Good evening to all the participants on the call. Thank you for joining in. We welcome you to the Q4 and full year FY 2026 earnings conference call of Aequs Limited. Before we proceed, let me remind you that the discussion may contain forward-looking statements that may involve known or unknown uncertainties and other factors. These statements should be viewed together with our business risks, which may lead to actual results and performance differing materially from what is expressed or implied. To take us through the results and answer your questions today, we have the management of Aequs Limited represented by Mr Aravind Melligeri, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr Rajeev Kaul, Co-founder and Managing Director, Mr Dinesh Iyer, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr Harish Bang, Vice President, Finance.
We will start the call with a brief overview of the previous quarter and the full year and then conduct the question and answer session. With that said, I now hand the conference over to Mr. Aravind Melligeri. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining. FY 2026 has been truly a landmark year for Aequs, defined by strong execution, meaningful business expansion and our IPO, a transformational milestone that marks a new chapter in our journey as a company. Today, we stand as a globally scaled precision manufacturer driven by the combined strength of our Aerospace and Consumer verticals. FY 2026 has firmly validated our platform strategy, showcasing our ability to execute tenaciously and captures our growth capacity across our portfolio. Our focus on execution is clearly reflected in the financials, with our full-year consolidated revenue growing by 33% to INR 12,304 million. EBITDA grew 43% to INR 1,545 million, with the margins expanding to 13%. We capped off the year with the strongest quarter in Aequs history, with INR 3,671 million in revenue and 47% year-on-year growth. Crucially, the performance was unified.
Both our aerospace and consumer segments delivered strong growth across the board. While our financial performance reflected our current momentum, our strategic focus remains firmly on the future. This year, we made significant strides in laying foundation for our next phase of growth. With substantial new investments spanning both our aerospace and consumer segments, we're firmly anchoring our long-term manufacturing ambitions in India. In February 2026, we signed an MoU with the Government of Tamil Nadu to invest INR 1,900 crore over 10 years for a new vertically integrated aerospace manufacturing ecosystem within a new aerospace and defense park at Hosur across 150 acres in the SIPCOT Shoolagiri Industrial Park. This will be India's first fully vertically integrated aero-engine and landing air components manufacturing ecosystem.
In March 2026, we signed a second MoU with the government of Karnataka, committing investments of INR 2,856 crore over five years across our existing clusters in Belagavi and Hubballi. This covers expansion of our aerospace precision engineering operations in Belagavi and significant capacity enhancement for our consumer segment at our Hubballi manufacturing cluster. Collectively, these investments accelerate our broader objective of making Aequs and India a premier destination for global aerospace and consumer precision manufacturing. To help execute on our large-scale ambition, we are actively deepening our leadership bench. We are pleased to have Ravikumar Assudani join us as Head of Engineering for Consumer Business, effective Q1 2027. Ravi brings over 16 years of experience at Apple Inc., where he led global tooling and manufacturing design operations across multiple product lines.
Scaling precision component manufacturing for global consumer electronics OEMs requires a unique combination of engineering depth and operational discipline, and we continue to enhance both. In our journey to continued expansion of our capabilities, we established an advanced materials R&D ecosystem at IIT Dharwad campus. The facility will focus on cutting-edge material characterization, failure analysis, and manufacturing process simulation. This partnership reflects Aequs' long-term commitment to strengthen India's advanced manufacturing ecosystem through sustained investments in research, innovation, and skill development. The collaboration will enhance IIT Dharwad's applied research capabilities and industry engagements, apart from enabling Aequs to deliver cutting-edge products to its customers. Now I turn to financial outlook. As we enter FY 2027, our financial priorities are clear. First, continue to grow aerospace revenues profitably.
We have an order book and the capacity, the customer relationships to deliver 25%-30% revenue growth with the EBITDA margins maintained at 20% at the segment level. Second, drive consumer utilization, unlocking the operating leverage embedded in our existing asset base. Third, move our consumer EBITDA to breakeven by Q4 FY 2027, which will be a major inflection point for our consolidated profitability. At a consolidated level, we are expecting approximately 45%-50% top-line revenue growth. More importantly, this growth is highly efficient. We project doubling our operational EBITDA.
Proving the immense operating leverage embedded in our current business model. FY 2027 is about translating our expanded capacity into significant financial returns. I will let Rajeev walk you through the segment-level mechanics of how our aerospace and consumer divisions have performed and will deliver these numbers. Before I hand over, I want to take a moment to acknowledge Dinesh Iyer, our Chief Financial Officer, who has informed us of his decision to step down at the end of June 2026 for personal reasons. Dinesh has been instrumental, an exceptional partner to this organization, and we are grateful for his contribution and wish him the very best. We are in search for a CFO replacement and will communicate as soon as he or she is appointed. Meanwhile, Harish Bang, who most of you know, will be in charge and your single point of contact.
With that, over to Rajeev Kaul, Co-founder and Managing Director. Take it away, sir.
Thank you, Aravind. Good evening to all of you? It is a pleasure to speak with you again as we close out what has been a very significant year for Aequs operationally. Our manufacturing footprint spans 2.22 million sq ft across three integrated clusters in India: Belagavi, Hubli, and Koppal, supported by facilities in Cholet, France, and Paris, Texas in the U.S. Our installed annual capacity has grown to 4.70 million machining and molding hours on an annualized basis. We scale our manufacturing operations steadily throughout the year to support new and existing programs. Closing FY 2026 with a robust footprint of 434 CNC machines and 179 molding machines. This represents a disciplined expansion of our manufacturing muscle. We evaluate capacity requirements continuously and keep adding based on our requirements. Turning to our aerospace segment, our operational momentum translated into exceptional financial delivery.
The vertical delivered revenue of INR 3,040 million in Q4 and closed the full year at INR 10,464 million, representing a robust 27% growth year-on-year. Beyond the revenue growth, what is significant is our portfolio expansion. We added 333 new parts in Q4 alone, taking our total aerospace portfolio to 5,654 SKUs with a 26% increase in the portfolio since last year. This represents the breadth and complexity of our engagement with global OEMs. Each of these SKUs represent a rigorous qualification cycle, a secured long-term contract, and a deep-rooted relationship with our customers acting as a high entry barrier to others. As a result, our order book in aerospace stood at robust $899 million. We're also actively moving up the value chain into landing gear and engine components, where our integrated forging, machining, and surface treatment capabilities deliver significant competitive advantage.
These are higher complexity, higher value products that command better margins and deeper customer relationships. Moving to our Consumer Segment, the business is scaling steadily, which is reflected in its growing contribution to our overall top line. In Q4, Consumer Segment accounted for 17% of our total revenue, up from just 5% a year ago. For the full year, its contribution grew from 11% in FY 2025 to 15% in full year business at FY 2026. This growth aligns with our planned transition from pilot production to commercial ramp-up. Based on the increasing requirements from our customer, we are expanding capacity. This will feed directly into our operational targets for FY 2027. Our primary focus this year will be driving capacity utilization from 23% today to a target of 40%-50% by the year end.
Talking of our consumer business, as you may be aware, Hasbro has informed us that it has revised its manufacturing and sourcing strategy and told us they will stop raising POs to us. While this decision was unexpected, it will not impact the overall growth of the business. We continue serving others equally large and strategic customers. Looking at the broader consolidated picture, the heavy depreciation load from these strategic consumer investments will keep our overall track negative for much of the year. However, as our consumer volumes ramp up and our aerospace segment continues its strong performance, we fully expect to see consolidated PAT hit breakeven by H1 FY 2028. With that, I will now hand over the call to Dinesh Iyer, our Chief Financial Officer, for a detailed review of our financials.
Thank you, Rajeev. Good evening everyone? I will take you through the key financial highlights for Q4 and the full year FY 2026. Q4 delivered INR 3,671 million in revenue, our highest quarterly revenue ever. This reflects continued ramp-up in aerospace programs and accelerating production in consumer segment. EBITDA was INR 321 million at 9% margin. The margin compression from Q3 reflects the timing of consumer electronics capacity coming fully online. In Q4, we saw the full run rate of depreciation on consumer CapEx alongside the full operating costs while the plant is still operating at low utilization. This is the expected profile during the manufacturing ramp-up phase. Reported PAT for Q4 was a loss of INR 541 million. This includes higher depreciation from consumer CapEx and increased tax provisions on the profit from aerospace segment. Our underlying operational trajectory continues to improve.
For the full year, consolidated revenue grew 33% to INR 12,304 million. EBITDA grew 43% to INR 1,545 million with margins at 13%, a 100-basis point improvement from 12% in FY 2025. Full year PAT was a loss of INR 1,133 million. The negative PAT margin reduced from - 11% in FY 2025 to - 9% in FY 2026, a 200-basis point improvement. Including our proportionate share of the joint ventures, consolidated full-year revenue was INR 13,466 million, up 34% year-on-year, with EBITDA of INR 1,830 million, reflecting a growth of 42% year-on-year at a margin of 14%. For Q4, revenue was INR 3,984 million, with 45% growth year-on-year, with EBITDA of INR 417 million at a margin of 10%.
Coming to detailed segment performance, the Aerospace Segment delivered a very strong performance with full-year revenue of INR 10,464 million, up 27% year-on-year, and EBITDA was INR 2,813 million, up 76% year-on-year. For Q4, Aerospace Segment revenue was INR 3,040 million, growing 29% year-on-year, and EBITDA was INR 1,010 million, reflecting a growth of over 100%. Aerospace Segment ROC for FY 2026 was 20%, up from 14% in FY 2025, which is in line with our expectation and demonstrates our ability to scale efficiently. The Consumer Segment contributed full-year revenue of INR 1,840 million, up 84% year-on-year. The Consumer Segment EBITDA loss was INR 783 million for the full year, a 173% increase year-on-year, which reflects our planned investment to build capacity at scale. In Q4, the revenue was INR 631 million, with EBITDA loss of INR 473 million.
Q4 was the first quarter where all manufacturing costs hit simultaneously with new capacity that was recently commissioned. The consumer electronics team is moving through the learning curve of a new production environment. This is a standard in manufacturing ramp-up phase. As utilization improves from 23% to our 40%-50% target for FY 2027, the depreciation and fixed costs will be absorbed across higher volumes and margins will recover sharply. Turning to the balance sheet, total assets stood at INR 26,905 million as of March 31, 2026, compared to INR 18,598 million a year ago. This increase reflects the significant capital invested in consumer electronics capacity during the year, increased working capital in line with revenue growth, and retained IPO proceeds.
Our net debt-to-equity ratio was 0.23 as of March 31, 2026, an improvement from 0.99x at the end of FY 2025, which shows that we are well capitalized for the next phase of growth. Fixed asset turnover moderated to 1.18x in FY 2026 from 1.84x in FY 2025. This is expected as we have added significant consumer electronics assets that are not yet generating proportionate revenues. As utilization improves through FY 2027, this ratio will recover meaningfully. Net working capital days increased to 151 days in FY 2026 from 132 days in FY 2025, which was primarily driven by growth in revenues. Cash and cash equivalents stood at INR 3,015 million as at March 31, 2026, compared to INR 609 million at the end of FY 2025.
Finally, on a personal note, I announced earlier this year that I'll be stepping down as Chief Financial Officer at Aequs at the end of June 2026.
It's been a great pleasure to serve Aequs through the IPO and in this wonderful journey of becoming a listed company. The business is in an excellent position, well capitalized, growing strongly, and with a management team that is deeply committed to delivering on our promises to shareholders. Thank you. With that, over to the moderator to open the floor 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 then one on their touch-tone phone. 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. Your first question comes from the line of Nikhil Jain with IIFL Capital, p lease go ahead.
My question is regarding CapEx, segmental CapEx. What are the planned CapEx for FY 2027, FY 2028, and both the segments separately? On the second question, after discontinuation with Hasbro on the toy business, any roadmap of ramp-up expected with Mattel?
In our aerospace segment, we have planned about INR 160 crore approx, and in our consumer segment, we have planned about INR 500 crore approx, for the full year FY 2027.
On the second question, this is Rajeev here. Yes, we have signed a long-term agreement with Mattel, and both sides are fully committed to scaling volumes. We also expect actually better volumes to absorb the capacity impact from Hasbro. More broadly, we continue to engage with large strategic customers across the Consumer Segment and remain confident that overall growth for the business will not be materially impacted.
Okay. Sir, any PLI income booked for FY 2026?
FY 2027 will be our first year where we will be eligible for the PLI.
Okay, broadly your guidance across revenue margins and CapEx you have given on revenue and margins?
On aerospace, as Kaul mentioned earlier, we are expecting a growth of 25%-30% and maintaining the EBITDA numbers at about 20% level. On consumer, we see a revenue growth of about 125%-150%, and Q4 is the quarter wherein we will hit the EBITDA breakeven.
Okay. Thank you. That's it from my side.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Priyankar Biswas from JM Financial, p lease go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity for this question. Sir, can you just elaborate because in, let's say, March and let's say the last week of February, for example, probably we may have some impacts from the West Asia crisis, probably due to the closure of aerospace and probably also due to the fact that air freights have also significantly increased. Would that be a right assessment? If that had happened, what sort of margin impacts we would have seen? What I'm trying to understand is, if these one-off events, let's say, were not there, what would have been our fundamental margin?
This last quarter, I would say we have not seen the significant impact on the margin perspective because our material prices and all are long-term agreements. It's more of a supply constraints we saw and logistics costs have gone up a bit, but that's not a material in our view for the business. We have long-term agreements that takes care of the material. Logistics side, only thing what we are seeing is expansion of the working capital. We are bringing inventory almost four to six weeks ahead of the time so that we don't have any problem in delivering to our customer commitments in aerospace predominantly. This is mostly on the aerospace side. On the consumer side, plastics especially, material prices shot up, but because we have back-to-back agreement with the customers, that has been passed through to customers.
Performance-wise, it has not been impact, more of ability to stock material well ahead of the requirement has one of the driver for our inventory number of working capital days also increased in the quarter.
Would it be fair to say that the large buildup of working capital that we saw in fourth quarter, that is predominantly on aerospace and because of the excess inventory you need to carry because of the crisis at the moment?
Yes.
So-
We are taking precaution to do this most probably another two quarters till we see the stabilization. Generally, the logistics has increased by five to six weeks, what we are seeing. Sea logistics. Air has gone up by six days to eight days, somewhere in that range.
Okay. Let's say if we have some sort of a normalization eventually, so we should see, let's say, the working capital, let's say, moderate. Would that be a fair sense, like this buildup?
Working capital has impacted, right? We saw some of the numbers. We went from 130 days to 150- something days.
Okay. Just for sake of clarity for everyone, I know you have provided the exports and the domestic breakup, but I also understand most of your domestic sales are also sort of deemed exports or let's say USD denominated. What percentage of your overall sales would be let's say USD linked even if the currency is depreciating so far?
Yes. Including deemed exports, it could be about 93%-94% overall in U.S. dollar.
Okay. That was broadly it from my side.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Suraj Madhu from Catamaran, p lease go ahead.
Hello, sir. Sir, can you help understand what is the current gross block in consumer electronics?
At a consumer overall level, we have a gross block about INR 830 crore approx.
You are adding INR 500 crore to that?
That's correct.
Got it. At total consumer electronics, we can expect a 2x asset turn, right, at peak utilization?
Sorry, can you repeat that?
At peak utilization, we can expect a 2x asset turn in the consumer electronics side?
It should be closer to INR 1.5 lakh in the consumer electronics side.
Understood.
Overall, that's what we're trying.
Understood. The last question is, in FY 2026, in aerospace, we have delivered an EBITDA margin of 27%, now for next year, we are guiding at 20%. Just can you help understand the reconciliation?
27% is the segment EBITDA, which includes other income, and it excludes the unallocated corporate costs. Okay?
Like to like, what would be that?
We continue to drive 20% EBITDA margin, excluding these two elements.
Understood. Okay. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Bhavika Singhvi from Niveshaay, p lease go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Yes.
Basically on the aerospace side, I want to understand that we are delivering quite good margins from last two quarters. Also we have added 1,000 approx. parts Is it because of the high-margin products we are getting this margin? Going forward, can we expect the margins be improved with the new products adding in the aerospace segment?
Yeah. This is a normal course of business of complexity, what we do. We expect these margins to be there as we grow and our ability to execute more number of parts. As we increase our vertical integration into engine side, engine component side, we do expect some margin expansion. Aerostructures predominantly, which is what the number of parts, what we have today, are majorly in line with what we are delivering right now, 20% operating EBITDA level is our focus area.
Understood. On the consumer side, as we see that we have already did a quite good CapEx, and we are also planning to do CapEx in FY 2027. As I look at the current utilization of consumer, it is 23%. Can you make me understand that why we are going with additional CapEx when we are already underutilized at 23% as we are seeing the additional products getting added in the consumer electronic? If you can give me the clarity on that, and also if you can provide me in terms of what exactly we are doing on the consumer electronic side and what volumes we are making currently and it can go to at what extent.
Look, the customer wants us to have a meaningful share of their requirements. Together we are committed to scale up the operations and absorb more work in India. This additional capital is basically driven by clear customer demand and our passion to capture the meaningful share of the customer India manufacturing requirement. The current asset base is still in the ramp-up phase. We are at 23% utilization. It'll go up, and we continue to expand that, make sure that we are going to be a significant supplier to this customer in the country. If we don't do it, then the customer will see some alternates otherwise, because it's important that we scale and deliver their needs. There is a timeline in which we have to do this, and we'll continue to make sure that we are aligned on that.
We are both committed to make sure that our utilization goes up. That's why we have guided our EBITDA breakeven in the Q4.
Yeah. What margins we can expect at an optimum utilization from the consumer side?
We have guided the similar margins as the aerospace. Overall, 20% EBITDA is our long-term goal.
Okay. As I see on the Q4 side, there is an increase in the other expenses. Can you give me understanding why there is a sudden increase in Q4 other expenses? Is there any particular expense which you want to mention?
As Dinesh mentioned earlier, Q4 was the first quarter where all the cost pertaining to the consumer capacity came in since we commissioned the plant and started commercial production in Q3. The increase is across all the expenses, what we see in Q4.
Okay. If you can give me the clarity of ROC which can be expected from the Consumer Segment going forward at optimum utilization with all the additional CapEx we are doing.
At a steady state basis, we expect same ROCEs as we do in our aerospace segment.
Okay. That's all from my side. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Praveen Kumar from Aequitas Capital Advisors, p lease go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. My question was on the consumer electronic segment. In the earlier call, you had referred to the client asking you to expand your capacity. This time around you are talking about increasing the utilization and achieving the EBITDA breakeven. Does this imply that over the next few quarters, your focus will be more on ramping up rather than demanding more from the customer in terms of more product lines, et cetera?
Obviously, the focus always is to maximize our utilization. At the same time, we are also investing this year, as Harish gave, we are investing about INR 500 crore new capital into the consumer business. It's a combination. We're not changing our objective. Obviously, whatever assets we have, we want to maximize the utilization.
Understood. Just to understand this in more detail, you're putting already INR 500 crore more CapEx on top of what you've done. We're looking at your peak utilization of 1.5x. Even if I take half of that, just on this INR 500 crore incremental CapEx, half of that 1.5x should give you closer to INR 350 crore kind of number, right? I'm just trying to understand, is that the kind of top line that you're likely to see from the consumer electronics part in the next year or so?
Yeah. We are guided towards going to 50% utilization. That's what it is in terms of capacity-wise. We're going at 125% level this year from our consumer business, predominantly driven by the consumer electronics.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Ashish Poddar with Motilal Oswal, p lease go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. My question is related to the aerospace revenue growth potential. While we are targeting a 25% CAGR growth in FY 2027, looking at your order book position, which is roughly around 8x to 9x of last year's revenue, and we are adding more revenue in terms of engine components and other verticals over the coming years. What kind of growth CAGR we can expect from a longer-term perspective? I'm talking about 5 to 10 years successive. Can we see the similar rate of 25% CAGR for the next 10 years, or it is not the case? If you can give some clarity. Thank you.
Yeah. Look, we have given the guidance based on the customer demand and order book. There are not many aerospace companies in the world at our size are growing at this rate organically. It's a complex business to grow number of components, adding hundreds of components every month, and also adding machines to support that, FAIs and everything. We feel very strongly this growth rate is achievable because we've achieved and we have visibility. As we expand regarding, you specifically asked about the engine components and everything, that is not going to be impacting much on this fiscal year. This is a long-term. Starting FY 2028, we'll start seeing some of this coming into our revenue.
Far, this year, guidance is concerned pretty much what we have aerostructures focused, the business growth coming in, and we will add some engine side, but it predominantly continue to be our core, what has been in Belagavi aerospace cluster.
Opportunity there?
We see a multi opportunity to grow this business at this stage.
At this rate, you are saying?
Yeah. We don't see any reason. 20+ % we have guided in the past, in the long term. We are moving through that at this stage.
With a similar rate of EBITDA margin, which you are guiding for that.
Yeah, that has been our guidance always.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Nikhil Chowdhary with Toro Wealth Managers LLP, p lease go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good evening, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Just I had two questions. You've been guiding that consumer margins will be probably heading towards the aerospace margins. Just wanted to understand when we see Chinese precedent for our, probably the product, we see that probably the margin compression has happened over an 8 to 10 year cycle. Just wanted to understand, will we also have a similar trajectory after we achieve those margins? Second is, wanted to understand that in DRHP you had probably flagged that critical equipment dependency on China, and lately we've been hearing some feedback that Chinese have been restricting lot of equipment. Are we basically choosing and getting those equipment if there's any non-Chinese vendors? Have we found any non-Chinese alternate vendors for the same?
Look, from the consumer electronics side, we are in the component manufacturing business, and we feel confident of our capital and value addition what we do in these products. We should be able to sustain our EBITDA margins in the long run once we get maturity in the business. We don't see that as a concern. There are suppliers in China who continue to do this, and I don't think we have any concerns about that, our ability to sustain those margins, because it reflects the value add we do on the products and components. It's not like assembly business. That's what I want to bring the differentiation and communicate to you. It's a highly complex, huge amount of value add on these products, what we do in-house. That's a big differentiator. Coming down to the China geopolitical issues.
We have gone through some of these challenges in the past. It continues to evolve over a bit of time. At the same time, we are working with customer always to find alternate different geographic location, including India. It takes time to get the suppliers developed and qualified for this kind of equipment. These have happened over decades in China, and it won't happen overnight here. We just need to be going through that process, working with the customer, and its evolution.
Thank you so much, sir.
Yeah.
All the best. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Priyansh Miri with NGP Family Office, p lease go ahead.
Yes. Sir, I want to understand the split of revenue between the three verticals within the consumer portfolio, consumer electronics, plastic, and durable. Can you throw some light on that?
We essentially track at Consumer Segment level, and the numbers what we have given is at overall consumer level. Consumer durables is a joint venture which doesn't get consolidated in the Consumer Segment since it's a 50/50 JV.
Okay. Understood, sir. Next question, sir, on the plastic, particularly on the toys part of it. Do we own the IP of this product or we have some sort of partnership with some other vendor where we share in terms of designing the plastic version?
We are in a contract manufacturing, so we only manufacture for brands. We don't own any IPs.
Okay.
We might have some process IPs. We might have developed certain processes to do some things. We don't really patent them. That's more of internal process IP, what I consider.
Understood, sir. Sir, just one more question on the long-term strategy. I just want to understand what sort of dependency this consumer whole division has on aerospace part. That is first part of the question. Second, are we looking into, say, five year or 10 years down the line, this whole consumer portfolio to be spin-off from the core business? Why I'm asking this question, sir, if you have a two separate line of business merging on the same entity type, we get a whole holding company discount at overall level, which doesn't necessarily relate to the peers that we have in aerospace. Just want to understand the whole strategy behind this, making it within the same company.
Look, we are building a precision manufacturing platform here. The verticals are more of a capability certain specific to products. For example, we have CNC machines in both the places, consumer side and aerospace side. That's like a precision manufacturing piece. Similarly, injection molding will go both the sides. I think it is not a two business whole core discount. That is not what we're talking here. We're trying to build capability here, a platform here, so that we can scale this in a right way.
Okay. Sir, if I understood this correctly, just a follow-up question. The same CNC, let's say, aerospace interior that will build the dashboard plastic molds, that's the same CNC machine we are utilizing for, say, plastic toys. Is that a fair understanding of the overall process?
No. CNC machine is just machining happens on each of these products. You got to come and see some point in time, visit our facilities next time visit happens, reach out to our investor relationship, then you get to see capability, differentiation, and also commonality.
Okay, sir.
Just to clarify this here.
Yeah.
Sorry, just one more clarification to your comment. CNC machine is for metal. It's not in toys, just want to clarify. Molding machine is for toys, just to clarify.
Yes, sir. Sorry. Yeah, I meant molding machine, sir. Molding machine that we use for aerospace are different lines altogether when we talk about toys and aerospace line.
Again, let me clarify. CNC machines is used for metals, which is what we use in aerospace and consumer electronics, which Aravind just mentioned. For toys, which is plastics, it is molding machines. These are very different machines. I hope that helps. What Aravind was clarifying was the nature of work is precision manufacturing. That is the common platform we're building. Industries that are served are aerospace, consumer electronics, and so on. Is that helpful?
Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification.
Thank you. The next follow-up question comes from the line of Nikhil Jain with IIFL Capital. Please go ahead.
Sir, I have a question on raw material. I'll try to break this down in three parts. Part one, we understand that procurement of raw materials like titanium and super-alloys especially typically involves longer lead times. Could you please help us quantify the usual lead time for sourcing such metals and how far in advance you typically plan and hold inventory? The second part, is there a meaningful difference in procurement cycle and inventory planning between aero-engine and aero-structure business? Lastly, given the West Asia crisis, are you seeing any disruption or taking a different approach to sourcing and inventory buildup compared to the normal strategy?
Okay. Titanium and the super-alloys, some of the steels, for example. In fact, right now, steels have one of the longest lead times in the industry. Some of the structural steels as high as, we're talking 65 weeks to 75 weeks lead times. Titanium typically is 52 weeks lead time. We have to plan. We can always buy a spot, but the cost is going to be prohibitive. It's all about planning and executing. The procurement strategy is all about making sure that customer gives you the right demand and you plan your procurement based on that. Obviously, what you mentioned, your third question of current disruptions, geopolitical, West Asia issues, what we are seeing are all impacted. That does disrupt. That's why we always have a certain amount of material covered before the beginning of the quarter.
In this kind of situations, we proactively cover a little more, maybe 125% of our needs in a quarter, which may spill over to the next quarter demand also. We may have been typically 70% in the past, beginning of the quarter. We had to go through some strategy changes to address this, and it costs us working capital, but at least we are making sure the customer deliveries are there and we're protecting our customer needs.
Okay. Sir, difference between aero engine and aero structure raw material?
We are dealing with almost every material today, and most of the time, the material is enabled by the customer in terms of where to buy. It's more of driven by that. It's just a different process.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of [Mudisha] with Sapphire Capital, p lease go ahead.
Hello? Am I audible, sir?
Yes.
Yes. Thank you so much, sir, for this opportunity. Sir, we've seen in Q4 the depreciation impact, and given that you're planning for the CapEx in FY 2027, how should we look at the overall run rate for depreciation and interest for FY 2027?
Yeah. Q4, our depreciation was about INR 45 crore or INR 46 crore approximately. Of course, that will be the run rate plus the additions during the year. There will be some addition on the depreciation for the capacity enhancement what we are doing in both the segments. Interest.
On the interest? Yeah.
Yeah, sorry.
Interest, we will see a reduction in the interest as compared to previous year.
Okay. You mentioned, sir, that the steady state margins for the consumer business can be 18%-20%. Any sort of rough timeline as to when we can reach that and what sort of margins can we target from this business in FY 2028?
It is pretty much driven by the utilization. Our expectation is to get about 50% this year. When you get to about somewhere around 75% level utilization, we start seeing the margin levels at that level. Journey continues.
Okay. 18%-20% can be seen at 75% or 80% utilization.
Yeah.
Okay. That is it from my side. Thank you, sir, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Deep Shah from New Vernon Capital, p lease go ahead.
Am I audible, sir?
Yes.
Sir, my first question is if we just look at global consumer electronic supply chain, given the quality control hurdles, how Chinese manufacturers have excelled at it over a 15 year -20 year timeframe. If you could just share your capabilities or your rejection rates or yields in this segment and how you plan to scale up. Will we see a significant improvement in FY 2027 and FY 2028? That's my first question. My second question is, over a three-year timeframe, how should one look at capital? I would assume that you would need probably INR 1,500 crores of CapEx over three years. How do we plan to fund this CapEx? These are my two questions, sir
On the CapEx front, essentially for FY 2027, we will leverage our borrowings, and also some bit of internal accruals to fund the planned CapEx.
With respect to your question on the yield perspective, we cannot comment on a specific yield, particularly these are customer confidential. However, the consumer electronic operations are progressing through the normal learning curve. Currently, we are going through a learning curve of production environment, and our focus is currently improving utilization, process maturity, quality, and operating efficiency as volume scales. Were you able to hear us? Hello?
Deep sir, does that answer your question?
Yes. That answers my question. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to all participants [inaudible]. The next question comes from the line of Praveen Kumar with Aequitas Capital Advisors, p lease go ahead.
Hello. Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity again. I had a question on the aerospace segment. In this segment, since you have surface treatment capabilities which some of your domestic competitors may not have, and which might help you to deliver more integrated and larger products. How do you see that helping you in the next few years in terms of winning more SKUs and expanding this part of the business? Thank you.
Well, look, this is a very integral part of our business. In fact, we not only support ourselves, our own requirements, we also support rest of the market in India. Our joint venture with Magellan Aerospace, API, is part of our JVs. They perform very well as they align with our overall core aerospace business. We feel very strongly, and this helps us to deliver the new parts at a rate which nobody else does in the region, what I would say. For that matter, globally, I don't know how many customers, how many suppliers deliver 100+, 150 parts per month.
Two more questions, and you can go on.
That's a definite moat for us as a company. We have invested over the last 15 years to get there.
Where do you see that translating into? Because you have this capability to deliver probably in a faster turnaround time and maybe to get into more integrated, larger product parts, et cetera. Where do you see that playing out over the next few years? Do you think your customers are beginning to take notice of that and giving you more orders which reflect this capability?
Yeah. We are seeing our order book growing faster than what we have done in the past. It's definitely helping us, and also we are adding more parts on a quarterly basis. That reflection of that, our performance to our customers, ability to absorb and also same time deliver.
Understood. Thank you
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Bhavey Ahuja with Asymmetric Asset Managers LLP, p lease go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Sir, you're sounding slightly muffled.
Is it clear now?
This is much better, sir.
Hello. Is it audible now?
This is much better, sir. Yes, please go ahead.
Yeah, I have one question on the Consumer Segment. As we got to know that consumer revenue share has grown uniquely from almost 5% to 17% from last year's FY, which is obviously a significant scale-up. However, we still see that the segment is still a bit loss-making. We actually understood that Hasbro has exited as a client, and recently it has diversified with Mattel. Given this backdrop, and alongside the capacity expansion which has been done, how confident the management is on the consumer breakeven which was mentioned today? Is there any path to breakeven?
Hi, this is Dinesh here. To your question, I think like we covered in the earlier call, just to reiterate, Q4 was the first quarter where all the manufacturing costs hit us in the consumer electronics business because the full capacity was commissioned towards the end of Q3. Q4 is the first time where the entire cost, all the operational costs, depreciation, everything has hit us. This is a standard process in any ramp phase. There's a date on which you start commercial production, and all the costs start hitting. As we mentioned earlier, as utilization improves from 23% to 40%- 50%, the absorption of depreciation and fixed costs will be significant to the higher volumes and margins will recover sharply, which is why we have guided that in Q4 FY 2027, we should be at EBITDA breakeven. I hope that addresses your question.
Yeah. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Naveen Vijay with NS Capital, p lease go ahead.
Good evening, sir. My question is on the Consumer Segment. To an earlier participant, you had mentioned that the current gross block is INR 830 crores, and we are going to add INR 500 in the subsequent years. That makes it INR 1,330 crores. You had also mentioned that the fixed asset turnover will be 1.5. That gives a turnover of INR 2,000 crores in the future. My question is, when do we envisage to hit that number, ballpark, sir?
Most probably, we'll see that in more than 29.
Okay. That was my only question, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. The next follow-up question comes from Bhavika Singhvi with Niveshaay, p lease go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. Sir, on the aerospace side, I want to understand that as we have our entity in France and in U.S.A., can you tell me how both entities are contributing in our aerospace segment? Because as per my understanding, it is still being quite underutilized, the capacities are. Are we expecting these two capacities getting ramped up in coming quarters? If you can make me understand what exactly are we doing in the France and U.S.A. unit?
See, in the North America, the U.S. basically is predominantly working for the U.S. ITAR, U.S. defense piece. In France, we work on engine and landing gear component. We are not adding any capacity, actually. Our whole focus of adding capacity is only in India. These sites are basically to support us. France helps us bring our engine and landing gear capability, and North America keeps us being low. There are a lot of programs where there are low volumes and everything, and supporting also the U.S. defense side. These are the reasons. That is our predominant focus from the manufacturing perspective in these regions right now.
Do we see any-
On the utilization. Yeah.
In the utilization perspective, typically in these regions, it is not driven from the machining, the way what we see in India. In these regions, western region, utilization is driven by the number of people. People hours actually drive the utilization. We normally run this utilization, if we see from the capacity, like a single shift basis. That's how we operate. The right way to look at the utilization is the people hours there.
Because of the system, the way it has been utilized, it still measures on the machining-
Okay.
Actually it looks lower.
Okay, got it. Sir, as we say that we are a wholly vertically integrated facility in the aerospace side, I want to understand that in the aero structures where majorly we serve, do this vertically integrated providing us benefit on the margin side, or we are making the same margins as any other player in the same parts, like aero structures are making? Do we see any improvement in the margin because of our advantage having vertically integrated?
We believe we have a right level of margins for the business and a rate at which scaling. Obviously, if we increase our margin, our win rate might come down. Those are all the competitive environment globally we play. It's a commercial call where we feel we're achieving the right level of ROC, right level of growth. That's a combination which we believe is the right number where we are. We feel confident to continue to grow at this rate. Also just to add, I think the way you should look at it, and just to highlight, when we built an ecosystem, I think the intent is to give a solution to the customer. Margin is one element, but the ability for the customer to give more and more work in an integrated ecosystem within a single zone. We mentioned this in earlier calls also.
There are increasingly requirements of ESG, where the part should not travel. All these are solutions where within one zone in Belagavi, we are able to service. These are the competitive advantage that we get where our right to win business is higher. Margin is one element, but our ability to grow and get deeper into the customer. For example, this engine ecosystem that we're building. Again, the success that we've had here gives the customer confidence to help us build there as well. What you have to look at it is that this is a very long-term relationship with a very large tail of order book, and our ability to win this and increase our share of customer wallet is what is important.
Okay, thank you. That's all.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Pranjal Agrawal from Molecule Ventures, p lease go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. My question is focused on the funding. Firstly, I just wanted to understand this INR 2,800 crore and INR 300 crore in Karnataka, that is cumulative or it's a new CapEx that we're planning over five years?
Yeah. It's over the next five years investment.
Okay. As for consumer division, we are planning INR 500 crores this year. Are there any guidance across next say, five years, what we are planning on investing in?
I think we can't really split that data, which is why directly INR 2,800 crore plus is the investment. We have mentioned, this is across our Belagavi and Hubli cluster. You said this year, Harish mentioned earlier also, INR 530 crore roughly and INR 160 crore in aerospace. If you see over five years, you'll see some similar pattern of investment.
Fair enough. My last part would be around funding of this CapEx. Can you just throw some light on it? Like I understand INR 660 crores this year you're planning to enter on the tools, how exactly you're planning for the debt and how you plan on going about that.
We are, as I mentioned earlier, we'll be leveraging debt to fund this CapEx along with internal equity.
Can you just give a breakdown on that, if possible?
Take it offline. Yeah.
Okay.
Sure. Can take it offline, yeah.
Okay.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take this as the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Okay. Thank you, everyone. Appreciate your time being part of this call, and please feel free to reach out to our team for any further questions. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Aequs Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you everyone for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.