Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Mrs. Bectors Food Specialities Limited Q2 and H1 FY24 an Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants' lines will be in a listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this call is being recorded. This call may contain some of the forward-looking statements which are completely based upon our beliefs, opinions, and expectations as of today. These statements are not a guarantee of our future performance and involve unforeseen risks and uncertainties. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Anoop Bector, Managing Director. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of Mrs. Bectors Food Specialities Limited, I extend a very warm welcome to all participants on Q2 FY 2024 financial results discussion call. Let me take this opportunity to wish everyone a very happy and a safe Diwali. Today on this call, I have with me Mr. Manu Talwar, our Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Ishan Bector, Whole Time Director. Mr. Suvir Bector, Whole Time Director. Mr. Parveen Kumar Goel, Whole Time Director. We also have Orient Capital with us on the call, who are our investor relations advisor. I hope everyone had an opportunity to go through our investor deck and press release that we have uploaded on exchanges and on the company's website. It gives me immense pleasure to announce that Q2 FY24 has been another strong quarter for us on the revenue as well as the margin front.
Our revenues increased by 19% and EBITDA by 70% on YOY basis. We have overcome multiple challenges across the domestic and international markets to give another stupendous quarter of growth and margin expansion. Our continuous focus on distribution expansion, investments in our brands, Cremica and English Oven, long-standing relationships with our large institutional players, and focus on growing the share with existing and new customers, along with focus on margin, have helped us to deliver sustainable results. Company's focus on onboarding experience and focused leadership teams, strengthening of our KPIs, addition of distributor sales representatives, and digitization initiatives of Salesforce automation and distributor management systems have helped us in increasing the distribution reach and better servicing to our outlets and channel partners. We continue to invest behind strategic marketing initiatives to build long-term sustainable growth.
We recently signed our first brand ambassador, Kareena Kapoor Khan, and have plans to build reach and awareness through TV media alongside print and digital marketing initiatives. In the current year, we have commissioned two new lines of biscuits with a capacity of 2,000 tons per month. This will help us in meeting our demand and efficient serviceability. Now I will discuss the financial performance, starting with biscuits. Our biscuit segment reported a revenue growth of 25%, which stood at INR 259 crores in Q2 FY 2024 as compared to INR 206 crores in Q2 FY 2023. This segment has grown by 76% over Q2 FY 2022. Our domestic biscuit segment and exports witnessed higher double-digit growth in Q2 FY 2024 as compared to Q2 FY 2023.
Bakery: Our bakery segment revenue for Q2 FY 2024 stood at INR 140 crores against INR 125 crores in Q2 FY 2023, thus registering a growth of 12% YOY basis, including retail bakery and institutional segment. This segment has grown by 69% over Q2 FY 2022. The consolidated revenues for the current quarter stood at INR 415 crores versus INR 347 crores in Q2 FY 2023, thus registering a growth of 19.3% on year-on-year basis. EBITDA stood at INR 65 crores, resulting in a growth of 46% and 12% from the corresponding quarter on year-on-year basis and sequential basis, respectively. EBITDA margins for the quarter stood at 15.6%. That is a growth of 281 basis points year-on-year basis and 11 basis points on sequential basis. PAT stood at INR 37 crores and saw a growth of 70% year-on-year basis and 7% on quarter-on-quarter basis.
Our PAT margins for Q2 FY 2024 were 9%, registering a growth of 268 basis points on yearly basis. Moving to H1 FY 2024 financial performance, the consolidated revenues for H1 FY 2024 stood at INR 789 crores versus INR 648 crores in H1 FY 2023, thus registering a growth of 21.7%. EBITDA for H1 FY 2024 stood at INR 123 crores versus INR 76 crores in H1 FY 2023, with margins of 15.5% as compared to 11.7%, resulting in a growth of 387 basis points year-on-year basis. PAT for H1 FY 2024 more than doubled from INR 35 crores in H1 FY 2023, now stands at INR 72 crores with improvement in PAT margins to the tune of 380 basis points year-on-year basis. Our focus remains on distribution and premiumization, supported by marketing, to penetrate and capture newer markets.
This will assist our company to increase its footprint not only in North India but also penetrate in western and southern parts of the country where the product is equally liked by the consumer. With this, I would request to open the floor for question and answer. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much. We'll now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star then one on their touch phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star then two. Participants are requested to use headsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from Shashwat Jalan with Purnartha Investment Advisors. Please go ahead.
Hi. Congratulations, sir, on a great set of numbers. I just had a couple of questions. Firstly, have you taken any price hikes in the biscuit or the bakery segment in the last quarter?
Yeah. Manu, it's your turn. Yeah, please. Sorry. Yeah.
No, so we haven't taken any price increase in this particular quarter of the H1.
Sure. And sir, can you also please share with us any B2B, B2C revenue split if possible?
Can you be a bit louder? Your voice is not very clear.
Yes. Sorry. So I was just asking if you can share with us the B2B and B2C revenue split, if possible.
We normally, on the call, don't share B2B and B2C revenue. We share as we have shared, basically, for the overall biscuit segment and bakery segment revenues.
Yes. And lastly, in the annual report for 2023, there was a small job work charge . So are we also outsourcing manufacturing?
You see, outsourced manufacturing as a percentage to revenue will because we are focusing primarily on our own brand business, both B2B and B2C, and not expanding on the contract manufacturing side, which is primarily only we are doing for Mondelez. Right? So as a percentage to revenue, as we grow faster for our own brand, so that as a percentage to revenue, you would see a minor decline. But on a value term, this is constant or growing at a small percentage.
Okay. So I thought the job work charge is for our own biscuits, but thanks for the clarification.
Job growth charges for our own biscuits?
Oh, I assumed that could be the case, but thanks for the clarification.
Yeah. This is on the revenue side.
Okay. And lastly, sir, since you had announced the capex on the R&D side, so that's quite exciting to hear that in the annual meeting. So can you share any focus areas we are heading or any comments on them?
So our overall Capex, we are primarily as we have given the details earlier also. So on the overall Capex, one is that we invested in our own plant in Rajpura. We invested in two lines which were commissioned in the quarter two of this financial year. And then the other big investments on the biscuit side we are doing is in Indore, MP, where we are investing in the plant, and that plant would get commissioned in the next financial year. On a bakery side, we have invested in a plant in NCR, which is in Bhiwadi, and that plant would get commissioned in this particular quarter, which is quarter three of current financial year. And then we have building up another state-of-the-art plant in Khopoli, Maharashtra. This is, again, a bakery plant, and that would get commissioned in the next financial year.
These are some of the large investments which we are doing on the biscuit and bakery side on the Capex to expand our capacity to service our need demands.
Right. Right. Thanks for taking our question.
The next question comes from Amit Purohit with Elara Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity, and congratulations, sir, for excellent numbers. Sir, on the biscuit growth, which has been very strong at 25%+, what would you attribute this growth to? Is it both existing as well as new markets? I'm sure both would be doing well. But within existing market, is it distribution-led growth, or is it more through width-line selling also now started to come in there in the segments that all the retail outlets you have already entered, we were able to sell a full offering or complete portfolio?
So Amit, this growth is primarily led by distribution and supported by marketing. When we exited last quarter of the last financial year, which was March of 2023, we were around 216,000 direct reach outlets. Right? And now in these two quarters, we have already touched 270,000 direct reach outlets. And our ACV and number of our overall reach has crossed 6,000,000 outlets. So A, we have increased our reach in the distribution. B, we had already implemented SFA, which was sales force automation, last financial year. And this year, we are implementing DMS with partnering with Botree. So we have already reached 400 distributors on the DMS implementation, and we are in the final leg of implementation for balance distributor and the final modules on that side. So to make this happen again, we have increased our distributor reach. So we have added more number of distributors.
And also, very importantly, right, other than distribution, we have worked on premiumization. So there is over 15% improvement on the premiumization over the last financial year. So distribution led by premiumization and the marketing-led support. So we continue to drive marketing alongside sales on both on-shop, in-shop, outdoor, print, and digital media. And while in the coming quarter, this quarter, we will, as you're very well aware, that we have signed the first brand ambassador, Kareena Kapoor Khan. And we will be now moving our journey to move towards a television as a channel for the media also. So these are the efforts which are being made to drive the growth on the biscuit side. And the biscuit side growth which you see there is both for domestic business as well as exports.
So also on the exports, which is doing well for us, we are doing and adding a substantial amount of business with our existing customers and as well as adding new customers. So this is a brief response to your question on what is the fueling growth on the biscuit side.
Sure. And sir, just on this biscuit itself, any price reductions that you have taken or much of because most of this pricing would be annualizing, right? So of the 25% growth, is it safe to assume that 20% would be volume-led, or how do you think?
Yeah. So you're very right. Majority of the growth is volume-led in this. Right? So almost over 75% of the growth in this is led by volume.
Have we taken any price reduction? Because, I mean, we keep hearing the leader also talking about increased competition.
No, so as we, it's very important in biscuit domestic market to keep seeing how the competition, especially the leaders, are taking it forward. So we ran some consumer promotions. Right? We ran a promotion on the premium biscuit side. Right? And that's what we did for the consumers. So kind of a, you can say, as a consumer offer, we did give the kind of price offer in more, in form of a consumer offer.
Okay. And when was that implemented in the last one month?
We did that in quarter two.
Okay. Okay. So, Q2 had this impact.
Yeah. So quarter two, we ran our consumer promotions.
Okay. Second point on the ad spends and margins. Basically, you highlighted what would be the broader ad spend in first half as a percentage to sales. Would you be able to share?
If I would say percentage to B2C sales, which is both on English Oven and Cremica brand side, so our overall spend, right, both BTL, ATL continues to be around 8%-10%. But yes, definitely on ATL side, we have moved up, and we are approximately 3.5% now on ATL as we briefed earlier also that we'll continue to keep investing more in our brands.
Okay. And sir, any outlook on the margin side? This quarter has also been a strong performance. And in the context that, how is the raw material basket for us, and how do we see any change in the guidance you were talking about earlier, 14%-15%? And then what is the outlook for margins? Should we be building?
So before I hand it over to Anoop for the commodity side, but on the margin side, as we have been maintaining that we kind of achieved 14% over the last two quarters of the last financial year. Our whole endeavor was to maintain the margins in the range of 14%-15%. And that's kind of what we have delivered is 15.5% in the first two quarters. But yes, our endeavor is to keep around 15% consistently over the next coming few quarters. So anything between 14.5%-15% is what we want to consistently deliver in terms of margin over the coming few quarters. And on the commodity side, Anoop, would you like to brief on the commodity side?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So on the commodity side, we definitely there are certain challenges. We have some benefits, like the oil prices are low, but we do have some challenges on the wheat side where the prices are a bit on the higher side. But definitely, as Manu has said, our aim is to maintain our target, which we've always been committing to be around 14.5% to between 14.5%- 15%. And our company is on the buildup stage. So we are going to be building up, investing in distribution, keep investing on the brand. But we will retain our targets, what we have been committing to our investors on a 14.5%- 15% sort of markets.
In case I mean, biscuit is an industry where definitely if there is a price increase which is going to impact us, then there are price corrections happening and things like that. So at the moment, in the last two quarters, we have not seen anything like that because we have seen overall things under control. But going forward, I do not foresee any much in the short term, you could have some challenges, but over the long term, we do not feel there are any challenges to maintain our targets of margins, what we always stood to.
Thank you very much, gentlemen. We kindly ask for each participating analyst to ask two questions each. So all participants will be accommodated during the question queue. If you wish to ask another question, please go back to the question queue. Thank you. The next question comes from Arihant with Arihant Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, sir. Am I audible?
Yeah.
Yes, sir. Thanks for taking my question. So my first question is that our employee cost has increased in the last two quarters. So what would be the reason for the increase?
So our employee cost first had a reclassification of some expenses which were coming in other expenses. They moved to employee expenses. So if you will notice, particularly, our other expenses are down, and you see an increase in employee expenses. So that is one reason for that. Secondly, as we have been indicating that we were doing a leadership hiring, right, over the last three quarters, so that's kind of reflecting in some part of that increase. Now we are through with the leadership hiring, and we should be able to kind of consistently maintain. But in a growth company like ours, and I'm sure you will appreciate it was important to get the organization ready for the future growth. And thus, we needed to strengthen the organization at different levels, and that's what we did.
Okay. And sir, my next question would be, sir, the bakery growth has slowed a little bit. So is it because of capacity constraint? I mean, do you see it as a temporary blip, or it is something structural?
Ishan, would you like to answer?
Yeah. So on the bakery side, we have our Bhiwadi plant, which is actually coming up in this quarter in Q3, pending which we had held back some new territory expansion, which we will start progressing with again. So that will definitely add to our growth outside of our core market of Delhi NCR. I think secondly, what we also did witness in the past quarter is we were also coming up off a very high base. So I think that is the effect of that. But going forward, we are focusing on distribution expansion. We are continuing to open up outlets per our targets. And we are confident that over the long term, we will be achieving a mid- to high-teen growth rate.
Okay. Sir, and what do you expect the runaway growth for the next three to five years to be because of the distribution and capacity expansion in biscuits and bakery?
So as we have already maintained, we want to consistently achieve mid-teens kind of growth over the next few years. That's our endeavor.
Okay. Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you. The next question comes from Kaustubh Pawaskar with Sharekhan by BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for giving me the opportunity, and congrats for a good set of numbers. So my question is on biscuit segment. As you mentioned that 75% of the growth is because of the volume. So if we consider 5%-6% kind of the realization growth, how much is because of the premiumization?
It is primarily because of premiumization. Premiumization, as we said earlier, has over the last year improved by over 15%. So this is primarily what you see in the price side. This is led by the premiumization.
Okay. Okay. Sir, can you help me understand how expansion is happening in some of your newer states where you have recently entered last year or maybe a year before that in terms of biscuit business? Because that was also one of your key drivers because you wanted to enter into newer markets to gain share, and that is how you were planning to grow in the coming years. If you could highlight on that.
So we did started our journey out by looking into B2B transport. Right? And this year, we've gone further, moved from our presence in three cities to now close to 15 cities. So we did add a few more cities in Maharashtra. We did launch a city in Gujarat, Goa, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka. So yes, we're pressing now the south and west. It's an initial start of the city because we just have therefore left over now and continue to expand south and west. And the reason we are putting up a plant in Indore, which is the central part of India, so just to serve south and west markets of biscuits.
Right, sir. Right, right, right, sir. So the plant in MP would largely help you to expand further into the southern and western markets.
Yeah. Southern, western, and central part of India.
Okay. Okay. And this strategy will continue. You will continue to add more and more cities as you grow ahead.
Yes.
Okay. Okay. Sir, any target in terms of market share you are looking for, maybe not immediately next year, but over these three years, any particular target we have in mind that we should achieve this much market share?
With the kind of investment we are doing on the distribution side, already for that we will be profitable. We want to go to 3,010 to 3,020,000, which is addition of almost 150% of our territory with aggressive growth and further supported by implementation of DMS, which is distributor management system, dedicated to distributor both in the secondary stocks and other things. Our aspiration is to keep growing our market share. Over the last one year, we have grown our market share from 4.1%-4.4%. Always a very competitive market. But yes, the whole aspiration is that we keep moving up the market share ladder.
Right. Thank you. Thanks for understanding and all the best with you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Harit Kapoor with Investec. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening, team. Just one question on the premiumization bit. So even if you were to sub-segment in biscuits, what are the segments where the growth that you're getting is so much faster, which is driving this significant premiumization? Some examples in terms of strategies and brands that you've been able to grow at a much faster pace.
So basically, as I said that in a premiumization, we have moved up more than 15% over last year. Our key focus remains on premium cream and cookies, which are anyway a faster-growing segment. They are definitely showing a much higher growth to us in our sales mix also.
Everything on this on the distribution expansion. So you spoke about south and west and how MP will help you, the MP plant will help you. But if you look at outside the core markets in the north, Rajasthan, UP, some of those markets where you've expanded over the last, say, one year, could you just give us kind of report card sense of how some of those states have done for you, your level of your comfort and how you've grown there? Something around that would be helpful.
So large part, you see, we were always strong on the upper north, which is Punjab, HP, Haryana. We have high market shares in Punjab and HP, JK. So our entire focus or large part of focus has been to build the lower part of north, which is probably a belt of Delhi, UP, Rajasthan, and then the central states like Bihar and MP, right? So yes. So the large part of distribution expansion in terms of outlet, which you see, right, which has also moved up from 216,000 to 270,000 in the last six months, is happening in the lower part of the north belt, which is UP, Rajasthan, and Delhi, right? And that's how we are expanding. That's where we are also expanding in the number of districts.
So if you look at the districts where we were kind of present, so we have moved up from last year, last financial quarter, we were at 269 districts. And now in the six months' time, we have moved up to 331 districts, which is obviously addition of almost close to 18%-19% of addition in district presence also. So just the prime part of expansion, which is happening here because our upper part of north is very well covered, right, is happening in the lower part of north, which is UP, Rajasthan, and Delhi belt.
Your level of comfort with the kind of early throughputs you've seen in the last 6-9 months in some of those stores, any sense on that?
So no, no, we don't have any concern. We've been moving well. We have also expanded our feet on street, which was at 900 by the end of the last financial year. Now we are sitting at close to 1,200. That's a number we wanted to achieve for this financial year. So distribution plays a very key role in terms of driving not only the geographical presence as well as the growth, duly supported by strengthening our brand through different sources of marketing. So we are on that journey, and we will continue on that journey for next many years to come.
Got it. And you mentioned something about DMS. I was wondering about 18 months back, maybe 24 months back, you had made some changes there, third-party platform, etc. Since then, has there been any kind of incremental change which has happened on the DMS side?
DMS, actually, we started the implementation of DMS in the starting of this financial year. So far, we have reached 400 distributors. There are two key modules which are being implemented as we talk. The implementation started in November. We see the whole DMS stabilizing over the next two quarters. And we should see substantial benefits of DMS coming in the next financial year.
Got it. The last question is for Ishan. Any callout on the QSR part of the business? It seems like those numbers, at least from the QSR companies, are a bit slower in terms of growth. So I mean, what are you seeing there in your conversations with today's buyers? And any kind of growth impact that you could see in the near term, at least there?
See, no doubt that sales have been slower than expected on the QSR front. Given our exposure to some of the larger customers whose results you are also referring to, growth seems to be muted. I feel this is a very short-term phenomenon. We have been speaking with our partners who are very bullish on store growth, adding a new number of stores. We see this entire QSR ecosystem to be very robust in the long term. Going forward, also, with some new products for us, opportunities of expanding business are immense. I would say that whatever we see is more on the short term, we can also see that we are expanding our capacities in terms of the Capex that we are doing on the bakery side, some of which is also for the QSR, right? We are not concerned on the growth.
Fantastic. Which the team is very happy to welcome. Thank you.
The next question comes from Varun Marothi with Floodlight Research. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello. Am I Arun?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Hi, yeah. Thanks for your time, sir, and congratulations for the great set of numbers. Sir, my question is with regard to the arrangement we have with Walmart. So if you can throw some light on that, that would be quite helpful, what kind of current supplies we have and the size of opportunities we are looking for.
I would request Suvir to take that question. He has export business. Sorry, I think I couldn't hear the question. Suvir needs answer.
Yeah. I can take it. Suvir, it was a question about Walmart. What is the potential of Walmart on business?
Okay. So hi. So I think Walmart has a lot of potential. This is only our first year working with Walmart. Walmart currently is the largest retailer in the U.S., having a market share of upwards of 30%-35% with a store count of close to 4,800-5,000 stores. And I think we are meeting a lot of Walmart near leadership just to establish a stronger relation with them and possibly get into a stronger path with Walmart for many more years to come. So I would say this is the start with how big Walmart is and the size of Walmart. I think there is a lot of potential to grow and a lot of headroom for that. That answers.
Okay, sir. And on the CapEx side, sir, is all the timeline which we have decided earlier also so CapEx plan is running as per that timeline or any modification on that?
So it's running as per the plan. As we said that we had a plan for Rajpura lines getting commissioned in this year. Both the lines of Rajpura, which we started last year, have been commissioned in this quarter. We invested in MTR bakery capacity, and we had a plan of commissioning in this quarter, and that will be commissioned in this quarter. And then there were two other large investments other than the many small investments, which were Khopoli for bakery and Indore for biscuit. Both are scheduled to be commissioned in the next financial year. And they are going as per the plan, and they will be commissioned in the next financial year.
Sir, my last question on the recent development on the marketing side for the engagement with Kareena Kapoor. Because of that particular arrangement, what impact we can see on our marketing expenses?
So as I said earlier also, we had an intent to keep investing more on the ATL side. And in this quarter also, we have invested higher on ATL. We are on the B2C side of revenue. We are around 3.5% now. And that trend would kind of continue because the objective is to step by step keep increasing our investment on the brand marketing also.
Thank you. The next question comes from Ashish Upganlawar with InvesQ Investment Advisors. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, so is it possible to bifurcate the growth of H1, which I think is around 20%+ on the revenue, between the new distribution initiatives versus the growth of current earlier business stores, currently created?
This question specifically relates more to domestic biscuits. About 70% of the growth is coming from existing outlets, which existed as of 31st March of 2023. The balance 30% growth is coming from new outlets. That's how that should kind of answer your question that from the source of growth, how much growth is coming from existing outlets which existed as on March end of last financial year, and how much is coming from new ones.
Okay. Okay. So is it possible to build it further in the opening remarks that you said that around 14%-15% annualized growth that we are targeting for the next few years? So is it possible to lay a strategic path to the journey that you are talking about into the more contributions from the expansion into lower north that you said and then west, south, etc., you mentioned, plus export opportunities and regionalization? I mean, it is a bit difficult for us to comprehend how this growth boils down to 15%. Or it can be more than that because of all these initiatives.
That's right. Also that our almost 75% growth was led through volumes and the balance through premiumization. And volume-led growth is entirely led by the distribution, again, where I gave you bifurcation that out of this distribution-led growth, 70% of growth came from existing outlets and balance came from the new outlets. So this journey of expanding distribution, as you see, we clearly stated our intent in April of 2022 that where we were present in 160,000 direct outlets, and we said over the next two years, by March 2024, we want to double that. By March of 2023, we reached 216,000, and we will be reaching around 320,000 outlets by March of 2024. And that's why we start the plan now, next two to three years in terms of distribution.
So we will be happy to share the last quarter of the financial year that what is the plan looking like in terms of distribution expansion for the next two years. So in terms of source of growth, the biggest driver will always remain distribution and duly supported by brand marketing. So these two are the large levers which will help. The DMS which we are implementing because last year, we implemented SFA, and we clearly saw the results coming out of the SFA in terms of monitoring the large sales force or front line of almost 200 people now. So DMS will further integrate distributors with us, whereby we will be able to monitor, drive their secondary sales, improve their stock availability, and streamline other things also, which will further strengthen our distribution and execution effort.
We will see the majority of those results coming in the next financial year. This is how I see both distribution technology, marketing, supporting the sources of growth on the biscuit side.
Okay. Sir, my limited point was that should it be assumed that the current strong geographies for us can organically grow at maybe 7%-8% on volumes and then, since you mentioned 15%, should. So the assumption is that incremental growth of 7%-8% that gets added, that comes from the newer initiatives on distribution. Or can it be higher because, I mean, the territories that you have still not covered are pretty large, and the placement efforts there and acceptability, if it happens, growth could be in the range of maybe 20% and not 15%? Is it possible that way, or we are handling too far?
So, currently, our forecast, which we have stated again and again, with all the efforts on the distribution, technology, marketing side, we are seeing we would like to consistently achieve a mid-teens kind of growth over the next quarter.
Sure. Margins too, stick with that 14%-15% band.
Yeah, 14%-15% band. Very right.
Okay. Sure. Thank you, sir.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star then one. The next question comes from Rajit, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir. Congratulations on a great set of numbers. I just have a couple of questions. One is a lot of companies that have declared the results over the last 15, 20 days have highlighted challenges in the rural segment. Do you see similar challenges for our company as well? Is it possible for you to share the split between rural and urban sales?
Okay. So our primary, we are largely present in urban as of now with a reach of now 270,000 outlets, which is mainly urban other than Punjab and HP, where we are widely distributed, both in urban and kind of rural. So on overall basis, our rural share, I don't have exact numbers, won't be very high at this point of time. But as we progress and expand distribution, so we are entering into semi-urban and rural segment also over the next few quarters.
Very good. Thank you. The second question is on the media campaign that you highlighted and that we will soon be stepping into TV as one of the medias. So, I mean, I'm assuming this campaign would be a national-level campaign. Am I right?
So this campaign will be largely focused, yes, it will be in the states. But yes, as you know, our weightage as of now is high on the north side, right, for the biscuits. So obviously, we need to keep our weightage corresponding to our revenue in the region and the state.
Right. So, some of your I think the voice broke, or I lost what you were saying. So, am I to understand that it will still be focused on certain regions and not a national campaign?
No. Obviously, it will be focused based on the size of the revenue and potential in different states, right? So the set of whether channels or what program, how much frequency is completely dependent upon the potential and the current size of that particular state.
All right, sir. Great. Got it. Understood. Thank you. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Nishi Jain with FNG Investments. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. So in our last call, if I can recollect properly, you said that our target is around INR 2,400 crore of revenue once our expansions are done in this year as well as the next year. So we still maintain that, right?
No. So last time, the question was, after you do all this capacity expansion, what is the maximum revenue achievable by the company? And to which my answer was that once we invest in these expansions, which I just addressed earlier also, the maximum revenue which we will be achieving is INR 2,400 crore-INR 2,500 crore. It's not that next year, we will reach at INR 2,400 crore.
Okay. So basically, it is the full capacity utilization it can give INR 2,400 crores-INR 2,500 crores, right?
Absolutely.
Okay. Also one thing. As we go forward in next year, so we still feel that our EBITDA will be near about 15%-16%, or it can inch ahead more also?
So again, I will repeat. So we, as a company, are clearly an EP focused company. And that's what we have demonstrated, that while we focus on what, we also focus on margin, right? And if you go back a year back, we always said that we want to get to 13%-14% EBITDA margin. And by end of the year, the last two quarters, we were close to 14% EBITDA. And now we have been maintaining that we want to remain in the range of 14%-15% EBITDA because we are a growing company, and we also need to invest more in the growth, right? So yes, we, as of now, maintain over the next few quarters our index rates to consistently deliver in the range of 14%-15% EBITDA.
Okay. Thank you. And last point. So as we are a growing company, so I'm pretty much aware that our employee cost, if you see in percentage of sales, it will be higher to peers. But if you see our employee cost in FY 2023, it was around 11%-12% of sales. And just for reference, in the market leader, if you see their employee cost would be 4% or so. So I don't intend to say the difference is too much. What I mean to say is going forward in a couple of years, maybe. So will that be able to get the cost in percentage to 8%-9%? Do you feel that way?
Yes. Over the years. So as of now, because we are in the growth phase, right? So that's why we are investing ahead of the curve. So what happens is that, A, the companies you are referring to, it's almost 12, 13 of us, right? 5-13x over. So the scale which that 12x of us will get on the employee cost will be very different. Second is, so we are at a higher growth trajectory. So thus, we need to invest in people ahead of the curve to keep achieving that kind of growth, right, over a period of time. There will be always fast periods and slow periods of growth, but it's important that we invest in that capability in the yes, over a little longer period of time; should our employee cost come down? Definitely. It will, and it should both.
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Prakhar Sanadhya with Value Research. Please go ahead.
Hello? Yeah. Yeah. Am I audible? Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. My question is pertaining to the CapEx and the expansion plan. So just now, it was said that you said that you are investing ahead of the curve. And on the contrary, just now, what previous conversation was, I think, Ishan quoted that we are refraining from expanding to new geographies because of capacity constraint in bakery segment. So can you throw some more light on this because these two statements are quite?
No, no. So I think I'll just first clarify what Ishan said was that we added a capacity to NCR region, which will help us grow faster and getting into new territories outside the NCR region, whether it's the region of whether it's Haryana, whether it's the region of Rajasthan, or Punjab, right? So we had expanded well in the last financial year. It's the upcountry, but the potential there is much, much higher. So that's what he said. Now, we are also going to the Bhiwadi plant in this quarter. And that would further strengthen the expansion in the upcountry territory of northern India, right?
In our existing geographies, we are not facing any capacity constraint to meet the demand, or is that the case in either of the segments of biscuit or?
So no, no. In our existing territory, whether Bangalore, Bombay, or NCR, as of now, we are not kind of short of capacity in terms of our English Oven growth or others. But yes, we are investing there in Bombay to be ready for the future growth because any kind of investment in capacity has to be done ahead of the curve for next few years, almost five to six years' time. So that's the reason we are investing because Bombay is a very big market, and we are a premium bakery player there, and customers enjoy our bread. So we need to give them the best and be ready to service the growth and the demand over the next five years. And that's the reason we are investing in a state-of-the-art plant in Khopoli.
Okay. My one question is related to the CapEx. How do we look forward to funding the CapEx? Will it be through internal accruals, or will we need debt for any expansion if you are looking forward?
So we will be keeping a mix of our own funds and debt, which is bank loans. And the bank loans will be around 65% approximately on an approximate basis, and the balance will be our own funds. So that's the kind of ratio we will maintain to fund. As of now, we're very comfortable on our debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24%. And so that's how we will be taking it forward in terms of CapEx funding.
Okay. I guess my one last question, that is relating to this DMS which you will be implementing. So that is for, as you said, it's for better inventory management at the distributor front. So any challenges we are facing as per the production shortages , which are not available at dealer front, and they are not able to fulfill the demand in the market as of now, or is it as a future growth perspective, we are doing that?
So in terms of our distributors, they maintain around three weeks of stock to ensure the stocks are available. But to get further efficiency into large distributor bases, it is very important that we are connecting them to the purchasing, both on order processing, claims processing , stock availability, secondary schemes. And that's the reason we are implementing DMS. And we are implementing DMS with partner being largest DMS provider here. We're working with great companies, right? And that will also further help in the coming years to also integrate this with SFA and also further start adding the analytics to that because, as we see, this good amount of good strategy enables analytics to perform as well. So that's the roadmap we started. We are on DMS now. And while we get into seeing some benefit of DMS next financial year, we will further start adding analytics to that.
That's how the journey will build up.
Thank you very much, sir. In the interest of time, that was our last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Anoop Bector for his closing comments.
Thank you so much for participating in the conference. I hope we have been able to satisfy all the questions. In case still there are any questions, you are please free to connect to our investment relationship partners. We wish you a very, very happy Diwali. Thank you so much, Abhil.
Thank you very much, sir. In case of any further query, you may write to paarth.patel@linkintime.co.in. On behalf of Mrs. Bectors Food Specialities, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.
Thank you.