Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Antony Waste Handling Cell Limited Q2 FY23 Earnings Conference Call. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on the beliefs, opinions and expectations of the company as on date of this call. These statements are not the guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone telephone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Jose Jacob, Chairman and Managing Director of Antony Waste Handling Cell Limited. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Good afternoon and a very warm welcome to everyone present on the call. Along with me, I have Mr. Shiju Jacob Kallarakal, Executive Director, Mr. N. G. Subramanian, Group CFO and SGA, our Investor Relations Advisor. I hope you and your family have all had a good festive season. Our investor presentation is now available on the stock exchange and the company website. First, I would like to provide some business update. Our results in the solid waste business have been strong for the first six months of the year.
We recorded a 16% growth in operating revenue of INR 316 crores due to a strong customer consumption, economic, commercial collection, MSW landfill volume and inflation-related price increase. Plus, our recent projects have shown rapid growth and are ramping up at a good pace. We have executed our project well and are in line with our expectations.
During the quarter, we have kick-started a recycling business in one of the sites from where we collect MSW. This is not our contractual requirement, but in line with organization aim of sustainability and working in the forefront of creating a circular economy. In this, we will segregate the recyclables from the waste collected before sending the same across to the designated landfill site. This will help us generate revenue from the recyclable that we have segregated in this process. This is our first project and based on the satisfactory performance performed by approximately 62 tons being recycled in two months. We now plan to implement similar activities in all cities where the company has C&T operations. For operational review and to add on recent news, I hand over the call to Mr. Shiju Jacob Kallarakal. Shiju Jacob Kallarakal, over to you.
Thank you, Jose Jacob. I would like to again welcome you all to this call. To begin with, your company has secured a three-year mechanical power sweeping contract in Nagpur as part of a cluster-focused business strategy. The contract calls for supply of one power sweeping machine and daily maintenance of 40 kilometers of road. We already have a CNT business in the city of Nagpur, so bagging additional project helps us leverage on our existing setup and exploit our product lineup. This follows the recently bagged five-year CNT contract for two zones in Nashik, namely at Panchavati and Satpur. We have completed the entire vehicle mobilization, and the project will begin contributing to our revenues in Q3 FY 2023. Every day we estimate that we will handle approximately 240 tons of municipal solid waste from this project.
On the processing side, despite the monsoon conditions, we saw a high level of bio-mining activity at our Kanjurmarg Integrated Waste Processing site during the quarter. We managed to set a record quantity of compost during the quarter, and we also shipped 10,734 tons of RDF. This is the direction the company intends to take throughout the year and into the future. Onto a more granular business-wise performance. At the MSW C&T project site, we have 13 ongoing projects. Our MSW C&T business volumes increased by 8.12% year-on-year to 0.42 million tons in Q2 FY 2023.
Coming to MSW processing project, the total tonnage processed during the quarter increased by 8.3% year-on-year to 0.62 million tons at our MSW processing project, which included Kanjurmarg, Pimpri-Chinchwad and the Greater Noida bio-mining project. Regarding our construction at Pimpri-Chinchwad site, we now anticipate that our project will begin in Q1 2024, which was earlier planned to start on 23 March , 2023. The reason for this two-month delay is due to the global semiconductor shortage, which has impacted the delivery of distributed control system, control valves and transmitters.
Corporations are in the process of coming out with more C&T and processing contracts. We will leverage our experience of bio-mining and waste-to-energy and on our C&T business line to bid for these contracts.
To sum up, we have had a good quarter and we expect to continue our growth path in the coming time. We remain committed to advancing technology investment that differentiate us automating processes to reduce service costs and capitalizing on our sustainability-focused platform for growth. Company is well poised to explore newer geographies while dwelling upon cluster-based approach and areas of recycling which is a need of the hour for the country. This is from my side. I now hand over the conference to Mr. Subramanian, the Group CFO.
Thank you, Shiju. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our Q2 and the first half 2023 Earnings Conference Call. I will share the highlights of our financial performance. For the Q2 , for the year ending March 2023, the operating revenue at C&T and processing revenue section, the company reported operating revenue of INR 160 crores against INR 143 crores in Q2 FY 2022, which is up by 12% year-on-year. For the first half, the company reported an operating revenue of INR 317 crores as against INR 273 crores last year same period, reporting 15% growth on a year-on-year basis.
The increase in core revenue was driven by contribution from newly bid contracts, general increase in volumes in existing C&T and processing contracts, and also partially from the tipping fee increases which are built in the contracts. On a sequential basis, given the full onset of monsoon, the construction pace is lower as compared to the Q1 of 2023, which has seen the contract revenue declining sequentially to INR 30 crore from INR 71 crore in Q1. On the consolidated EBITDA front, the company registered a growth of 8% to INR 46 crore in Q2 FY 2023 compared to INR 42 crore in Q2 FY 2022, with the EBITDA margin being 22% for the quarter.
For the first half, the company registered a growth of 12% year-on-year to INR 94 crores compared to INR 84 crores the same period last year, and the margin coming around to 21% for the first half. Now the profit before taxes front, for the quarter it was INR 31 crores against INR 28 crores, up 10%. For the first half, it stood at INR 66 crores, up 17%. Profit after taxes for the quarter, it's up by 17% at INR 28 crores and 22% up for the first half at INR 56 crores for the first half. On the business-wise performance, the revenue from municipal MSW C&T is up by 10% to INR 116 crores for the quarter. For the first half, it's up by 15%.
As Shiju mentioned, the growth was on account of increased volumes in our existing contracts and ramping up of C&T activities in our newer contracts. The total MSW C&T volume is up by 8.1% for the quarter. MSW processing revenue has increased by 19% to INR 45 crore. The revenue increased to INR 86 crore for the first half, up by 17%. In general, we witnessed high input costs, repair and maintenance related inflation, and increase in logistic costs due to supply of compost and RDF. As a result, our operating expenses as a percentage of revenue has increased by approximately 250 basis points compared to last year. Over last year, we have made significant investments in our people, including proactive wage adjustments and improvement of benefit packages, increased training. Leading repair costs and transport costs remain elevated.
Higher costs for parts, third-party services are factors which we continue to watch. On the balance sheet front, our net debt to equity as of 30 September 2022 was maintained at 0.3x. Total debt as of 30 September stood at INR 289 crore, and net debt is at INR 200 crore. The overall credit profile of the company has remained stable, and this is reflected in the overall interest cost improvement of 330 basis points decrease in average consolidated borrowing costs from 12.7% in March 2021 to 9.4% as of September 2022. Our receivable days are in control, and we stood at 72 DSOs for the trailing twelve months ending September 2022. That's it from our end. We now open the floor for Q&A.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Participants who wish to ask a question may kindly press star one on your touchtone telephone. If you wish to withdraw 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. The first question is from the line of Prashant Sharma from Quantum Securities. Kindly proceed.
Yes. Sir, I just want to know the status of the two new projects that we got, NDMC and Jhansi. Have they started contributing to our revenue? Because, you know, our collection and our C&T revenue was almost flat sequentially. Just need to know the status of them.
Both Jhansi and NDMC have started their operations. If you look at it on a sequential basis, the decline in revenue is primarily due to INR 41 crores of processing costs, which is absent now. That is one of the key reason why you're seeing a fall in my revenue, which is offset by an incremental revenue which has come from a core revenue section. From both Jhansi and NDMC, the core revenues have started kicking in.
Okay. Regarding the new project that we got, what is the revenue potential for that?
If you're referring to the one or the power sweeping contract that we bagged in Nagpur, I think.
Nagpur, yes.
It's not a significant contract. For us it's just an incremental product supply that's happening in the same zone that we are operating in.
Okay. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you very much. That's all from us.
All right.
Thank you. Participants, if you wish to ask a question, kindly press star one. The next question is from the line of Bhavya Gandhi from Dalal & Broacha. Kindly proceed.
Yeah, sir, I just wanted to understand how do we assess receivables, because I think we classify them under other financial assets also. If on six-monthly basis, if you want to understand how much is the debt outstanding, if you could just provide me the split, what is the number?
If you were to include all the receivables in my financial assets as well as the current and non-current receivables, my total receivables would be around 102 days as against say maybe 92 days period last quarter. I mean, going forward, I mean, as a management practice, we will start incorporating all receivables, current, non-current, and even the money which is payable at the end of the project as a separate line item, and we'll disclose that separately.
Okay. In terms of absolute figure, what would it be right now at six months closing?
I just need to get back on that, but I will give it to you when we go to some other question. I will have that thing corrected out.
Okay. With respect to MSW market, I see that we made some changes in the presentation that historically we were projecting 14% sort of growth. Now we are projecting almost 11% sort of growth, MSW market growth as a whole. Any reasons for downgrading the growth mentioned in this presentation?
See, we just got the latest updates from the consultants over here, because over the last couple of years we have seen slight bit of degrowth in the corporation spending patterns. This is as per the report that has been given out by the market research company. Maybe with newer policies or government spending increasing over the next couple of years, we will again revisit this. This is just the market report that we have got from the entity.
Okay. Fair enough, sir. Also with respect to MSW processing, can you just elaborate on the margin? Because we have concession service concession agreements also. If you were to evaluate your P&L, how should one look at maybe like what is our absolute EBITDA that we are generating if we remove the contract part out of it then?
Bhavya Gandhi, normally we don't talk about segment-wise margins, processing or CNT per se. Given the complexities and the capital nature involved in processing, it is very fair to assume that the processing contracts have a higher margin as compared to CNT contracts. Going back to your question on the total receivables, including trade and financials, the total amount as of September stands at around INR 200.8 crores.
INR 200.8 crore. INR 201 crore, roughly.
INR 201 crore, yes.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. I'll get back into queue.
Thank you.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question, kindly press star one. The next question is from the line of Ankit from JHP Securities. Kindly proceed.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yes, sir, you are.
In Union Budget 2020-2023, there was an increase in allocation of funds to municipalities. Is there any change in government at central level, how it will impact our fund allocation?
We don't see the fund allocation for OpEx and CapEx don't significantly change based on these rulings because this is slightly long drawn and depending upon the smart city budgetary allocation, the same get allocated to different cities. Over the last couple of years, we have seen a significant spending increase in a lot of the smart city areas that we have been targeting and working with. The trend is very much on the northward side, and we see the same building up.
Do state government have any control over municipal council decision?
Normally, municipalities by themselves are authorities and the state government doesn't have any significant influence in the municipal corporation's decision-making process.
Okay. I'll come back in queue. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. To ask a question, kindly press star one. The next question is from the line of Neerav Dalal from MID Securities India. Kindly proceed.
Yeah. Hi, thank you for the opportunity. I had a couple of questions. First, on the CapEx side, if you see this year, we have a CWIP on the fixed asset side as well as that on the intangible. I believe the intangibles would be the Pune facility. So I just wanted to understand in terms of the fixed asset, the CWIP, what would that be? That is my first question. Second question is, in terms of FY 2023, what would be the growth drivers, in a sense, the new projects which were partly there in FY 2022, which would be the revenue drivers of FY 2023? That is number two.
Number three, was the volume growth lower than what we were expecting, at the start of this quarter? These are my three questions.
All right. To answer your first question, the CWIP in my financial assets partly referred to assets that have been procured and deployed for the Nashik CNT contract because these are not transferable to the corporation at the end of the project life. certain CapEx that we have incurred and we have ongoing at our waste to energy project and the Kanjurmarg site, wherein these are used for generating RDF and compost, which are not transferable to the corporation. those CapEx are sitting as my CWIP in my financial assets today. On the tonnage growth expectations and the trend, we have seen an 8% growth from organic sites per se. I mean, that is pretty much in line with the historical trend, and that has not been on the lower side of our expectation.
Normally, in a base case scenario, we look at 3%-6% growth in organic waste being generated. 8.2% also shows an incremental tonnage growth coming from new projects of Jhansi, which is on a unit base, and that is not coming into my tonnage waste revenue model. 8.2% is over and above the revenues growth that I've seen in Jhansi and in Varanasi. The contribution from newer projects, that is NDMC and Jhansi, last year, NDMC had only eight days of operation. Jhansi was less than a quarter of revenue. I think this year we will be looking at a full year's revenue contribution coming from both these two sites. NDMC is not still 100% mobilized by the end of the current quarter.
We would say 100% assets being mobilized as part of the asset is still to be provided by the corporation.
Got that. Just a follow-up on, in terms of the CapEx thing. For the current year, what should one look at as the CapEx? If you could just remind us in terms of what would be going towards the Pune project, and then what would be going towards our other business.
For the Pune project, we are estimating an incremental CapEx of INR 67 crores. The bulk of it, this will be spent in Q3 and Q4. Maybe part of it will be in Q1, based on the independent engineer's certification. sixty-seven crores is what we expect at the waste-to-energy plant to be done. At the Kanjur site, we are looking at an incremental CapEx of around INR 12 crores for the second half of the current financial year. We don't see any incremental CapEx at our collection and transportation businesses. If at all it's there, it's going to be in the tune of around INR 1.5 crores-INR 3 crores. That is depending upon the tonnage improvement that is likely to happen.
As of now, it's not happening, so maybe we will defer this to the next financial year.
Got that. Just lastly, in terms of how do you see the visibility in terms of new contracts? If you could just give us some indication in terms of how many contracts have you bid for, and when do you see the outcome and what you're expecting in terms of new deals coming up for bidding? Some idea on that.
Presently we are working on four to five new bids and we hope that, you know, our strike rate has always been good in the past. We will maintain those strike rates, you know. Maybe in couple of months, we can come out with the number of contracts what we are bidding.
Right. Has there been any slowdown in terms of the bidding process or this is what is expected?
Normally the speed of LOAs and that converting into confirmed orders, it takes some lead time. The only change that has happened over the last couple of years is because of COVID, decision making process has got delayed because of events beyond the control. More importantly, a large corporation, I mean, large number of corporations, we have seen the elected bodies yet to be elected and them to start working full swing. For example, corporations like BMC, Navi Mumbai, Nagpur, there are no standing committees, there are no committee members or the corporation is yet to be formed. Even MCD has got an election due next month. Large number of corporations, the elections are due and then the work continues. The normal work will continue.
We have seen a delay over the last couple of years, partly COVID and partly procedural. This has not been the thing in the past, but this is something that we have now seen getting addressed proactively.
Got that. Thank you. Thank you for patiently answering my questions. Thank you.
Thank you. To ask a question, kindly press star one. The next question is from the line of Anurag Patil from Roha Asset Managers. Kindly proceed.
Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, now that PCMC project has delayed till Q1 FY 2024, in second half, what kind of a contract revenues we can expect to recognize? How much can spill over to Q1 FY 2024?
Anurag, we expected the project to be up and running by March 2023. Now, because of this delay, with the certain equipment that was supposed to reach our site by November end and February, that is getting pushed to March. We are expecting the delay to two, two and a half months from our initial expectation. The total CapEx pending is around INR 67 crore, maybe around 80% of that will be done in the current year, and the balance 20% might fall into the Q1 of the next year. All efforts are on to coordinate with the vendor and trying to kind of jump the queue and try to make the process faster so that the work can be done and completed in a timely fashion.
Okay. Sir, can you comment on second half of current year? How do you see the revenue trajectory and also the margin? How do you expect it to pan out?
Normally, our core operating margin hovers around 25%-26%. I mean, the recent decline in our EBITDA is partly because of significant contribution of contract revenue and contract cost. Maybe by second half of FY 2024, we will be showing core revenue and core operations therefrom, and that is the time we can have a realistic view on how the EBITDA shape up without significant contribution or the revenue getting skewed towards contract revenue and contract costs.
Sir, if we exclude the contract revenues also on cost, then normalized core margins are still coming around 22%-23%.
Right.
When can we expect to normalize to our earlier levels of 25% for core business?
We expect that to happen anytime between the Q4 and the Q1 of the next year. By Q4 of the current year and by Q1 of the next year, because some of the escalation will also be passed through to us by January and February onwards. The benefit of all the increase, recent increase in cost gets offset by the TPP increases.
Okay, sir. That's it from my side. Thank you very much.
Yeah. Thanks, Anurag.
Thank you. Participants, if you wish to ask a question, kindly press star one. The next question is from the line of Richard D'Souza from SBI Mutual Fund. Kindly proceed.
Hi, good afternoon.
Good afternoon, Richard.
Yeah. Good afternoon, Jose Jacob. Just couple of questions. You mentioned in your remarks that, you know, you're bidding for four or five new projects. Are these projects large enough to make an impact on the balance sheet or how are they?
One of the projects is of a large size, but the CapEx will spread over a couple of years, similar to a processing contract. They would be of a long-term tenure similar to the projects that we currently execute both at Kanjurmarg and at Pimpri-Chinchwad. The balance three contracts that Jose Jacob was alluding to are of smaller tenure, and they don't have a significant balance sheet impact. We don't foresee our net debt to equity to go beyond 0.8x or 0.9x on a full drawn basis for the current and maybe for the mid of the next year.
Okay. Great. The second question was that, recently, there was some ruckus being raised about the Ghazipur dump in Delhi, where there were some methane emissions and all that. I think the MCD elections are getting over next month. Are we? Is that project open for bidding? Because I believe the current provider there for the WTE is not doing it properly. That project was closed for six months, I think so.
Yeah, Richard. The thing is, post-election, they will come up with a tender for bio-mining those landfills. They are preparing a budget. The amount required is pretty huge to vacate those wastes. But everything will happen post elections.
Okay. Okay, cool. There are a couple more dump yards in Delhi. I'm sorry for my voice, which is a bit hoarse.
That's okay.
For this couple more dump yards in Delhi. Are they also open for bids or how is the situation there?
Most of these landfills are unscientific landfills, so that is the reason it's burning and creating a lot of pollution. Only option is to bio-mine it or close the landfill. Bio-mining is the best option because they can vacate the waste.
Yeah.
For this, huge amount of money is required because the size of those landfills are pretty huge and it's and they have been dumping for many years.
Yeah. Yeah.
The fund is being allocated, everything is planned, but all the movements will start post elections.
Okay. I thought only in MCD there is election. The other two dump yards are in other regions of Delhi, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah. The other region is also the fund allocation, everything has to be done. They want to bio-mine it and all that. Basically, you know what we do, Richard, we see if the money is in place, otherwise we don't bid in those some places like that.
Yeah.
The one we have got in Greater Noida, there the fund is allocated, so we bid. We see if the allocation is there, then we go for it.
Okay. One last question from me. You had a bit of wage increase in the Q3 . Any particular reason for that?
We have seen some rationalization to be done, because we had our full year annual review of all the teams. Of total staff strength of around 8,000 employees, 90% of them are under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, so I don't have to worry about them. The balance around 8.5%-9% of my employees still need to be competitively compensated. There was an entire exercise that we conducted, which is an annual exercise. That was the reason we have seen an increase in the wage bill coming in. We are trying to split the entire increase in two phases. A half-yearly review that just got completed now. The initial impact that was done, the cost is getting reflected today.
Secondly, we have also seen an increase in head count because of the rollout of our project in Varanasi and in Jhansi, which is also reflected in the increase in the total wage bill.
Okay. Thanks a lot. Maybe I'll come back later. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Participants, if you wish to ask a question, kindly press star one. The next question is from the line of Anupam Gupta from IIFL. Kindly proceed.
Good afternoon, sir. Basically two questions. One is on the PCMC WTE project. The two months delay which you're talking about, does that have any negative repercussions in terms of your balance concession period or in terms of whatever you can in terms of penalty or anything else?
No, we don't have any financial impact because of that. The COD date starts after the plant is up and running. We don't have any time financial impact because of this two-month delay. The client has been informed about the same. We don't have any pecuniary benefit deficiency over there.
Okay. That's okay. The second question is on initially you mentioned some INR 41 crore revenue decline in a few projects. Can you just highlight what you were talking about there? I was not very clear about that reference.
In Q1, the total contract revenue was INR 70.9 crores, and in Q2, the contract revenue is around INR 30 crores. That is a difference of INR 41 crores that I was talking about because during monsoon the construction activity at the PCMC wastewater has been slowed down. That is the difference that you're seeing in my contract revenue, which shows into the sequential decline.
Just one last question. You mentioned the only contract which are left to be ramped up fully are the NDMC and the Jhansi and the recent sweeping contract. No other contract has to be ramped up any further, right? Everything else is in the numbers.
I was referring to NDMC and the one in Nashik, not Jhansi.
Jhansi is fully ramped up in terms of quarterly revenue.
Yeah. Jhansi is fully ramped up, NDMC and Nashik will be rolling out the benefits.
If one were to quantify that in terms of current revenue versus the potential revenue at full run rate, what should it be?
We normally don't comment on site-specific numbers. I think NDMC by itself is INR 100 crore annualized revenue. I mean, I would say that I would be looking at least five months of revenue or four months of revenue coming in the current financial year. Jhansi is not a very significant in that time. That is anyway going on and that won't have any dent. Nashik, as Shiju mentioned, is a 264-265 ton project.
240.
240. 240 tons project. That again will not move the needle significantly, but.
Okay.
Just adds to the total.
Okay. Understand. That's all from my side. Thank you.
Thank you, Anupam.
Thank you. To ask a question, kindly press star one. The next question is from the line of Hardik Jain from Whitestone Financial Advisors. Kindly proceed.
Yeah, good afternoon, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, if I heard you correctly, you said the NDMC has the potential to generate INR 100 crore annual revenues, right?
Yeah.
Okay. Sir, just one small thing. Actually it's difficult for me to understand if you can help me to understand it, sir. The contract revenue reported is around INR 44 crore, and I think the project expenses are also related to that, which is around INR 27 crore. Effectively there is a profit of like INR 15 crore, INR 16 crore, which is being reported now. Once this project of PCMC gets over, this INR 15 crore, INR 17 crore of profit which we are reporting today will not be reported and it will be compensated or we'll get tipping fees in return. Is my understanding correct?
Yes, partly correct. What happens is the contract revenue component reflects the CapEx that I'm doing, and there's a contract cost which is related to that, which you are right to quantify that. Once the revenue is out or once contract revenue or the contract cost is out, that gets replaced with two streams of revenue. One is my tipping fee and the other is the sale of power.
Sale of?
Power.
Yeah.
That gets added into my top line and the proportionate cost, operating cost will sit in my operating cost line.
What I assume is today what we are reporting around INR 15 crore-INR 17 crore of profit due to this project will hopefully be more than compensated by the profit of tipping fees and sale of power net of their expenses.
Yes, you are right on that.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir. That, that's it.
All right.
Thank you. Participants, if you wish to ask a question, kindly press star one. The next question is from the line of Dipesh from Aquarius Securities. Kindly proceed.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Good evening. Thank you. Thanks for taking my questions. Sir, if I see the adjusted margin adjusted for the contract revenue and the cost, right, it comes to around 23%. Now, given that the increase in the compost and the RDF sales that we have seen, the normal expectation was that the processing margins should improve materially, right? I just want to understand where is the disconnect, because I think mostly you have taken the price escalation also, right? When can we see the margins improve going forward?
Dipesh, we are seeing a significant amount of cost that is sitting today as part of the transportation cost, which we had to incur because of setting up the entire linkages systems and the segregation part of work. We have OPEX all of that in during the quarter, and maybe some of the cost will sit in the current quarter. The benefit of better realization and the margin flow through is likely to happen by Q4 and Q1 of the current Q4 of the current year and the Q1 of the next year. This being monsoon, you are not able to have a better margin play over here because the moisture levels are high, and it's always difficult to work in monsoon conditions when we do bio-mining.
Got it. Also, sir, the new ESOP plan that you have introduced, right? Can you give a sense on how much cost will be booked in the P&L and when it will start coming in?
It's a process. We would be planning to come out with a grant sometime in November/December of this year. The total cost that is likely to sit in our books will be to the tune of around INR 1.5 crore-INR 2 crores. We will be able to give an exact figure once the valuation of the ESOP and everything gets in because that gets expensed out through the system. Of the 3 lakh shares that is likely to come into the ESOP scheme, we have cut this into two components. The Series 1, which will be granted now, which is 1 lakh shares, and the Series 2 is kept for future. The cost is associated only with Series 1, and that's not going to be significant, is what we understand.
This will be in the range of around 2%-4% of my total wage bill, which is what we estimate today.
Understood. Sir, lastly, I refer to point four in the notes to accounts. Just want to know the update on this INR 57 crore receivables, which pertains to the escalation claim and the minimum wages. The expectation was that this particular project was expected to close this year, right? Are we just continuing that or how is this money going to come, if you can just throw some light on that?
Dipesh, the minimum wages escalation portion of our payment has been, they have started releasing those payments. Minimum wages, by January, they have said that they will start releasing a big chunk of that money. They have approached the state government because Mangalore Municipality is looking for additional funds. Anyway, the bosses have promised, but recently they have released quite a few money on escalation also.
Dipesh, just to add on what Jose mentioned, we have got a further extension, which will now continue till June 2023.
June 2023. Okay. Sir, the overall, we do not basically buy new vehicles and the repair and maintenance cost increases, right? Do you think any impact on the margins going forward because of this?
We would be hiring more machines and we will not be investing more CapEx.
Yeah.
There might be a slight margin variation, but that's taken care by the increase in volume, which was not seen in the last two years. Now we are seeing a slight bit of improvement in the volume strength. We may invest in hiring few vehicles and not buying any new vehicles for the extended period of time.
Got it. Sir, lastly, sir, on the PCMC contract, you mentioned the delay because of some semiconductor issues and all. The other companies are basically saying that the semiconductor issue is getting solved now, rather than being a major issue now. How sure are we that this two-month delay, the vendor is saying that the project will commence in that time and it will not get further delayed. Because I think the problem has been solved and till the last quarter we were, like, very confident that by March it should start. What happened in the last two months, I just want to understand.
What has happened is that three of the parts, they come from Japan, and that kind of got delayed because they were pushed down the supply line from the vendor side. We have again renegotiated with them to move it up the supply line. Something which was supposed to be delivered on site. That got pushed on by two weeks. Secondly, there was some logistic issue at the shipper's end. There was a shortage of containers that they need to move it out from the container depot. That is something of a global phenomenon in certain big shipping lines. That is something that has been touted as a reason for the delay.
We have been talking consistently because this is something which is of very critical nature, because everything else falls into place once the main component gets installed. The electrical wiring and other ancillary work all is linked up to these three equipments coming on board and getting shipped into the site.
Got it. The INR 67 crore CapEx that is pending in the PCMC that will be major with the machine installation, right? That will happen just in the last piece of the month, right?
Yes. That includes electrical wiring. The main machine parts. The central-
In Q3, Q4, the contract cost and the contract revenue will be much lower, and it will hit basically Q1 FY 2024.
It's likely to be 70% in Q3, Q4, and 25% in Q1 because bulk of the work and all boilers and everything will already be in place by the end of January, and the installation of the electrical wiring and everything will start going, progressing post that. This is likely to happen in Q4 and in Q1.
Understood, sir. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you.
Thanks, Dipesh.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bhavya Gandhi from Dalal & Broacha. Kindly proceed.
With respect to guidance, I just wanted, what is our forward-looking guidance for revenue and EBITDA? Do we stick to that 25% sort of revenue guidance?
We normally look at the longer path of growth lines and, as Jose had mentioned, a 25% CAGR growth and this ability to maintain our margins are something that forms a bedrock for our company. We will stick to the guidelines, yes.
Okay. With respect to timeline of incremental revenue for next two quarters, except NDMC, we don't have any further revenue uptick. Maybe in Q1 FY 2024, we'll have Pimpri-Chinchwad waste to energy reflecting in our books. Post that, do we have any, you know, sort of plans where we can increase our revenue potential? Because on tonnage front, you mentioned 7%-8% is something that we are looking at on CAGR basis. But industry itself is growing at 9-odd%. We expect our tonnage growth to be lesser than the industry levels?
What is happening now is few of the contracts are not on tonnage. When I'm saying 8.2% increase in tonnage, I am not including the benefit from contracts like Varanasi and Jhansi, which is on units of households that I collect. The 8.2% doesn't reflect the total collection and transportation business growth that we are talking about. Because I'm not able to quantify the tonnage that I'm picking up at both these sites. My volume growth is more than 8.2% in that sense.
Just to add the incremental revenue growth, over and above NDMC, and the PCMC waste to energy, we will be looking at revenue contribution coming from Nashik, from the end of this calendar year, for example, that is going to come in, and also from the power sweeping contract that we have got in Nagpur. Those are the two additional revenue points that is going to start coming up from Q4 of this year.
Okay. One more question with respect to our credit rating. Any reasons why we were at BBB- because back then also our cash flow situation was quite good only. Is it because that the interest rates fell, our credit rating, our interest borrowing cost also fell, or has it got something else only to do with that?
No, we have got a BBB- stable outlook from CARE for the last two years, and this was during the time of COVID. There was a lot of uncertainty given the fact that our revenue streams, everything is aligned with the commercial activity of the nation and the fact that the government finance has always been doubted during these periods. That is why a rating agency has been very cautious for any upgrade during these two periods for infrastructure companies per se. Now based on the numbers that we have shared with them, we will be going for a revisit. That is when the entire cash flow strength and the project wins will be translated into maybe a better rating watch or an upgrade or a notch up at that angle.
The last two years has been on a cautious view for infrastructure companies across.
Okay. Can we expect further upgrade in the rating and lowering our borrowing costs? Or
We have definitely been working on that, because if you look at my net debt to equity and my cash flow from operation and my interest coverage ratios are significantly comfortable today than what it was three years back. That is definitely going to help. Over a period of time, we have seen the cost of borrowing also come down significantly. Even if we don't get an upgrade, maturities, for example, I've seen the cost of borrowing come down sharply, both at my significant step-down subsidiaries, let it be Antony Lara or Antony Lara Renewables or even the collection transportation business wherein it's vehicle funded loans. That is reflective of the current creditworthiness internally.
The credit rating of BBB- is more from a working capital facility, which we enjoy with Bank of Baroda, and we don't have any term loans on that entity. The term loans that we have is at the waste processing sites where we have a better rating from CRISIL, and that is reflected in better borrowing costs.
Okay. Okay, fair enough, sir. I'll get back in the queue. Thank you.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
I take this opportunity to thank everyone for joining the call. I hope we have been able to address all your queries. For any further information, kindly get in touch with me or Strategic Growth Advisors, our investor relations advisor. Thank you once again. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Antony Waste Handling Cell Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your-