Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Greenply Industries' Q3 FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call, hosted by Asian Markets Securities Private Limited. 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 this conference 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. Karan from Asian Markets Securities Private Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Rudra. Good, good morning to all participants logged into the call. On behalf of Asian Markets Securities, we welcome all to Greenply's Third Quarter and Nine months FY 2026 Investor Call. From the management side, we have Mr. Manoj Tulsian, Joint Managing Director and CEO, Mr. Sanidhya Mittal, Joint Managing Director, and Mr. Sanjiv, CFO. I would like to hand over this call to Manoj Ji for his opening comments, post which we can open the floor for Q&A. Over to you, Manoj Ji. Thank you.
Thank you, Karan, and good afternoon, everyone. It is a pleasure to have you all on this call. I will be updating you on Greenply's operating and financial performance for quarter three and nine-month FY 2026. As discussed in our previous call, the three brand communication strategy aimed at enhancing product visibility across key market segments is working well for us and showing very encouraging initial outcomes. This strategy has enabled us to deliver consistent growth in our plywood and MDF business on a year-on-year basis, as well as steady ramp-up in our hardware business, too. Also mentioned in our previous call, we guided double-digit volume growth in H2 FY 2026 across both segments, and I'm happy to report that we are on track, having delivered double digit year-on-year growth in quarter three FY 2026, both in plywood and MDF.
We remain confident of sustaining this momentum in quarter four FY 2026, and in the periods ahead. In our MDF business, we successfully expanded capacity from 800- 1,000 CBM. While initial operational challenges impacted growth during the quarter, these issues have now been fully addressed. The plant is currently stable and operating efficiently. Production in the month of January was highest ever, and we are confident of a strong rebound going forward in line with our growth expectations. Now, I'd like to share with you that we have achieved a consolidated quarterly revenue of INR 673.4 crores, which is a growth of 9.6% on a YOY basis.
Our consolidated core EBITDA for the quarter was INR 58.9 crores, with a core EBITDA margin of 8.7%, compared to 8.2% in corresponding quarter, an increase of 50 basis points. On a nine-month basis, our consolidated revenue was at INR 1,962.8 crores, which is a growth of 6.7% on a YOY basis. Our consolidated core EBITDA was at INR 177.3 crores, which is a growth of 4.5% on a YOY basis. The core EBITDA margin was 9% as compared to 9.2% in 9M FY 2025. PBT, before the losses on equity accounted investees, foreign exchange gain loss as an adjustment to finance cost and exceptional items, is at INR 117 crores.
For 9 months FY 2026, which is a 13% year-over-year growth as against PBT of INR 104 crore in nine months FY 2025. Let me now share the highlights of our individual business segments. As mentioned above, about our go-to-market strategy, we continue to experience the demand for mid-value products during this quarter also, resulting in an average realization per square meter of INR 244, a 4.9% decrease on a year-over-year basis. However, on a quarter-over-quarter basis, there is a marginal increase from INR 242- INR 244 per square meter. In Q3 FY 2026, we achieved a volume growth of 12.5% on a year-over-year basis, with a revenue of INR 521.7 crore, a value growth of 8.9% on a year-over-year basis.
On the margin front, our core EBITDA margin remained intact at 8.4% for both quarter three FY 2026 and quarter three FY 2025, even though there is a drop in the realization on a YOY basis. On nine-month basis, we have achieved revenue of INR 1,517 crores, a growth of 5% on a YOY basis. Our volume growth on nine-month basis is 5.8% YOY, despite having a negative growth of 3.1% in quarter 1, FY 2026. Our core EBITDA grew by 4.7% on a YOY basis to INR 124 crores in nine months FY 2026. The EBITDA margin stood at 8.2%, as against similar margin of last year, nine months FY 2025.
Moving to our MDF business, revenue in quarter three FY 2026 stood at INR 152 crore, with volume at 48,383 CBM, reflecting year-on-year growth of 11.7% in value terms and 14.5% in volume terms. We had a good traction on demand side in quarter three FY 2026, but because of deficit in production during initial months of the quarter, we had to resort to limited trading activities to fulfill the orders in hand, which resulted in a moderated margin of 10.1%, which could have been otherwise in the range of 12% for this quarter itself. With operations now fully stabilized and running efficiently, we expect a strong rebound and are confident of achieving our margin guidance in the coming quarters, including quarter four, FY 2026.
We are happy to share that the Board has approved an investment of INR 400 crore towards expansion of second line of MDF, in line with our earlier commentary and our preparedness for future growth. More details on the MDF business and the expansion will be shared by Sanidhya later. Moving on to our furniture and fittings JV, we have achieved the sales of INR 13.4 crore in Q3 of FY 2026, achieving total revenue of INR 31 crore on 9-month basis. The JV reported a PAT loss of INR 15 crore in Q3 of FY 2026, with our share of the loss amounting to INR 7.7 crore. On nine-month basis, PAT loss of INR 37.9 crore, with our share of the loss amounting to INR 19 crore.
Losses for the quarter increased on a sequential basis due to increase in marketing spend, as we participated in 2 exhibitions. Our consolidated net debt stood at INR 528 crore at the end of the current quarter, in line with the guided CapEx plans. Construction of the Plywood Odisha facility is progressing at full pace, with all major orders already being placed, and the project remains on track. We are confident that our debt-to-equity ratio will be within the guided range of 0.5-0.6x by year-end, despite the announcement of new CapEx. With respect to our operations at Greenply Middle East Limited, we have further reduced exposure from $2.7 million to $1 million. As a result, our contingent liability has also decreased from INR 24 crore to INR 10 crore now, as on 31 December 2025.
Just to mention, at the time of divestment, this liability stood at $6.1 million. With these statements, I would like to hand it over to Sanidhya to provide more insight on the MDF business.
Thank you, Manoj Ji, and good afternoon to everyone on the call. Our sales performance for this quarter delivered an 11.7% year-over-year growth in value terms and 14.5% year-over-year growth in volume terms. However, during the quarter, we encountered some initial production challenges in the month of October and November, which had a temporary impact on sales and ultimately on the margins. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, we expect a growth of more than 20% in sales on a year-over-year basis, supported by improved margins. As mentioned earlier by our CEO about the announcement of the second MDF line at Vadodara, I will share some updates on the same. The second line will be a 700 cubic meter per day capacity, with a cost of INR 400 crore and a revenue potential of INR 600 crore.
The plant is expected to be commissioned in the next 15 months, and commercial operations to start in the next 18 months, which means Q2 FY 2028. Trial production of the HDF flooring line started in the month of December, and we executed a few orders also. But after that, we faced some glitches, and we are in the mode of correction phase, and we are confident of starting commercial production by March 2026. Construction of PVC and WPC plant is going as per plan, and we are confident that the commercial production will start by March 2026, as per our plan. With this, I would like to open the floor for the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We'll now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchtone 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 a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Our first question comes from the line of Sukrit D. Patil from iSight Fintrade Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon to the team. I have two questions. The first question to Mr. Manoj is, as the plywood and board market continues to evolve, how is the management thinking about prioritizing growth levers, such as, distribution, expansion, and capacity over the, medium term? Among these, which do you believe will be most critical in, strengthening Greenply's competitive position and, long-term value creation? That's my first question. I'll ask my second question after this. Thank you.
Okay. Hi, hi, Sukrit. See, you know, we are last one year we are clearly working on two or three major initiatives, and I think that is what gave us a lot of confidence also that we will start now growing in double-digit in volume terms. In fact, you know, the way things have happened, we are even looking at a better growth in mid-teens also going forward in the plywood business, because, you know, we suffered a lot in between. But anyway, there are corrections which were underway in the last 12 months. So one, on the distribution side, when you are saying, there is a two-pronged strategy, which continuously will work in the plywood business. One, depth and reach.
So, you know, there has been a lot of work which has now started in the, in the past six months, for which there was a preparatory period of almost six to nine months. And that's where we were confident that, you know, now we will be able to see the results. And we are happy to see the results in quarter three, that finally we have grown at, you know, double-digit in terms of volumes. Maybe possibly we could have even done better, but I'm sure that in quarter four and in the year to come, we'll look at even better numbers in the volume growth.
So one, clearly, yes, I mean, you know, your question has the answer, that distribution is key in this business, and we are working a lot in terms of the depth of distribution and then the range of products, both. Because we have range of products, but, you know, we are somewhere, we have not been able to justify our range of products' distribution across the depth. And the second thing, you know, the business today is at a very sweet price point, which is anywhere around INR 100 or so. Somehow, we were missing this, and we realized this during this year.
We started branding our mid-segment brand, which is Ecotec, and, you know, we have seen good, positive, green shoots the moment we have started investing on the same, not only in terms of the body line of our, our team, but also the way the market has responded. So that is the next growth driver for, you know, many more years to come. And we'll continue to invest larger money on the second brand. You know what I mean? You know, in, in some time, we'll be able to see that this brand, for us, will become the largest brand in the whole kitty.
Thank you. My second question to Mr-
Thank you.
Thank you very much. My second question to Mr. Sanjiv is, along the similar lines, from a financial standpoint, can you elaborate on the key trade-offs managed during the period between growth investments, cost discipline, and working capital efficiency? How do these decisions influence your outlook on cash creation and return metrics as the business continues to scale? Just want to understand your plan of action on this. Thank you.
So, yeah, thanks, Patil. See, we are working on the working capital. If you see the working capital limit, utilization is very low in our case. We are working on the with the dealers, dealers also to reduce their working capital, and we are also introducing the dealer finance. So in that sense, increasing the return ROI of the dealers also on working on that, working increasing the working capital cycle of the dealers. So these are the initiative we have already taken on our sales side. We are also reducing our the debts. On expense side, we have taken the steps for the now the internal accruals are there. We are adding that good number of the cash internal accrual.
On a CapEx, we have already announced. So... And as Manoj said, that our--
Debt-equity ratio.
Debt-equity ratio will not increase more than the 0.6%, at any point of the time. So we are managing our debt in that way.
Thank you, and best of luck.
Just to add to that, you know, I would say that, as an organization in the last three to four years, where we have, concentrated, yes, maybe partially we are successful and partially we may not be, because everything, the way we think, sometimes doesn't works out. But, we clearly look at incremental capital output ratio, okay? That, finally, the investment should go into the pockets where finally I'm, I'm making, I'm making better buck, compared to my investment which is going. So Sanjeev will explain more on the strategy of why, you know, now we are investing for the second plant of MDF, and why, you know, in, in West Baroda, because we see a lot of efficiencies which will get built up further.
Today, like from our first plant, because of the mix, maybe, you know, we'll somewhere not be able to do more than 88% or 89% of the capacity. But the moment we put the second plant, the first plant also, against 88%-89%, can start giving us an efficiency of maybe 93%-94%. So clearly, you know, the ICOR is something which we keep looking at, and the justification on investments also gets driven from the same. On the working capital side, in any case, you know, if you go on the operating side, we need to improve further. We were much better.
But yes, in fact, in the board level also, we had discussion yesterday a lot on the same, that we need to be more efficient on the working capital and take out that money, and invest more efficiently in the business. So somewhere you will see in our announcement also, we have mentioned that, you know, most of our this investments which we are doing should come out of internal accruals. Because this is that one large investment, MDF, what we have, except the plywood investments, which we are talking about, which is already on the way. And if you look at the next three years' cash generations, which will happen, it will automatically take care of our existing debt as well as the new investments.
So there is a lot of semblance which we have tried to create now in the business, and we are following those disciplines as a company.
Thank you for the detailed guidance, and best of luck.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Hrishikesh Bhagat from Kotak Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Since you spoke about that, you do look at the incremental return on capital, but-
Yeah.
When I look at it, what the ROC was when you were only solely Greenply plywood, and post that, if I look at the MDF capital allocation, clearly the returns have diluted.
Yeah.
Now, against that backdrop, how do we justify the incremental capacity addition? Because we are still at 71%-72% utilization. The margins are pretty low. So that's question one in terms of that. So second is on the CapEx also. If I look at the capital cost, it's largely similar to what it was on the past, so, kudos to that. But just wanted to check, is there, considering these are largely imported, is there no impact of rupee depreciation on the capital cost?
... So I will answer the first question, Hrishikesh, and the second question I'll leave, Sanjiv to explain, largely on the same. So, so when you look at, you know, the history of last five years, the first thing, yes, if you look at, Greenply, definitely at that point in time, only with plywood business was showing better ROCE. But is that the future product? Is that the level of risk which we should carry in our business by being just in one product? So these last four, five years for us were a lot of formative years, where we have not gone to raise any level of capital. We have not even thought about diluting any level of capital. The whole objective was that whatever money was there in the business, how we can get more efficient.
On the one side, where you ask this question, yes, I think it's quite valid that if I only look at plywood business, my ROCE was better. But when you look at a combined entity today, I think we have really made us risk-free by getting into three line of business, and two line of our business are now well-established. You know, and MDF in no time has really got well-established. Today, at least we have 7%-7.5% of market share also in that. Not raising capital, again, you know, it's something for sure was a discipline to take out money from the existing business. So I think from here on, when you will see incrementally, you will see that my ROCE overall and, you know, and ROI.
We'll continue to invest because we have absolutely no plans, at least at this point of time, to dilute equity or raise any level of capital. So we understand that whatever are the means, whatever is the cash flow we are generating, we must make best utilization of the cash flow. Now, imagine if I generate cash flow in my plywood business, and I don't do any investments in MDF, which is a future-led business, what will happen? Finally, my ROCE will continue to drop. The only other thing what we can do is to continue to you know, maybe distribute dividends. But-
Sir, sorry, I'm not debating your question in terms of that MDF is wrong. My point is, isn't it that the margins, current margins, do they justify the investment? My question was more on that front, that-
So margins. No, no, totally appreciate, and that is where I'm saying the margins you will start seeing on MDF also will get back to 16%. Yes, there are certain market realities also. But MDF, again, is like a business where you will see seesaw. Margins, maybe, you know, we will see times when it will go back to 20, 21%, and then again, it will come back to around 13, 14%. So we are actually quite happy that we have gone into MDF as a business. It's a futuristic product. More and more applications we are able to see today in the market, and I think with these two line of business, which is our significant line of business, plywood and MDF, the company will do very well going forward.
I will add-
Next question, I would request Sanjeev to answer.
Yeah, I'll just add to what Manoj ji said. I think, we are seeing the ROC of the MDF business on a short-term basis. And currently, yes, there is overcapacity, there is a, you know, price fight in the market, there is a, you know, margin war, where all the top players, the margins of the, at least the listed players, players have come down. But if you look at this on a three-year or a five-year or a seven-year period, I am quite confident that, you know, the ROCs will come to a justified and respectable level. And if it does not come on a long-term basis, it is obviously very clear that, you know, people are not going to continuously invest, neither us. And that Greenply, for us to be dominant in the wood panel space, I think it was a very, very important move.
Moving on to my second, moving on to your second question, I think, you were, you were concerned about the CapEx cost with the current euro going up and the dollar going up. I think we are quite confident on the INR 400 crore CapEx that we've announced, and the capacity, and we are looking at a very similar technology, where we are looking at a German manufacturer, we're looking at an 8-foot wide continuous line. So with, with our cost that we have given, we are very confident that we'll be able to achieve a 700 cubic meter German Conti line at that cost. And yes, we have taken into account the euro cost.
Thanks. Thank you. Thank you for the reply.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rehan Sayyed, from Trinetra Asset Managers. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon to the team, and thanks for giving the opportunity. So I just have one question from my side. I just want an understanding regarding your segment and sales strategy. So in the plywood business, manufacturing is volume of the customer has total has decreased from 43% in quarter three to 25-34% in quarter twenty-six, quarter three. So is this a deliberate strategic shift towards a more asset-light trading model, and how does it impact your long-term consolidated capital margin target of 9%? Just one, just one more clarification on this side.
Rehan, your voice was not totally clear. Are you, are you saying on the, on the sales side? Is the question-
Yeah.
-related to your sales volume, between the premium and the economy?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like manufacturing and trading model.
Oh, you're saying manufacturing and trading?
Yeah.
Yeah. So, look, you know, clearly it is visible that... and we have suffered this in the past, okay? That when we were very high on our trading model, we were suffering in terms of supplies, we were suffering in terms of, you know, price escalations on a regular basis. Of course, that was a period when, you know, the raw material timber prices were also moving up, continuously. Now, at least the raw material prices are much more stable. But over a period of time, you know, we have also learned that if we are able to cater to larger supply from our factories, that makes much more sense. And of course, you know, when in the short term, when we will have a larger demand and our capacities, internal capacities are not adequate-...
We can always look at ramping up the trading model. So somewhere, you know, we are carrying that as an additional space for ourselves to mitigate short-term challenges in terms of hypergrowth versus our own capacity. That is where we are looking at that model.
Okay, okay. The last one, just, confirmation that you have said about your Odisha expansion strategy. Is it working, still working progress or is it commencement started?
Which one? Sorry, again, actually your voice is not very clear, sir.
But your voice seems to be very muffled.
Yeah, yeah.
Hello, hello. Is it clear now?
Maybe slightly better, but, yeah, please repeat the question.
Yeah. Just one last question on the update that you have given about Odisha expansion capacity. Is this still in work in progress or is that commenced, started completely?
For the MDF, you are saying?
Uh-
Odisha, I think he's asking.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Odisha.
For the plywood, in Odisha, there is already a work in progress.
Okay. And can we get a guidance that, expected commissioning date or project capital expenditure remained for this project for the FY 2026 and FY 2027?
So, you know, our project commencement right now, we have kept it as Q4 of FY 2027. The total investments which we speak about this plant was close to around INR 130 crores. I think we will be in that range only. Maybe we would have invested by this time already. How much we have invested already? Around INR 30 crores?
Okay.
Sanjeev, do you have the number? How much? We would have invested around INR 25-30 crores by this time.
Yeah, INR 25-30 crores already invested.
Yeah, right.
Okay. Okay.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sneha Talreja from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Hi, team. Thanks a lot for the opportunity. Just an extension to question of Hrishikesh. What is the realization and the margins now we are resuming on the new CapEx?
What is that?
What is this for?
Realization in MDF. MDF, MDF, yeah.
I think, we are targeting a similar level of realization in the, in the new plant also, and it's quite soon to say, you know, this plant, this capacity will come up for us in,
18 months. in 18 months from now. So yes, we are assuming that will be at similar levels.
This capacity, Sneha, will come in second half by end of second quarter of FY 2028. So we still have a good time actually. But yes, right now we are only assuming that... And we are able to grow our business at our current realization. We are able to grow well. In quarter four, actually, we are looking at a much higher growth. So, I mean, you know, at this point of time, this is a fair assumption that we will continue to get this realization, assuming that the market also behaves similarly. In case there is price increase, which happens in the market by 4%-6%, you know, in the next 12 months, then, of course, the realizations will also change.
But actually, exactly my point. So the kind of ROEs that you're expecting on the new, you know, line of business, won't be strong again, as per your current realization number, right?
You see, the investment is only INR 400 crore now, okay, on a 700 CBM line.
Despite the increase in, you know, the, the rupee/euro and everything. So I think that is a big, big advantage which we are going to create in this. So yes, the ROCE would be similar, around anything between 16% and 18%, not more than that.
Right. Right. Right. Understood. And what are the other CapEx plans that you have for FY 27?
FY 2027, now the major plan is only this, you know, plywood Odisha unit-
Yes
... which will get completed. So the balance investments will go there. And this investment of INR 400 crore over 18 months. So it will actually start from quarter four itself. Some amount of investments will happen in quarter four, and then it will continue up to quarter one or quarter two of FY 2028.
Understood. The Odisha plant, you said, will commission by quarter one or quarter two by 2027?
No, no, quarter four of FY 2027. So, January, February, March, sometime in January, February, March of calendar year 2027.
Understood. And sir, if I heard you correctly, you also said from now on, you know, we'd be looking at mid-teen sort of a growth for plywood division. What's changed, you know, precisely between the first half to now that, you know, we are in double digit at this point of time, and incrementally, we can look at these amount of growth continuing?
So I think, Sneha, we mentioned this in the last call, that we had taken support of a consulting house, which is now with us almost for last you know more than 18 months, actually, maybe 21 months. And initially, we worked on first thing first, on our factory side, you know, availability of stock. We found that there were a lot of gaps at times when we were not able to deliver on time to our customer, despite having orders in place. So, you know, once you are not able to deliver on time or there is a delay, of course, either you lose some amount of sales because my dealer is not going to wait, right? Plywood is not a category where specifically he will only wait for Greenply. So he can always...
And you know that all of them are, MBOs. Correct? So keeping that in mind, the first thing, first initial time, we only worked on correcting the supply side issues and everything on the factory side. Having done that, then we came back to what we need to do on the sales side. So there was a lot of preparatory work which was going in terms of, reach and distribution, that, you know, where are the gaps on reach and distribution? Second, of course, you know, how do we do a better management in terms of our SLA, the sales force automation, and we get and extract better throughput from every salesperson who is working, you know, whose feet is on the street. So we have created metrics, we have created KPIs, and, you know, those things started its trial run in quarter two.
Good part, the best part, which I even mentioned in my, in my last call, is that the adaptability of the same from the team was very, very smooth. You know, normally it's a big change management, but, you know, kudos to our team, that they wholeheartedly took this in their stride and, you know, they started working on those metrics. So there is granularity, there is depth in terms of the daily working also. And aided by that, a big tweak in our strategy, which was we started investing on Ecotech as a brand. So this was something which, you know, which was the third support, which is an organization which we provided to our overall strategy.
So keeping all those things in mind, now you can see in quarter three, we have actually grown at 12.5% in volume, which is after a long time, I think maybe after a couple of years or so. So, we are pretty confident, and, you know, then rest, time will only tell.
Noted, sir. Lastly, on the furniture hardware business-
Sorry to interrupt, ma'am, but I think we have follow-up questions.
Sure, I'll get back.
Please rejoin the queue. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management will be able to address questions from all the participants in the conference, kindly limit the questions to two per participant. Our next question comes from the line of Utkarsh Nopany, from Anand Rathi. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon, sir. So my first question is on your MDF segment. So if you see the value-added product revenue share in that category has gone down from 22% in Q1 of FY 2025 to 17% in Q3 of FY 2026. So wanted to know what challenges we are facing that we are not able to grow the value-added revenue mix over the past seven-quarter period?
I think, the number you're referring to here is, I think the prelam sales. You know, there are times that, you know, the company does some certain projects or certain orders where the prelam proportions are very high, and then there's, there are some times when those orders are not available. But if you look at our overall mix in terms of HMR, Boil Pro, exterior grade versus interior grade, I think we are very, very well-placed. And as a strategy, you know, we do not want to provide that number that make it so easy for the competition. So, I don't think we should be worried looking at the prelam numbers going up and down. That is how we look at it internally. Obviously, that does not mean...
I don't mean to say that, you know, we don't want the prelam numbers to grow. Obviously, we want it to continuously keep growing. But overall, in terms of value-added versus non-value added, we are very comfortable and happy with our performance so far, and we think that in times to come, this will not be a challenge. Maybe up to the second line, this won't be a challenge. Starting the third line will be a challenge, because then the capacity will be too high to sell maximum value-added products.
Okay. And, sir, like, on the margin front, PC, it has turned out to be significantly lower in December quarter compared to our guidance of 16%+, which we are targeting in the H2 of FY 2026. So wanted to know what is the reason for such inferior margin compared to our guidance, which we have shared in the first week of November? And by what time frame we are expecting the margin to go up to our targeted level of 16% going forward?
Right. So one, we are targeting that, you know, we should have a similar margin profile, that kind of a margin profile in the quarter four itself, number one. Number two, in quarter, in quarter three, we did not get the entire benefit of the increased capacity. You know, we disturbed ourselves in quarter two to expand the capacity, and we did not get the full output in quarter three. That was one of the reasons why we could not achieve the margin. The second reason, I think Manoj mentioned very clearly in his speech, was that we had to do some kind of sourcing to ensure that our dealers, distributors do not suffer. They continue to get the material, and obviously the sourcing comes at an extra cost. It does not come at your own cost of manufacturing.
Hence, the 2% margin hit over in the entire quarter was faced due to that reason. So given these scenarios in quarter three, that, you know, we could not ramp up completely, for the reason that, you know, we could not give you the projected result. Fingers crossed, hopefully in quarter four, we'll give you that result for sure. That is one. And number two, I think Manoj also mentioned that January production was ever highest. So, you know, we are very confident, and looking at the same, we feel that, you know, quarter four will be in the lines of what we have committed.
So let me just add to that. In quarter three, when we spoke about 16% margin, you know, now at least we can share, that we felt that, you know, we'll get the added advantage of, the production, and we will do a 20%+ growth in quarter three. If we'd have hit that number, for sure, we would have been at 16% margin, you know, we would not have been troubled at all. But since we lost that much of value sales, it also impacted the margin. January has been excellent in terms of, you know, on the production side, and that's why, this level of confidence that we'll be, back to our 16%+ margin from quarter four.
Okay, and sir, lastly, on the balance sheet side, like at the time of Q4 of FY 2025 earning call, we guided that we are looking forward to reduce our net debt position from INR 455 crore in March 2025 to INR 250 crore by March 2027. But now, we believe that our net debt is likely to go up to close to around INR 650 crore by March 2027, since we have undertaken new growth CapEx. So sir, wanted to know, with this CapEx announcement, our net debt to EBITDA is likely to remain at elevated level of more than 2x, and are we comfortable at such high net debt to EBITDA on a sustained basis, sir?
So net debt to EBITDA on, no, first of all, it will not be more than two for even the coming year. Okay? We have looked at our numbers. I'm not divulging all the numbers, but it will be less than two. But that will only be for one year, okay? Because that will possibly, and we are not very sure that whether we'll be at INR 650 crore or INR 600 crore. We're just assuming, because INR 400 crore will get spent over the next 18 months. So maybe it may happen that, you know, there are payments which goes to the last quarter also, which is the sixth quarter. But we are assuming that, okay, yes, fair basis, we should be somewhere around INR 650 crore. At INR 650 crore, we are much less than two, but that is just for one year.
The next year itself, we will be at one, the subsequent year.
Okay. Thanks a lot, sir.
Yeah.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Parth Bhavsar from Investec. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. So thank you for the opportunity. Sir, I have two questions. One is, a clarification on the CapEx number. So we, sir mentioned that the, the CapEx for the new MDF capacity would be INR 400 crore, versus the media release, it says, INR 425 crore for a 600-700 CBM capacity. So can we just confirm INR 400 crore for a 700 CBM capacity?
Sorry, I stand corrected. The number is INR 425, and the difference is on account of GST, you know. When we did the internal calculation-
Yeah.
the operating team always calculates 400, but when the CFO does the calculation, he takes the GST also into account, which will get capitalized. The rest of the GST is only a cash flow item, but this 25-
It's a cash flow item, yeah. So it's a cash flow item, so, you know, I mean, yes, both, of course, will have to take along with the GST. Yeah.
Fair enough. Fair enough. And sir, one other thing, on input costs, like, if you could throw some light on, you know, how the timber costs are trending, and what was your consumption cost in Q3, and what is, is it right now? Are we seeing any moderation over here?
Timber cost, you know, almost has remained stable in the last quarter. Slightly, it bumped up in the month of December for some period, but again, in January, it is back to, like, you know, the same October, November levels. So yes, we were expecting that, the timber prices to be stable or it will start coming down. It is stable. It has not started coming down.
Okay. Okay. And sir, just one last question. So what sort of brownfield optionality do we have at this Baroda facility, post this, you know, post this new expansion? Do we have any optionality in terms of, you know, land that is available to put up another line?
I think after MDF two, we will not have any spare land to, you know, expand further our capacity over there, for sure. Maybe something small is a very different thing, but not a large CapEx or a large, plant.
All right. Perfect. Thank you, sir. Those were my questions.
Okay.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Fenil Brahmbhatt from Choice Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Hello, good afternoon, and thanks for the opportunity.
Good afternoon.
I have a couple of questions. Sorry if something repeating again, but yeah, just to confirm.
No problem.
Could you
No problem
... could you able to share, revised guidance for volume and margin for both plywood, plywood and MDF business for FY 26 and FY 27, if you have, any handy number?
You're asking for the full year?
Yeah, full year, I'm saying, the for FY 2026, 2027, our volume or margin guidance.
So, so, you know, we have not given any such guidance, but yes, while we were speaking, we have mentioned that in plywood, we have now started looking at double-digit growth, you know, from quarter three. We, we mentioned this earlier that, in our last call, previous call, that in H2, we will look at a double-digit growth in volumes, in plywood, as well as MDF. And, at this point of time, we will only maintain, the same statement, because we have been able to deliver in quarter three. We can see that happening in quarter four, and even for going forward, this is what internally we are looking at as a company. And we feel pretty confident that, yes, from here on, we'll be able to deliver those numbers. But, however-
Got it.
You know, yeah, the full FY 2026, do we have any working for FY 2026 full year?
One quick thing.
Maybe, you know, you can reach out to the team, and the team can, you know, let you know afterwards, because-
For sure.
Yeah, of the numbers may not be correct.
Any quantified margin difference between MDF boards and prelam boards? Like, do we have any different numbers for these two in MDF business? Like, what is the margins over there?
You want margins separately for Prelam and separately for plain boards?
Right. Do we have that number with us?
I don't think we have it handy. Maybe you can get in touch with Jay or the CFO. I don't know. She also shared this.
Yeah, we will share this.
... Okay, okay, great! And, considering this, current, current market and the, oversupply in MDF, so what are, what's the management strategy for the MDF business, and, considering this price war and steady demand and oversupply, and do, do we look, looking for any exports opportunity as well?
So, if you look at the export mix which existed for most players, I think people export at cost or slightly lower than cost to keep their plants running. That is what we've understood, looking at certain other listed players. So definitely, export is not an option, you know, with the Europe FTA or the U.S. deal now, if that—those markets open up, I'm not sure how the scenario will be. But the current scenario, if you look at any other listed player who's exporting, I don't think they really make any money in exports. So our focus is definitely the domestic market. If you look at our brand and our brand strength and our distribution strength, I think the capacity we have for MDF is very, very small today.
Even though there is an oversupply in the market, but as Manoj mentioned, we are only looking at 7.5% of the market, installed capacity today, or that is our only market share today. So for the second line also, we are not worried as the management of the company. We feel that with our brand, we'll easily sell through. And also, you have to see the competitive advantage in terms of the regional strength. So given that we are the only player, producing MDF in Western India, that is definitely giving us a strength. And we want to continue to be dominant there, and hence we've announced our second facility there as well.
Okay, okay. That INR 400 crore MDF plant, new plant, which we are talking about, that is for which location? For Baroda only, or something else?
Yes, it is in the same location, and we plan to take many advantages having the second line in the same location. We feel that on a long-term basis, there will be raw material advantage. On a long-term basis, there will be fixed cost advantage in terms of manpower and management. And also we are going to dedicate both lines for different purposes. So we are going to run our existing line in the future only to make thick boards, and we're going to run the new line only to make thin boards. That way, we'll be able to churn out maximum capacity from each line.
Okay, okay, okay. The last question from my side, management outlook for share of PAT from furniture hardware JV, if you have any, any outlook on that?
On the furniture hardware JV?
Yeah. So right now, we are making a loss, so, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. So, so the ramp-up has been good. We are happy with the ramp-up, okay? And, and next year also, we are seeing that, we would be able to grow at around 30%-35% for the next year. But even with the 30%-35% growth, somewhere we will not be able to make profits. The year subsequent, we will be able to make profit for two reasons: One, there will be another growth of maybe 35%-40%, for sure. Second-
They are part of the products right now, which we are importing. We are importing from Turkey, where, you know, my import costs are high. We have a plan now to do the expansion of phase two. Once that is being done, then, the margins improve significantly, the moment we start manufacturing those in India. We'll get this dual advantage. One, there will be a lot of improvement in the overall margin, and second, the growth will also propel us, in terms of bringing down the, the losses. FY 2028, for sure, we will be into profits.
Got it. Got it. Thanks for the answer, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Karan Bhatelia from Asian Markets Securities Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks. Am I audible?
Yes, Karan.
Yeah, totally. Just to continue on the new CapEx, so correct to assume the new CapEx will be for thin line, and the existing infra will be for the thick line. So I wanted to understand on the product profile, how better could be the realization profile of thin MDF, and thick, and also on the margin side? And if I have to break up the domestic market into thin and thick, how much is the share of each?
So honestly, today, whatever realization you see is a blended realization of thin and thick. But today, given that we have one line, and we have to produce all grades, all thicknesses, we have frequent stopovers and changeovers on that line. The moment we have two facilities in the same premise, we will dedicate each line for each category of product. So one line will only make thin all grades, one line will only make thick all grades. So in that case, what happens is that the total output of each line can be increased, with the fixed costs-
Right
... remaining the same. That's the way, you know, we can really increase our operating margins and leverage the efficiencies.
Mm-hmm.
That is the major change which will come in. Answering your question about the thin, thick, I think about 35-40% of the market easily should be thin boards, and the rest is thick, according to me. There's no authentic data to back this.
Right.
The experience we've gained over the years.
Right. Right. And on the MDF side, you know, again, we've seen players, you know, getting into aggressive CapEx modes, so what's the current installed base as on 2026 end, and how do we see the industry level CAGR over the next two, three years from all branded and non-branded brands?
I think we are looking at... I think that the MDF industry in India will grow at a 15% CAGR, is what we internally feel, you know. This was the same question asked by our board yesterday, and that is the number that we feel, and even our board feels confident. Looking at the history, you know, Greenply was involved in this category long back, you know, even when Greenply was one entity. So, you know, we've seen this kind of a high growth CAGR over almost a decade now, as an organization.
Right. The only worry is if supply grows by 15% plus, we may not really have days where you can take price hikes or can see meaningful, you know, improvement in the margins or the return profile.
So I think we'll have to see the, we'll have to see the ROC or the margin or, you know, the how good an investment is over three years, five years and seven years. So if we check the investments and returns on those intervals, I think we'll be satisfied fairly. But if we see it on a short-term basis, yes, it might look like a very, you know, bad decision or a bad, choice that, you know, currently there's oversupply, people are not making money. Should we invest or not invest? But, you know, looking at Greenply's future and wanting to be dominant in the wood panel space, I think we need to continue to grow and dominate this space. And I'm very confident that on a long-term basis, we'll create enough value, to satisfy us and each and every stakeholder.
Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for-
Also, Karan, also, Karan, what happens now, you know, there is a—so the installed capacity in MDF, we mentioned there in the call also. We are not able to, or most of the players, they are not able to operate on 100% of the installed capacity at any point of time. So there's already a gap of, let's say, 10% or 15%. Most of us will be able to operate because of the mix. So the installed capacity, you know, when it comes from the German manufacturer, they speak about certain thicknesses, certain sizes met in that proportion. The moment we have the, the real mix, which we are today selling in the market, we also find that, you know, like today we are talking about 71%. I think the moment we go beyond 85, 86, somewhere we will start feeling that heat. Okay?
So technically speaking, though we are saying 1,000 CBM, but we will not be able to manufacture 1,000 CBM with the present mix, what we are selling, and that is true for most of the players. So the capacity which is there in the market also, you know, when we do our calculations, we feel that that capacity should mostly get utilized in the next 12 months. Whatever capacities are already in place, and also remember, which we have mentioned earlier, that, you know, these are such plants that they don't operate at 85%-90% capacity on day one. It takes a cycle of two years to three years for them to reach that maturity of start delivering, you know, between 85% and 90%, throughput.
Mm.
So, I think there is a level of balancing which has already happened. For us, we clearly see that going into West is an advantage because there is a good market, there is no clutter there. We didn't wanted to go into that space where there are already so many plants in South and North.
Mm.
So, you know, even last time, like, they were concerned, but we've, we've been able to prove to everybody that we took a good decision on at that point of time, and I'm sure this time also we'll be able to prove this, that, you know, what we have taken the call, both in terms of location and in terms of the pricing at which we will be able to establish this plant, the timeline, possibly this will turn out to be good only.
Got it. Got it. Thanks. Thanks.
I think there are no further questions. No, any closing remarks management team would like to make?
Thank you all for taking time to participate in this call. In case of any further clarifications or queries, please feel free to reach us. Thank you.
On behalf of Asian Markets Securities Private Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.