Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Prashant Nair from Ambit Capital. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Yusuf. Good evening, everyone. I am Prashant Nair from Ambit Capital. I welcome you to the Quarter One FY 2024 Earnings Conference Call of Ami Organics. From the management, we have with us Mr. Naresh Patel, Chairman and Managing Director, and Mr. Bhavin Shah, CFO. I will now hand over the call to Mr. Bhavin Shah for opening comments. Over to you, Bhavin.
Thank you, Prashant. Good evening, everyone. We are pleased to welcome you all to our earnings conference call to discuss Q1 FY 2024 financials. Please note that a copy of our disclosure is available on the investor section of our website as well as on the stock exchanges. Please do note that anything said on this call, which reflects our outlook towards the future or which could be construed as a forward-looking statement, must be reviewed in conjunction with the risk that the company faces. The conference call is being recorded, and the transcript along with the audio of the same will be made available on the website of the company and exchanges. Please also note that the audio of the conference call is the copyright material of Ami Organics and cannot be copied, rebroadcasted, or attributed in press or media without specific and written consent of the company.
With that, I would like to hand over the floor to our CMD, Mr. Naresh Patel, for his opening statement. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Bhavin. Thank you, Prashant. Good evening, everyone. I hope you all are doing well. A warm welcome to our Q1 FY 2024 earnings conference call. Before I discuss the business performance of the company, I will take a couple of minutes to discuss some important economy and industry trends. Global economies are grappling with inflation except for China, which is experiencing deflation, which has led to reduced internal demand and pricing pressure. The oversupply issue in China's manufacturing sector has compelled them to export excess production worldwide. As a result, solvent and key raw material prices have decreased, along with lower costs of pharmaceutical and agrochemical intermediates. T he supply-side situation has improved significantly, and I anticipate demand-side challenges to normalize in the future, which brings about a balance. Hence, the current state of the chemical industry is transient, with prospects of recovery ahead.
Coming to the performance of Ami Organics during the quarter, as you all know, Q1 has historically been a weak quarter for us. Our revenue from our operations for the quarter was INR 132 crore, which is 9% growth over Q1 FY 2023. I'm extremely pleased that we have been able to deliver sustained growth during the quarter on the back of the deployment of new pricing environments in the chemical industry. I will let Bhavin discuss the numbers in detail later. Coming to the business segment, the pharmaceutical intermediate business grew by 5% during Q1 FY 2024. The slower growth was due to sluggish demand in the export market, which was balanced by robust transition in the domestic market. This is a reflection of our diversified portfolio, which always helps us wait through difficult quarters.
Moving on to the Specialty Chemicals business, we have been highlighting throughout last year that our focus through the period was on streamlining operations, optimizing capacity, and upgrading processes, which took its sweet time. As guided earlier, this year, we will start seeing the fruits of these efforts. In fact, the results are visible in Q1, where the business has already picked up, and our revenue from the chemical business has jumped by 25% year-on-year to INR 27 crore. Now, please understand this is in the backdrop of a very challenging environment that the industry is going through, and we are still able to deliver on this front. I would like to highlight here that we have sent validation samples to the customers of new products during Q1, and we have now received commercial orders for the same.
I will disclose more about this product once we start commercial supply in the coming quarter. While the product will ramp up gradually, this will catalyze the specialty chemicals' growth further. Overall, I believe we will see robust growth in specialty chemicals in FY 2024. Coming to the electrolytes business, we are very close to signing contracts with few customers, and updates will be shared as soon as and how we progress. What I can say is the size of these contracts will be larger than what we had anticipated. I believe we will see the numbers coming in our books during half-year FY 2024. On concluding note, I believe even as the external environment remains challenging, we are confident in delivering strong 22% growth during the year. With that, I request our CFO, Mr. Bhavin Shah, to discuss the financial details. Over to you, Bhavin.
Thank you, Nareshbhai. Good evening, everyone. I would like to briefly touch upon the key performance highlights for the quarter. We have ended Quarter ended 30th June 2023, and then we'll open the floor for question and answer. I will begin with quarterly updates. Revenue from operations for the quarter was at INR 142 crore, up 8.7% as compared to INR 131 crore in Q1 FY 2023. The gross profit for the quarter was at INR 63.7 crore, which was flat when compared to same period last year. The gross margin for the quarter was at 44.8%. Lower gross margin was due to change in product mix during the quarter. EBITDA for the quarter was at INR 25.2 crore, up 9.7% as compared to INR 22.9 crore in Q1 FY 2023. EBITDA margins for the quarter were at 17.7% compared to 17.5% in Q1 FY 2023.
EBITDA margin grew by 20 basis points in Q1 FY 2024 compared to the same period in last year. The growth in EBITDA margin was somewhat suppressed on account of higher employee cost, which was driven by annual increments, performance bonus, as well as higher wages. Please note that as per Government of Gujarat, increased minimum wages of the workers by 25% for all category of workers, which has impacted the employee cost during the quarter. Payroll for the quarter was at INR 16.6 crore, up 12% on YOY basis. The payroll margin for the quarter was at 11.7% as compared to 11.3% in Q1 FY 2023. Export for the quarter was at 37%, whereas domestic business was at 63%. I would like to highlight that the export business looks low during the quarter due to two main reasons.
First, Nareshbhai has also alluded in his opening remarks that demand in the export market was sluggish in Q1. Second point is that one of the formulators changed their API supplier from overseas to India. Therefore, those products, the supply was in the domestic business during the quarter. Coming to balance sheet, we have a net debt-free balance sheet with a net cash balance of around INR 28 crore as of 30th June 2023. Before I conclude, I would like to highlight that Q1 is always weak for us, but I believe that we'll witness strong growth sequentially from Q2 onwards, which will be coupled with an upward trajectory in EBITDA margin. And therefore, we are confident to deliver 20%-25% growth with more than 21% EBITDA margin for the financial year 2024.
With this, I conclude my remarks and request the moderator to open the floor for a question and answer session. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question is from the line of Chirag Lodaya from ValueQuest. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Congratulations on a good set of numbers. Sir, my first question was on intermediate business. W e grew around 5% in the growth in this challenging environment, etc. You already alluded to that. If you can just help us understand what exactly led to this, is it more volume pressure, pricing pressure you are seeing, or increasing competitive intensity in some of your products? S ome color on that would be helpful.
You mean to say that 5% growth is lower because of competition and all? Is it correct?
We're trying to understand what exactly led to this weakness.
Yeah. The current market scenario is like this, where the pharmaceutical market is little bit growing, taking decisions, and it is moving faster against the other pharmaceutical markets worldwide. Our major business is in Europe for the regulated market, and the generic market is based in Asia and mainly in India. See, because of the current price incremental of the key raw material, and one of our customers also has manufacturing started in India, our domestic sales have increased. Overall, our domestic sales margins are 2%-3% lower than our exports. T hat has also directly affected our margin. Whereas from a growth point of view, because the raw material price goes down, our top line is also decreasing because domestic is always port-based. O n the current raw material price, we have to take an order.
This is the reason why it is little bit on a lower side growth compared to what we are expecting.
I f I just look at the remainder of this financial year, we are still confident in achieving 20%-25% growth. F rom where we are driving this confidence? Is it a new product addition which will drive the growth, or existing products you see much better ramp up in the coming quarters?
The growth is the beauty of Ami Organics' product distribution is so that we have a versatile distribution. It will not impact any product go down or any customer go down. One more thing is that there are a few products which we have done validations and approvals in the last few years. Now it's becoming mature. We are expecting the order of that in Q2, Q3, and Q4. T hat will bring us the new growth in our product. The existing current business is also having visibility which gives us confidence that still we can be able to manage the 20%-25%. That is also one of the reasons that rather than giving a fixed number, we have given this range because we are expecting there will be a price pressure on the top line.
That's how we have changed our guidance last quarter by 20%-25%.
Sir, this change in mix which we have seen towards export versus domestic, is this going to continue for the remainder of the year, or was this a one-off which has happened?
No, it will be a change back to the normalization because a few of our long-term contract customers have shifted their production from half-year from H1 to H2. That is the reason why our export was little bit lower in Q1. It will be from H2 of them will be incremental. That will go back to our normal 60%, 40%, 55%, 45% like that.
55%, 45%. Okay.
Nareshbhai, on electrolytes, you have mentioned that we are very close to signing the contracts, and the contract size would also be much larger than earlier anticipated. I n this context, what kind of readiness do we have? Because we need to create capacities, and it will also have some lead time. I f you can throw some color on the kind of capacities we need to create and the kind of CapEx it will incur.
Yeah. B asically, right from the beginning, we have always seen that raw materials are not part of our guideline, and that was our statement. We had always stuck with that. The reason for a little bit on a lower side of getting an order because we were targeting the IRA of the U.S.-related market. Now we got in these last two months, we had a very good development in that area. We are placing a large order. The customer is expecting to visit our facility. Once it will be finished, then we go for the large volume agreement, and we start supplying. Related to capacity, yes, we need to put up a larger capacity once we start. Initially, we start with a lower demand, and then slowly, slowly, it will be picked up to the larger.
For that, we may have to put up additional capacity, which will dedicate a manufacturing site for both the electrolyte, FEC, and VC.
What could be the quantum of CapEx?
It's very sensitive in terms of information. A lso, I'm not right now discussing the piece, but time comes, we will definitely give you all the information related to CapEx and quantum and also the future guideline of the business as well.
Got it. Got it. Just one question, Bhavinbhai, then I'll come back in the queue. Other expenses were quite low in this quarter. What could be the reason for the same?
I n other expenses, as we have more domestic supply, we are able to save on export logistics. Also, we have changed the fuel at Jhagadia from FO to coal. That has given us some benefit. As well as, we have been able to save something on our effluent treatment cost also. C umulatively, all this is giving us a better other expense.
Okay. Got it. Thank you, [Ananda].
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nilesh Ghuge from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon, Nareshbhai and Bhavin. M y first question is on our Fermion contract. A s per our presentation, commercial production is expected to start from 4Q of FY 2024. C orrect me if I'm wrong. W e have contracts for three products, right, sir? O ut of these three products, how many products are we planning to launch from 4Q? W hat kind of revenue do you envisage from these contracts? A ny color on this, sir?
Okay. First of all, let me correct that we have a contract of one product. The other three are under approval, and one we are already supplying since we clinical trial. O nly the final product contract we have. T hen there are four intermediates going to the final product. Out of them, three we are developing. One is either the supplier or maybe some other indigenous company maybe supplied to us. But the final product which we have done the contract with them, it will be a long-term 10-year contract with the Fermion.
Okay. S ir, potential revenue in FY 2025?
Potential revenue, as per the agreement with them, we are not allowed to disclose the revenues at all. Similarly, what we had said about electrolytes because we are very cautious about the disclosures. T hey don't allow us to disclose revenues and potentiality. But that will be sizable in terms of from Q4, a nd it will be mature in FY 2025. It is fully mature. We already received the other commercial orders for supplying in Q4.
Okay. Okay. Fair enough, sir. Sir, my second question is on our electrolyte additive business. H ere also, if you can I know that the ramp-up will be also here also will be very gradual. W hat kind of revenue do you envisage, not just near-term, but three- to five-year perspective? I know that you are adding products also in this. But still, if you throw some light on this.
The current development in the last three, four months and current agreements, LOI signs and all, that will be much bigger than what we are doing right now. I t will be. I'm not guiding you. I'm not giving you any projections for that. But that will be as an expectation of the we got the reports from the. Some research. It will be much bigger than 2 or 3x bigger than what we are. Yeah. I don't know up to what was my answer up to what he could be able to hear.
Last question.
Hello?
Yeah. Yeah, sir. I can hear you.
Okay. Did you get my answer?
Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Now, my last question to Bhavin. See, what was the revenue of our Baba Fine Chem during this quarter? How much revenue you reported?
Let me tell you that we are yet to do this. But just to give you a ballpark number, it will be around INR 12 crore.
Bhavin, it is not yet merged. H ow can you give this global number?
Hello?
Hello?
Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry.
W e will disclose the number of Baba Fine Chem when we complete the transaction and merge it in our balance sheet.
Okay. O kay, ma'am. This quarter number, consolidated number, does not include Baba Fine Chemicals number.
Yes. T his does not include Baba Fine Chem.
Okay. Fair enough. T hat's all from my end, sir, a nd all the best for your future quarter. Thank you, sir. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Sudarshan Padmanabhan from JM Financial PMS. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for taking my question. M y question, if I again split the business into two parts, the Gujarat Organics and the core business, we have been seeing some kind of an improvement in Gujarat Organics. W hat is the margins that we are working today with, and where do we see the margins by the end of this quarter and probably in FY 2025?
Mr. Padmanabhan, for a specialty, current margin is 11.1%, and a s we mentioned that we'll improve this margin by 100 basis points, 50 to 100 basis points every quarter. W e would like to take this margin up to 18%-19%. That is 3%-4% lower than our peak pharmaceutical, peak pharma intermediate margin.
Sure, sir. Sir, with respect to the pricing environments, what we are saying is, I think in your opening remark, we talked about a deflationary environment. I am just trying to understand whether we are working on an EBITDA somewhat around an EBITDA per kg basis or an EBITDA margin fixed margin basis. Just trying to understand whether in a deflationary scenario, our absolute EBITDA outlook would change in any way.
S ee, EBITDA margin is the net outcome of everything. Primarily, as you know, that for our export business, we have a long-term contract, and domestic business work on a spot basis. I t is not as a thumb rule we'll fix a fixed percentage of EBITDA. It will depend on the product to product, and it will change based on the long-term contract and agreement with the customer.
Sure, sir. S ir, when we are talking about this 20%-25% growth, I mean, it is quite heartening because your nine months growth should be at least 25%. Is it coming from your confidence on the Fermion contract which you are going to execute in the fourth quarter, or is it more on some of the parts where you believe across the board, you're seeing a fair amount of growth coming in electrolytes, your base business in pharma intermediates as well as the Fermion contract, all the three put together?
Thank you. Electrolyte business is not a part of this growth. But yes, there are some portions from the Fermion contract and some portions which we got an approval and formal commitment from the customer. Based on that, we are right now guiding 20%-25% growth. For the time being, it is not necessary to revise the growth target because we have on confirmation and on book sufficient projections which we had discussed with our customers. If something will be changed, we will upfront come and inform you. But for the time being, we are confident that we will reach 20%-25%.
Yes, sir. One final question before I join the queue is a little bit more from a strategy perspective on Baba Fine Chem. Not necessarily asking the numbers, but since this capability can be extrapolated in terms of newer avenue of growth, one is when can we expect visible numbers to start flowing through? N umber two, what is the kind of quantum in terms of jump that we can expect from this business over two to three years?
Numbers will be started coming in from end of Q2, a nd jump will be you will see in FY 2025.
In terms of magnitude of numbers, would it be quite substantial to our size, sir? I mean, just qualitatively trying to understand.
Bhavin, did you get the question?
Right now, as we have not merged, we refer to answer this question. Already, we have mentioned what was the last year transaction and their growth rate.
Sure. Thanks a lot. I'll jump back to you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Akul Broachwala from Ocean Dial Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. Two questions from my side. First on Ankleshwar CapEx. I n terms of the contract with Fermion, can you probably share as to how many lines or what proportion of the CapEx that we are doing would be dedicated towards Fermion contract? It's not looking for exact quantification, but qualitatively, what portion of our capacity will get occupied because of that contract at Ankleshwar?
I n Ankleshwar, we are using four blocks. Out of the three is for manufacturing, and one is one block for the solvent recovery and hydrogenation. O ut of the three main blocks, one block is only dedicated for Fermion. These two blocks are fully available for our future product as well as some other customers with whom we are right now talking similar kind of arrangement.
Understood. Basically, the kind of products that we are going to launch would be similar to what we manufacture today. Is that understanding correct?
No, it is that new two blocks are we are waiting for our future product coming into the pipeline as well as an opportunity to have a contract like Fermion if we can. We are in discussion with two of the customers.
Okay. In terms of CapEx, are we progressing as per the timeline at Ankleshwar?
Yes. As per the timeline, there are a few delays because of the monsoon, but we are expecting to catch it up in time.
Understood. S econdly, on your comment that the expectations from electrolytes, the customers are sort of getting ready for a larger LOI. W hat has really changed? Is it purely based on volumes, or do you expect that the realizations eventually will be much better than what we would have estimated earlier?
See, earlier, we were talking with the electrolyte formulator. Now, end customer of the battery are interested, and they are signing the contract. I t's a third-party or four-party agreements are happening where we are in a long-term signing supply contract. T hat's how supply chain establishment was happening. O nce everything will happen, then we will commercially start.
Right. C onsidering these factors, from a Jhagadia 500 tons, do you expect and you mentioned that we can expect revenues to kick in from FY 2024 itself. D o you expect at least that 500 tons to be sold out this year?
Yes.
Understood. Fair point. L astly, just taking this question forward, we mentioned in our past calls that we are looking at a market share of 5%-10%. T hat would be roughly 10,000-15,000 tons. D o you expect this initial phase of investment to sort of move forward, or do you still expect that this would be the initial size of the capacity that you would be adding up?
There are several things that are involved in this. I f we do very honestly, I'm saying that the quantity which I'm looking for in the past was maybe it will be violated and maybe go up, or maybe it will be remain at that size. C urrently, we are waiting for so many things which have to be concluded.
Fair point. Understood. That's it from my side. Thank you so much, and wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Before we move to the next question, reminder to the participant, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one. Next question is from the line of Jason Soans from IDBI Capital. Please go ahead.
Yes. T hanks for taking my question. F irst of all, I would just want to mention that Naresh, your voice is actually very muffled. I'm sure a lot of other participants are also facing the same issue. We're not able to hear you clearly. I don't know why this was not highlighted before. Y eah. Y eah. In the same respect, I just wanted to ask you first, sir, what's your outlook on the spec chem business? I know you have invested a lot in flow chemistry into various chemical changes, methyl salicylate, and other avenues as well. Just wanted from you an understanding on where you went with the specialty chemicals business grow from here on.
M y point of view, specialty chemicals business has a good potential, but currently, it has a little bit under pressure from international market, mainly from China, especially from agrochemicals and some color chemicals. I t's a high pressure from China. But it will bounce back very soon. The company which is working on technology aggregation, process innovations, and commanding on the cost effectiveness will definitely grow in that. Ami Organics is continuously working. We had converted our methyl s alicylate process from batch to continuous. That has made us sustainable in this difficult period as well. Similarly, in Parabens also, we are working with some innovative process which is bringing us also commanding position in Parabens as well. And then we already introduced some new molecule segments like UV Absorbers in the paint industries as well as some polymers, additives, and monomers.
These will bring us the growth as well as our specialty chemical will be having a sustainable performance in the future.
Okay, sir. As far as the Advanced Intermediates business, have you seen in this quarter Chinese competition increasing considerably in that aspect? Probably that's why growth has been moderated to some extent?
I'm not getting your question. It's echoing for me. I don't know.
Yeah. What I was asking you in the Advanced Intermediates business, I just wanted to know that from a Chinese perspective, do you see the competitive intensity increasing? P robably that's why growth moderated there in this quarter to some extent. Is that also a factor? I understand you mentioned other factors such as lower raw material prices and sluggish growth as well. I s the increase in Chinese competitive intensity also one factor for the moderated growth?
Yeah. For our pharma market, we have various issues related to advanced intermediates from China. But particularly for Ami Organics, most of our products, we are dominating in the market. The growth is a little bit retarded because of the top-line price revision based on the current market size. But that will definitely go back to the normalization because sooner or later, it will be going to the normal prices because current raw material price will be giving us an advantage to our top line. I t will be reduced. We will be improving our margin and our growth.
Okay. Just finally, this Fermion contract, of course, you have bagged that, and that's a milestone for you. Any more color on how you can probably expand to other intermediates and expand the scope of the contract there?
Sure. The Fermion contract is a long-term contract. It requires a lot of regulatory approvals, a lot of validations. And it is not a one-day job. It will take time. A customer has to make their APIs accurately. It has to make their formulation. Formulation has to be approved worldwide. I t will take time. But whatever good thing is that we achieved first contract, which is a very large contract, which is an end product which is in four intermediates out of that, one we're already making. Three, we are supposed to be supplying sooner or later when we do the validation. I t will be a good opportunity for Ami Organics to add these new molecules inside the final product.
Okay. Thanks a lot, [Bhavin. Same question]. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rikin Shah from Omkara Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, Nareshbhai. A t this point, specialty chemicals business is geared more towards parabens and methyl salicylate, which is not very high margin at this point. G oing forward, where are we in our journey to add more products which are more value-added?
Definitely, we are working on that. But we can't stop current product and wait for the new product to take care. W e have to... it's a phase-wise program we have made where we will phase out the old product with a low margin by introducing the new product with high margin.
I'm asking that where sort of a blurry timeline would also help abroad, maybe if you can share.
We are saying that we want to go to 19% margin, 8% margin. That cannot be achieved with these two products. W e have one or two years program where we do improvement in the profit margin of the current existing product and also introduce new high-margin product. B y this way, we can utilize our capacity as well as we can incremental revenue and EBITDA margin.
Got it. Okay. My next question is regarding the electrolyte part of it. Considering the Inflation Reduction Act which we have spoken about before by the U.S. government, so with the new contracts in electrolytes, are we expecting a better pricing than current VC prices?
See, the pricing in China is with the benefit of the Soltex benefit, and that's how it will be $7, $8, $9. But if you ask them when their commercial price, if they have to export, they have to export it around $10, $12, $13, which is the price which we want to have a better price than them because the customers which want to sell in U.S. or some of the market, they don't want from China. T hat market we are targeting where we can get $1 or $2 better pricing than them.
Got it. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Sorry?
Ladies and gentlemen, before we move to the next question, reminder to the participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one. Next question is from the line of Gagan Thareja from ASK Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir. I hope I'm audible.
Yes, you are. Please go ahead.
Yes. Sir, the first question is, on your sales, is it possible to understand year-on-year how much would prices have gone down and how much would volume have moved up in your sales? J ust, moved up and price gone down, if you could split the sales growth into that.
It's a detailed question. We can give you one-on-one if you want. There are some products which goes up, some products which go down. But because the number of products we sold is 80, 90 products, it's difficult to say the answer on.
Okay. Okay. But your input prices would also have corrected. Key starting material prices have come down quite sharply. Is it possible to understand how much would the KSM prices that you use would have come down?
Again, we import only very, very few percent, 20%-28% total import of our total raw material. T hat has not helped enough. We do a lot of our raw material in-house. We put all manufacturing, and then we use in-house. D efinitely, there is some reduction there. But that reduction is the reduction of the commodity price is much higher. T hat's how we have to adjust our prices accordingly. But if you want detail, we can give you the detail on that. I think Bhavin can enable to.
Yeah. We can connect separately, and we can provide you the same.
Okay. Sir, may I just sort of request, if you could possibly repeat the last part of what you said? Your voice is not very, very, very clear, or sometimes it's difficult to understand what you're stating. I couldn't get the whole of your reply, but I'll connect separately with Bhavin and you to get the details. The final question is, on the Fermion contract, another Indian company has also been awarded a contract by Fermion. Just want to understand if it pertains to the same molecule, would you have any understanding of whether it pertains to the same molecule as the one that you were going to supply for, or is it a completely separate drug for which they'll be supplying?
Particularly, I don't know who had done the contracts. Legally, I am bound not to talk about that. We got the contract. We got the order. We have a sizable order in our head, and we will supply that product what we are we play.
Okay. Thanks. W hen you guide for the top line that you're giving, 20%-25%, does it assume any improvement in the prices of the products that you are now selling? I understand that they are depressed currently, and that's not a sustainable phenomenon. But are you already presuming any change in them when you give the guidance, or are you presuming that irrespective of what the current prices are, if they sustain, you can still manage that growth?
I'll try to give my honest answer on that because whatever the commitment and projected requirement from our customers, what we have on hand, which prove that we can enable to grow up to 20%-25% growth in our revenue. Suspension in the top line maybe is not a routine phenomenon. Maybe it will settle down, and then it will go up definitely because raw material prices will not be remaining in this level. In that case, we can have an advantage of that. But we have considered all our projected forecasts, what we received, what are the orders we have in our hand, and which are the new products which is going to be launching this year. Based on that, we have given our projection from 20%-25% of the growth on FY 2024.
Okay. O n the specialty chem sorry, on the pharmaceutical intermediates business, if I reference your last conference call, I think you indicated that Q4 of last year, you exited at almost 23% margin, if I remember it correctly. Y ou indicated that f or FY2024, for the whole year, you should be in a position to maintain that. I understand that things have changed, and input prices have changed, and output prices have changed. But is it possible to sort of further break down your EBITDA or margin guidance and give us an indication of what you're looking for in terms of possible margins for the pharmaceutical piece specifically?
Gagan, for the quarter, it is 20.2% for pharma intermediate, a nd it should improve from here on. W hat we achieved last quarter is the best quarter for us. I t should steadily improve from here. O n a yearly basis, we should say that we should improve 50-100 basis points from last year.
Okay. 50-100 basis points from last year. O n the electrolyte business, I presume for the two products that you had earlier disclosed, you subsequently disclosed two more. But for the earlier two products, the prices have also moved and moved in a fairly volatile fashion. Given the current prevailing prices, would the margins on those products as and when the contracts are brought to fruition, would the margins compare and be similar to what you are being able to generate currently on an aggregate basis, or would the margin profile there be very different from this?
The margin will be as we see that our cost is as equivalent as the Chinese cost. Margin will be remaining as equivalent or better than what we are doing right now.
I'm sorry you were not very clear. Are you saying that the margins will be similar to what you're doing currently?
Yeah. Or better than that.
Okay. Okay. All right. I f I recall correctly, 1Q of last year, Bhavinbhai, you had indicated there was an INR 70 lakh sort of a non-recurring or a one-off expenditure in the other expenses. If I refer back to the commentary then, the numbers that you've currently given out are inclusive of that number in the other expenses?
Yes.
Okay. All right.
When you compare that, so that one-off other expense of Q1 last year includes that number.
Okay. Okay. All right. Could you also give the FX variation loss or gain for this quarter and for the comparable quarter last year?
FX gain for the quarter is at INR 48 lakhs, and it was negligible last year.
Okay. All right. Thank you, sir. I'll get back in with you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, you may press star and one. Participant, to ask a question, you may press star and one. Next question is from the line of Bharat Jantra, an individual investor. Please go ahead. Participant, your line is unmuted. Please go ahead with your question. Ladies and gentlemen, as there was no response from the current participant, we take that as a last question. Thank you very much, members of the management. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Ambit Capital Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us, and you may now disconnect your...