Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Grasim Industries Quarter One FY 2025 Earnings Conference Call. 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 call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Ankit Panchmatia, Head, Investor Relations from Grasim. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thanks, Rilo. Good evening, and thank you all for joining this call to discuss our first quarter FY 2025 performance. Our leadership team is present today on this call to discuss our results. The financial statements, press release, and presentation are uploaded on the exchanges and are also available on our website. For safe harbor, kindly refer to cautionary statement highlighted in the last slide of our presentation. From the management side, we have Mr. Hari Krishna Agarwal, Managing Director, and Mr. Pavan Jain, Chief Financial Officer, Grasim Industries. Also joining the call, we have Mr. Jayant Dhobley, Business Head, Chemicals, Fashion Yarn, and Insulator Business; Mr. Himanshu Kapania, Business Head; Mr. Rakshit Hargave, CEO of Birla Opus, our paints division; and Mr. Sandeep Komaravelly, CEO, Birla Pivot, our B2B e-commerce business. Let me now hand over the call to Mr.
Pavan Jain for his opening remarks, post which we will open the call for the Q&A. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Ankit, and, good evening, everyone. Heading into 2024, all of us talked about a lot of uncertainties and had built expectations on how new economic realities would take shape. Some of these were elevated geopolitical risks, higher interest rate for longer duration, impacting growth rates, and mega trends rapidly transforming industries. As we cross the midpoint of the year, all such expectations are playing out. Conflict escalation in the Middle East and Ukraine remain major risks. Inflation persistence is leading to continued high interest rates by major central banks. Secular mega trends from artificial intelligence, to sustainability are reshaping economic, economies and industries. The recent data points from the U.S. on manufacturing PMI and unemployment rate has increased the probability of the U.S. Fed cutting rates in the coming FOMC meetings.
Bank of England has already executed its first interest rate cut in more than four years, taking the key rate to 5%. In China, despite Beijing's surprise rate cut, which injected CNY 435.1 billion into the financial system, the current global economic environment, coupled with heightened geopolitical risk conditions, indicates that the path to normalization is likely to be a longer one. At the same time, Indian economy has been a star performer. On 21st May, India became the fifth country to join the exclusive $5 trillion market cap club alongside the U.S., China, Japan and Hong Kong. Two months from there, we have hit $5.5 trillion on July 30th.
With 7.8% growth in the GDP in FY 2024 and 6.8% expected in current year, India is expected to continue to its title of fastest growing, large economy as per the growth projections by IMF. Further, the 2024 budget has laid down focus on CapEx spending in sectors such as road transport and highways, railways, real estate, et cetera. Secondly, supporting consumption through higher allocation for rural economy, welfare schemes and agriculture and job creation are remain one of key focus areas. India's long-term economic fundamentals appear robust, buoyed by government commitments to fiscal prudence, aiming for a reduced fiscal deficit of 4.9% in FY 2025 and 4.5% in FY 2026.
In latest MPC meeting, RBI has maintained status quo on repo rate of 6.5% and affirmed the projections of 7.2% GDP growth and the inflation target of 4.5% for FY 2025. I now come to our company's performance for the quarter gone by. Consolidated revenues stood at INR 33,861 crore, and EBITDA for the quarter was INR 4,076 crore. Talking about segmental performance, in cellulosic fiber business, consumer buying has eased up in major textile consuming economies, that is U.S. and E.U., due to heavy discounts offered by retailers and supported by easing inflation.
This has led to some inventory corrections, increase in cotton MSP and volatility in global oil markets due to geopolitical instability and resulted in lower preference for cotton and polyester fibers, making cellulosic fiber as preferred choice of fiber for brands globally. Moreover, better sustainability credentials will continue to drive growth of cellulosic fibers in the long term. Globally, VSF prices have been on an upward trend since Q3 FY 2024. India realizations remain impacted by oversupply in Indonesia and decline in input prices, that is pulp and caustic soda, benefits of which were passed on to the value chain partners. Our VSF volumes stood at highest level of quarterly number of 212 KT, and revenues stood at highest level since past seven quarters.
The VFY business remains impacted by low consumption phase across the user value chain, though there are some signs of recovery in the current quarter. In chemicals, global Caustic Soda prices mark fourth consecutive quarter of improvement and are now at highest level since June 2023. While domestic markets have also followed some of these positive realization trends, India Caustic Soda market continues to remain in oversupply situation. Our Caustic Soda sales volume were lower by 4% YOY, partially impacted by Vizag plant shutdown for new capacity hookup. Improved Caustic realizations, coupled with uptick in demand and realization for chlorine derivatives, has led to improvement in ECU realizations, which stood at INR 32,529 for Q1 FY 2025, highest since Q2 FY 2024. The ramp-up in production post recent expansion at specialty chemicals unit remains on track.
We have clocked highest ever sales volume and revenue for the specialty chemical business, which now contributes 30% to the chemical business revenue. Coming to building material segment, UltraTech continues to grow bigger. The country saw new capacity addition of 41 million tons during the last financial year, 32% of which has come from UltraTech. For this year, out of planned 16 million tons capacity, we have already added 8.7 million tons in Q1 FY 2025, crossing milestone of 150 million tons per annum, reaching a total capacity with the domestic and overseas totaling to 155 million tons per annum. The recent acquisition deal with Kesoram and controlling stake in India Cements would strengthen our position in fragmented South India market.
For India Cements, the board of directors of UltraTech approved purchase of 32.72% equity stake of the promoters and their associates in India Cements Limited. UltraTech had earlier made a financial investment in India Cements to acquire 22.77% equity in June 2024. Post signing of share purchase agreement and obtaining regulatory approval for the proposed purchase of equity stake in ICL, UltraTech will pay INR 3,954 crore at INR 390 per share for buying this 32.72% stake in ICL from the promoter and their associates. This has triggered a mandatory open offer at INR 390 per share, which would be done after obtaining all regulatory approvals.
Paints business under Birla Pivot, under Birla Opus, has started its commercial production at three plants in April 2024, and more than 80% range of 145 planned products have been placed in the distribution channels. Trial run production has also started at Chamarajanagar, and commercial production is expected to commence from Q3 FY 2025. Construction at other two plants is progressing as per plans and remains and expected to be completed in budgeted sanctioned project cost. On brand building and distribution, I'm sure you would have seen our media campaign under Make Life Beautiful. The ad has successfully captured the customer's imagination, and it is heartening to see a good response from the entire ecosystem. The first flagship experience center store in Mumbai is already operational, with our plans to add more such centers in FY 2025.
Revenue of our B2B e-commerce business, Birla Pivot, is gradually ramping up. The current quarterly run rate of revenue is over INR 550 crore, with increasing trends in total number of buyers. Private labels are now available across three product categories, which is ply, door, and tiles. We are also working on building a retail distribution channel for these private labels, along with sales support for better penetration. In our financial services business under Aditya Birla Capital, this also remains on track of its transformational growth journey. The company has successfully built a franchise for omnichannel architecture of distribution, delivering steady growth with prudent risk management and focus on return on capital. While the company continues to expand its physical footprint with a total of over 1,500 branches across businesses, the endeavor remains on digital-first approach.
Under this line, Aditya Birla Capital has commercially launched its D2C platform, the Aditya Birla Capital Digital, ABCD, offering over 20 products and services catering to each facet of financing solutions such as payments, loan, insurance, and investment. Total lending portfolio and average assets under management have also surpassed milestones of INR 125,000 crore and INR 500,000 crore, respectively, in the current quarter. In the other businesses, our renewable business has increased the capacity to almost 1 gigawatt in the current quarter, and remains on track to double the capacity to 2 GW by end of this year. The business has strong anchor clientele, with Aditya Birla Group companies representing 43% of its existing portfolio. During the quarter, textile business profitability was impacted by high input cost in linen business.
The retail presence of our textile business is expanding under our brand Linen Club, Cavallo and Soktas. On the CapEx front, we continue to focus on growth CapEx. For FY 2025, budget capital expenditure is over INR 4,500 crore, of which growth CapEx in new businesses is planned at INR 3,000 crore, which is 66% of the total capital expenditure. With now we open the floor for Q&A.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask questions may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from Jay. The first question is from the line of Jay Doshi from Kotak. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. I've got a couple of questions on your paints business. One is, you know, how has the progress been thus so far versus your internal expectations? And if you could respond with a few data points or give us some more color.
So, Jay, this is Rakshit here. Let me take your question. So, you know, when we had launched Paints in February 2024 from Panipat, we had shared a few data points which we would want to reach by the end of the financial year, and we are in line with all our expectations. So firstly, from a manufacturing point of view, three of our plants are, you know, commercialized and running steadily. The fourth in Chamarajanagar is under trial production, which was what we had committed. We have been able to place out of the 125-odd products we talked about, more than 80% is already there in the market. We had talked about reaching 150 depots by the end of the year. We are already beyond 102.
We had talked about reaching 50,000 dealers. We are in sync with the plan to hit 50,000 active dealers by the end of the year. Qualitatively, the reception of our product, product quality, has been excellent. Painters and contractors and the whole ecosystem who have used it are coming back to use it repeatedly because they not only see a quality differential with what exists in the market, but from a usage criteria also, they find it to be very easy. We have also been very successful in our initial brand campaign, which we launched along with the start of the Cricket World Cup. The Make Life Beautiful campaign has garnered, till now, close to 70 crore Indian eyeballs.
In terms of the feedback that we have from the market, both from contractor, painter, and consumer queries, it definitely seems to have made a big, big impact. All in all, both from the supply side and both from the demand side, we see that we are on track with what we had committed in Panipat.
Understood. A follow-up there, if we do some back-of-the-envelope calculation, it looks like, June quarter net sales was around INR 80 crore. Is that understanding right, or am I, missing something?
So, Jay, the actual sales will be more than that. You see, large, large part of sales has been out of the trial run production of the three plants which got commercial production started in April 2024. So prior to that, some trial production was achieved out of those plants. That sales has gone to CWIP.
Understood. Would you be able to call out that number, or would you like to call out that number?
No, I don't think we are sure.
So we will not call out the number, but a major part of-
Basically, the net sales number that we are looking at after, you know, back-of-the-envelope calculation is not an accurate number.
Yeah, it will not be. It is, it is, net of what has gone to CWIP.
I understand. Lastly, you know, what is the pushback that you are getting, if any, from the trade, and what steps are you taking to address the gaps, whatever be on the distribution front?
So let me first say, what is the pull that we are getting from the trade? So the pull that we are getting from the trade is that many dealers see us as a very strong, viable alternative to the existing strong marketplace. They are very confident about the house of Aditya Birla. The quality of the paints has been excellent. So we see large-scale adoption across small, mid-size, and large dealers, which is why I'm able to tell you confidently that of the target of 50,000 dealers that we have said, we are very much on the range.
Secondly, there are many dealers who are very, very interested in dealing with us and are just waiting for some more time, because in many markets, the full range of products that they want to commit themselves to do business with us is still a couple of months away, as you would realize. We had promised 1,250 SKUs. We are in that journey, and we have covered a major part. But as you would understand, many paint dealers want to wait for some more time because they don't want to commit to clients if they are not confident that the full range from Birla Opus will be available. But even there, we are making very rapid progress. So, you know, I would want to put it this way. Apart from that, there is no really pushback from dealers.
So, there are dealers who are saying that we want to deal with you, just give us some more time, and then there are many dealers who are adopting us very, very willingly.
Sure. Just one last bookkeeping. These 100 depots, what, you know, what part of the country gets covered with these depots? Essentially, what's your reach today in national coverage from a geographic standpoint? And that will be all from my side. Thank you.
So in Panipat, we had promised that we will cover 6,000 towns by the end of the financial year. I think we crossed 3,800, as we have disclosed in July itself. So you could imagine that with the 102 depots, which is operational as of July end, and in the last two weeks, we've actually added another six depots. We basically cover literally the whole of India. We are present in all states. Every state or every part of India, including the Northeast, has some operational depots. And with more depots, we will only improve the intensity of coverage and end up covering some parts which at the moment are not being covered. So basically, we are already a pan-India player.
Understood. Thank you, and good luck.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, a request to participants to please limit your questions to two per participant. Should you have a follow-up question, we request you to rejoin the queue. The next question is from Rahul Gupta from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thank you for taking my question. So my first question is on B2B business. Can you just help us understand what your strategy is on B2B business in terms of P&L? I know you'll continue to add products, and you want to explore or expand in the retail network as well. But last quarter, you said that the monthly run rate was around INR 2 billion revenues. This quarter, you have said that the quarterly run rate is around INR 5.5 billion. So how...
Hello? Hello?
We seem to have lost the line for Rahul Gupta. We'll move to the next question. The next question is from Ajit Motwani, from Dymon Asia. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Just, you know, like they are saying, that a large part of the revenues and the paints businesses has gone to CWIP. Would you be able to give us some details on the capitalization of, let's say, the expenses, that have been, which you have not booked into the P&L?
So, see, as per the accounting requirements, the expenses for the plants under construction, which are directly related to the construction activities or planning activities, that goes to the capitalization. Okay? So, as already disclosed, three plants are already commissioned and commercial production started. So for those three plants, everything is going to the P&L. For rest three of the plants, the expenses relating to those three plants under construction are getting capitalized. I don't think we are having disclosing these numbers separately, but this is the, I mean, the conceptual answer for that.
Okay. So if I have understood that correct, that, you know, whatever the three plants have produced, the revenues from them have gone to P&L, the operating expenses have gone to P&L for the three. Other three who are doing trial runs, that has gone, the revenue from that has gone to CWIP, and the expenses also related to them have been capitalized. Is that a fair understanding?
So for other three plants, this trial run has just commenced at one plant out of the three under construction, okay? So, there is hardly any production from that, Chamarajanagar plant. So basically, the three plants which are still not, I mean, commissioned, all the expenses relating to those three plants are getting capitalized.
I think from a revenue point of view, you see the first three plants, Panipat, Ludhiana, and
Yeah.
Cheyyar, they were capitalized only in April.
Yes.
So, at the end of April. Whatever was manufactured from those plants till then, and these plants were manufacturing, you know, actually a bit from trial manufacturing was happening in February, March and April. Whatever of that manufacturing has been sold in the market has not come into the net sales, has gone to CWIP, which is like-
Only two-
Yeah, that is-
Two months of operations, operational revenue has come from those three plants into the picture.
Yes. Yes, in the P&L. Yes, in the P&L.
Got it. And let's say whatever other launch expenses, you know, let's say the dealer meetings that you would have done, the new campaign which we saw in the World Cup, that is sitting in the P&L or that is also being apportioned?
... No, no, all that is in P&L.
Okay, the launch cost, the dealer cost, and, you know-
Yeah, yeah. That's not construction, so therefore, it is going to P&L.
Got it. I know it might be a bit early, but, you know, what could be the, the losses that you will sort of, you know, have budgeted for fiscal 2025 and, you know, that we should look forward to, you know, because that could be one parameter to judge.
The next quarter we have to see. I don't think we are giving yearly guidance of the loss, et cetera, but see, as the production is ramping up, our marketing and brand building activities are ramping up, we will have these losses continuing obviously.
So, you know, we are in investment mode, and like we said, we are looking at a three-year picture, where after the third year of full operation, we will be positive. So I think that's what we should continuously aim for. And as I answered in the first question, all the KPIs and, you know, checkpoints that we had looked at, after four months, we are running online. I think we are in investment mode, which is obviously acknowledged at the moment.
Right.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to participants to please limit your questions to two per participant. The next question is from Rahul Gupta, from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Can you hear me now?
Yes, yes, please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thank you for taking my question. I have just one question. I want to understand. I know you have talked about your strategy around B2B business, but can you just help us understand how should we look at this business from a revenue and profitability perspective, over the next few quarters and maybe next couple of years? I remember you talked about around INR 200 crore of monthly revenue run rate last quarter, which in this quarter you have talked about around INR 550 crore per quarter. So just want to understand how you are looking at this business. It helps us model better. Thank you.
Hi, Rahul, this is Sandeep here. Thank you for the question. So as we mentioned, during the last quarter results and even this quarter, our revenue growth continues to be in line with what we had expected. You know, our aspiration that we had announced in the last quarter was to reach $1 billion in three years time span. Our internal markers are pointing towards that, and we are in the right direction in achieving that goal. As we scale up, of course, our profitability will also be in line with that, and we will aim to achieve profitability at that scale. So far, we are focused on increasing our geographical reach and also our number of customers who are transacting on the platform across different categories.
We are well on our way to become like the one-stop shop for all categories within construction and building material. That's the goal.
Thank you so much. That's, that's great. Can you just help us understand what kind of losses you'll be making in this business right now?
These are not very large numbers. Gross margins, as we have earlier said, will be in the range of about 1.5%-4% in different product categories, okay? So that is the situation as far as gross margins are concerned. But yeah, since the team building and the business investment activity is going on, so initially there are losses, but not very large numbers to be, I mean, discussed here.
Yeah, look, and as a business, this is not a CapEx-heavy business, so our primary investment is predominantly in building the team, building the technology platform, and increasing our reach. Those are the activities that we are currently focused on. And given that it's a thin margin business, our focus will continue to be scale-up of revenue. But we are also aware that, you know, it will take time for us to sort of enter profitability. But as our CFO had mentioned, this is the losses are not very big.
Great. Great. Thank you so much. I have just one final question. I know you are looking to scale up your renewable business. Any idea over here whether you will call out as a different business, or are you looking for any additional investment? How should we look at this business from two, three, four years perspective?
So I think we have earlier also shared this, that we aim to... First of all, we aim to double the capacity by this financial year, okay? And projects are already under implementation. So, from 1 GW to 2 GW in this financial year, and then our aim is to add maybe 1 GW every year for next two, three years, depending upon the tenders or the bids which we can successfully bid for. That is the idea. And as of now, there's no, I mean, nothing on table to take this business out, et cetera. It is already housed in a subsidiary company of Grasim, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary currently.
Great. That's it from my side. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from Nirav Jimudia, from Anvil Research. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity, sir. I have two questions on chemicals. One on the hydrogen part of our business. Let's say whatever hydrogen that we produce from our caustic plant, after using it captively for the flaker, how much we are currently selling in the market? And does it forms a part of our ECU calculations?
Right. So, so thanks, Nirav, for the question. You always have an interesting one on chemicals. Right, right, right. So, of course, we have, we have multiple uses of hydrogen, right? And as you correctly said, we use it captively, we sell it, but also certain amount of, process venting is required to maintain the stability of the plant. I think you can roughly assume that, approximately, you know, 10% to a quarter of our hydrogen is actually towards external sales, and rest is towards, either captive consumption or maintaining process stability.
Got it. And so once we expand our caustic capacity, we have some surplus hydrogen also available with us.
Sorry.
So are we planning any downstream products of hydrogen, which we are not having currently? So any thoughts on same?
Yeah. So in the medium term, the answer to your question is yes. You know, we are looking at hydrogen derivatives. But as you know the chemical industry very well, Nirav, our priority right now is chlorine derivatives. Mainly because for hydrogen, we do have opportunity to do both, you know, sales at good price, as well as use it internally for our energy. So it's not off the table, but between hydrogen derivatives and chlorine derivatives, our priority is chlorine derivatives for now.
Correct. So my second question is on that derivatives only. So last quarter you mentioned that our chlorine was having something close to around INR 3.5-INR 4 negative in the overall ECU. So how has those chlorine prices moved this quarter?
Yeah. So, this quarter, it kind of remains at that level, but under pressure and, as you know, our competitor has recently added capacity, so that has put a lot of extra chlorine on the market.
Got it.
So the 3,500 assumption is roughly correct, but with downward pressure.
Got it. And, when you analyze our VAPS, so if you can help us, like, within our VAPS portfolio, in terms of the user industries between, let's say, agro, PVC, water treatment and the industrial side, how are volumes of, chlorine moves around these user segments?
Just a sec, so I start for that. So, I'll give you a rough assumption breakup, right? So assume around 40% for water treatment.
Okay.
Between 30-35 treatment for 30-35 for what we would call the industrial users.
Okay.
We have about 25% in plasticizers and PVC additives. And then maybe close to 10%-15% in, you know, really specialty things like refrigerants, pharma, agrochemicals.
Got it. Got it. So last bit from my side is, so we have seen some of the downstream VAPS, the prices have been improved, specifically on the CMS side of the business.
Correct.
One, we have seen an improvement in our EBITDA this quarter from INR 195-INR 310.
Uh.
If you can just help us, break down between, let's say, how much we have seen improvement in our VAPS side of the business sequentially, and was something being contributed also by the epoxy side, where our volumes have further grown, up this quarter over and above what we have clocked in last quarter?
So both our Chlorine Derivatives portfolio and Epoxy portfolio have grown and contributed. But as you must have noticed from our results, we had a plant turnaround in the-
Yeah
... first quarter. You know, we were, we were hooking up some new electrical items. We were doing a lot of overdue maintenance. And that turnaround basically took, let us say, about 18 days of effective capacity away, and that is the part that got subtracted. So that should help you kind of figure out the main gap from what you would see. Let's say, you know, if we did not have the turnaround-
Mm-hmm
... this would be our eighth consecutive quarter of volume growth. You did not-
Okay
... see it this time, because of that, that plant turnaround. And that was in Vilayat. It was about, what, let's say, eight days of production.
Got it. So combining ECU and the power cost benefits, what we have accrued, is it safe to assume that 75%-80% of this improved profit EBITDA is just because of the caustic business?
No, the improvement has been in all three categories, Nirav. It's been in caustic, but it has also been in epoxy as well as chlorine.
Got it. Thank you so much, sir, and wish you all the best.
Thanks, Nirav. Thank you.
The next question is from Abneesh Roy of Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. My first question is on your initial remarks on the paints business. So this question is to the Birla group team. You mentioned that there is a CWIP component. So my specific question is, given you will have three more factories, which will keep coming up in the Q4, will the CWIP component continue to be there in Q2, Q3, Q4? That is the first clarification I wanted. Second is, your factories are world-class, extremely large, extremely modern. So when you mentioned that the full bed for the products haven't reached some of the dealers, what do you mean by that? Because paint logistics is fairly quick.
and your demand is much lower than the current capacity, so why the products have not reached fully to the dealers? Could you explain these two?
I'll just pick up; this is Himanshu. I'll just pick up the CWIP and then give it back to Rakshit to talk about range of products. I think just for clarity, in the month of February, we've announced the production; the trials then started in three factories. On 30th April, we went into commercial production. The total quantity that was produced between February to 30th of April was material available for sale in the months of April, May, June, and that is the number that is happening. The same will continue to happen for whichever new factory comes up during trial production. Every trial production period is going to be three to four months.
We have to make sure that we are satisfied with, we send out in the marketplace, and we have to get the whole, all the, the elements of the machinery and product ready. That's why there will be, for every factory, about three to four months of trial production. So I hope that will clarify as far as CWIP.
No, it doesn't, it doesn't.
Okay.
So does it mean that Q3, Q4, and Q2 will have the impact? I understood you said three to four months before the launch, there is the testing of the product. But could you clarify that all three quarters will have this issue?
Step by step. Every plant which is launched will have a three-month period of trial production. I have average, I'm just giving average.
Understood.
That is the only number that we have to see. The three plants which were 30th of April, that was announced, most of their production, which has happened after 30th of April, are on commercial production. Their sale has already started to take place in quarter two and quarter three. Chamarajanagar production, which is currently in trial, their sales will continue to be part of the CWIP.
So, just to add, for every factory, before it is commercialized, whatever is manufactured in the factory and sold in the market, we will not be booking that revenue. That will keep on going into CWIP. Henceforth, what you will see every quarter, because we have Chamarajanagar, we have Mahad, and we have Kharagpur. When they start manufacturing through this financial year, part of their production will keep on getting into CWIP. So effectively, you will not be seeing the full turnover, which is actually sold in the market. Am I clear on that?
So the only request, and I think Jay also asked on this, given we want to ensure we understand the this business better, my only request is in the coming quarters, if you could clarify what is the CWIP, because you then continue to struggle, what exactly is the performance? Because this quarter, Q1, it seems, as Jay also suggested and my own math suggests, it is around INR 80 crore-INR 90 crore. But, if you don't know the CWIP number, how can any sell side or buy side understand what is the total number? So, humble request to give that clarification in the coming quarters also, if possible.
Yeah, we will consider that. I think, let's hope we'll try to, I mean, make, make it more clearer to you.
Sure. And if you could address the second part?
Yeah. So on the second part, let me be very clear. All the depots where we are, we are able to serve the dealer within four hours or the next day, depending on the protocol which the market leader and the other competitors have. What we meant, that we don't have the full range, is that we talked about 125 products to begin with. They come with a large number of formulations. And as you would understand that when you start manufacturing a factory, there is a changeover, and we also want to give all SKUs to all part of India. We have already manufactured more than 80% of those products, which are potentially capable of fulfilling more than 92%-93% of the market's turnover.
So the products which are left are the small, the lesser-selling fringe, the C class or the D class, if you use the Pareto classification, which are only left, which will also be covered. So we have manufactured the bulk of the important products which make the market, which are already there in the depots and which are effectively being ordered by dealers. Does that clear the answer?
Yes, that's quite useful. My second and last question is on the mass media campaign. So your advertisement was quite differentiated and most people definitely liked the use of the cartoon, and overall, I think very pleasant ad, and very good visibility during the Cricket World Cup. My question is, in terms of campaigns going ahead, if you could tell us, did you also target, say, Olympics, for example? What are the other GECs which you are targeting currently, the regional GECs, the Hindi GECs? And what will be the plan in terms of brand ambassador? I'm not asking for specifics, because a lot of these will evolve based on competition, based on your own target.
But some clarity if you can give, till now, what has happened in terms of mass media and what's the plan on brand ambassador?
Okay. So let me first tell you what has already happened. So we are still on television with the brand campaign, which is Make Life Beautiful. We have done national outdoors. We are there on radio. We are there on social media. So basically, the first part of our campaign is, what is Birla Opus? What? So you could see that Birla Opus is in paints, and we have come with a differentiated way of communicating. Our feedback is that consumers are 100% able to connect the brand Birla Opus, the fact that is in paints. Because there used to be a lot of misattribution, because all the other paint companies advertise in a similar manner, so people were confused whether it is from brand A or brand B.
Our current campaign has been present in all regional languages, in all the major region languages, on all regional channels. We are a pan-India player. In the future, we will continue to have campaigns which will also be of a slightly different type, but we will keep on addressing the whole of India, which means we will always come with language translations, and we will be there on all media, including press, including print, including social media. In terms of final strategies of what am I going to communicate, for that you will have to wait and watch. But as you can see, that we have a very effective way, at least in the first campaign, and we hope to continue that tradition.
Sure, thanks. Nothing on brand ambassador, right?
No. Everybody asks about brand ambassador, but like I said, you have to just keep watching what happens. I think the animation was done very well, and thank you for that feedback.
Thanks, sir. That's all from my side. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Next question is from Prateek Kumar, from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hello. Yeah, good evening, sir. My question is on a couple of questions on paint segment. So is there a way to identify or do you learn, like, how is the retail acceptance while you are pushing volumes to dealers? How are customers, let's say, buying a product? Because you've talked about printing machines being able to track your business, how it is being sold. So do we learn that? Also, a question on, like, this INR 80 crore run rate which have been discussed. So how is the exit, like, let's say, number for June? And maybe shall we look at, like, 18-30 kind of number for second quarter, and just in terms of direction for the paint business?
Okay, so let me repeat on the second question. Like we said, that INR 80 crore that has been booked for the quarter is only a part of the actual sale that we have done. And like Pavan said, we will consider what to disclose, say, from next quarter onward. We'll discuss it in our team, but it's only a part of the sale that we have done. The obvious part is that the real retail sales is much more. Your first question, in terms of... Obviously, dealer acceptance is good and people are buying in. We have also been continuously doing our retail audits, and also basis the information that we have from the printing machine in what is selling off, and we are very happy that the sell-out rate from the dealers is exceptional.
So, our retail audit of stores, where we have gone and seen stock sold till date and taken inventory of stocks lying in the store, suggest that the inventory lying in the store is a small part of what we have sold till now, which means majority of it has been sold out. Also, like we said, we have a unique printing machine, where online I am able to see what is being printed by the dealer. I now am getting access to a lot of insightful information about what product is being based, how much is being printed, which is probably not there with any other player, which is giving me more idea of what is selling out, which is also going to help me in the near future in doing my demand plan, is what I would like to put.
We are very happy with the offtake of Birla Opus from the retail stores.
Thank you. Another question is on, like, the depreciation interest has hardly changed on a quarter-to-quarter basis, despite capitalization of the three plants. How is it, or is this the trend, the run rate which we should expect for, like, for the next couple of quarters also, or is it, like, major portion is not getting factored here?
So interest depreciation is the addition only for three plants and only for two months, okay, to P&L. So that is the only difference. I mean, as we capitalize more plants going forward, then this will go up.
Okay. Last question on your VSF segment. Are we looking at, because we are operating at, I think, very high utilization, any growth CapEx in that business, like once now we conclude our paint CapEx in this year?
Yes. We are studying different options, and for the time being, we are trying to maximize production from our existing hardware. There are some opportunities we will exploit, and definitely we are studying the next phase of our growth.
Thank you, sir. And have a good night.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Raashi Chopra from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Just a couple of bookkeeping questions as well as on your outlook for both the VSF and the chemical business before I ask the others from here.
Outlook for VSF and chemicals. So for the VSF business is a cyclical business. So textile demand, like, we start with the retail. As we all know, retail sales has not been very great in India so far. We all hope that this coming festival season and wedding season will boost the retail sales. Even in the West, people are expecting interest rate cut, and that should also improve the consumer sentiment. Having said that, there is a substitution among the fibers, so for the time being, VSF is being preferred over cotton and the polyester in the textile industry, so that is helping the VSF consumption. And we expect it to be the case for-
... some time to come. Raw material prices are mixed. Some items are increasing, some prices are stable, and some prices are decreasing. So overall, it more or less stable with slight increased tendency. So we hope that the outlook will be stable.
Okay. So you're expecting margin to remain in, at this level?
Range bound. That is what best assessment.
Okay. And your domestic prices, sorry, were... Global prices were up sequentially. Domestic prices during this quarter, were they also up?
Yes, yes, in line with the international prices, yeah.
Okay. Got it. And chemicals?
... here to speak about chemical.
Sorry.
Outlook is always a difficult one to predict, right? So, you know, anything I say, please take with a pinch of salt. But you will recall that I think in the last quarter, I had indicated that we were potentially seeing a bottoming out of caustic prices. Given that, you know, some of the players globally were at marginal costing. That has played out, so caustic prices have equally improved a bit. So Chinese domestic consumer demand is not getting worse. The government is trying hard to get that picked up. So I do maintain a mildly positive outlook, and the key word here is mildly positive, not a sudden change on caustic prices. Chlorine is a somewhat different story because chlorine is more domestic.
As you know, one of our competitors has added significant capacity in Gujarat without any integration. So chlorine, for sure, is under downward pressure. So ECU could be flat to slightly rising. Then, if you look at chlorine derivatives, the outlook is slightly favorable, mainly because you see a pickup in the global chemical industry, whether it is agrochem, whether it is pharma. But again, a lot of it depends on what happens in China. You know, that's the difficult part of this puzzle. In our specialty chemical epoxy business, volume growth will continue to remain strong. We see good favorable, you know, tailwinds in all sectors where epoxy is used.
Of course, we battle topics like, you know, free trade agreements with other countries, inverted duty structures, et cetera, which puts a limit on our margins, but we do expect that there will be stronger volume growth. So I would say that I'm cautiously optimistic on chemicals as a sector, with the disclaimer that, you know, a lot will depend upon what happens with the Chinese consumer and nothing, you know, funny should happen either in the global supply chain because of the crisis in the Middle East.
That's very helpful. Just one last briefing question. On the paints, the remaining two plants, what are the timelines?
Remaining, which timeline, Raashi?
The Mahad on the paint segment. Mahad and the Kharagpur plants, what are the timelines for those two?
So Mahad and Kharagpur will be in somewhere in Q3 and Q4. So first, Mahad, in Q3, and then in Q4, the Kharagpur plant.
Chamarajanagar.
Chamarajanagar is already commenced trial run production, so I think in Q3 we should be capitalizing that.
Got it. You're still maintaining the high single-digit market share exit target, right?
Yes.
For the 2025?
Yes.
Okay. Okay. Thank you, Laxmi.
Thank you. Next question is from Navin Sahadeo from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening, and thank you for the opportunity. Sir, just to clarify, since you mentioned, and this is regarding paints, that you said revenues are not fully representative because of the CWIP trial run production going into CWIP. But again, the back of the envelope calculation for the EBITDA loss, and I believe including B2B e-commerce, it comes to roughly around INR 296 crore. And as you said, B2B commerce may not be a very large portion, so hence I assume that significant portion of this INR 296 crore is related to paints, anywhere between INR 250 crore-INR 290 crore or some number between that. So just wanted to clarify if that is fully representative of the sales that has happened and not the revenue. Just to understand that, how should one look at losses also in the same way?
So yeah, Navin, the expenses don't represent fully the revenue because of the, you know, this large marketing related activities going on, lots of dealer meets across country, the branding campaign, et cetera. So that is the kind of investment. It will not match with the revenue for the quarter. So that part is, yeah, I think you are right. And roughly what numbers you are saying, possibly, yes, those will be the kind of broad numbers. But yeah, I mean, the building materials segment includes, as we have already explained, is cement and B2B and the paints.
So, no, what I meant is if... So, what- the way to look at it is, revenue is not fully represented correctly? But the expenses related to that is represented. Is that correct?
Yeah, yeah, that is correct. So revenue, as part of revenue, has gone to the CWIP, yes.
The losses related to those CWIP revenues, I mean, are they included in this INR 296, or?
No, no, no, no, no. So, now what has got capitalized is only the plant construction related expenses. So, all other expenses are coming to P&L, which is in question, in the P&L.
Understood.
So let me just help you. This is Himanshu. Our largest expense is, as Pavan clarified, to do activity on the ground at the dealer level and the consumer level and contractor level. All those expenses has been part of the P&L element. As far as plants are concerned, from an operating level, the expenses are small, and that small expenses have been put into CWIP. That's a very small component of the large expense of operation.
Can you clarify? Like, suppose there is a loss on the material which is produced during the commissioning or trial run?
There is no loss.
So if there is any loss of profit, that goes to CWIP.
Yeah, that is yeah.
That is what I think he is trying to- I mean, is that your question?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's, that's helpful. So my second question was around the working capital and the net debt part of it. So for the paints business, you have already spent INR 7,800 odd crore, and the balance, the difference between the 10,000 odd is to be spent this year. So this is entirely excluding the working capital, right? As in 10,000 crore is the CapEx that we were looking at only from a gross block and the other support system for the paint business. It does not include the working capital number. Is that correct?
Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Yeah. So INR 10,109 crore, I think, is that number, is the CapEx only, which of course includes the IDC, the tinting machines, the IT system, everything.
Right. So here I'm just noticing one more,
Capital is not included. Okay. Yeah.
Understood. So your, sequentially, the net debt has gone up by roughly INR 330 crore.
Yes.
So I'm just trying to understand this, because previous quarter we were a little under INR 6,000 crore, and this, in Q1, we have already spent close to INR 1,000 crore, right? And operations Q1 did not generate much cash as such. So, and then the working capital requirement for the, the businesses that we have, I mean, for the paints and all. So just wanting to understand that, how should one look at... Because the increase quarter-on-quarter in the net debt is much lesser than, what could have ideally happened. Is there anything that I'm missing? Only the clarification. Thanks.
Yeah. Working capital management of the, our existing businesses has been able to generate some cash flows.
Sure.
So that has, I mean, led to the lower net debt increase. Okay, so in this quarter, Q1 specifically, we have been able to... Our, our operating cash flows are much higher than the EBITDA for the quarter because of the working capital management. Of course, that is not a permanent kind of thing. It will get reversed in the Q2. But that is the, I mean, short answer for that.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Bye.
Thank you. Next question is from Rishi Modi, from Marcellus Investment Managers. Please go ahead. Rishi Modi, please go ahead with the question.
Hi, am I audible?
Yes, please.
Okay.
Yeah. So, sorry if I missed this, but what amount of revenue in the paints business has gone into CWIP in this quarter?
You know, I think this is the third time this question is being asked. We'll say that majority has gone into CWIP.
Okay, so it would be to the tune of INR 100 crore in CWIP?
I'm just saying majority-
Okay. And, so on the sales incentive front, right, on the incentives, for the dealer, the contractor, the painter, if you could just give some qualitative comments on how we are differentiating ourselves against the market leaders, be it Asian or Berger, if you could just give us an idea there.
So, you know, we are doing many things which are similar to the market, but also different from the market. So we have a very attractive franchisee proposition for large dealers, and many dealers have adopted, and many of our stores are coming up. In terms of the way we look at putting the tinting machine, you know, as you would know, we have distributed a large number of tinting machines. The dealers are very happy with that package. In terms of what we are doing with contractors, both in terms of intensive training, the kind of training which they are getting from us for the first time. The app and the commercial benefits of scanning and rewards program is very unique.
I don't think any other paint company in the market has as many tokens and coupons on all sizes of packs that we have given, which is the first time in the market, and the market really likes it. So there are many things which we have done, both at the dealer level and at the contractor, painter, influencer level. To give you an example, nobody is giving tokens for painters on solvent products like enamels. We are giving it, and painters are very happy. So as you would find from your own research in the market, there are things which we have done which are very different, and there is good appreciation.
Also, I'm not even talking about product features, but we have product features, and, you know, there are several communications developed for contractors and painters, which you might have got access to, because all of them have on their phones. There are product features also which are unique. There are, you know, whether it is covering, whether it is hiding, whether it is covering, and the market, including contractors and dealers, have appreciated very much. There are some features which are purely for the benefit of painters and contractors also, you know, in terms of spatter, in terms of, you know, less dirty, which painters and contractors say actually they are saving half an hour every day, which they have to spend on other brands by simply they don't have to clean up, because, you know, Birla Paints does not spatter.
So I'm just giving you certain examples of how there are multiple differentiators at the contractor, painter, and trade level, which is actually finding a lot of resonance.
Thank you very much. Due to time constraints, we'll take that as the last question. On behalf of Grasim Industries, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect your lines.