Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Century Plyboards (India) Limited's Q4 FY 2026 and FY 2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the management's opening remarks. 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. Now that the conference opens from Navin Agrawal, Head, Institutional Equities at SKP Securities Limited. Thank you, over to you, sir.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm pleased to welcome you on to the financial results conference call on behalf of Century Plyboards and SKP Securities. We have with us Mr. Sanjay Agarwal, MD and CEO, Mr. Keshav Bhajanka, Executive Director, Mrs. Nikita Bansal, Executive Director, along with Mr. Arun Kumar Julasaria, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Navarun Sen, COO of Plywood, Mr. Sumant Wattas, CEO, MDF and Particleboard, and Mr. Vishu Goel, CEO Laminates. We'll have the opening remarks from Mr. Sanjay Agarwal, followed by Q&A session. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Agarwal.
Yeah. Thank you, Navin. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and a very warm welcome to our Q4 and FY 2025/2026 earnings conference call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties. This call is not intended as a solicitation to invest. The financial results and investor presentation have already been shared and are available on the stock exchange websites. FY 2025/2026 has been a landmark year for the company, marked by strong growth across businesses, significant improvement in profitability, and continued strengthening of our market position. I am pleased to share that the company reported its highest-ever quarterly revenue of INR 1,492 crore during Q4 FY 2026.
The top line registered a strong growth of 10.5% quarter-on-quarter and 24.5% year-on-year, reflecting healthy demand across our product portfolio and improved contribution from newly expanded capacities. At the profitability level, consolidated EBITDA margin, excluding forex losses, improved to 13.6% compared to 12.6% in the previous quarter and 12.1% in the corresponding quarter last year. The improvement was driven by better operating leverage, higher capacity utilization, improved product mix, and our continued cost optimization and operational efficiency. For the full year FY 2026, the company achieved top-line growth of 19.2%, while EBITDA margin, excluding forex loss, improved significantly to 13% from 11.1% in FY 2025. In absolute figures, EBITDA, excluding forex loss, has increased from INR 502 crores to INR 702 crores.
Profit after tax increased by 44% to INR 268 crore, compared to INR 186 crore in the previous financial year. These results demonstrate not only strong revenue growth but also substantial improvement in the quality of earnings and overall business efficiency. Segmental performance. Let me now walk you through the performance of our key business segments. Plywood segment. The Plywood business continued to demonstrate sustainable growth momentum supported by healthy demand, strong brand positioning, and distribution expansion. During Q4 FY 2026, the segment recorded revenue growth of 11.4% quarter-on-quarter and 17.9% year-on-year. EBITDA margin, excluding forex losses, stood at 16.1%.
For FY 2026, the segment delivered revenue growth of 15.6%, with EBITDA margin at 15.2%, reflecting strong operational performance and continued margin resilience. Laminate segment. The Laminate business delivered a turnaround during the year after remaining relatively subdued over the past one or two years. In Q4 FY 2026, the segment recorded revenue growth of 8.3% quarter-on-quarter and 16.3% year-on-year, while EBITDA margin improved to 10.3%. For FY 2026, revenue grew by 13.9%, while EBITDA margin improved significantly to 8.5% compared to 5.2% in FY 2025. The improvement was driven by better capacity utilization, improved product mix, and efficiency. The next segment, MDF. The MDF business continued its strong growth trajectory, driven by improving utilization levels and sustained demand momentum.
During Q4 FY2026, the segment recorded revenue growth of 8.9% quarter-on-quarter and 31% year-on-year. EBITDA margin excluding forex losses stood at 11.3%. For FY 2026, the segment achieved revenue growth of 25.5%, while EBITDA margin improved to 12.7% from 10.1% in the previous year. In the current quarter, we have taken a shutdown in our Badvel plant to increase the capacity by 20%. Particleboard segment. The Particleboard business witnessed robust growth during the year, supported by new capacity addition and improved utilization. In Q4 FY2026, revenue grew by 3.9% quarter-on-quarter and 108.3% year-on-year, while EBITDA margin stood at 7.2%. For FY 2026, the segment recorded revenue growth of 38.2%, with EBITDA margin at 1.2%. We expect further improvement in operating performances as utilization levels continue to increase.
Century Ports, a wholly owned subsidiary of Century Plyboards (India) Limited, commenced commercial operation during Q4 FY 2025/2026 at the rejuvenated Khidderpore Docks , Terminal 1 West at Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, Kolkata. The commissioning marks a strategic diversification into port logistics and infrastructure aimed at enhancing supply chain efficiencies and creating new growth avenues for the group. We will be cash positive in Q1 FY 2027 from the Port business. Financial overview. From a financial perspective, FY 2026 reflects a year of strong execution, improved profitability and disciplined growth. Excluding forex losses, ROE improved from 10.6% to 15.2%, while ROCE increased from 12.5% to 14.6%, reflecting stronger operational performance and improved capital efficiency. Our continued focus on operational excellence, prudent capital allocation, and strengthening of brand and distribution capabilities has enabled us to improve both scale and earning quality.
We remain committed to investing in manufacturing excellence, distribution expansion, brand, technology, and sustainable long-term growth. Looking ahead, we remain optimistic about the medium to long-term outlook for the building material and interior infrastructure industry. The sector continues to benefit from strong structural drivers such as rising urbanization, disposable income, et cetera. With our diversified product portfolio, strong brand equity, expanding distribution network, improving capacity utilization, and additional CapEx on new capacity across businesses, Century Plyboards remains well-positioned to capitalize on the emerging growth opportunities across segments. We also expect further improvement in ROE and ROCE as we continue to sweat the substantial assets that have been created over the last three years. During the quarter, the industry witnessed inflationary pressure in certain chemicals and resin-related input costs due to ongoing geopolitical conflicts and supply chain disruptions in global market.
However, the company was able to effectively manage the challenges through operational efficiencies, strategic sourcing initiatives, improved product mix, and calibrated pricing actions. Going forward, we will continue to focus on profitable growth, operational excellence, prudent financial management, and sustainable long-term value creation for the stakeholder. We will now open the floor for questions.
Thank you very much. We'll now begin with the question- and- answer session. Each participant is requested to limit himself or herself to a maximum of two questions. Time permitting, we will respond to any further questions that you may have remain unanswered. Participants you may press star and one to ask a question. 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. First question is from the line of Praveen Sahay from PL Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. My congratulations for—
Hi, Praveen.
Many congratulations—
Thank you. Thank you.
—on the good set of numbers. Sir, my first question is related to the MDF. There you had given around 39% of a YoY growth in the quarter. Can you make us understand from where such kind of outperformance is coming? Is that the market share you're gaining or the channel expansion, how that's going on? Related to that, at what level of utilization in MDF you are running with? Also in this, if you can give some color on the price hike as you also highlighted related to the chemical price increase.
I think it's already quite a lot of questions. Sumant.
Yes. I think you asked three questions. One, I think on the QoQ growth. It's a multitude of factors. Obviously, in March, some stocking does happen because the market was expecting price increases. That has certainly been one factor, but not the only factor. As we are aging more in the south, we are consciously expanding our network and also working on the secondary, which is the carpenters and retailers. It's a mix of, I would say, a little bit of year-end stocking, but also a lot of fundamentals playing out in terms of enhanced network and enhanced demand generation. That's part one of your question. I think your part two was on capacity utilization. With the current numbers, we're at about 80%-85% capacity utilization, give or take, for our full capacity. This is against the rated capacity.
If you look at the product mix, it basically can go up to 85% to 90% as a matched capacity on top of rated. This is the reason why, as MD mentioned in his opening remarks, we're also taking an extension in our south plant, which will add another 60,000, 70,000 cubes per year of capacity going forward. On your third question in terms of price increase, given the disruption in chemicals and supply chain, so on and so forth, we and the industry have taken 15% price increase which barely actually covers the cost that has gone up on account of chemicals disruption.
It is very early days to see how much of it sticks, and also given the uncertainty right now on supply chain again, we have to wait and watch to see will it sustain, will we need to take more price increases, or will we need to take some corrections.
Okay. This time you're not giving a guidance for all the segments for FY 2027?
Actually, the present situation is so, I think, fluid. It will not be right on our part to give you anything right now, but maybe by next time we will be in a better position to. Because till now, whatever we have projected, we have been able to mostly achieve. The situation is really, really. We do not know what will happen to this war because they have given 60 days for that uranium something they will again keep down. It may or may not. The war may again start. You really don't know what is going to happen. That's why we are reserving. Otherwise, there is no other reason.
Thank you, sir. I'll come in a queue. All the best.
Yeah.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Keshav Lahoti from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, Keshav.
Hi, thank you for the opportunity.
Yeah.
Hi, sir. Congratulations on the strong set of numbers.
Thank you.
Recently, you have announced multiple expansion, one more new expansion announced. How should we think of capacity? What numbers in FY 2027, 2028, 2029? Give us some sense on that. Secondly, because of the war—
While we are talking about the capacities, on the capacity front, actually a lot is happening. Right now, we are utilizing our capacities at practically 100% utilization. The way we are growing, we have to take the chance, and that's why we are expanding our capacities into our existing plant also. Our plant at Hoshiarpur is practically I think Nikita can tell better. Nikita, are you there online?
Yeah, I'm there.
I think you can say better, yeah.
Actually in Q4, we had a capacity utilization of about 99%. We are increasing our capacity by about 30% within this year. Part of it is about 20% is with internal plant expansions. Another, the Hoshiarpur plant is supposed to come up in October this year. That would make it a 30% expansion. Actually, the UP plant is a bit delayed. Actually, we had earlier projected that we will be making CapEx in this year, but it seems because we just got the land, so I think the CapEx of the same would start probably towards the end of this year, maybe Feb, March, or maybe even Q1 next year, and it will be ready in Q1 2028/ 2029. In the meantime, we also have started the process of procuring land in Odisha.
Given the way we are expanding, we believe that we will need a new plant one—Leading one year apart. If we got Hoshiarpur this year, I need a new plant in 2028/ 2029. That's our projection for the next five years. That's how we are going about it. In between all years, we are expanding within our existing plant wherever is possible.
Understood. Chennai will double by Q3 FY 2027?
Chennai is doubling in July this year. That is the 20% expansion that I was talking. Not really doubling because it's already taken out a lot of meat within its existing plant. About 40,000 CBM , which is maybe 30,000 CBM or 25,000 CBM will increase in Chennai by July.
Got it. Understood. This Particleboard, I can see in the press release you mentioned as the capacity as 240,000 CBM. We can see the real capacity of 72,000 CBM old plant you're not counting in. The plan is to completely scrap the old plant or possibly once this new plant will ramp up, you will start to use the old plant also. Lastly, Particleboard this thing, the CapEx is INR 500 crores for 240,000 CBM capacity. Earlier same plant which you did the CapEx was higher at INR 700 crore. Why is that so?
Yeah. This is Sumant here. Let me answer. The old plant, which is a multi-daylight, slightly older technology, that we have shut down. As of now, there are no plans to revive it, so we will most likely scrap it. Even if we add future capacity in Particleboard at a later stage should the market allow, it will be in a new greenfield capacity. That's your question number one. Sorry, can you repeat question number two? I forgot.
I was saying this time the Particleboard expansion.
What was the second question number one?
This time the Particleboard expansion cost is INR 500 crores, while earlier the similar capacity costed you INR 700 crores.
We have not taken any Particleboard expansion earlier. Which one are you referring to?
I'm talking about the Chennai.
Yeah.
240,000 CBM, which when you got INR 700 crores.
No INR 700 crore. Chennai, the new plant that we put up, that is what we are running now. The earlier plant we have closed down. That we are scrapping. There, I think we invested some INR 200 some crores. The first plant.
240,000 CBM.
The old plant was INR 70 crores.
Yeah.
I think you have got your numbers mixed up. The old plant was an old technology, which was multi-daylight press, and hence the CapEx was much lower. This is a continuous production line that the cost will be higher.
No, I'm talking about the Chennai greenfield, which you did Particleboard expansion of 240,000 CBM. That plant costing was around INR 700 crores. Is this number right?
No, the number is incorrect. The plant costing was about INR 550 crores.
Okay. Assuming the plant costing was INR 550 crores, but now the Odisha one which you are doing—
Sir, it is just an MOU that we have done with the government with very rough calculations. It is something that we are still exploring. Odisha, nothing has been finalized yet.
In Odisha, have you done an MOU for particleboard plant or for a plywood plant?
For both.
For both? Okay.
I think if you're comparing the MOU, I think it's a wrong comparison to do because the MOU right now, we have got it with a caveat, if you read, that it could be a MDF or a Particleboard. We will take a decision when the time comes. As you know, in India, it takes a little bit time. We are just in the stage of procuring land. You've seen that even in the past when we actually start procuring land, I don't see Odisha going live till another two years from now and getting the land. All the formalities will start. I think two years from now, we can give you a better idea on cost and all the breakups. I hope that clears things.
Understood. Got it. Quite clear. This MDF, AP is already done, the debottlenecking thing for MDF.
Sorry, could you say again? Your voice was not clear.
They are asking for the , so MDF, you were increasing capacity by 20%-25% for AP plant, which you said in Q1 that is already done and dusted now.
That is going on as we speak. In Q1 of this financial year, we are doing a brownfield expansion in our south plant that'll unlock about 60,000, 70,000 cu m per year of additional capacity. That is ongoing currently and will get completed by the end of the quarter.
Got it. Will this have an impact on your sales volume for MDF in this quarter or you already had the surplus inventory?
Yeah. We planned for inventory, and hopefully, we'll be able to service the market sufficiently with the inventory.
Got it. One last question from my side. In ply you used to import timber. Now how the geopolitical has been and container freight rates have increased. In this way, this will increase your costing for ply timber also? And you're facing any supply side challenges?
Sir, can you repeat it? Sorry, I missed your thing.
I said in ply because of geopolitical, the freight rates have increased. You used to import timber in ply segment. Is there any supply side challenge? Whether your ply timber costing have increased due to higher freight rates?
Actually there is no challenge per se in getting the material. Yes, prices have increased and we have taken a 7% price rise already in the month of April. Due to these reasons, because we are so import heavy as well as our chemicals which are imported as well, they too faced a lot of increase. You must be reading about phenol and melamine in the papers anyway.
Got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Press star and one to ask a question Next question is from the line of Utkarsh Nopany from Anand Rathi. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good evening.
Hi, Utkarsh. Go ahead.
Sir, my first question is regarding your MDF segment. On volume side, you are doing pretty good. On the margin side, if we see, your margin has come under pressure, which earlier it was not guided. Just wanted to know what is the reason for the margin pressure in the March quarter, and what should be the sustainable margin in this segment as per you, and by when it is likely to be achieved, sir?
Yeah. If you compare our Q4 versus Q3, there has been a margin erosion of about 1%, a marginal margin erosion. This is on account of two factors. One, some production-related disruptions linked to the chemical availability and prices. Secondly, some one-off spends. We did a little bit of ATL on the MDF side, which also got hit in quarter four. That’s the reason why you see the 1% margin decline quarter-on-quarter. I think in terms of steady state, once things stabilize on the chemical side, supply chain side, so on and so forth, our strong belief is that this is a high teens EBITDA business in steady state. There are two key reasons for it. One, lot of operational improvement on the plant side that we do in the regular course is likely to kick in again next year as well.
With this whole debottlenecking expansion in the south plant, it gives us efficiencies on power, fuel, so on and so forth. Lot of effort is being made just in terms of product mix and value-added products, which we want to push further and further. In steady state, I think this is a high- teens EBITDA business, if not higher. We hope to achieve it as the next year goes by. I think a specific timeline is very difficult to put right now, given so much is happening globally. That’s our plan and our vision.
Okay. Sir, second, on the timber side, what we are hearing is that the timber prices in the local market has corrected by roughly around 10%. Just wanted to know, are you also seeing similar kind of a correction in the local timber prices and what is the outlook for the timber prices for FY 2027, sir?
I think, if we look at timber as a raw material and if I compare to the volatility in the years before and the years before that, timber has remained a lot more stable this year. While it’s marginally corrected, I won’t say corrected by 10%, but it remains stable. There are some regular seasonal variations that happen any which way in timber. For example, in monsoon season, the availability is low, so on and so forth. That happens every year. By and large, timber as a raw material has remained stable, and we expect it to remain stable going forward.
Okay. Sir, last, if you can just elaborate how much price hike we have taken in the other segment also like Plywood, Laminate, and Particle board in Q4 and in Q1 till date, and what would be our CapEx guidance for FY 2027 and 2028?
I can answer for Particle board and then hand it over to Nikita maybe for ply. Look, Particle board is a very key account management business, and the industry has not really announced any price hike per se, so it's not standard. The raw material prices on account of chemicals have taken a hit similar to MDF, and our price pass on has also been in the same range.
I think I have already on the Plywood side, already mentioned that we have passed on whatever price increases we had so far in April of 7%, but it’s a wait-and-watch scenario. If we feel that prices continue to rise, we will take further price rises accordingly.
Okay. Madam, what would be the CapEx guidance for 2027 and 2028 on a consolidated basis?
Vinay, can you answer that at a whole level, company level?
I can take that. I'll just take that. The basic CapEx that we are going to incur, the majority of it is going to be towards our new Hoshiarpur plant. Other than that, once we are online in Uttar Pradesh, once the land is in hand, we should be looking at commissioning Uttar Pradesh over the course of the next two years. Other than these two, we have no major frozen CapEx as yet. The CapEx will be predominantly directed towards Plywood.
Okay. Thanks a lot, sir.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rahul Agarwal from Ikigai Asset Managers. Please go ahead.
Hi. Very good evening, sir, to everybody on the call. Just two questions. One is more longer term, midterm in terms of strategy. Our operating cash flows every year are about INR 600 crores. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Our CapEx total, including UP and Orissa is INR 2,000 crores next four years, five years, roughly about INR 400 crores a year. Most of the heavy lifting on cash flow right now is Plywood, 60% of EBITDAs coming from there. Just need to understand your thoughts on how do you manage your risk going forward, right? It's a lot more on execution, which will depend on to fund this CapEx. Second is at the same time, we got to control on our financial leverage on the balance sheet, which is INR 1,600 crores right now.
Third is, of course, spreading out this CapEx over four, five years' time so that the CapEx which we just finished over the last two, three years should actually generate the ROCE we want. How do we play a balancing act here? Could you just explain in terms of your own thought process for the entire business? That's the first question.
Hi, Rahul. I think the way to look at this, we are a company that you have seen has invested when we believe that there is money to be made. At the same time, for us, turnover is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is reality. Return on capital is one of the most important metrics that we track. Currently, as you rightly pointed out, we have invested substantially over the course of the past two years, and right now I think it is opportune for us to sweat our assets to generate returns. We are looking at growth that is not exponential. We are looking at a sustained growth. Towards that, maintaining balance sheet discipline is one of the most important priorities.
At this point in time, like I have already mentioned, our priority is going to be in creating capacity for Plywood where we are seeing that we might face a shortage say one and a half years from now due to very strong traction on the ground. Other than that, we will take a call on the other segments as and when we reach capacity utilization. There could be stagnancy in a couple of segments where we will not benefit substantially from volume addition for a period of one or two quarters, maybe from the second half of next year onwards, but this will be offset by higher realizations and by higher value addition sales. I think currently there is no frozen CapEx for MDF or Particleboard, which are large substantial CapExes.
We are going to be using our internal cash flows predominantly to strengthen our balance sheet and going forward as and when we take a call, you'll be the first to know.
I would like to add one more thing to this. That see in Plywood, we are not doing unrealistic expansion because all this while you never saw expansion was because our existing plants had a lot of juice to actually take out. We could really do massive expansion within our plants. We've actually doubled, tripled our capacity within our existing plants over the last five to six years. That is now no longer feasible, and because of that, we need to put up new plants, and we are looking at securing raw material sources because of which we are looking at Odisha or UP, et cetera, for future whenever we come back to local timber. We are taking a very muted growth of 10%-12% and a capacity utilization of 80%. Basis that we are planning our expansions.
Right. Absolutely get it. In terms of follow-up for Plywood, maybe the base is going to be very high, right? This year you've done exceptionally well. To actually do the heavy lifting next year, you're talking about 10%, 12% growth for next year, is what you're talking about?
Like MD said at the beginning, we don't want to give any numbers for this year. I think in the next call, we will talk about the numbers for this year, what we are expecting. Obviously, you'll also see how we've performed in Q1 by then.
Sure, sir, I get that. Just in terms of your own comfort on debt overall level versus if you look at EBITDA, what's the comfort level from a balance sheet consolidated perspective? Right now, we are at about 2.5x if you look at debt to EBITDA gross levels. We should be reasonably assured.
I think operating debt, o perating debt or w orking capital debt is something because we are growing and we are in a high growth phase. 19% growth year-on-year for a business like ours does require certain working capital. Long-term debt, I don't think we'll exceed 1:1 EBITDA going forward.
Perfect. Got it. Just lastly on forex, just want to understand what are the liabilities where forex in case INR devalues substantially any quarter which has just happened like that right now? What are the—
Our total forex is within INR 600 crores. Over the course of the past two decades, we have benefited substantially because of a natural interest hedge, as you are aware. One year, yes, there's been a stark loss. This is predominantly due to the fact that currency is appreciated beyond what anyone could have imagined. Having said that, I think our total forex exposure is INR 600 crores. It is going to be limited to within that space, which is not going to have a very meaningful impact on our balance sheet going forward. We are not going to increase our forex exposure going forward.
Yeah, absolutely understand. What I was asking was is it part of debt or is it realized or this is mark to market?
No, no, it is mark to market.
Right. Okay.
It is pure mark- to- market.
This is not realized. This is largely on liabilities on short-term debt, is it?
No, it is on long-term debt. Majority of it is long-term debt now because we have imported machinery via credit.
That is very clear. Thank you so much. Wish you all the best for next year.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of [Sneha] from Dalmia Wealth Management. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening, and congratulations on the numbers.
Yeah. Hi, [Sneha].
Hello, sir.
Thank you.
Just couple of questions, sir. Just starting with Plywood—
[Sneha], sorry to interrupt you. Your audio is breaking. Can you come to a better reception area, please?
Is it better now?
Yes.
Yeah. I was just asking whether on the Plywood front, whether we have opportunity for outsourcing. If yes, what would be the contribution of outsourcing currently? That's one. Although I understand you said that for incremental even 10%, 20%, we need to add growth, but the possibility of the outsourcing front also to get a higher growth. That's first. Secondly, a lot of your peers on the call mentioned that on MDF front, although we've taken price hike, but it's been partially passed on and due to competition, there are schemes and discounts going on. Just wanted to understand that how much of the raw material cost absorption across the board is done, and could we see any margin impact starting Q1 because of higher inflation?
Let me take the outsource question first, and then Sumant can take the next question. The thing is with respect to outsource, I think I've mentioned it in our last call as well, and Amit, that we want to actually make it a complete 100% in-house production. We are hoping that by the time there is an internal expansion next year April and Hoshiarpur. Once Hoshiarpur comes, we will start moving a lot of our Sainik MR , which is the only product we outsource in-house, and by the time we are here next year, we would probably make it 100% in-house.
Got that, Nikita. Thanks.
On the pricing side, as Sumant said, like I mentioned previously, we in the industry have taken a 15% price increase this quarter, and that more or less covers the cost increase on account of supply chain disruptions and the war. You are right, some peers in the industry have done selective rollbacks on this. Right now it's in a bit of a flux, given that the global tensions are again at play. We don't know which way the prices will go from here. In the market, like you rightly pointed, there's been some rollbacks by a few players here or there. I think the situation is a bit, we're waiting and watching and see which way it will go.
Our hope is that we are able to pass on the cost increase as an industry, in terms of prices, and therefore there should be no margin impact. Right now it's wait and watch for us. It's very difficult to say currently.
Got that. Lastly, just the third and last question from my end, which is related to across the categories. The reason I am asking this, we've seen significant inflation. In March, there was a lot of channel pushing Tiles, D Pipes, DTV, all space like MDF where the traders or the distributors were expecting price hikes. That is why they stuffed material in the month of March and probably because of which April has been slow. Just to send that I want to get how is May panned out. Are we seeing any scope of channel, restocking and now taking material?
No, April was not slow.
Okay. Okay. That answers it.
Actually was not slow. I want to clarify one more thing, Sneha, as far as outsourcing is concerned. You know that Century is absolutely into quality, and we have seen that outsourcing in plywood had really not worked as far as the quality is concerned. That's why we are slowly and as fast as possible, rather I should say, we are trying to withdraw from outsourcing, reduce outsourcing, and do everything in-house because the quality is of utmost importance to us.
Got it, sir. That was really helpful. Thanks. Thanks a lot. See you.
Why I'm saying so because next time you build your house, you must buy only CenturyPly. Yeah.
Understood, sir. Thank you so much, team, and all the best.
Yeah. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Sankarshan Mehra from Premji Invest. Please go ahead.
Hi, Mr. Mehra.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, just an extension to Ram's question on the overall CapEx. On the MDF front, you seem to be running at pretty high capacity utilization rate, and this debottlenecking probably helps you for growth, I think, next year. What are the plans beyond that in next three years? If you want to expand capacity there, I'm sure something must be planned by now so that it's, say, commissioned by FY 2028. Any thoughts there, or would the idea be to focus on more value-added products? How should we think about it?
Keshav, are you there?
Keshav, would you like to take that?
Keshav, sir's line dropped. I'll just call him back.
Okay.
In the meantime, maybe I can take a stab at answering while Keshav joins. Look, like Keshav mentioned a couple of questions back, obviously debottlenecking is one area which should give us 60,000, 70,000 cu m more of capacity this year, and we would like to obviously try to sell it off as quickly as possible. In parallel, move towards value-added is certainly very high on the agenda because that also gives us a bit uplift. In terms of capacity addition beyond that, nothing is firmed up and nothing is announceable as of now. We're obviously doing our internal brainstorming. Once we are positioned to give you specifics, in terms of timelines and capacity, we'll come back.
With our UP land acquisition, if it happens correctly on time, we'll be ready with the land. If the land is ready, rest of it is absolutely ready with us. There is no more time to wait for us. We will be able to put up a plant within, say, 15- 16 months time, I think. Right now, yes, there is nothing absolutely frozen.
Because of Plywood, we would actually get the land ready regardless, because we would need the common facilities and more or less the roads, et cetera. The land will ready if ever MDF decides. It won't take as long a period as it takes for a fresh project.
Understood. Just to clarify, that it's more a timing or a CapEx issue. Nothing to suggest that the growth opportunities are sort of saturating. I shouldn't be taking that.
No, no, no. We are very bullish on MDF return, and the capacities are going to expand really big time. A lot of progress is going to come in. These are only, you know, [Non-English content].
Understood.
No, I think each division will deliver a EBITDA where you all will also get the confidence that we further go into CapEx. I think that is also important there.
I'm looking forward to that. Thank you, and wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Amit Purohit from Elara Capital. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thanks for the opportunity, sir. Congratulations on good set of numbers.
Thank you.
Just two questions. One, on the demand, how are you seeing right now, given the fact that you have taken price increases in most of the segments? Second, when you take price increases, I just wanted to understand, just as a bit of a mathematical thing, trying to understand whether these price increases ensures you a percentage margin or suppose the raw material prices would have gone up by how much for MDF at an aggregate level or in Plywood, if you could give me. Is it the raw material price increased by 7% and 15% for you, and that's why the amount of price increase has been taken? If you could help me with that.
No, it's not that complicated. It's very simple. You see, there are very different factors in costing. We have a very efficient costing management system. Very fast we get the calculations that what are our costs going to be in, say, next one month time also. Accordingly, we take the price increase, and it is not only raw material timber. The timber is only maybe a certain percentage of the whole thing. There are chemicals, then there are factory inputs, and then there are logistic costs, and then there is a dollar, rupee. All these things we take into account, and we take the increase. It's much simpler than—
No, sir, I just want to know, what is the raw material index for you increase in MDF and Plywood? If you could just tell us that on a YoY basis for you to take 7% and 15% price increase.
What is the raw material percentage in the total cost?
Yeah. It's something I personally don't want to share. I think at least for Plywood, I don't want to share, and I think Sumant would say the same for MDF.
No, I don't think we should share for all those things.
Yeah. As far as the demand part goes, I would request Mr. Sen, if he's on the line, he should answer for Ply, and then Sumant can answer for MDF.
[Nadun] are you there?
Okay. If he's not there, let me take it up.
Yeah.
The thing is that whenever we do a price increase, we expect that things will fall, but we are not seeing any drop in our secondary. That to me shows that there might be some holding with the big dealers. Because we have such a wide expansion and we actually run routes on a daily basis when it comes to feeding smaller dealers, I feel that demand is continuing even post the price increase currently for Ply.
Sure—
Y eah. I think just to add to that. Sorry, you were saying something. Please go ahead.
No. Continue, and then I'll just have one small follow-up on that.
Yeah. No, just a quick addition to that on the MDF side. Look, for us also, demand has been quite stable. Usually, April, May as compared to Q4. Of course, there's a little bit of correction that happens from the Q4 reference, but in general, we don't see any fundamental weakening of demand. It's quite stable and healthy.
Sure. Just, sir, I understand you may not like to share the exact percentages, but can you just say whether it is higher or lower versus the price increase that you have taken?
No, it will always be higher, right? The raw material increase will be higher because of the ratio of the raw material to the pricing. It's not 100%, right? Obviously the raw material price rise would be higher, obviously, but we pass on the exact rise. We do not let our EBITDA get hit. That's usually how we work as a company.
Okay.
I think that answers your question. You're trying to ask, are we trying to get more margins from the pricing fee or are we just covering our cost? I think Nikita answered. The philosophy is to pass on as much as cost as possible. That's the intent.
Sure. Thank you so much. Thanks.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Arvind Taneja from Investec India. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity.
Yeah.
First question related to Plywood. Last quarter we said 8% of our total revenue in Plywood is with respect to Sainik MR. First, if you can tell us what is it in terms of volume? Second, now we plan to bring in Sainik MR and in-house. Does it mean that volume growth won't be commensurate to capacity growth going ahead? Is that a fair understanding?
Okay, let me answer it in two ways. Number one, we do not share breakup of Sainik MR and Sainik 710 Club Prime. We've maintained this in the past, I will not answer that question. With respect to the second part. Yes. If you say in terms of the growth, the capacity expansion that is happening is quite aggressive at a smaller timeline. If you see that it's 30% just this year, we are adding another further 15% next year, is all to actually take up some part of this 8%. Obviously, we are not going to grow by 45% in this one and a half years. Yes.
All right. Follow up, what is the capacity?
I hope that answers the question.
Yes, it does. Just to follow up on this, I can call out what is the capacity right now in Plywood and what will be our capacity once you are done with all the CapEx that you have announced in FY 2027?
Vinay, can I have you take up those with that number, please?
Sure. Current capacity in case of Plywood is INR 406,000. This is as on 31st March.
Sir, sorry to interrupt you. You're sounding distant.
Am I audible now?
Yes.
Current capacity at Plywood is INR 406,000 as on March 26th, and we are coming up with new capacity of Hoshiarpur, which is 48,000 CBM, which is going to come up in the second half of this year. Apart from that, we are having brownfield expansion at different factories, which is Kandla, Chennai and Guwahati, which will add another 20% of this particular capacity, which Nikita had already told. I hope I answered your question.
20% of total capacity is 80,000 CBM.
Yes. Two are ground-based.
Got it. Second question related to Century Port. We have done expense of somewhere around INR 260 crores-INR 70 crores over three years. Just wanted to understand what could be the potential cost saving we can expect from this.
Hello.
What do you mean by cost saving for CenturyPly?
Yes. Cost saving or incremental revenue.
Cost saving for CenturyPly. No, there is no cost saving in this actually. It makes life easier for many importers and exporters, so to us also. There is no cost saving for CenturyPly in this.
We always maintain each thing as a separate profit center. Century Ports will continue to have its own profit center and there's no benefit to CenturyPly as a group.
All right. Thank you so much. Participants kindly limit yourself to two questions per participant and rejoin for a follow-up. Next question is from the line of Mehul Shah from NMB Securities. Please go ahead.
Hello. Sir, I wanted to know the current capacity for Laminates.
Current capacity for Laminates.
Utilization.
Our capacity utilization is at 84%, and our capacity is 8,7 70,000 sheets.
8,770,000 ?
8,770,000 sheets.
This is consolidated, right?
The Badvel capacity is 11,200 CBM. These are two different kinds of numbers because there the number of sheets, 8,7 70,000 number of sheets. Here it is CBM because here we make a different kind of laminate actually. It's a thicker laminate which is mostly for exports or for use in toilet cubicles and all that.
Okay. What would be?
The capacity utilization at Badvel is 47%.
What would be the capacity for 2027 and 2028?
Capacity for 2027/ 2028? Same.
Yeah, same. Okay.
Nicely said. We will give those numbers in the next call because if I talk about capacity utilization, I will also end up talking about what is my plan for this year. We will give that in the next call.
Nikita , the capacity question. The capacity is to be asked.
No, he's asking capacity utilization percentage for this year.
For MDF capacity is 528,000 CBM, right? Current.
For MDF, the current capacity is about 530,000 CBM, 540,000 CBM per year. With the brownfield expansion, we'll add another 60,000 CBM, 70,000 CBM. We'll be about 600,000 cubes a year.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from line of Anu Parekh from Anand Rathi. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir.
Hi.
First question is, what is the reason for weak performance of the Laminate segment for the 18 quarters, and by when can we expect it to start performing?
Vishu, you had.
Yeah. I can answer that. Vishal will decide. I think there are two parts to the question, okay? In the last, if you were to look at the preceding eight quarters, which is FY 2024, 2025, and 2023, 2024, okay? We had seen a certain amount of stagnancy as far as the Laminate business is concerned, partially because of some internal changes in the context of how we wanted to take up the GTM level changes, which probably have not worked to our advantage, and partially also because of the changing product mix when you look at India as well as both export markets. We took some corrective actions starting last year only, and if you were to look at this year, we have started seeing some green shoots as far as the financial year 2025/2026 is concerned.
On a quarter-on-quarter basis, we have seen an uptick as far as the overall top line as well as the improvement on the bottom line is concerned, which essentially has come through the work which we've done both in the domestic market, including working on some price points, trying to sharpen our go-to-market strategy and making some corrective changes there, including changes in the leadership team. Also, at the export level, we have added the larger capacity presses, which is something which is more attuned to the kind of product mix which is utilized or kind of demanded in the global markets all across Europe, Southeast Asia, and stuff like that. That also has started giving us some dividend. To that extent, we are seeing some green shoots.
While of course, we are in a context of building up the space for us, but for whatever we understand, including all the published companies wherein they've published their results, we have done reasonably okay. As of now, growth rate outstrips all of them from a published point of view. Industry itself has seen a certain amount of 8%-10% kind of a revenue guidance if you were to look at the market leaders and all other companies the way they are portraying. At this stage, we continue to outgrow that. As we move ahead, we will see more improvement in consolidation moving forward, and we may continue to outgrow the market by 3%-4%.
Okay. Sir, how much has been the rise in the chemical prices compared to the average of Q4 based on current market rates? Also, if you can share the chemical cost percentage as a proportion of revenue for Plywood, Laminate, MDF, and Particleboard.
Those things we share, but—
Yeah.
Prime costs, et cetera, we do not share actually.
Okay, sir. Just how much has been the rise in the chemical prices?
You better put it. Vishu.
Yeah. I can tell you. See, for us, we have, in the context of MDF and Plywood, we have taken a pricing increase to that 10%-12%, largely the impact in quarter one. That predominantly covers our raw material or the chemical cost price hike, which has happened. Because we are dependent on a lot of chemicals, and it does form a sizable portion of our input cost. We have been able to pass on most of the pricing risk to the market.
The cost increase in chemical will be little higher than this percentage.
Yeah. Maybe we are unable to tell you at this moment exactly.
Okay, sir. Thank you so much.
Yeah. Thank you very much. That was the last question in the queue. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Sanjay Agarwal for closing remarks. Sanjay, sir, may I request you to unmute and proceed with your closing remarks?
Hello. Thank you everyone for your insightful questions and continued interest in our company. We are encouraged by the strong performance delivered during FY 2026 and remain confident about sustaining the growth momentum across our businesses. With Iran war supposedly ending, I hope progress here will be good. We sincerely appreciate your continued trust and support, and we look forward to interacting with you again after our next quarter results. Thank you. Have a great day.
Thank you very much. On behalf of SKP Securities Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.