Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Akash, moderator for the conference call. Welcome to Elin Electronics Limited Q4 FY 2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participants will be in listen-only mode, and there'll 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, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand over the floor to Mr. Gulshan Singh from Sunidhi Securities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, sir. Good evening, and very warm welcome to everyone. On behalf of Sunidhi Securities, I welcome you all to Elin Electronics Limited Q4 and FY 2026 earning conference call. Today, we have with us our management, represented by Mr. Kamal Sethia, Managing Director, and Mr. Akash Sethia, Head of Strategy. We thank Elin Electronics Limited for giving us the opportunity to host the call. I would now like to hand over the floor to the management for their opening remarks, post which we will open the floor for Q&A. Thank you, and over to you, Akash, sir.
Thank you very much, Gulshan. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is Akash Sethia. We also have on call today our Managing Director, Mr. Kamal Sethia. Mr. Sanjeev Sethia could not attend the call due to some last-moment emergency, I apologize on his behalf. Thank you for joining our earnings call for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year ending March 2026. Coming to our overperformance for the quarter, operating revenue for the quarter was INR 324 crores against INR 315 crores in the same period last year, up 3% on a YoY basis. Consolidated EBITDA for the quarter was INR 6 crores against INR 20.2 crores in the same period last year. This sharp reduction is primarily attributed to a sharp surge in raw material costs across categories, driven by disruptions in supply chain due to the war in the Middle East and challenging geopolitical situation.
This has impacted gross margins for the quarter by 390 basis points. Consolidated loss for the quarter was INR 0.8 crore against a profit of INR 17.2 crore in the same period last year. Our liquidity position remains strong with a net cash balance of INR 70 crore as at March 2026. Our working capital position is at net 59 days. Of this, inventory days was higher than anticipated as we had to stock up on raw material inventory in March 2026 to safeguard against potential shortages due to the challenging geopolitical situation. Our CapEx in FY 2026 was at INR 32.5 crore across all our existing facilities, excluding Bhiwadi. We generated cash from operations of INR 40.6 crore in FY 2026 against INR 16.7 crore in FY 2025.
Before sharing our segment-wise results, I would like to set out the impact of the war and the challenging geopolitical situation that we have faced during the quarter. As you all know, the war has led to a sharp spike in crude oil prices, which has in turn led to a sharp spike in polymer prices, as well as a sharp depreciation in the USD-INR rate. This combined basket constitutes 30% of our input cost, leading to a sharp spike in our RMC cost. This spike has happened during the month of March 2026. Most of our customers are on monthly quarterly price settlement, this increase in RMC had to be completely absorbed by us. I would like to share with you the performance and strategy in each of our business verticals.
In lighting, fans, and the switch segment, the revenue for the quarter was INR 94 crores against INR 86.3 crores in the same quarter last year. This was primarily driven by a strong increase in revenue from the fan segment. The LED lighting segment, ex-flashlights, declined from INR 50 crores last quarter to INR 39.5 crores in the current quarter. Price decline is now completely behind us. Small price increases have been undertaken with customers. The revenue run rate on a quarter-on-quarter basis is on an improving trajectory. As on date, we are serving five new customers in lighting in addition to Signify. We reiterate that we expect double-digit growth in our lighting business in fiscal 2027. Moving on to our fans business. We have seen strong growth of 67% in our fans business on a YoY basis.
This has primarily been driven by our BLDC ceiling fans and TPW fans business. We are also working on diversifying our customer base and adding new customers. We expect this strong growth momentum to continue in Q1 as well. Our TPW business is also showing good demand. We are also happy to share that our export business of fans, which had stopped in August 2025 due to tariff-related issues, has restarted in May 2026, although with small numbers. We expect this to scale up gradually over the course of the year. Moving on to the home appliances segment, revenue increased from INR 87.1 crore last quarter to INR 94 crore this quarter. Kitchen and home care revenue was flat on a year-on-year basis. This would have been a bit higher, but we deferred some orders from March 2026 due to surging raw material costs.
Personal care segment was up 27% YoY on the back of better demand across hairdryers, sterilizers, and hairbrushes. Moving on to the fractional horsepower motor segment, revenues declined from INR 51 crores in the last quarter to INR 45.7 crores in the current quarter. Please note this segment reflects only third-party sales. We will be launching cooler motors and BLDC chimney motors this year for both third-party sales as well as captive consumption towards finished product. Overall, the quarter has been very tough from a margin perspective. The spike in RMC and depreciation of INR against the USD caused EBITDA margins to compress sharply. Even labor availability was somewhat of a challenge in the quarter gone by. Further, you would also have read that minimum wage has been revised upwards sharply in Uttar Pradesh, resulting in an effective increase of 26% in April versus March.
This was done on 14th of April 2026, with effect from 1st April 2026. All of this combined has resulted in an unprecedented situation where there is pressure on both material and labor, and therefore pricing has had to be increased between 10% and 18% just to sustain earlier margins. Given the substantial quantum of increase in material and the sudden unexpected increase in labor minimum wage mid-month, we expect that the price transmission to be fully passed on to customers only by June 2026. As on the current date, polymer prices have cooled off a bit from highs reached in March 2026, although the USD-INR rate continues to stay at elevated levels. Now, I would like to share our guidance for FY27. We expect a revenue growth of 15% on a year-on-year basis.
However, on EBITDA, we will be able to share the guidance perhaps only by next quarter as the current input cost situation is extremely volatile and difficult to predict. CapEx for the year will be between INR 70 crores and INR 75 crores, split as INR 45 crores for the Bhiwadi facility and the balance INR 25 crores-INR 30 crores for growth of the existing business and factories. Once the Bhiwadi facility is stabilized in two years from starting, this will also help us drive up our return on capital employed. Regarding construction of the Bhiwadi facility, it is largely complete
We are in the process of fitting out the facility with machines and assembly lines over the course of June 2026, after which there will be test runs and commercial production starting in the end of July 2026 or the beginning of August 2026. A quick update on the total project cost. The total project cost is estimated at INR 100 crore. Of this, phase one is at INR 67 crores, of which INR 26 crores has been spent and lying in capital work in progress. Balance spend of INR 41 crores towards completion of phase one is pending. Due to the slight delayed commissioning of the facility, we expect a revenue of INR 80 crores in FY27 against an earlier estimated revenue of INR 140 crores in FY27 from Bhiwadi.
However, the differential revenue will be done in Ghaziabad itself, so there will be no loss of revenue to the company as a whole. Reiterate that as per current estimates, revenue potential of the plant is INR 550 crores. Further, we expect a steady state EBITDA of 7% for the plant, which should be achieved in the third year of operations. At these levels, ROCE for the plant will be 20%.
With this, we conclude our opening remarks and can now open the floor for Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad and wait for your turn to ask the question. If you would like to withdraw your request, you may do so by pressing star and one again. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. The first question comes from the line of Mr. Kunal Mehta from Incred Equities. Please go ahead, sir.
Hi, very good afternoon, Akash and Kamal sir. I've been tracking the company since a while. We've seen the margins being in stress earlier. However, I think this year we saw some good recovery margins. Because of the raw material price increase, Q4 took a big hit. I think we have revised down our revenue guidance. I think margins also will be compressed for this year as well as the new facility ramp up. How are we gauging the macro environment? Is the demand quite neutral, how it was last year versus this year? Also is because of the El Niño current effect? How are we seeing the demand in terms of ACs and coolers, which coolers this year will launch, as well as demand for chimneys, which we're starting in the new facility. Is the demand subdued?
Is that the reason we are not ramping it up faster? Is there any upside to the current guidance if the situation improves?
Thank you, Kunal. Fair point, or fair points that you've raised. I'll just take it one by one. On your first point on whether the current scenario, we are seeing some sort of demand compression. Look, the reason we have revised, slightly revised downward the guidance for FY 2027 is that, like I mentioned, we have had to undertake fairly large price increases. I mentioned in my opening remarks that price increases have been to the tune of as low as 10% to as high as 18%. Now, when you have such large price increases, one is not quite sure of how it will affect demand itself. Since we are pretty much in the beginning of the year, it is very hard to forecast how this will impact revenue for us. We've just been a little bit conservative to start with.
Of course, like you said, if there is a quick resolution of the war basis which one will see crude oil prices come down, and then polymer prices especially will come down, Rupee hopefully should appreciate a little bit. All of those would have a positive impact on us, and there could be some sort of upside to our revenue guidance. Those matters, frankly, are not in our hands, so one will have to kind of wait and watch how it pans out. We're almost two months into the fiscal in 2027. We just wanted to be a little bit on the conservative side rather than giving a very aggressive guidance and then cutting it down midway. Does that answer your question?
Yes. Also one more thing on the BIS norms, which were to be implemented and adhere to by September 2026. Is the timeline still the same, or is there more relaxation by the government on that?
As of now, it is still September 2026. Whether this itself gets relaxed, we don't know yet. Probably closer to the date we might have an update, as of now, it's September 2026.
Will we be having any plant visit for the new Bhiwadi facility once it's commissioned?
Sorry, I didn't catch your question. Can you just repeat?
No. Will we be having a plant visit for the new Bhiwadi facility?
We are going to plan that, but that is like I said, we are expecting commercial production only to start by end of July or maybe early August. Only once commercial production starts will we be planning that. It is still maybe two or three months away. Once that is done, we will certainly be planning a visit for the financial analyst community at large.
I know you mentioned, [Nivita], tough to give guidance, but any range if you can give, if it will not be below a certain range or not be beyond a certain range?
Kunal, just allow me this quarter not to give you a range. We don't want to give you a range. It's very difficult right now. You've been tracking the company closely, so you will appreciate. These are unprecedented kind of situations. Just bear with us. Maybe by next quarter, we will certainly be in a position to give you some sort of update.
Sure. Thank you. I'll come back in with you.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir. The next question comes from the line of Mr. Rehan Laljee from Coheron Wealth. Please go ahead, sir.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I wanted to understand more on the RMC part. I think you primarily are affected by polypropylene prices, and that I think you purchase from Reliance. Is my understanding correct?
Your understanding that PP we buy from Reliance is correct, but it's not only PP. We buy PC, we buy ABS, we buy nylon, we buy PBT. It's a full range of plastics per se, not only PP.
What would be the largest component of your raw material?
You mean in our entire raw material basket or in our plastic?
No, in your overall basket, what would be the largest drag for this kind of numbers?
Look, we have four key raw materials. There is the whole range of plastics. There is steel, there is aluminum, and then there is copper. These are the four kind of key RMC kind of components that we do, of which this quarter we have been particularly affected by the whole polymer basket as well as to a large part, aluminum. Even aluminum saw a pretty sharp increase. Our imports are about, of the total consumption that we have, approximately 15% is imported. On that 15%, even the depreciation of the rupee against the USD hit us quite hard.
Akash , just to understand, would this ideally be a bottom kind of a margin? Because at an operating level, at this scale of INR 1,300 crores, INR 1,400 crores of top line, it's very hard to understand how can the margins be so fragile for a company that's so large and reputed. Would it be fair to gauge that this would be technically a trough, or you expect that even if the RM prices stay as is, you could report further EBITDAs percentage terms lower? How would it work going forward? Let's assume that the RM prices stay as is at the moment, even if you get a price hike, let's say 90 days from today, because I understand it cannot happen overnight, and that's only fair. What would be a base understanding at a company level?
The scale is pretty large, and the impact can be pretty hard if you're not taking the right amount of cost measures in a way.
Look, to your question, directionally, is this probably towards the lower end? We certainly hope so. We certainly think so. Is there a guarantee for the same? Unfortunately, this is business, there are no guarantees. That's point number one. Point number two is, if you've been following our company, we've been pretty consistent in terms of how revenue pass-throughs or pricing pass-throughs happen. With about maybe 2/3 of our customers, it's on a quarterly basis. The pricing of January, February, March, for example, is applicable on the April, May, June tri-quarter. There is a lag of a quarter, and on the balance one-third, it is done on a monthly basis. For example, for current month pricing, we would be relying on last month's average pricing. That's how it works.
In my opening remarks, I've been transparent that because we've seen such large price increases, those full pricing pass-throughs did not happen in the month of April itself. I mentioned that we expect the full pricing to happen only by June. Of that anywhere between 10%-18% that we've had to undertake price increases, a large bulk of it has happened in April and May, but some small bit still remains to be passed on in June. Only once that transmission is complete will we be able to get back to sustaining margins due to the March price increase. I hope that clarifies your question.
Yeah. Basically, you're saying that once these price increases happen at your customer level, you would move back to about a 23%, 24% gross margin. Is that fair understanding?
That's right.
That will be applicable for the June quarter, or will it take a Q2 also lag? Will we see the full effect in Q2 or Q1?
No, exactly. It will be applicable for the month of June. In the month of June, we would be at that 24% gross margin. For April and May, it would be lower because that complete price transmission did not happen. What should have logically probably happened immediately in the first week of April did not happen. Q1 also, margins will be under pressure, although it will not be under this kind of pressure, but it will still be under pressure overall.
Okay. Considering that you're scaling up your fans business and your lighting business, which are technically margin accretive, is it safe to say that if things normalize, and we hope it normalizes faster than ever, would we see much better margins at a company level, like about a 6 odd percent kind of EBITDA? Is it possible? Only those two segments, I'm asking those two segments specific.
L ighting is probably one of the. Nothing to do with the war per se, but even otherwise, lighting was under maximum pressure, even pre-war. I can say nothing to do with the war. What has happened due to irrational competition in the sector. What has happened is that there was massive price erosion. That price erosion is completely behind us now. In fact, in the month of February itself, we started to undertake small price hikes, and those price hikes will only get slightly larger as time goes by. I do expect that maybe currently, if you look at our lighting business, just in terms of gross margin, we would be on a blended basis as of date, maybe around 15 odd percent. We expect that to move to 18%, 19%, maybe over the course of the next two and a half months, maybe three months.
Okay. That would automatically also inch up your gross more than 24% in Q2 onwards.
I wouldn't say for now for you to subscribe to more than a 24% value addition of gross margin. I think that is what you should assume because, at some level, just increasing pricing does have some effect on customer demand as well. One has to finally balance how much a price hike to take while keeping customer demand fairly robust and active.
Since you guys have been fairly prudent with your working capital, how do you procure your inventory? Is it order-based? I'm sure your customers give you a yearly or a quarterly or semi-annually outlook of what they want to procure from you. Considering all that, how do you purchase your inventory?
See, customer orders, typically, customers share with us what they call an annual operating plan to help us prepare our resources for the full fiscal ahead. That's non-binding. What is confirmed is a monthly kind of PO with a quarterly forecast. There is a three-month rolling forecast with monthly confirmed POs, basis which we do our procurement. We kind of make a procurement strategy basis that.
It's a 90-day odd procurement strategy?
90-day with confirmed procurement only 30 days. Even we have to give our suppliers some sort of outlook and visibility. We share the basis, the customer orders that we get. We share with our suppliers also our procurement strategy on a rolling basis, but with confirmed orders only for 30 days.
Okay, the current facilities that we have across Ghaziabad, Goa, et c., what would be the capacity utilization in percentage term?
From our existing three facilities, we could be somewhere in the 1,600 kind of range. We are currently at 1,280, roughly 1,300, somewhere around the 77%, 78%, 79% kind of.
Okay. For the new facility which is coming up at Bhiwadi, do we need to do more hiring or is the hiring done, like labor and everything is organized? Is it already in that fixed slot?
Sure. Just in terms of hiring at a white-collar level versus a blue-collar level, I'll just specify both. First, in terms of employees, we've already put in place a basic team, which is like a GM level person, and for plant maintenance and so on and so forth. Procurement will be centralized within the Ghaziabad facility itself. We don't really expect to deploy more people on the purchase and purchase planning side. In terms of labor, this will be largely via contract. We've firmed up the contractors that we will work with. Obviously, there is no per se labor availability right now. We've not finalized the labor availability. We've given the contractors a heads up, and by August, once we start commercial production, we expect that there should not be too much of a problem.
We are, in any case, well located within a fairly large electronics cluster. There are multiple other factories that work in the same sphere or same line of work. Should be okay.
The tentative breakeven for that plant, because I understand it won't be EBITDA positive from day one, but at an INR 80 crore top line which you've guided for in FY 2027, would that be breakeven at the plant level alone?
EBITDA will definitely be positive. PBT would be touch and go. I think the breakeven is closer to 120, if I'm not wrong. That also depends a little bit on the sales mix, right? Certain products have a slightly better gross margin while certain have a slightly lower gross margin. We can just circle back maybe offline for a more deeper understanding on that. Broadly we are happy.
Understood. Thank you so much. Thank you for answering my question. Good luck.
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you so much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. I repeat, if you have any questions, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from the line of Mr. [Zakin Aziz], an Indian Investor. Please go ahead, sir.
Hello.
Yes, sir.
Sir, good afternoon, I think it's a decent set of numbers in a tough time. Sir, you have given a guidance for a 15% growth in top line for the current year. How would this be divided, sir? Broadly what we do is 1/3 from lighting, 1/3 from motors, and 1/3 from other appliances. Would it broadly fall in that kind of a model, sir?
The numbers that you have given kind of used to be the norm a little bit earlier but now the mix has somewhat changed. Firstly, the numbers that you're sharing are obviously within the EMS basket or the finished goods basket. We have a components business that is approximately 20% of our total top line. Of the total top line, 80% is finished goods through EMS, and the balance 20% is the components business. Of the 80% broadly, there is lighting and fans, there is appliances, and then there are motors. Lighting and fans and appliances would be the overwhelming majority. As on the end of this fiscal, motors is down to approximately 17%, 18% of the total revenue, that is. We expect that to kind of continue. Lighting and fans and appliances would be the major revenue drivers going forward.
Sir, of course, we are going through a tough period in terms of input prices and stuff like that. During the next two, three years, what would be your aspirational EBITDA margins? I think we've done a high of 6%- 6.5%. Would you feel that is a decent EBITDA margin to expect in the longer term, sir?
Sir, aspirational would be higher than that. 6%-6.5% is definitely achievable. Aspirational would be closer to 8%, but when I say 8%, I also say that in the context of your question being aspirational. It is not easy to do 8% at all. What is realistic is probably 6%-6.5% in normal times. If you do a phenomenal job, then you could get to the 7.5%-8% mark.
Sir, how do we compete with China on the finished product? Do you think these kind of products can even be made at lower than these kind of margins by anyone at all, sir?
Sir, how do we compete with China? There are two, three points. One, of course, the government has been supportive of manufacturing by putting in BIS norms, QC orders, so on and so forth. That is point one. Point two, our labor rates are a lot more competitive than China, although their productivity in all fairness is much more superior to India. I think those are the two important points when it comes to China versus India. Also, now what is happening is the way the rupee is depreciating against the dollar and therefore the yuan, it is not going to be easy to import because imports continuously keep getting more expensive day by day. Right? I think those are my thoughts when you talk about the whole China angle. Sorry, you had one more question, which I just missed.
Can these goods, what you do, even be sold at lesser than the current going EBITDA margins you are doing or even 6.5%? I don't think going forward anyone can even supply and stay in the market lesser than this, sir, at 6.5% at least.
Sir, you asking a question is very difficult to answer because I cannot really say what other people will do or will not do. Competition. Rational competition is good for everyone. Irrational competition is terrible for everyone. We've seen a phase of irrational competition in the lighting space. Can people supply at lower prices? People have done it, I won't say no. Logically, what you are saying is correct, but unfortunately sometimes reality doesn't always work according to logic.
Thank you, sir. Best wishes for the year.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, sir. The next question comes from the line of Mr. Sahil Doshi from Thinqwise. Please go ahead, sir.
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity. Just firstly, Akash, just wanted a clarification on the employee cost. I understand the other raw materials and the environment makes it difficult to predict, but at least on the employee cost, if you can guide, given the wage hike, what's the normalized level and what kind of expense increase should we think for this year?
For this year, if you've seen the full year, I think we've clocked in an improvement on a full year basis of almost 100 basis points. If you look at FY 2025 versus FY 2026, 2025, we were closer to 14% or slightly higher. This year we've come in at, I think, closer to 13%. Right? That is point one. Directionally speaking, we want to get to sub 12%, closer to 11.5%. That is the number that we are working with. Of course, that is driven by some sort of automation that helps you reduce reliance on labor and makes you kind of protected from these minimum wage increases. Two is, of course, the base itself expanding. When your turnover in totality goes up, that helps you rationalize, especially your costs on the indirect side, because you only incur direct labor.
Third is we are kind of working a little bit hard to review our indirect cost structure and see where optimization can be done. To your point precisely, our direct labor costs are of the total employee cost of 13 odd percent, direct labor cost is approximately between 8.5% and 9%, with the balancing indirect. On that 8.5%, 9%, which is pretty much the norm across all the three facilities. The minimum wage just for UP has gone up by almost 25% or 26%. Right. We are working with customers to get that pricing increase, which we expect should be done by June. Once that is done, not only 13%, but we should be able to get to that 25.5% this year. Of course, like I mentioned, Q1 will be under pressure.
Don't look at this on an immediate quarter basis, but more from an annual kind of basis.
Sure. This helps. Just secondly, in terms of the motor business, though you called out there was some impact because of the gas prices, but this entire year, quarter-on-quarter, we've seen the growth has been fairly muted. If you think of Elin, the core strength is motors. What's really transpiring here strategically? What do we think about this? Given where the Chinese yuan is depreciating, the INR has depreciated around 16% odd percent versus Chinese. Doesn't it make more sense or make us more competitive, actually?
Look, Sahil, what you're saying is completely logical. Somehow China continues to keep surprising us with their pricing. We are not really able to logically work out how it is that they go on kind of offering lower rates to grab business. Chinese pricing is somewhat of a mystery, I think definitely to us and a lot of other Indian industry at large. Two, just in terms of your overall question on motors. I think the market is shifting more towards being or looking at a solution provider in totality. What we have seen is that earlier customers were just buying, for example, just motors from us, talking to us in terms of getting the full solution. Instead of just supplying a fan motor per se, they're talking of getting the full fan. Similarly, on the mixer grinder side, the same thing.
Of course, a little bit of it was impacted due to the war because a lot of these plants run gas-fired shops, and because of the gas availability, a lot of them had to take some sort of shutdown in March. There was some sort of impact temporarily. Although that is now resolved. These are my thoughts. I don't know if that completely answers your question or not. Over to you.
Sure. Just clarifying on the motor bit again, if you're doing a system integration or a complete value-added, essentially, structurally, your value addition or the gross margin should improve, right? It has to be captured somewhere in the system. If you're not selling motors, we are selling a solution, that should somewhere reflect in that. A, just wanted to get a clarity on that. Second, again, with motors, I think you're trying to make some inroads into the AC sector motors as well as washing machine motors. If you can talk a little on those aspects as well.
Look, what typically happens is, let me give you an example of a mixer grinder product. What happens is that once you hit anyone who's just doing assembly buying motors from us, assembly is obviously a lower value addition activity. Manufacturing of motors is a slightly better manufacturing activity, I mean, value addition activity. Once you hit some sort of critical mass in terms of getting some good decent numbers for the FG assembly, typically, every person will look at going in-house. That is how the industry is transpiring because motors is not a slightly, a reasonably better value addition product. That is one. That is why I said that most customers are looking at complete kind of solutions where you supply the finished good itself rather than just the component.
To your second question on washing machine motors, like I mentioned, we are regularly in touch with our potential customers, I would say, for washing machines. Like I said, China's further kind of reduced its price to accommodate on the foreign exchange rate. How they work out their pricing, like I said, is a bit of a mystery to me. Now we will again try and go back to the drawing board and see what we can do. We can, of course, connect offline to discuss this in even more detail.
Sure. Just a final question in terms of guidance. If you're saying 15% growth, essentially that's taken care of by the price hike itself, right? This seems to be a little conservative given the new capacity expansion as well. Secondly, on the working capital as well, I think we used to guide for 45 days. It seems to have gone to the 50 band. Why is that so?
Two things. One is, you're right that we have given a bit of a conservative guidance. There are two points. One is, a sharp increase in pricing does cause some sort of demand destruction typically. Now, whether that happens or not is yet to be seen. We don't know because the basket that we operate in is largely discretionary. We don't really operate in the necessity staples basket. We operate in a discretionary basket. People can live without the products that we manufacture. Those purchases kind of tend to get deferred when prices go up. That's point one. Point two is we hopefully don't expect this sort of war situation to last for the full fiscal. Otherwise, we'll have a different set of problems to deal with. I do expect that at some point things will get resolved, pricing will come down.
One will also have to work with some sort of volume growth to meet revenue targets. We've consciously given somewhat of a conservative kind of guidance. We would be very happy if since Q2 of FY 2023, are in a position to increase that.
Perfect. Just on the working capital, quickly please.
Working capital again, this is just being prudent. The target is to stay at 45 or even lower, but currently the situation is so volatile that we are just consciously working with higher inventory, higher procurement of Class A, Class B, and even Class C items. In times like this, it is just important to align your investor partners with what you are doing. We have just kind of given you a heads up. Of course, once the situation kind of normalizes, we will endeavor to get to the lower end of that band and even probably lower than that.
Perfect. Thank you so much. I'll just come back and get you.
Thank you so much, sir. The next question comes from Mr. Samrat Ashok from Janak Merchant Securities. Please go ahead, sir.
Hello. Akash, am I audible?
Yes, sir, you are.
Earlier, a part of Elin business was priced in such a way that we used to get the value add of the raw material, and we used to benefit in the inflationary trend. Do we still have that business, or we are completely vacated out of that kind of pricing now?
No, sir, we have that business. See, typically what happens is that inflation in small doses over a sustained period of time is what is typically acceptable to customers. When pricing overnight, in one month or even two or three months goes up by double-digit, that gets very difficult to absorb because our end customers typically cannot or do not tinker with MRP on a very regular basis. This kind of inflation is also led by a supply-side shock. One logically keeps hoping and anticipating that there will be some end to this war, after which prices will suddenly cool off. I mean, the anticipation. Whether that happens or no, I don't know. Those are just some thoughts as to why this kind of supply-shock-led inflation is not good.
Inflation in probably steady doses and over a regular period of time is good for us. I hope that clarifies.
Got it. Sir, second question is on the, if I do a consol minus standalone. The Baddi entity, which is basically the part of Elin Appliances, it has reported an all-time low gross margin of 12.7%, and it is making a slight EBITDA loss also. At this entity, the gross margins have been continuously falling down for the last four, five years when the operating costs have increased. I mean, what are the issues?
One is, don't look at just that entity because sometimes what happens is sometimes billing happens in the standalone, I mean the Elin Electronics Limited, sometimes it happens in Elin Appliances Private Limited. Customers kind of keep picking and choosing sometimes. I'm not saying all the time. One is that. Two is, you're right that some part of the business has kind of gone through a challenging phase that is housed in Elin Appliances Private Limited. We are working on getting that business correctly repriced. Hopefully, that should happen in maybe maximum two quarters. As and when this happens, we will get in touch with you and let you know, but that will also ultimately reflect in the numbers itself.
Akash, do we want to run this means after moving some part production to Ghaziabad, which you are going to do, and with the new Bhiwadi campus, do we need to continue to run this particular plant because there are no excise benefits also now?
Samrat, tax and regulatory.
No, we use the target for that purpose, so that's why.
Sorry. Can you just repeat the question, and then I'll just answer.
With the expansion that we are doing in Ghaziabad, where we are shifting some of the mixer production and the expansion in Bhiwadi, in longer run, do we intend to run the Baddi plant? I mean, does it make a strategic sense?
There is a lot of capital investment that has already been incurred and is sitting there. There is certainly no plan on an immediate basis to shut that down or something. One will obviously have to wait and watch. You are right that there is no benefit from running that plant currently. That I accept, there is a full ecosystem, there is infrastructure there that is frankly costly, and I don't even know if it's practical to just let it sit there. There is no immediate plan in terms of relocating that entire facility zone, I will say.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you so much, sir. Next question comes from the line of Mr. Moksh Ranka from Aurum Capital. Please go ahead, sir.
Hello, sir. Can you guide me regarding any recent management changes in the company and provide some color regarding that?
The last news that we had shared, which is when it happened, was that our erstwhile CEO had to resign. That was, I think, the only senior management change, but nothing per se otherwise.
Okay. Do we have a new CEO in place of him and any reason for the sudden departure?
No. Known reason to me, what was known is what was disclosed. He found a better opportunity, he moved on. That's what we know. We don't intend to get a new CEO. For us, what we realized it's probably better to work with individual business heads and slightly one level below CEO people. We'll not be getting a CEO in the near future.
Okay, got it.
Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. I repeat, if you have any questions, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. We have a follow-up question from Mr. Kunal Mehta from Incred Equities. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah. Just one question. Now that Praveen sir has moved on, and I think there was mention that he was focusing a lot on the procurement side, and now procurement being difficult. Who in Elin is now responsible for procurement? Have you hired someone internally or do we have a team in place at a business head for procurement?
No. Obviously, point one is, look, there is no one single person who can do a full company's work. There is a person, and Praveen used to oversee that function, and currently that function is now being overseen by one of the family people. There is a full team in place. There always was before. We had made a couple tweaks to that. There is a full team even now that is reasonably effectively doing the work and discharging the duty.
Okay. Yeah, I think that is one question. Thanks.
Thank you so much, sir. Next question comes from the line of Mr. Pawan Kothari from Calcutta Metal Depot. Please go ahead, sir.
Hello, sir. I wanted to ask, do you have any program , or plans in the future to launch any products under your own brands?
No, sir. We don't have our own brand. We don't intend to launch any products on our brand.
By when do we expect this new facility to be fully operational and start generating positive cash flows?
It will be operational by, like I said, commercial production should begin latest by August 2026.
How much time will it take to reach 70%, 80% of the plant capacity when you are at full capacity?
Look, the revenue potential of the plant is probably INR 550 crores. Probably to get to 80%, it might take four to five years. Four years, maybe.
Pawan sir.
Yeah. Thank you. I got that.
Thank you so much, sir. There are no further questions.
In the interest of time, maybe if there are any further questions, we can just take one or two and then wrap up.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. There are no further questions, sir. Now I hand over the floor to the management for closing comments.
Yeah. This is Kamal Sethia. Thank you for your time. There has been challenging time we've been going through in the last quarter or so. We have started the process of our mitigation through remedial processes, which is ongoing, and all the departments are engaged in that. We hope for improvement in the coming quarter. Of course, the geopolitical situation easing out would help us much more. Thank you so much for your time and attending the call. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference for today. Thank you for participation and for using this conference call service. You may disconnect your lines now. Thank you and have a pleasant evening.