Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Camlin Fine Sciences Limited Q4 and FY 2026 earnings conference call. Before we proceed, this conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company that are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company as on date of this call. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. 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 call is being recorded. I now hand the conference to Mr. Ashish Dandekar, Chairman and Managing Director, Camlin Fine Sciences Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the quarter's earnings call. We know your time is precious, so we will immediately begin the relevant portion. You will note among all the noise that is happening around the world, that we have been on a very consistent strategy implementation for the last two years, three years, and you'll see the progress in the numbers and in the explanations. Without anything more, I'll hand over to Santosh Parab for his brief.
Thanks, Ashish. Good evening, everybody, and thanks for attending our earnings call. I'll just start with a brief on what is happening around the world. Everybody knows that there has been some impact on our business in this quarter. This quarter, the sale was impacted by around 20% due to delay in shipments, lack of ships, and increased voyage time to our markets across the globe. This conflict also has affected the availability and prices of some of our raw materials. The longer delivery time has also impacted our working capital cycles, and that paucity of working capital cycles has also percolated in some ways on the pushing of our business and growing of our business in some of the geographies. With this, we clocked around INR 424 crore of revenue in this. The total revenue is INR 1,723 crore.
You have to note that we have some disclosures on discontinued operation, on which I will talk later, which have been shifted from the total revenues to a discontinued business. Hence, the nine-month revenue and as well as last year's revenue is looking like it has reduced, but it is a disclosure. The revenues have been made in this quarter also. We had INR 7 crore-INR 8 crore of revenue, which had to be shown as discontinued business. The total revenue of INR 1,723 crore is also lower by around INR 52 crore. I'll now come to our segments. In the U.S. business, we have been able to hold on to our market share. However, due to local competition and pricing pressures, the revenue from U.S. has reduced a bit. Of course, it was also helped by increase in the USD prices, but the local competition has impacted our U.S.
Having said that, we changed our strategy of trying to use more of the HQ for making blends rather than competing it with the local Indian competitors. We have been trying to blend this HQ into the blends business. Hence, some of the HQ sales business have moved to the blends business. In blends, that has been the hallmark of our revenue in the last few years, we have maintained the steady growth. We had been saying that we'll be doing around 20%. We have clocked 17%. If we add the discontinued blends business of CFS Europe S.p.A., we would have grown by 18%.
We missed the target of 20% primarily because the projections of Vinpai, which did INR 10 crore in the first month, was only able to do around INR 17 crore in the last three months. As I said, the working capital cycles and the liquidity crunch has impacted their business.
We are confident that it will come, and it will give the results which we have been talking about in Vinpai. Going forward also, blends business is looking good. I'll tell you about it after some time. The vanillin aroma portion, we had told you last time that we have changed to the ethyl vanillin campaign, we stopped the production of methyl vanillin, we were not modifying, but changing our methyl plant into ethyl vanillin plant, which took around two months. We started ethyl vanillin plant. Largely, methyl vanillin, there was a very small portion of methyl vanillin produced in the quarter. It's around 110 metric tons. We did have internal channel stock.
We had sold and we were holding onto some inventories, especially looking at the tariff going down, we deviate some of the inventories and hold those inventories to reduce the tariff impact. Internal channels stock, the entire sale of vanillin, which has been happening Q4, is largely to the internal channels stock, which will be liquidated. We also have some internal channels stock still remaining of methyl vanillin, which will help us in the coming quarters. Of course, ethyl vanillin, we have orders on hand for the quarter one of around 300 metric tons. The plant is running well. We'll be taking a campaign of around 600 metric ton of methyl vanillin. We have enough methyl vanillin. Not enough, but a fairly good stock of methyl vanillin to not allow the market to dry. Of course, when the tariff withdrawn, there will be higher realizations.
We have started looking the green shoots on that. The channel stock was sold in the last month, and our average realization for the company for the vanillin had gone up from $11 to more than $12.5 in quarter four, and we are quite confident it will grow obviously above because of no tariffs there. Only 15% tariff is there in U.S. and Europe. This higher realization will also benefit us in the next quarter. You have seen that we also had lodged a claim after the withdrawal of tariff by the Supreme Court order. We have paid around $9,000 of duty through the customs till February, which we have applied for the claim, and that has reduced our cost because the payment of duty was subject to customs goods sold, which we have now released.
We are confident that this claim will be received, this having been lodged and accepted by the authority. If you see the overall cost also remain under control. As far as employee cost is concerned, we have been saying that we'll be investing in human capital to help us grow the business, especially in the blend sector. We are really looking at an exponential growth in blends business. Last two years, if you see, we have been investing into employee cost, and that's one of the main reason an increase in employee cost. Of course, Vinpai also came for four months. This entire quarter, results also incurred revenues and expenses of Vinpai for the whole quarter. Last quarter it was only one month. That has also pushed the cost.
Overall costs also are under control, but for the freight cost, which has increased in the last six months and some of the other costs. Vinpai also has contributed to increase in that cost. Resultantly, the quarterly EBITDA is in INR 21 crore. It's 5%. I think in the current circumstances, it's not a bad performance. Obviously, going forward, the currency fluctuations will impact the business, but for us, we being sales in dollars, it should positively impact and may increase our revenue. To such extent that we will be able to absorb the increase in the cost of the raw materials. Of course, it may not be entirely, but we can absorb that cost. This quarter, liquidation of CFSE has happened. We received the order of liquidator order, and the accounting entry has been done.
There is a gain booked on loss of the company, which is around INR 100 crore, which we have booked this quarter. One good thing about it is the cash burn on this discontinued operations of around INR 50 crore-INR 60 crore every year is going to come to zero from next quarter. That's a big cost saving. CFS Europe S.p.A. still remains under liquidation, but we don't think the cost will be more than INR 7 crore-INR 8 crore, we think. Just to clear the outlook for the next year or the subsequent quarter, vanillin as an asset will improve realization. Volumes are also likely to increase, but just we have to see the lingering conflict situation, how it acts. Blends, again, as I said, we have invested into the human capital. We already have the pole positions in our portfolio blends for higher growth.
In the first month itself, we have crossed more than INR 100 crore of global blends business. If that run rate is taken, you can just see the kind of growth we are looking at blends. Obviously, we have also, last Friday, we had an unfortunate incident. It was not a fire at the Dahej SEZ-II plant. Fortunately, because of our response is in quick and safety measures in there, the fire didn't spread to all the plants. We were able to contain it. There will be some loss that we have adequate insurance for. In fact, we are planning to close down the plant, shut down the plant of diphenol, especially with the prices. As you know, our basic raw material price is INR 85. Now, we quoted at more than INR 150/ kg. The availability is also not consistent.
At present, we are getting it, but we are not sure if the conflict lingers, how it will be taken. We had taken a conscious decision that we should reduce the cash burn because of the high pricing and lower utilization in catechol. We had already secured hydroquinone from China, which is at a very reasonable rate, and we would save by purchase rather than manufacturing, which helps us to keep our downstream of HQ running. Catechol, we already have enough stock because the plants were running at 60%, 24/7 last year, and the consumption was not enough for the vanillin and we have enough stocks in the system of catechol which will sustain eight to nine months of our running in production. Having said that, things look good. We will be looking at how to use or repurpose this diphenol plant.
We have to also look at how the prices move, what will be the raw material prices of our diphenols, how the competition is looking at it, how the markets are responding to the whole situation and also the conflict. Soon we'll take some decision and decide on the path for the diphenol plant. Having said this, I think I'll open this forum for questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants, you are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. A reminder to all, you may press star and one to ask a question. We will take the first question from the line of Raman K.V. from Sequent Investments. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. I just have some doubts. One is with respect to diphenol prices, which you said have increased drastically from INR 85- INR 150. This is a raw material for production of what actually? Hello, can you hear me?
Diphenol is a product which we manufacture. Diphenol is nothing but hydroquinone and catechol. I was talking about the raw material phenol, which was generally INR 85 last, just before the conflict. Now it has gone up to INR 150. Naturally, the cost of production of our product, hydroquinone and catechol, has drastically increased.
Okay, understood. Catechol we are manufacturing internally and hydroquinone we are supplying it from China. Right?
We manufacture hydroquinone and catechol together as diphenol.
Okay.
If we stop the diphenol plant, both of the products cannot be manufactured. I was saying that hydroquinone we used to use entirely for our HQ production, vanillin unit. That hydroquinone we'll be importing. As far as catechol is concerned, because vanillin plant has not achieved enough capacity utilization last year, we are carrying enough catechol, which can help us to produce vanillin for next eight to nine months. That catechol we will not be importing. We will be importing hydroquinone for our downstreams, and that hydroquinone we have already secured from Chinese manufacturers for next quarter.
Okay, understood, sir. Basically, we don't have any direct impact of this sudden rise of phenol prices, if my understanding is right.
Yes, we are trying to make or buy. It's a simple thing. It's better to buy now the raw material than making it at higher cost. You're right in that sense. We are buying hydroquinone so that our real downstream sales of antioxidants and vanillin, we are able to keep that sale and at a reasonable margin than producing it at present.
Okay, sir. Sir, from the report result and the PPT, I can see that we have INR 85 crore gain from discontinued operation. Can you just elaborate what is this?
As you know, I just mentioned that we have this CFS Europe subsidiary which was liquidated and there were certain loans in that subsidiary which has been booked as a gain on de-recognition of CFS Europe S.p.A., and that's what has come. It's around 95% loans, but the credit is lower because there are some discontinued business and the losses are in. It has been adequately explained in the notes. This discontinued business, the credit is largely on account of the loans which were de-recognized on the financial statements on liquidation of CFS Europe S.p.A.
Okay. Understood. Sir, with respect to vanillin, you have mentioned that the internal channel stock of vanillin has been liquidated at the end of quarter four. Now can we expect our realization to move upwards given that the inventory has been liquidated at the same time the U.S. tariff has reduced from 50%- 25%?
As I started with saying that we had taken a campaign of ethyl vanillin. We have two vanillins, methyl and ethyl. Till now we were producing methyl and selling methyl. We had a good order book of ethyl vanillin, and hence we wanted to produce ethyl vanillin. For that purpose, we had to take a break of methyl vanillin. We stopped the production of methyl vanillin from January 15th. There was hardly any production here, but we have sale of vanillin. That sale of vanillin is from the internal channel stock. In the sense, the material which we have sold to U.S. subsidiaries carrying the stock. That channel stock has been sold in this quarter, and that's why you can see the revenue. Still, we are carrying internal channel stock, which will be sold in the subsequent quarter.
We'll also be selling ethyl vanillin with the campaign we started and the production we have got from April. In April, in the Q1 quarter, we'll be selling ethyl vanillin, which we are producing now, and we'll be selling some channel stocks, internal channel stocks of methyl vanillin.
Prices.
You had that last. I answered the last one.
Yeah.
Yes. The tariffs have gone down. Naturally, we were impacted. The basic prices in U.S. are not more. They're $18, $17.50 , or $18 in the U.S. The duty was at our cost, we had to sell from India at $11- $12.
duty reduced, our realizations will increase. In fact, as I said, our realization moved from sub $11 in the last quarter to almost $12.5+ in this quarter. Naturally, the realizations are better. Realizations will increase in the next quarter.
Sir, just a follow-up on this. Is there any realization difference from when we compare methyl vanillin to ethyl vanillin? I just want to understand the rationale behind switching from methyl vanillin to ethyl vanillin.
Generally, methyl vanillin and ethyl vanillin, the customers like to have ethyl vanillin is a more stronger note product. Its consumption is lesser than methyl vanillin, but the customers ask for ethyl vanillin also, and they're happy if the supplier is able to sell both the vanillins. Having said that, this ethyl vanillin price difference generally is $1- $1.5 more than methyl vanillin. Our cost is also almost $1 more. Either I sell methyl vanillin or ethyl vanillin, my realizations, the margins per kilogram remain the same.
Understood, sir. Understood. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Hrushikesh from Alchemy Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Am I audible?
Yes.
Yeah. Thank you for taking my question. Sir, I wanted to know what would be our vanillin sales this quarter?
In quantity or value?
In quantity.
In quantity, vanillin we sold.
This quarter.
Around INR 325.
INR 325. Sir?
Yes.
If I remember correctly, in Q3, you had mentioned that we had 200 tons of vanillin, which we had held back. I thought this quarter we might see a better volume change. What would be the reason for only 325 tons?
So we have hold of.
I know that we had to hold off our production, but still we had 650 tons in our channel with subsidiaries and everywhere. I think our volumes would have been better, right?
I'll just put the same number this we said. We talked last in February that we had done 100 tons. We said that we'll be doing 200 more tons by holding back the stock and trying to take the benefit of realization at 300 tons. As I said, I'm still carrying around 300 tons of vanillin stock in the channel to sell in quarter one. That's how this 600 tons works out.
Thank you. Okay. So, okay. Got it. Sir, my second question was, if you look at our profitability, how much of an impact would you say this Middle East crisis had on our EBITDA. See, because if I remove the INR 10 crore or INR 12 crore of tariff rebate that we have got, then our EBITDA would have been around INR 10 crore. It is only 2%-2.5% EBITDA margin. FY 2027 we have guided for double digits. What do you think? Would there be any change to our guidance revenue-wise and margin-wise?
Sir, listen to you. The Middle East crisis has impacted our sale by about INR 50 crore or so. Santosh mentioned earlier in his opening remarks that the Vinpai acquisition, there was an EBITDA loss, a loss at EBITDA level of INR 10 crore. It was due to some liquidity issues which Vinpai had, which of course, we are addressing. If you combine these two, our EBITDA should have been higher by about INR 30 crore or so.
Okay.
We are not changing our guidance for FY 2027. We are guiding on the same line.
Right. Sir, right now, see, now let's say our tariffs are down to 18% and we are able to sell it at $18, FOB would be at $20 or something. What would be our blended realization we can take for FY 2027?
I think it will be around in the range of $13.5-$14.
Okay. I have one more question on the blends. Sir, blends and Vitafor, what would be the EBITDA breakeven we can expect at what revenue run rate?
Yeah. Vitafor is at $ 16 million for the whole year, and so is Vinpai also at the same level, $ 14 million-$ 16 million.
Okay. I will come back if I have any other questions. Thanks a lot.
Sure.
Thank you. We'll proceed to the next question from the line of Avnish Tiwari from Vaikarya. Please go ahead.
Hi. Can you explain or help us understand your debt levels at March 2026 and how you plan to manage the cash flow in FY 2027 in terms of how much you expect from operations and any other sources to meet your debt payments and working capital requirements as you grow the business again in 2027?
Last year we started with around INR 620 crore of debt. Our business was increasing. We did take some debt in India of around INR 25 crore on working capital, which is an increase. If you have seen, we also borrowed INR 30 crore for our Vinpai open offer. We borrowed at the year-end. On a global basis, Vinpai was added to the whole conlidated debt as it was acquired. It had around $6.5 million of loans in its books. That was INR 60 crore also increased because of that too. How the increase in the total loan is only by INR 50 crore because we knocked out around INR 85 crore of Italian loans. At the end of this year, we have around INR 670 crore loan. Out of that, we are carrying INR 30 crore in escrow, which is for the Vinpai open offer.
Having said that, the INR 670 crore, the overall repayment for the whole year on a consolidated basis, around INR 60 crore-INR 70 crore. We think that it could be managed. There will be some stress on if our turnovers increase at a faster rate, we will require additional liquidity and additional support. We are looking at some support from the market on debt for the growth as well as stabilizing the current business and have some cash to tide over this conflict situation. It is better to have some cash because there could be longevity of the working capital if the conflict lingers.
Nice. Are you looking at some degree of capital infusion just to make it even more resilient so that you can pursue your growth plan implementation?
Capital infusion is the last resort. We are in the market for debt at this moment, that looks like a better option. We know that the times are difficult and that's why we have kept that door open and we are seeing that we have increased our authorized capital to some extent in the month of March. At this moment, equity infusion is really a last resort now. It's not on the table at all.
Is debt you're looking at is a simple plain bank debt or this more structured type high yield debt of between equity and debt kind of?
We are looking in a combo because we have large now network of our companies all over the place. Looking at the nature of it, if you see in India, you go for a structure bank.
For example, if I borrow in Mexico, it will be more of a bank debt. We will be looking at a combo. We have kept all doors open. As you know, times are difficult, especially to have cash on the market in that situation. Largely structured in this situation, but we are also looking at the bank finance.
Do we have some sort of a sense or range what cost it would come at?
It's very difficult now because the guy who gives structured finance is going to assess my risk. We will try to keep it as minimal as possible as the market is.
Got it. Second question, I had in the industry cycle, you were talking about inventory in the channels reducing in U.S., and then maybe getting your volumes back in U.S. How is that situation? When you think you can get your volumes strongly going in U.S.?
This is for the vanillin business?
Yeah, vanillin business.
Yeah. The vanillin business this year, as we said in the past, our estimate for FY 2027 in the U.S. will be around 2,200-2,400 metric tons. We are on stream to achieve that number. That's both methyl and ethyl together. We have several businesses already contracted and some being contracted. I think that 2,200-2,400 is what we are looking at for this year.
Will it be more coming in second half or even Q1, Q2 can also see a strong pickup getting Q4 of last year 300+ tons?
Yeah. Q1 also will show some pickup in the U.S., but the total combined between U.S. and Europe, Q1 will show some growth over Q4 of last year, of FY 2026.
Got it. Then it will keep picking up to meet your guidance.
Yes. That is the plan. Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Rehan from Coheron Wealth. Rehan, your line is open.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I had a couple of questions across for the business. What is the tonnage or catechol inventory you are sitting on in terms of for now?
It's about in the region of about 3,000 tons.
That in terms of vanillin yield is how much approximately between methyl and ethyl because I know the yield would be different because of catechol? Sorry.
Yeah. It's about one is to one. Roughly for the calculation, you can take one is to one for both, for methyl and ethyl.
Okay. Considering our guidance for FY 2027 has been about 70% utilization, so that would be about 4,000- 4,200 tons of vanillin. Where would the balance 1,000 come from?
We buy from China.
You will buy catechol from China?
Yeah, either catechol or vanillin.
Okay. Then you will blend it here and do the necessary.
Yeah. We do it here in the final step, I mean, whatever the manufacturing is done.
Understood. The tariffs currently, as per my understanding, is 10%, not 18%, right?
15%.
15%.
There's a base 5.5% duty, and then there's 10% tariff across the board, 15.5%.
Your current realization would be about $16 odd in U.S. at the moment?
The DDP pricing today in the U.S. market are compared to Solvay selling at about $17-$18. There is a holding cost. There's a holding cost, and the tariff cost, and some channel financing cost. All of that gives us net realization would probably be in the region of about $13.
I think a couple of quarters back, we are seeing prices signed at $19-$19.5.
Correct. Yeah. Sino is trying to insulate the market, I mean, get the Chinese out of the market completely. They've taken this position of pricing, and we can't price higher than them. We kind of maintain pricing along with them. I think in the next quarter, they have no choice but to increase the price, and that's what we are thinking that they would look at increasing the prices to the $19-$20 range.
Your pricing for Q1 as on blended across Europe and U.S. realization would be about, like in and post tariff will be about closer to $14?
Yeah, $13.5- $14, in that range.
Okay. Yeah, because it's been almost a year since the ADD came in. Are we now seeing that now is the channel clear? Because prices should have been north of $20 by now, excluding Sino, even them, I mean, I'm wondering how is with this inflationary scenario.
Yeah. It's surprising what they're doing, I think we expect them to change their position in the next couple of months. Yeah. They will increase it because their capacity utilization would be at 100% by then. Naturally they'll have to increase the prices.
The cost currently that the company is incurring because of employees, as we had discussed earlier in the February concall as well, this is the peak, right? Now we will let the business stabilize a bit because you've done two acquisitions, you have a new facility coming on stream because of vanillin. Now is this the peak hiring? We're not seeing more increased employee expenses on the P&L?
Yeah. No. I don't think there will be significant changes. It will be in this region.
Considering you're moving from manufacturing to importing and then doing your value addition here with vanillin scaling up and blends in its nature is already asset light. Are you on track to deliver about INR 300 crore-INR 330 crore of EBITDA for FY 2027? Because vanillin alone at your current realization of INR 13.5-INR 14 should give you INR 200 crore of EBITDA.
Yeah. The way we are seeing it is that on the top line, we should be in the region of between INR 2,200-INR 2,400.
EBITDA margins would be between 12%-14% on overall basis. Of course, we do have a plant which we are trying to look at what to do with to make it into multipurpose and see if we can reduce some of the costs on our raw materials as well. There are different programs which we are working on. That's why the range would be between 12%-14% in terms of EBITDA, and top line also would be in this range of INR 2,200-INR 2,400.
Going forward, we don't have any European losses. The Chinese losses I think are about INR 8 crore odd annually, which is about INR 1.5 crore- INR 2 crore a quarter. Considering you have about 300 tons of stock in vanillin plus a 600 metric ton campaign. Are we moving back to double-digit margins in Q1 onwards at least? Q4 we expected some sequential performance, but I think we've slipped further because of the geopolitical tension.
Because of geopolitical. Q1 is difficult to say that because we did have manufacturing of phenol till the May 22nd when we discontinued, and we started getting material from China which now we are consuming. The full impact of that will really come in Q2.
You would also have phenol inventory, which would give you some inventory gains.
No, phenol we don't have any inventory because it's just -in -time because it's next door. The phenolics plant. We don't keep any stock. It's just -in -time supply is what we have.
In Q1, are we going to maintain this 48% gross margin or are we going to slip down? If you're going to do 4,000 tons of vanillin.
We maintain that margin. There could be 1% up or down, but we should be able to maintain that margin, yeah.
At 700 tons of vanillin alone, sorry, not 700 -1,000 tons of vanillin, even if I take it as a quarterly phenomenon, I know it's not that way, but if you are to even average it out just for simplicity, that alone should give you back to your old numbers. At $13.5, with this current rupee depreciation, even if your cost of manufacturing is $9.5 all inclusive, you're at INR 360/ kg. At 1,000 tons, that's automatically INR 36 crore-INR 37 crore of EBITDA. I'm just not understanding the numbers if you can help me understand the same?
No. Again, the raw material costs have gone up. The $9 is no longer $9 because phenol and all other raw material costs have gone up in the current situation that we are seeing. That $9- $9.5 assumption was prior to the war. After that, of course, with all these cost increases your realization has not gone up, but your costs have gone up for vanillin. When I look at vanillin, I would say breaking even.
This catechol is old inventory as Santosh also mentioned, that 3,000 tons is not new.
No, catechol is only a quarter of the raw material. There are other raw materials as well, for example, glyxolic acid, and caustic. Caustic is actually equal in value as catechol is, and that has gone up by literally doubled up after the war situation.
The total raw material cost itself is $7.5 pre-war with around $2 of catechol in there. You can just imagine there are a lot of other raw materials which are going, which can really get impacted by the geopolitical situation.
Today at current pricing even, at 4,000 tons, what will be your per kilogram cost of vanillin?
My raw material cost, even if we hold on to the catechol and we are seeing that around 20%-25% increase in cost since I knock out $1.5- $2 from my total cost of $7.5 per percent, 5.5%-20%, that's how boss was saying $9.
Today is it $10 or $9.5?
Sorry to interrupt in between.
This is on the same vanillin? No, Santosh , what is the current cost of per kilogram of vanillin at these levels?
Yeah. That's what I'm saying. The raw material cost which was $7.5 has gone up by at least $1.20. It's almost $9 is the raw RMC. Plus your conversion cost at 4,000 tons if you were to look at your conversion cost, it would be at $1.5. You're at $10.5 of base cost. Your realization is $13- $13.5 . You're talking about $3 spread on 800 ton. In the first quarter, you're looking at $22- $23 gross coming from there, not $25- $36, what you are making up.
Sorry to interrupt in between. Rehan, I would request you to please return the queue again for more questions as we have participants waiting in the queue. Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Surya Patra from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for this opportunity. Sir, my first question on the, let's say the base business, TBHQ, BHA, and all those kind of things. The kind of price pressure, competition, also the kind of recent general rise in chemicals prices because of the war situation, what we have seen. Given those backgrounds, what is the kind of outlook that you would be having on that, the specialties ingredient as versus specialty, the U.S. business?
The states business, some of the cost increases, we will be able to pass on, and we are passing on TBHQ prices, corrected and have gone up, to reflect that. BHA pricing also is slightly better than it was pre-war. In terms of passing on the increase of cost, with a lag we are in track to be able to pass it on. I don't see a problem with that. As far as volume is concerned, I think we are gaining a lot of market share also in the blends business, where our TBHQ and BHA internal consumption is growing. This also is giving us some economies of scale in terms of production of TBHQ and BHA.
Whether the outlook for 2027 could be positive, or how should one really think, sir?
For TBHQ, BHA it is positive. Yes. For TBHQ, BHA it is positive, the outlook.
From the Performance Chemicals point of view.
We don't have enough of performance chemicals. We don't have much now. Now, with catechol, after stopping the ethanol production, the performance chemicals will be very small part. We were making hydroquinone and selling some hydroquinone also in the market. Slowly all of that will go. Really the focus is not on that.
Okay. My second question is on the supply chain issue practically that you would be seeing currently. There was obviously a difficult situation. Whether the worst is behind now and Q1 onwards, sir, should we see a kind of improved supply situation for us? There will be still some challenges relating to some particular input, if you can say that?
The problem is, as you know, in the supply chain, the bigger problem is logistics. That is very unpredictable because what looks like 20-day shipment are taking sometimes 40 days to come or 50 days to come.
That uncertainty, till this geopolitical situation settles down, will remain, and very difficult to predict whether that will very quickly correct or it will take maybe a few months to correct.
Sir, the overhang remains because even if the situation eases, I don't think the logistic price will immediately come down. In fact, tomorrow morning I am meeting one of our guys, Vikas, who is a big logistic guy. He's coming, and I know why he's coming. He wants to increase the price. The cost, if you compare pre-war and now, in fact, pre-war also the costs are increasing upfront. The cost, as far as we are concerned, where we put almost a lot of material across the globe, in the American continent, both north and south of it, the costs are almost three times.
You can always say why it's not here, but it doesn't work like that. I don't think even if tomorrow the war stops, this thing is going to get unwound in a day or a week. We feel that this will linger on for some time, at least it will take a quarter to come back to the normal situation.
H1 of FY 2027 is a continued impacted period for the business generally, theoretically, that is for performance chemicals, right?
How this background on cost basis, I feel that the cost of freight may remain high. If even if the war is over and the crude remains at $100, then there's no respite, right?
Yes.
For the stock. It's very unpredictable. The question is if the crude is $100, how much I can pass it on to my customer, right? How much I may have to bear from that? It's a very difficult calculation to say. I feel like even a stable growth of 10%-15% over these two quarters is great. Really great.
Okay. Sir, about vanillin business, we have talked about it already. Since the U.S. tariff was not there or almost a near normal kind of tariff situation that is in there since some time, and this is a kind of year-end situation, and normally the order book builds with time also. Any order book build-up that you have seen for FY 2027 and hence that confidence that okay, there is a certain quantum of the supply that is definitely possible irrespective of the pricing or the cost equation. Yes, sir.
Yeah. To answer that, we started with the methyl vanillin campaign.
Sure.
The campaign is for 600 tons, and we already have an order book covering 50% of that.
Okay.
We have to maintain stocks also because we can't be out of the market once we change to methyl vanillin. I think in terms of demand, what we were saying between around the 4,000-ton mark, I think is very doable. Our biggest challenge is of course the longer working capital cycles and logistics and cash flow. That's what we need to address because we have a large order book even in all our businesses actually, and executing that with tight cash flow position is a bigger challenge than the market itself.
Okay. If you can also just add upon to your outlook about vanillin for the European markets. What inventory situation now? Do you see some easing situation in Europe at least?
Yeah. Europe, the market situation is much better. In the methyl vanillin also, out of the 300, 150 is coming from Europe. Methyl vanillin, we have no stocks to give to the European market till we start our campaign again. The market is coming back to what we had said, the 1,500- 1,600 tons for the year. I think we're good for that.
Just last one point from my side. About the Vinpai and the Vitafor ramp-up. We have been trying to build up the sales force for scaling up those operations, which was almost like stalled before acquisition. What is the sales force addition practically now we have created during FY 2026? What about the exit rate revenue that we have seen for both these two businesses? What is the kind of scale-up that we should actually see in the blends operations?
In the blends operation, we closed the year at INR 1,000.
INR 50 including this current year.
INR 1,050 including this current year. This year, we are looking at anything northward INR 1,400 crore for the FY 2027 in the blends business. As far as adding sales force, it is across the world. It's not only in Vinpai or Vitafor. We've also added workforce because the markets are in different places, right?
The sales people are being added across the world, and that addition we have done, which will support Vitafor and Vinpai growth.
Okay.
We expect Vinpai and Vitafor to be above breakeven EBITDA in FY 2027 for sure. The overall blends business to be northward INR 1,400 crore.
Sure. Just one point, sir. This tariff refund that you have mentioned from the U.S., whether that would be really tangible or it could be adjusted in the subsequent import trade?
That's what we understand, is normally it becomes 50/50.
While historically it has been 50/50, the U.S. government and the people there on the consensus are saying that we may get the cash upfront. Historically, it used to be similar situation. They have given 50% as cash and 50% has been adjusted against duty. The kind of turnover we have in from India, vanillin itself that INR 9 crore- INR 10 crore, we can swallow it in three, four months. We are not worried about that. If they give cash, we are more than happy. If they give duty, even still we are happy.
Okay, sure. Yeah. Thank you, sir. Wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, we will take that as the last question for today. I now hand the conference back to the management for the closing comments. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Thank you for your precious time, ladies and gentlemen, and we look forward to interacting with you in the next quarter. Thank you.
Thank you, members of the management. On behalf of Camlin Fine Sciences Limited, we conclude this conference. Thank you all for joining with us today, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.