you take that question on actuation? Akhilesh?

Akhilesh Rai
Director and Chief Strategy Officer, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah, sorry. In terms of actuation, we first got our actuation technology when we acquired LDC from Kongsberg. With that capability, we launched multiple actuators for the two-wheeler business in India, and that did very well in the last couple of years. Now we also launched a couple of products with some new EV vehicles, some with ICE and some with the EV as well. These actuators are much smaller actuators than what we do in the U.S. and in Europe. In China, of course, we also do actuators in China, but these are much smaller that we started in India.

At the same time, Kongsberg LDC had focused on the very high force actuator, which is used only in very large vehicles, so premium SUVs in the U.S., to kind of lift and flip the second row and third row to give you full access, the full flatbed kind of access to the SUV. Those kind of actuators are still not prevalent here in India. I think that premiumization trend has not yet caught on, but it's slowly catching on. We see a lot more customers interested in our actuator portfolio to bring to India. But it's in the most premium segment in India vehicles. Even in high-end Innovas, you don't still get electromechanical actuated seats, folding and flipping kind of seats. We are working with our customers to try to align when they launch in India for the Hight Force Actuator.

But at the same time, there are a lot more actuators when you come into the Medium Force Actuators, which is a slightly lower force actuator. And that is what our tech center has been developing the last year, and we're expecting to have samples of those now with a lot of our customers in the coming few months, where we have redesigned an actuator for having a lower force and a push in terms of cost and quietness for the cabin.

We have tried to develop an actuator that is better than our competition. So we'll hopefully show this in the next few months to our customers and then that is still a long pipeline, two years. Once we show the customers this, we would expect at least one or two years before those actuators become real business for the cables division, both globally and in India. I think that hopefully that captures the actuators.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

To add to what Akhilesh said, Ravi, the original version of the actuator that we got from the LDC acquisition was old generation. I think what was found lacking was the noise and the force when compared with some of the current competitors. So that's where SCS has stepped in to come out with actually at least two, three solutions at different force levels with lower noise level, NVH levels, and better price levels.

Our existing business continues. Has it grown? Not much, excepting that, as Akhilesh said, some of the two-wheeler applications, we have been able to use their technology to modify to a smaller actuator and use it, which is being produced in India. Globally, the current business is run, but for the new businesses, I think some of the new generation or additional business, we need some of these new generation actuators.

Ravi Purohit
Analyst, Securities Investment Management

Great. That helps a lot. Sir, I think relating to this very business, we had also mentioned about motors, right? Where earlier, I think there was some sourcing development that we were doing. So if you could update whether we are sourcing the motors from India itself or are we sourcing it from China. Is there any idea of-

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah, I think originally we were buying these motors from China for some of our requirements in both Europe and in U.S. It was shifted to an Indian supplier. That is now what is going on. So that had helped us in reducing the tariff risks, and now the tariff risk is completely off because our customer assembles with our motors, which is an India origin, and then supplies to a local Mexican Tier 1, who then further transfers the whole thing into a seating and then is delivered to U.S. So that has completely avoided the tariff structure. That was a big problem with the original China motors.

Ravi Purohit
Analyst, Securities Investment Management

No plans to do it ourselves, right? This motor-

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Sorry?

Ravi Purohit
Analyst, Securities Investment Management

No idea of doing the motors ourselves, right? We have a good reliable source based in India itself, right?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah. We have a good supplier in India today. Yes. He is a global supplier too.

Ravi Purohit
Analyst, Securities Investment Management

Okay, great. Last question. I think we discussed earlier also, now I think because more than 50% of our operations are actually global in nature, the cost structures will also reflect similar numbers. If you look at employee cost to sales ratio, for example. I think post LDC acquisition and SCS acquisition, it has been hovering between, let us say, 21%-25%. Somewhere in the last year, middle of the year, it had kind of touched and crossed 25%. This last quarter it has gone to over 21%. Is there a fair assumption that last year, in certain quarters, and I think you had alluded to those, whether there were some one-off or one-time employee-related costs which are sitting here and should we assume 21%-22% as the base number from an employee cost point of view?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yes, last year, as you know, we had done some restructuring and reduction of people and that cost has hit the P&L. The cost of that restructuring would be sitting there in the employee cost somewhere. From that point of view, I would expect that by this year's numbers should be an improve. One of the reason why we are saying there's an improvement in margin is not because the material costs will change. What is changing is the employee cost and other expenses because of the restructuring. I think that's where you will see those numbers improve for the current year.

Ravi Purohit
Analyst, Securities Investment Management

Okay.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Hence the margin improvement. Yeah.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Jinal Sheth with Awriga Capital Advisors. Please go ahead.

Jinal Sheth
Analyst, Awriga Capital Advisors

Good afternoon. Am I audible?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Yes.

Operator

Jinal, just be a little louder, please. Thank you.

Jinal Sheth
Analyst, Awriga Capital Advisors

Sure. Firstly, I would like to commend Suprajit team for commenting. Basically giving a timeline for how you guys executed on SCS and you actually lived up to it. That's something that is commendable. I just wanted to understand, sir, is that, we've always understood the company, especially in the cables business for the last nine standings, and the kind of difficult environment that we are seeing today, are we seeing any changes in the competitive landscape where companies are going bankrupt? Any thoughts on that?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

I mean, I've always said this, I don't know whether it's about bankruptcy or otherwise. I think consolidation of auto component suppliers, particularly at least relating to our business, whether it is lamps or whether it is cables. We have always said this, it's going to continue to happen. The point is simple. The customer wants global suppliers who can supply to any one of their plant anywhere in the world. I think that is the name of the game going forward. One of the reasons we acquired LDC and SCS is to make sure that we have that footprint. I think that will be continuing the case whether somebody will go bankrupt or whether somebody will get acquired. As you know, we ourselves have acquired five or six cable assets and a couple of lamp, at least one lamp asset in India.

What I'm saying is that these things are there, it will happen. The guys who are most competitive in the business will certainly make more inroads. That's why when I said we are talking about double-digit business growth in global business, when there's a global business underlying automotive or whatever the business is actually not growing, says that somebody else is suffering in the process. How long they will suffer, whether they'll get acquired, whether they will go bankrupt, I think that time will tell. But as we just mentioned in the call, one of the biggest, largest halogen lamp manufacturer has gone insolvent in Europe just now. These are all part of the game and consolidation will be the key. Those who are not efficient, who are not value for money, will have difficulty going forward.

Jinal Sheth
Analyst, Awriga Capital Advisors

Okay. My next question is: when we are thinking of new products, like we have spoken about throttles, clusters, obviously, a lot of other companies are also doing it and it is not that these are special products. I just want to understand our thought process when we are entering these spaces, how are we looking to win here?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Akhilesh will take a shot at it.

Akhilesh Rai
Director and Chief Strategy Officer, Suprajit Engineering

Yeah. We very specifically focus on our cable portfolio and the functions our cable portfolio has always been playing in a bike or a scooter. We have always been doing speedometer cables and now we are doing the digital cluster, which is kind of a replacement on more premium vehicles for the speedometer cable and the analog speedometer that we are already doing. That is on speedometers. On the throttle, we have always been doing the throttle cables. Now we can do the electronic throttle and the throttle sensor and a throttle plus switch. We are again kind of premiumizing or replacing our cable wherever it could get replaced. Similarly with brakes and brake systems, we are looking at becoming a full system provider, and that replaces our current brake cable, or rather enhances our current brake cable and EBS type of business profile.

Our focus is very clear, is only on our functions and how they will be replaced and in terms of replace or enhance and how in terms of advantages we have is, we have that both India and global access to customers for these specific functions. Therefore we have something that a lot of our competition doesn't have in terms of customer access. Also we are very focused on developing these products in terms of R&D, to bring just these new products with a lot of investment to kind of bring new technologies to those products. Our throttle for example, we are now exporting a throttle with a heated grip from India to China. You can imagine the kind of technologies we are trying to build here. We are also doing multiple different types of sensors.

We are investing a lot into a very small product type which our competitors wouldn't do. Similarly with clusters, where we have a very large access globally to the off-highway segment and to the two-wheeler segment in both U.S., in China and India. Those clusters and throttle and electronics will focus on those segments where we have a lot of good market access.

Jinal Sheth
Analyst, Awriga Capital Advisors

Okay. Thank you. Good luck.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

I think it is already 12:20. We will take one last question.

Operator

Sure, sir.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Moderator, next please.

Operator

Sure, sir. The next question comes from the line of Rachna Kukreja with SCIL Ventures. Please go ahead.

Rachna Kukreja
Analyst, SCIL Ventures

Thanks for the opportunity again. My question is on the SEL business. Compared to last time when we shared our order book, how would that have evolved now?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

You mean in Suprajit Engineering Limited, you mean? SEL Where did you say?

Rachna Kukreja
Analyst, SCIL Ventures

SEL.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

No, actually, we do not really talk about an order book as such because we are all working with OEMs. Our order book is what is there on the SAP portal on that day, and the volumes are depending upon how well that particular, let's say, model works out. There is nothing like a fixed order that has been awarded by the customer with volume. There is an order with a price, not the quantity. Quantity depends upon how their vehicles move.

Typically, in the auto component business, the order book probably can be mentioned by multiplying with the expected number of vehicles, whether the two-wheeler or cars are produced. But we do not do it. We basically go by what the customer orders on a day-to-day basis. Once the order is received, we will also know whether we are 100% supplier for that or a 70% or a 50%. I think that creates an order book, but then we do not really project it for the year. That has been our practice.

Rachna Kukreja
Analyst, SCIL Ventures

In digital clusters, electronic throttle control, do you know which end segments and customers are driving growth?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

Both these products at this moment are for the two-wheeler, both EV and ICE segments. Having said that, on the digital cluster, as Akhilesh just mentioned, we are just now working with one global major for a North American non-automotive business. That is a fairly significant new business that we are likely to execute sometime during the course of the year starting. I would say most of these businesses are currently for the two-wheeler industry.

Rachna Kukreja
Analyst, SCIL Ventures

Any new products have you commercialized in this business?

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

In Suprajit's Electronics Division, I think as Akhilesh s aid, I think the throttles are the big hot subject at this moment because what we have been able to deliver to customer is a throttle, which is a simple ferrite magnet base, not the rare earth magnets. That has given a significant interest for most of our customers. Quite a bit of those developments are happening on the throttles. We continue to develop. Actually, we are developing a very Mohan, will you touch on some of the other development in Suprajit's Electronics Division, particularly the clusters and others?

N. S. Mohan
Managing Director and Group CEO, Suprajit Engineering

First and foremost thing is the actuator. I would say seat lock actuator or when you put a charging gun for an electric vehicle, you need to charge the electric chargers, then you need to have a lock there. We have started doing that, started supplying it. These are some of the products which have come from the stable of STC, which has got commissioned out there. Largely, I would say three major categories that I can talk about.

One, instrument clusters. Again, in what we call it as Supra 1.0, 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0. These are the four different platforms that we are talking about. This is the one major set. Second major set is the actuators, like what I said, like seat lock actuators, charging an actuator, such things. The third important is the throttle position sensors or TPS, as we call that. These are the three products which have come out of the STC stable.

Rachna Kukreja
Analyst, SCIL Ventures

Okay. Thank you.

N. S. Mohan
Managing Director and Group CEO, Suprajit Engineering

Thank you.

Ajith Kumar Rai
Founder and Chairman, Suprajit Engineering

With that, I would conclude this session. If there is any more information required, please do contact our PR head up our team. We appreciate the interest you guys are showing in Suprajit, and as I said, it has been a good quarter. Thank you all for your time and patience. I hope we have been able to answer your questions. With that, I hand you back to moderator and Anand Rathi. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Anand Rathi Share and Stock Brokers, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.