Good day and welcome to Aether Industries Limited's Q4 FY 2024 earnings conference call hosted by HDFC Securities Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in listen-only mode, and there will be no opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. If you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I'll hand the conference over to Mr. Nilesh Ghuge from HDFC Securities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Neerav. Good afternoon all. On behalf of HDFC Securities, I welcome everyone to this Aether Industries conference call to discuss the results for the quarter and financial year ending March 2024. From Aether Industries, we have with us today Dr. Aman Desai, Promoter and Whole-Time Director; Mr. Rohan Desai, Promoter and Whole-Time Director; Mr. Faiz Nagariya, Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Shubhangi Desai, Executive IR. Without further ado, I will now hand over the floor to Ms. Shubhangi Desai to begin with the earnings call for Q4 FY 2024 and financial year 2024. Over to you, Shubhangi.
Thank you, Nilesh. Good evening, one and all. Today, on May 21, 2024, our board has approved the financial results for the fourth quarter and financial year ending on March 31, 2024, and we have released the same to the stock exchanges as well as updated the same on our website. Please note that this conference call is being recorded, and a transcript of the call will be made available on the website of Aether Industries Limited. Please also note that the audio of the conference call is the copyright material of Aether Industries Limited and cannot be copied, reproduced, or attributed in press or media without specific written consent of the company. Let me draw your attention to the safe harbor provisions that are on this call. Our discussion will include certain forward-looking statements which are predictions, projections, or other estimates about future events.
These estimates reflect management's current expectations on future performance of the company. Please note that these estimates involve several risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from what is expressed or implied. Neither Aether Industries Limited nor its officials undertake any obligations to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of future events or otherwise. Mr. Rohan Desai will begin by sharing Aether's business outlook, then Mr. Faiz Nagariya will cover the financial highlights for the period under review, and Dr. Aman Desai will share the ongoing expansions and strategy of the company going forward. Now, I shall hand over the call to Mr. Rohan Desai for his opening remarks. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Shubhangi. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today. I want to address our recent quarterly performance, which was substantially impacted by the significant fire accident. The foremost priority of the company immediately after the accident was towards the injured and the family members of the deceased, and we have done our very best for them and their families. Coming to business, while this event has certainly presented challenges, we want to assure you that we are fully committed to addressing the situation and mitigating its effects. Our team is working tirelessly to rebuild what is lost, get the production scheme online in a phase-wise manner after getting necessary secondary approvals, and ensure the safety of our employees and facilities. During the start of this quarter, we had announced that we had restarted 50% of the facility post this accident.
This came online in a phase-wise manner, and hence the effect we've seen in our performance. Our swift response and effective crisis management systems minimized the disruption of our supply and enabled us to meet the commitments to our customers to the best of our abilities. The other half of the affected Site 2 is expected to be operational soon with all the specific safety protocols in place. We are expecting to receive revocation of the closure order of Site 2 to resume operations to the extent of 50% and 100% of the environmental clearance required shortly. We have taken such one-time hits on our books which have affected our bottom line. We appreciate your patience and support as we navigate through this challenging time together. There have been several positive developments in this quarter.
We had announced the successful piloting of recycling and upcycling of plastics with our customer, Novoloop. Also, we had announced the appointment of our new CTO at Aether, Dr. James Ringer, who has taken up this role after already being here with us for 30+ years. We have also invested in 15MW of solar power plant, which will make us 95% sustainable on renewable electrical energy in three sites. And last but not least, we have commercialized Site 4, which starts the production meant for oil field drilling services businesses. Dr. Aman would be sharing more information on the above in the short period of time. In spite of pricing pressure and the fire accident at Site 2, we have been able to sustain the market of our products, and we are seeing a good inflow of orders in our existing modules.
Our last three manufacturing business models contributed 59% of the total sales in this quarter, CRAMS contributed to 14%, and contract/e xclusive manufacturing was at 26%. Robust growth in all these three business segments is expected in the current financial year 2024-2025. We will have Site 2 fully getting operational by quarter one of 2024-2025, wherein we are expecting revocation orders for Site 2 to come anytime from that side. Now, let us discuss the growth outlook from here on. We have commissioned our Site 4, which is under 100% fully owned subsidiary, Aether Specialty Chemicals Limited. This has been created for one of the top three biggest oil field services companies. We had announced a letter of intent with this company in the recent past leading to the creation of this site, and we expect to be announcing the finalized strategic supply agreement with this customer shortly.
Production and the supply of the products from Site 4 customers will be increasing in phases, with the first phase beginning from quarter one of financial year 2024-2025. By the coming quarters, we anticipate a very significant revenue contribution from Site 4 in this oil field services domain. Site 3, which was commercialized in January 2023, has seen pricing pressures also, and we have not been able to get the desired results, but we expect the pricing pressures to ease out soon, and we will get the desired results in financial year 2024-2025. Commercialization of Site 3++ and launch of three to five products in Site 3++ under the LSM model in quarter four of financial year 2024-2025 is on track. Commissioning of the new 15 MW solar power plant will be adding to savings of electricity expenses, which will be done in three phases.
Phase one will come online in the end of May 2024. Second phase will start online by July 2024, and the last phase will start in September 2024. Each phase would be of 5MW capacity. We have also successfully expanded and commissioned the pilot plant. This will lead to announcement and faster scale-up of newly developed products in R&D, which are to be launched in the near future. This expanded pilot plant also helps us in expanding our current business model in a significant way. I would now like to turn to all the financial highlights of the company. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Rohan. Good evening, everybody. I am here to present the financial results of Aether Industries Limited for Q4 and financial year 2024. The total revenue of the company in standalone was INR 6,399 million in financial year 2024 against INR 6,676 million in financial year 2023, resulting in an EBITDA of INR 619 million in financial year 2024 against INR 2,028 million in financial year 2023. EBITDA margins stood at 25% in FY 2024 against 50% in FY 2023. The PAT amounted to INR 881 million in FY 2024 against INR 130 million in FY 2023. The net margins stood at 40% in FY 2024 against 20% in FY 2023. Consolidated financials are as follows with total revenue of the company stood at INR 6,373 million in financial year 2024 against INR 6,676 million in financial year 2023, resulting in an EBITDA of INR 2,571 million in financial year 2024 against INR 2,028 million in financial year 2023.
EBITDA margins stood at 25% in FY 2024 against 30% in FY 2023. The net profit amounted to INR 823 million in FY 2024 against INR 1,304 million in FY 2023. The net profit margins stood at 13% in FY 2024 against 20% in FY 2023. The loss in Q4 is due to a 3.2% tax provision on assets and contributions to operations started in March 2024, and capitalization of various fixed assets. It is INR 11.03 million. Otherwise, there is a PBT of INR 5.6 million, and there is cash profit as well. The main reason for the reduction in revenues in Aether Industries is attributable to the fire accident at our Site 2 in November 2023, wherein the production at our manufacturing facility 2 was stopped for a couple of months.
The reduced revenues and other exceptional expenses related to accident responses and paid to the families of the deceased, penalty paid to GPCB, medical treatment expenses of the workers who were hospitalized, and increased insurance premium of our IR policy have resulted in the reduction in the EBITDA and net margins eventually. The amount of such one-time cost is approximately INR 70 million for the quarter, incurring incremental impact of approximately INR 30 million on account of increasing insurance premium which are expected in this financial year 2024. Further, we have also incurred a loss of INR 138.97 million on account of damage of inventories in process and finished goods which were either in the cases, equipment, and on the shop floor when the fire accident happened.
The loss of fixed assets is being assessed as various equipment is being inspected as a result, and the results and outcomes are expected to be released by the end of this month. We have, though, submitted our first claim of INR 1,000 million to the insurance company towards stocks, fixed assets, loss of profit, etc., and we have applied for an on-account payment of INR 210 million to the insurance company which has been approved, and we expect the payment in the course of two days. The issuance of on-account payment also entitles that our claim is accepted by the insurance company which will be settled in the next few months. This is a fire accident at manufacturing facility 2, that is plant 2 majorly affected.
Operations were not done from 3 December 2023 and January 2024, and hence this also led to the reduction in the finished goods and semi-finished goods inventories resulting in a reduced margin as well. Though when we received the partial revocation orders from authorities, we started building up stocks of RM manufacturing factory resulting in increasing stocks of SFG as the production is going on for various products. I'll stop here and request Aman Desai to share his views on expansion plans and strategies going forward.
Good evening, everybody. Despite the unfortunate turn of events in this fiscal year impacting our quarterly and overall performance, our team's resilience and dedication have allowed us to navigate through this difficult situation. Our swift response and effective crisis management systems have minimized the disruption of our supply chain and enabled us to meet our commitments to our customers in terms of our revenue.
Sorry, I interrupt you. We are losing your audio. Can I request you to speak a little louder, please?
Yes, no problem. Please let me know if it is not audible. In January, the unaffected plants of our fire-impacted Site 2 resumed operations after an initial closure by the GPCB. The other half of the affected Site 2 is expected to be operational very soon with all the safety protocols in place. We are expecting to receive revocation of the closure order of Site 2 to resume operations to the extent of 75% of our capacity in the next coming days. Let me support the strategic developments that have been executed and which remain the key drivers during the period under review. We announced the first commercialization of the novel Converge polyol technology which we had developed in collaboration with Saudi Aramco, and this first commercialization was led by one of the largest US-based manufacturers, H.B. Fuller.
This is based on the numerous years of joint work done so far on the Converge platform with Saudi Aramco Technologies Company. As we speak, we are continuously working to widen the array of Converge polyol applications in the CASE industry. We are amazed at the fact that this successful product launch by H.B. Fuller is the first of many with an aim to serve the customers by providing adhesive solutions. As these first launches of the Converge polyol technology begin, we are hoping now to see a rapid growth in the commercialization and sales of these novel and sustainable polyols. We are also proud to partner with Novoloop for a first-of-its-kind upcycling process creating a pathway for the circular plastic future. This technology provides an economical and sustainable solution for hard-to-recycle plastics. This project is a plan to unfold in phases.
An initial part of our operations already commenced in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025 at the newly built pilot plant dedicated to this project. Novoloop's novel technology has immense potential, and we are excited to begin preliminary discussions with Novoloop already towards the full-scale commercialization at Aether of this technology in the very near future. In the recent past, we have announced partnerships with Polaroid of Netherlands and Otsuka of Japan. Both these partnerships remain robust. We continue to be the exclusive research and development and supply partner for Polaroid digital and instant photography platforms. This upcoming fiscal year, we'll see substantial revenue contributions coming up for the first time from our partnerships in Otsuka, thus transforming the work done over the last several years in building this partnership into a substantial commercial business.
We also recently announced the resolution of agreements with a major global lithium-ion battery producer, thereby giving an announcement for our foray, which is specialized electrolyte active products. We have partially commissioned commercialized products already and expect commercialization in our upcoming Sites 3++ and Sites 5. Additionally, this partnership is developing quite well, and we expect additional benefits from this partnership, which we will also announce in due course of time. Our R&D and pilot plant assets, infrastructure, and power continually increase quarter on quarter, even in the accident-affected quarters. This reflects on the continued fullness of our R&D pipeline with numerous projects across all business models.
Even with the recent impacts, our grant portfolio has in fact grown year on year, and we anticipate the upcoming fiscal year will see a significant expansion of this grant portfolio with new projects and new customers being added across the industry spectrum and a few of these products making the golden transition from the grant portfolio to the contract/exclusive manufacturing portfolio. We have also given background on the higher skill changes for the economy to bring about, especially in the wake of the accident. In line with that, we have announced Dr. James Ringer as our CTO, who has already been associated with us for the last three years at the business development unit at the Americas. He's a very well-experienced R&D professional with a career spanning more than 30 years at the Dow Chemical Company in the USA as an R&D Director level.
He will be jointly overseeing the R&D and technology working groups of the company. Under his leadership, we look forward to maneuvering to greater heights in strategic innovation and technical leadership, instead of being offered as a premier partner for chemical development, scale-up, and manufacturing across the industry spectrum. We have commissioned successfully our Site 4 under our 100% fully owned Aether Specialty Chemicals. This has been created largely for one of the world's three biggest oil and gas services companies in the U.S. We had announced that this company in the recent past through the creation of the Site 4, and we expect to be announcing the finalized strategic supply agreement with this customer in the coming weeks or even days.
Production and supply of products from this Site 4 to this particular customer will increase in phases, with the first phase beginning in this first quarter of fiscal 2025. By the coming quarters, we anticipate very significant revenue contribution from this Site 4 in the oil and gas services domain. CapEx at our green manufacturing Site 3++ and Site 5 is advancing well with all the regulatory approvals in place, and civil work is more than as planned, and structural and equipment also being installed in Site 3++. We anticipate commissioning of Site 3++ by the end of this upcoming fiscal year. We are going to launch several exciting new products in this Site 3++ for both the large-scale manufacturing business model as well as the contract/exclusive manufacturing business models.
These products are, as always, made in-house by us for the first time in India, have a genesis in our core industry and technology competencies, and have been painstakingly developed in the R&D labs and made production-ready in our pilot plant. The products that we're planning for this Site 3++ include some of these new electrolyte additives and two large molecules moving from the grant's portfolio to the contract/exclusive manufacturing portfolio and pipeline molecules under our large-scale manufacturing business model being made by us for the first time in India. Site 5 is developing quite well from the civil project perspective. It's a mega production site with 15 production blocks and is stepping up very well to become the true face of production of Aether Industries with world-class engineering, technology, and safety and sustainability teams.
At the very end, I do want to touch upon the tragic and unfortunate accident in our manufacturing facility in Site 2 in the last quarter. As Rohan had mentioned at the start of this call, the topmost priority of the company, our management, and our family has been towards the injured and the families of the deceased. We have tried our very best to stand by them, and we will continue to do so for the lifetime of these immediate families. This was a major accident. We have responded by undertaking comprehensive and systemic changes in the safety protocols and processes in Site 2, each and every single operation being taken care of in our R&D, pilot plant, and production. But all the sites in the company have been reviewed for safety, and only 10 of our operations have resumed.
We have spent several weeks in drawing up and elaborating a corrective and preventive action plan which focuses equally on the short term, the medium term, and the long term. This plan has already been implemented and completed for the short-term actions, and it's been implemented with utmost seriousness for the medium term and long-term actions. Rigorous implementation of this plan remains the company's topmost priority and also my personal topmost priority. As a company, as a family, and as the person leading the operations, we are and I am committed to ensuring that such an event will never, ever happen again at Aether Industries. Finally, I want to express our deepest gratitude to all our colleagues, our stakeholders, and our value investors in the continued faith and trust in us.
I assure you that we are working tirelessly to ensure that we deliver value to you and live up to our promise of potential. Shubhangi, back to you.
Thank you, Dr. Aman. We shall now request the moderator to open the forum for questions and answers.
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 touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use hands-free while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, you will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The first question is from the line of Rohit Nagraj from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. The first question is in terms of competition from China. We've been hearing across the board that there has been competition from China which has cropped up over the last couple of years. So have we faced any competition? And because of the incident, is there any irreversible market share loss that we are experiencing? That's the first question. Thank you.
Thank you, Rohit. Yeah. On the pricing side, we are seeing a lot of pressure from China because the raw materials have also reduced, and obviously, they are back to their original state. So they are facing good competition in terms of pricing. However, we have only lost certain market share in certain products because of our inability to produce because we have only 50% of our production plant which is online. So that product is where we have lost some market share, but we are very, very confident that we will regain this market share in Q1 and Q2 respectively and will be back to our original state. We have commitments from the customers and their readiness from the customer side and their willingness to buy from Aether. So we are not worried on the existing molecules.
We are already taking a lot of orders with anticipation of resetting of the plant as per our internal timelines.
Sure. That's helpful. Second question is in terms of the newer CapEx space. So if you could just give us a timeline as to when commercialization of these projects will happen and what kind of revenues that we are expecting over a period of time? So maybe at peak utilization based on the current CapEx and how the trajectory would move maybe in 2026, 2027 in terms of overall revenues. Thank you.
All right. So we are talking about Site 3++. To start with, Site 3++ is INR 200 crore of investment, and it is expected to come online and stabilize in Q4 of this financial year, 2024-2025. Site 4 is already up and running, and we are seeing the output and the sales happening in phase-wise manner where it will end up in this current quarter, that is Q1 of 2024-2025. And it will attain its full potential in Q2 and Q3 respectively of this current financial year, 2024-2025. And talking about Site 5, we are estimating getting online in a phase-wise manner where the first phase will get online in December of 2025, which will stabilize in the last quarter of 2025-2026. And the potential will start unlocking in 2026-2027 for that site.
This is an expansion of INR 500 crores of revenue sorry, I mean, capital investment, out of which INR 300 crores would be productive assets and INR 200 crores would be non-productive assets. That is the accessories and the infrastructure around which we need to build up for 60 production blocks. Does this answer your question, Rohit?
Sure. Just one more clarification. In terms of the usable asset base, what would be the asset terms that we are looking at?
At maturity, after a period of two years of stabilization of the plant, we are looking at 2x of the investment done in the plant.
Sure. That's helpful. Thanks a lot, and that's ok.
Thank you, Rohit.
Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from the line of Dhruv Shah from Dalal & Broacha Stock Broking. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity, sir. My first question is.
Dhruv, sorry, I interrupt you. Can you speak a little louder, please?
Hello. What's this now?
Little closer. Thank you.
Yeah. My first question is with respect to your CRAMS business. If I look at your full-year revenue, it has seemed kind of flattish. Can you justify what is the reason behind this flattish growth?
Yeah. So, quite a few of them so, on the wake of the accident, quite a few of the projects were put on hold. There was almost a period overall, I believe, two months where we put a lot of things on hold. As I mentioned in my speech, we had done a thorough safety review of every single operation and every single project. For that matter, we have put quite a few projects on hold and quite a few of the bigger projects were put on hold for a longer time for these safety reviews. So we are looking at at least one quarter where we were delayed by our approvals and milestones and all of these projects. In fact, we were hoping to have a showcase of the growth in the quarter year-on-year.
But in spite of this lack of two to three months, we've still grown on the grants by a couple of percent. I believe. And I think that reflects on how strong the pipeline was.
Sure. Thank you. So my second question was, what was your average selling price for Kg for the full year?
Just a moment. Every selling price per Kg was INR 1,509.
INR 1,509?
Yes.
Yeah. Sir, what is your output sense? Are you seeing any improvement in prices because the prices have been falling only, right? Are there any green shoots that you are observing in terms of prices?
Currently, for Q1 and Q2, no. We are not expecting any price to be correcting. But we are seeing a good demand, at least to start with, which is a very, very positive note. With the demand, we hope that from Q2 onwards, the pricing will go towards the bottom.
Sure, sir. And my last question was with respect to your agrochem sector. So what is the scenario over there? Are there any improvements over there? Because I think so earlier, you had mentioned that some deals were delayed, not canceled. So are they back with us, or they're still not with us yet?
Yes. We are not a major agro player as such. We hold approximately 30%-35% of our sales comes out of core products which are in agro. We are not seeing demand trouble in the core products. However, the price pressure is still true for all these core products.
Sure. Just one last question, if I could. Since there has been some significant increase in your non-current borrowings, so can you please mention what is that referring to?
Non-current borrowings are the working capital requirements which we have started taking because we had taken INR 45 crore in the working capital. So these are being used for some working capital.
Your voice wasn't audible. Can you please repeat that?
Non-current borrowings are the working capital limits which we are using with the grants. These are towards the CC, PCFC and LC limits, which we are using from the grants.
Okay, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to answer the question. Next question is from the line of Inderjeet Bhatia from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Aman. Hi, Rohan. Hi, Faiz.
Hi.
The first question is, would you want to kind of put a number as to how much of revenue we lost in the previous quarter because of this unfortunate accident? Is there some estimate of that?
We lost almost close to INR 150-200 crore of revenue which we are assuming in quarters. I mean, four months.
Okay. So do you think?
There are many aspects. So we lost one quarter in Site 4 also, which we were anticipating to get as revenue, which was oilfield drilling services, which was unfortunate because we wanted to do the safety reviews and safety checks again in the existing site and Site 4. And also, we had a QEHS which was kicked in by our customers, which we passed with flying colors also.
Okay. So when you say INR 150 crore of revenue lost, is this revenue delayed which you all expected to come in 2025, or do you think some part of this is actually lost because those orders do not exist any longer with us because customer shifted it?
No. So it has been pushed for a quarter back. So we are not going to recover it in this financial year, for sure.
Got it. Got it. My second is now with the you said that we are not large players in agro. If I recollect, agro was still a substantial portion of our revenues. If you could kind of just let us know as to what percentage do you think would be agro in FY 2025 or FY 2026 once all these new capacities come up? That is one. And the second is, in any of your existing contracts or the new contract that you have got, has there been any change in pricing or any kind of extra cost that is associated either because of this accident or just generally because of, say, the environment changing?
No. So no additional cost has been put in by Aether, or there is no discount which is being given by Aether because of the accident. We are anticipating a 30%-35% of our total top line to be agro for this financial year.
Got it. Got it. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. Best of luck on the project.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Next question is from the line of Atishray Malhan from Fortress Group. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. I have a few questions regarding the Converge Polyol opportunity. Firstly, so you previously mentioned that the additional market size for the Converge Polyol opportunity is about 850,000 tons per annum. Can you maybe quantify the scale in dollar terms?
So 850,000 would be at the average selling price of $4-$5 a kilo. Sorry, $3-$5 a kilo. Sorry.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So just adding upon that point, I mean, considering that the Converge Polyols are more value-added products compared to the other polyols used in case applications, are they being priced at a premium compared to the other polyols in the market?
Yes. It is priced at a premium. It is approximately 30%-35% depending on the volume which you require. It is at a 30%-35% premium.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. And just a quick follow-up on that. So for the various CASE applications that you're targeting, what percentage of the end-use applications' total COGS would be attributable to polyols? I understand that the exact figure would be difficult to estimate. Even a range would be very helpful.
So that would be difficult to estimate, I think.
Okay. Okay. Fair enough. I have a couple more questions, but I guess I'll just join back in a few minutes. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from the line of Krishan Parwani from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, Rohan. Faiz. Thank you for taking my question. Just two small questions from my side. First is on the volume of revenue growth which you are targeting in FY 2025, given some new plants are coming up, and there would be certain impact in Site 2 and 1 Q 2025. So just some thoughts on that.
Yeah. So Q1, we are expecting Site 2 to come online. So anytime you are expecting a resolution to be implemented and so we can push and move ahead full steam ahead in Site 2. Site 4 has come online, so that will contribute quite a lot in financial year 2024-2025.
Okay. At this point, you are probably reporting a number to the growth guidance that you have. Is that understandable?
No. Really not.
Yeah. No problem. And the second question I had was on the working capital days. So how much of the moderation you are expecting in FY 2025? I think we had some higher working capital days in 2024. So how do you see?
Krishan, just be clear louder. I cannot hear you.
Sure. Sure. Sure. So I was actually asking, was there any particular reason for higher working capital days in FY 2024, and how much of moderation we are expecting in FY 2025?
The main reason for the increase is attributable to the inventories, wherein the working progress inventory has gone up. So we had a fire incident, and then the Site 2 revocation for part was received. We started the production in February. So there was this production was going on. So this working progress inventory has been higher this time. If this will moderate, and we will get back to the normal scenario and normal terms by end of this financial year 2025, for sure.
Okay. So essentially, it was because of the fire incident. Understood. Understood. So I think that is probably the.
Yeah. Production was to be started. Otherwise, the raw materials, finished goods, all the inventories are all in control. There is no such problem.
Perfect. So you expect it to be a normal level once again?
Correct. Yes.
Thank you. Thank you for patiently answering my question. I wish you all the best.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next follow-up question is from the line of Atishray Madhan from Fortress Group. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Just a couple more follow-up questions on the electrolyte additives opportunity. So, the electrolyte additives that you're currently developing, how fungible are they? Can they be used across different electrolyte salts and solutions, or are they specific to a specific electrolyte salt such as, say, a lithium hexa chlorophosphate?
Yeah. Thanks for the question. Great question. We are focusing only on the organic molecules, small organic molecule electrolytes, and that's a very specific subset of the electrolyte additives. So we are not going after the salts. We are not going after the solvents. We are not going after the salt additives. We are going after the organic small molecule electrolyte additives only, which play into our strengths of our core competencies of chemistries and technologies. So that's the first part of the answer. Second part of the answer is that these are commonly used so two out of the three that we are developing are very commonly used electrolyte additives in almost every single population of lithium-ion batteries. So they are going to be broadly applicable and marketable to the entire world of lithium-ion battery formulation partners.
The chemistry and the technology play into our strengths and competencies. Therefore, they are fungible in our manufacturing assets.
Okay. Thank you. So my understanding is that you plan on sending the first validation batches to the client by the end of this calendar year. Is that correct?
That's correct. Yes. Hopefully, before that.
Okay. Okay. So I mean, when do you expect commercialization of the additives by?
Commercialization will be partially done by the end of this calendar year. The commercialization will be in the Site 3++, which will be by the end of the fiscal year or the quarters thereafter.
Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your detailed responses. Good luck for the forthcoming quarters.
Thanks a lot for that question.
Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next follow-up question is from the line of Rohit Nagraj from Centrum Broking Limited. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Sort of follow-up. So we have a recently elevated Dr. Ringer to the CTO position. So what is the structure that we are working with? I mean, in terms of the total staff cost, how much is it going to take for the expats? And to retain them for a fairly long period of time, what is the incentive structure or probably ESOP structure that we have in place? If you can just give some color on this. Thank you.
Yeah. So we are very excited to have Jim on the board. Jim's personally known to me for the last 20 years now, and I've been with the company for three years already. He's probably one of the best process scientists in the world that I know. I know quite a few. So we are excited to have him. He's joined us, obviously, for a good package and benefits, but also because he believes in the story and of the personal connection that Krishan has. He's very excited to be working with us. So obviously, I won't share the details here, but there are several aspects of the overall good contribution for him. It includes, obviously, attractive ESOPs as well.
He already had access to ESOPs from the development leader position that he worked in, and this gives additional benefits to him as well. And so we work very closely. He is at Aether for a full month every quarter. And he's working in the Indian time zone, partially over there in the U.S. for coordinating with the projects over here, and then partially in the U.S. time zone for the business development activities. And so he's already been contributing immensely to all the projects and the parallel structure to me, if you will, in terms of the R&D and technology development of the company. And so it's very, very positive. Hopefully, that answers all the questions.
All right. Great. And the similar structure is in place even for the other expats who are working from other geographies?
The business development team has ESOPs and a reasonably good package as compared to the Indian teams. That's already in place. So the design of the sector is done in such a way that it is expandable for the near future if anybody wishes to join Aether.
Sure. Sure. I guess one clarification in terms of FY 2025. Given that the unfortunate incident has happened probably with the revocation order and some time, is it safe to assume we will be able to at least [have a] similar kind of revenue we did in FY 2024, barring the new projects which have come on stream in terms of the Site 4 and the upcoming projects?
Obviously. Yes. For sure.
Thank you so much. Thank you .
Thank you.
Thank you very much. If there are no further questions, I will now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you, everyone, for participating in the call. We hope that we have addressed the majority of your questions. If you still have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to us. Thank you.
Thank you very much. On behalf of HDFC Securities Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect lines.