I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vishal Rangwala, CEO of the company. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
I thank you, Jatin, and hello, all. Welcome to our Quarter 4 FY 2024 investor call. As per past practice, while our CFO, Mr. Maulik Jasani, will take you through numbers in greater detail, I presume that you would have had a chance to go through them already. And I'll talk through some of those general trends. At the outset, I feel delighted in reporting a much stronger Quarter 4 FY 2024 numbers, both at India level as well as global level. I'm also quite happy to report that Quarter 4 FY 2024, the actual results have turned out to be significant improvement.
If we talk through, Indian engineering business, talking specifically about our growth drivers, I'm starting with, bushing segment, where we have started, seeing a good traction, though a bit late in, last financial year, which, you know, reflected by a healthy inflow of orders, thereby improving our visibility in financial year 2025. Thus, while we have closed, the year, with sales of around INR 40 crore in the segment of bushing, we expect this business to, grow significantly, probably nearly double, and expect to achieve, sales of at least INR 75 crore plus in FY 2025. This is specifically for bushing segment. We continue to work further in this segment and win additional development and opportunities as well.
Similarly, I'm happy to report that we have started seeing improved order flow from plants that have been set up by our key customers in India, which cater to their global requirements. This validates that we are the natural beneficiary of China Plus One strategy implemented by our main customers, and no doubt we continue to have a dominant share in Indian market and could be become a key beneficiary of all the increasing requirements from our customers. If we talk about our business from, you know, Japan-based customer, though this has been a lower than our expectation in current or previous financial year 2024, we expect this business to grow significantly in coming years.
Further, though I cannot share specific detail, I can only say that we continue to work aggressively on various exciting major outsourcing projects of our key customers in various parts of the world, including Europe, Japan, and USA. Lastly, while our LSC business has not really grown the way we expected in the current year, which is largely due to subdued global demand and the current both in wind as well as industrial segment, we believe that this should start gaining traction in financial year 25. I'm also happy to inform that we have witnessed a strong growth in stamping segment, particularly on the railway and the automotive side.
Thus, we saw sales jump to around INR 50 crore for stamping in FY 2024, and we again expect at least a 50% growth in business in the segment for FY 2025. Our greenfield project in India is on track. While major effect is on the site development, as well as basic infrastructure, including utilities, as we have indicated earlier. In the first phase, we are creating additional capacity for bushing as well as large size bearing cages, and we are targeting that this should become operational by quarter four, FY 2025. I'm happy and relieved to also report that China has already come in positive profit territory in Quarter four, FY 2024, indicating a revival in demand from our key customers in China.
I'm cautiously optimistic that this trend to continue through FY 2025. However, I must say that Romania is continuing to face the headwinds in the form of no near-term revival sign, either on the wind side or on the industrial side in Europe. However, we are currently working on the strategy of significantly improving the product mix by increasing the share of cages in Romania from current level of 15% to more than 30% in FY 2025. And based on this strategy, we expect Romania to at least reach cash break-even in FY 2025. Lastly, as you can see, our solar vertical has reported a decent growth in top line and there is an improvement in bottom line also. This is largely on, largely on account of renewed interest in renewables in the wake of positive renewable policy in the state level.
While strategically, we do not propose to allocate any significant additional capital to this segment, we expect the same to continue growing at a very positive rate. And also, we see that it will contribute to our bottom line. Our targeted top line growth for financial year 2025 on a consolidated basis is around 10%-15%, but our bottom line growth expectation for financial year 2025 is in excess of 25% over financial year 2024. Thus, I feel confident that financial year 2025 will be much better year as compared to 2024. I sincerely thank all of our investors for continuing to repose their trust and confidence in Harsha, and I wish all of you a pleasant evening. Thank you, and over to Maulik to walk us through numbers for quarter four. Thank you.
Thank you, Vishal, for the overall business review. Hello, everyone. On a consolidated basis in Q4, FY 2024, reflects an all-round improvement in the top line as well as the EBITDA and PAT margins compared to the last quarter. For the quarter ended March 2024, for engineering business at a consolidated level, we have achieved a top line of INR 321 crore against INR 278 crore in the immediate previous quarter, and against INR 325 crore in the same quarter last year. We have achieved consolidated EBITDA for engineering business at INR 60.6 crore in quarter four, against INR 48.5 crore in the last quarter and INR 56.5 crore in the last year same quarter.
Continuing focus on cost, improving sales, as well as favorable pass-through situation for raw material prices and better product mix, has resulted into improved EBITDA margin as standalone, as well as consolidated level in the last quarter. For the financial year ended 2024, the company achieved a consolidated revenue of INR 1,227 crore in engineering segment, against INR 1,299 crore last year. Annual EBITDA is achieved at INR 128 crore, at 60.2% of the revenue against INR 218 crore last year, at 16.8% of the revenue for engineering segment.
In solar business, we have achieved INR 165 crore and EBITDA of INR 1.8 crore for the year 2023 to 2024, after adjusting 0.67 crore loss of the USA company and the one-off cost incurred in the quarter one, as we discussed in the previous call. Overall working capital cycle at consolidated level is around 141 days at the year-end, against 144 days in the previous year-end. The company has incurred a CapEx of INR 25 crore in the last quarter, which includes the CapEx out of the IPO money of INR 11.5 crore. With this brief number on the financial side, I hand it over to the operator to take over the Q&A from the investors. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their 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 will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Harshit Patel from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for the opportunity, and congratulations on a good set of numbers. So my first question is, what kind of improvement do you envisage in FY 2025, especially on the exports front? Because we have seen global bearing companies reporting muted sales in Europe, and the outlook shared by them is also not very encouraging. So how do you see the, our exports panning out? So I am not talking about your sales from, Romania and China, from those facilities, but what you produce in India and sell to the outside.
So, Harshit, we expect our export to continue to grow. However, we have also received a muted, you know, demand expectation and forecast from our customers. So we expect a moderate growth on that front is the current projection. Now, it may change based on, you know, various segment, how things turn out, but that's the case. Now, we are also expecting moderate growth, not a significant growth, from that segment. However, we are also continuing to work on some outsourcing opportunity, which might be an add-on business and, which may add to the, that, growth number.
Is that what would-
Broadly, they remain, Harish, they remain in the range of around 50%, broadly, exports out of India, and that is more or less comparable with the previous year also.
. Sure. So, in percentage terms, how our exports would have grown, or degrown in FY 2024?
As you can see that it is there in our IR presentation, and our exports from India is 49.3% in FY 2024, against 51.6% in the previous year for engineering business.
Understood. Understood.
Yeah.
Sure. Sir, but secondly, the wind equipment demand in China seems to be in a bad shape. Since we supply the bushings to the companies who are exporting out of India, I mean, what gives you confidence that we will be able to grow more than 50% in FY 2025?
So, two, three changes within that. One, our customers' focus is not to export to China, but it's outside China, Europe, US, and other territories. Second, the demand increase is driven by, we were talking about earlier, that how this bushing adoption is taking place. So more and more gearbox going in with bushings, and that is what is giving us the confidence. And this is that supported by the predictions by our customer. So that is the reason we are confident of a significant growth in FY 2025 for bushing segment. In spite of overall wind demand may be muted.
We see that India demand in wind is still strong, and our customers are moving from a normal gearbox or without bushing gearbox to a bushing gearbox, and that is what is driving the growth for us.
Just to add, there's a little bit of base effect also. So year we have done 40, this year, which we should have done a little more, and now it is shifting. So, you know, next year is the normal, which we would have or wanted to do this year. So that way also, you know, it is, yes, it looks very sharp, but this is how you have to actually look at it.
Understood, sir. Very well. Thank you very much for answering my questions. I'll come back in the question queue.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit Anwani from PL Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Congrats for the decent set of numbers. Am I audible?
Yes.
Yes, very much.
Yeah. So first question on Romania, you said, we still continue to face headwinds, and the revival is low, and we, we're going to increase cages from 15%-30%. So if you could throw some more light on, are we shifting some production there, or is it the increased demand? How significant that, you know, in terms of revival of Romania, I understand we were doing largely castings, and what is the utilization level currently? We did talk about energy cost there. What is the status there? Are the things, you know, getting better from that aspect? Or is it that there's no demand from there, which we are not able to meet as per plans that is still impacting?
Yeah. So, Amit, we basically, we are seeing overall a muted demand in Europe, and that is one main challenge. On top of that, our semi-finished portion is significant, is another challenge there. Now, what we talked about, you know, increasing cage share from, you know, 15%-30%. We are seeing some traction in terms of more and more customer wanting to buy out of, you know, our Romania facility. And there are discussions about additional outsourcing by our customer. So combination of that, we are expecting to grow the cage supplies out of Romania facility this year.
Based on that, additional conversion of cage, which is a higher value-added product, we are expecting that we will come very close to breakeven or better in Romania. That's the thinking, and actually there is some backend support from our customer in terms of award in that direction. We are continuing to win some additional orders in Romania to support this direction. Fairly confident that we'll be able to change or shift the portfolio based on what's going on right now. However, you know, headwind still remains overall muted demand in industrial and wind markets, which is a large size is our biggest segment when it comes to cages there, so that challenge remains.
Right, sir. Second thing on the penetration with the Japanese customers. So just wanted to understand how much was the contribution this full year, and did we made any progress? What is the outlook?
So, we grew, I believe, if I remember top of my head, about ten-
Ten percent.
Yeah, 10%+ last year. That was expected to be higher. You know, some of our projects which were in pipeline, it got delayed in terms of realization. They are back on track, and we are expecting that growth to come in this year. We are seeing already you know higher flow or a forecast from our customer on that front. So fairly confident of that happening. We are expecting, again, Japan-based customer, and when I say Japan-based customer, not necessarily an export to Japan, but supply to you know Japanese companies to grow significantly in the tune of 20%-30%. That is what we are roughly projecting at this time for FY 2025.
Right. How much was the percentage contribution from Japanese?
Percentage contribution in terms of total revenue?
Revenue. Yeah, yeah.
I think we'll have to check.
Sure, sir.
Yeah, but we'll, we'll come back to you. Yeah.
Yeah, no worries. So for wind bushings, sir, just wanted to understand, you said to INR 40 crore, and now we are expecting INR 60 crore, in FY 2025. So just wanted to understand, there's a lot of talk about. You're talking about muted market outside, but there's a lot of talk about, you know, wind additions in India. And, so, how's the outlook, in Indian market? And second thing, are we the only vendor supplying to, you know, global MNC, gearbox manufacturer, or is there a competition, within India or outside where we are, you know, competing? So just more color on the, bushings market.
Yeah. So we, on the bushing side, you know, I, I want to first clarify the numbers. We are expecting to grow almost to the tune of, nearly 100%. So maybe, we are, so we are going from INR 40 crore to about INR 70 crore-INR 75 crore+, is our expectation today. This is, as I mentioned, that this is, from a competition point of view, I'm not, right now aware of any competition in India. Yes, there are suppliers who supply this product outside India. One, you know, that, that's exactly the reason. One, we are, they are taking us as a bigger and bigger substitution supplier, meaning what they were importing earlier, now they are moving to 100% supply by Harsha, that's one move.
Second move I talked about is, you know, how they say they are making X number of gearboxes. Not all gearboxes were using this bushings. Now, as a percentage, higher number of gearboxes are using these bushings, or maybe they are selling higher number of gearboxes with bushing integrated into it, and thereby the market is growing for Harsha in India specifically. Our customers, as I mentioned, are primarily supplying into Indian market as well as globally, other than China. And overall market outlook may be somewhat muted. India looks good, and primarily this growth is coming not out of the wind market growth, but out of a conversion to bushing, is what is happening.
Right. So you mean to say, largely good part is coming from conversion then the new addition. Is it right understanding?
Correct.
Sure.
Or rather, any incremental requirement getting shifted to bushing, that's what it is. We, we are not replacing the existing, gearboxes per se, this is what our perception is, but incrementally, more and more, new requirements are moving towards bushing in gearboxes.
Right, sir. Thank you. Thank you and all the best, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nisarg Parikh from Native Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking the question. Oh, first one is, could you, you know, you mentioned, in terms of, the outlook for next year, can you just, talk about what are the drivers of profits, growing faster than revenue, and what pockets, will we see the margin expansion?
Okay. So if you see this year at our international subsidiaries level, there is a negative contribution to the extent of INR 14 crore-INR 15 crore, correct? One, as we already explained, China has turned positive. B, our.
. strategies to ensure that somehow, at least in Romania, we, if it doesn't contribute more on the positive side, at least it should stop losses. So that could be therefore, an incremental direct addition to the bottom line. That is why, assuming that India continuing to grow, maybe, at a higher double digit, and Romania, China not growing that aggressively, but maintaining more or less a muted growth. So overall, top line would grow 12%-15%. Bottom line is bound to grow higher because of this typical change in the composition at the consolidated level, with India continuing to contribute same in more or less in the same percentage range of 20%-21% at this time.
India margin, you're not expecting to increase significantly. It is international which will drive the profit growth.
India remaining constant or slight improvement, international. India will improve actually a little bit, definitely.
Because of product mix.
Yeah, product mix change. But international, stopping negative contribution and keeping it with wee bit, little bit of positive.
Okay, got it. And, can you just, just to be clear, this year, I think, if I just, based on the numbers you mentioned, on a consolidated level, India business would be around. The domestic business would be around 33%, and two-thirds is rest of India, right? Including international and exports. Is that fair?
India business, can you just repeat your point?
At consolidated level, India is 33.
India to India, you are saying.
Yeah.
Am I right?
Within India.
Yeah.
That is right.
Yeah, that is right.
Exactly.
International, can you just give a broad split between geographies?
On a macro level, about 25%-30% is Europe. About 10-12% is Americas, another 10-15% is China. Rest is, you know, rest of the world, kind of.
Okay, understood. And, in Europe, right, which segment is our biggest, because you mentioned Europe, there is slowdown, and we are seeing it across industries. So which are your top segments in Europe that you're catering to, and how should we look at that for the next year?
So, from our portfolio, we cater to, you know, across complete segments, which, you know, includes wind to industrial to railway to automotive, and everything in between. We are seeing a very muted growth projection on the industrial side, including wind. And maybe a little bit of better, relatively, improvement on the automotive side is what we are seeing. Again, nothing to say that it's full recovery, but some improvement is what we are seeing on the automotive side. That's, that's, you know, how we, our order book is looking like. Beyond that, I mean, I don't have a very specific segment-wise thing, because right now, we, our customer also don't precisely tell us exactly what goes into what segment.
Got it. And if I can squeeze in one last question, what is your order book at the end of the year and order intake for Q3? Q4, sorry.
We don't really work on a, you know, a long-term order book. We are basically, you know, supply to the, you know, we get a forecast, and that's what, you know, I tend to talk about, kind of a rolling forecast from our customer. So that becomes our indication for projection. So, we don't really talk about our order book, as such, because that's how the industry works in this end.
So just to elaborate, we have all long-term, very long-term contracts with almost all customers, and then we get rolling annual forecasts, and then they keep on sending POs as they need. So, you know, that is why, if I annualize, then my, frankly, my order book is almost for the full year. But then, in reality, the POs would be maybe on a monthly basis or something like that.
Got it. Got it. Makes sense. Thank you so much. Thank you, and all the best.
Yeah.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aditya Shah from Vikram Advisory Services Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Sir, I have a question regarding our capital allocation policy. So within that, what are our CapEx plans for the next two years, and any reason for conserving so much cash?
Yeah. So Aditya, as we have discussed, our overall CapEx plan is in next three years is around INR 300 crore, including the new greenfield site, which is still under the construction phase. And as you observe, the major cash conservation is on account of our IPO money, and which has been kept for the further growth investment only. And once we have a new site in place, we will have a major plant and machinery CapEx in the phase when it will continue. So just to answer your point, it is around INR 300 crore+ in next 2-3 years. And we are also exploring if any right opportunities, we evaluate the various market opportunities available in our segment.
Right. So, 300 crores is your CapEx. Any idea on, you know, what is the ROE that as a company we are targeting for the next three years? Because currently our ROE is pretty low at 10%.
Yeah, mainly as you rightly observe, it is on account of the cash reserves left with cash allocations available with us, cash flow available with us, and it is actually pulling down. And once this everything will be deployed, maybe it will take another two years to reach to the peak, and maybe down the line four years, our expectation is just to generate the similar ROE pre-IPO time is around 17, 18%. After 3-5 years, it will just increase.
Okay. Okay. So next five years, our internal target is around 17, 18%. So probably till the, till five years, we would expect ourselves to be between 10% and 12%. Am I right? Because of the heavy-
It will gradually go up, and we expect that in next year, the pace of CapEx and all other investment plans would accelerate. So I would say next three years, we should reach 17%-18%.
Oh, that's right. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And sorry, last question, is about any dividend policy as a company, do we have or no?
Yeah, we do have it, and it is already there in place.
Okay.
We are following that.
All right. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Jason Soans from IDBI Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, sir, thanks for taking my question. Sir, my first question was, I understand that you said, you know, your customers were not telling you where the, your bearing cages have, are being employed. But sir, of course, when you talk about India from a macroeconomic perspective, there is a lot of talk on how the industrial side is picking up. CapEx plans are very, very big for the next three to five years, of course, with a stable government, if elected you know. So just wanted to know from your perspective, you did say that there is some recovery in automotive side, but I believe when you look at bearings, industrial side also, it will, you know, it will contribute very, very handsomely and meaningfully. And you basically supplying component or a bearing cage to that industry, you will definitely benefit out of it.
So, sir, just wanted to know, how is your. What's your view on the industrial side from a long-term perspective?
Yeah. So, you know, again, we are from a long-term perspective on the industrial side, we are very bullish. Rightly, as you mentioned, you know, we see a significant CapEx investment in India, and, you know, since we are supplier, in that segment, we should benefit. We continue to see growth in India and, you know, in, which includes industrial as well as automotive for the last year, and then we are continuing to see that, growth. More than 10%-12% growth we are seeing in India, a combination of industrial and automotive. And my comment, related to, you know, industrial still muted, but, automotive improving, was reference to European demand or global demand, which we cater out of India as well as, you know, various other.
Sure. Sure, sir. And, sir, just in terms of bushings, if I got the numbers correctly, you said you have sold INR 40 crore worth of bushings in FY 2024, and INR 70-75 crore you are basically planning in FY 2025. Is that right?
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, but sir, just, again, from a perspective, just wanted to ask you, if these bushings go into those windmill gearboxes, and they are seeing some muted growth, as you said, Europe also is muted on that front. So, sir, how will we achieve almost a double kind of growth? Just wanted some more color on that.
So, I think I'll just elaborate on what I answered.
Yeah.
One, I think what is happening is conversion of gearbox without bushing to with bushing.
Okay.
Basically, if my customer is selling 100 gearboxes, maybe they were selling 20 or 30 with bushings, and thereby my demand was based on that, the 30 they were supplying.
Mm-hmm.
Now they are, they are converting more models, more bigger portion of their supply to bushings. So basically, instead of 30, 60 gearboxes out of the total 100 they supply, are going with bushings, and that's what is increasing the demand for bushings. As Sanjay bhai, you know, mentioned, we have, we have talked about this in the past, that when we won the order, it, it was, about, you know, with both two customers we have, we had a INR 120 crore plus order opportunity, which we had won.
Mm-hmm.
which was supposed to mature in 2025, 2026, or 2024, 2025, rather.
Mm-hmm.
We are running, you know, 1-year delay on that. So basically, what was supposed to happen 2023-24 is now realizing in 2024-25, is what we are seeing. In spite of overall global market still muted, India is still doing decent.
Mm-hmm.
that it's the conversion of more gearbox with bushing is what is driving this growth, which we were expecting when we, you know, started supplying to these set of customers.
Okay. Okay. But this growth basically is coming from Europe only or this for INR 75 crore. Basically, this growth comes from Europe only, right? When you're talking about double or is there some growth from India as well in this?
No, no. So, for us, supplies happen out of India. Our customer majority, they are supplying, we are supplying to customers who are located in India.
Okay.
Our customers who supply to Indian market, the gearboxes, they also supply to European market and other markets.
Uh.
We don't have an accurate number of exactly where the gearboxes are going. But yes, that includes India also. Yes.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Sure. Sure. But you do expect good, good numbers from this segment. Okay. Sure, sir. No, and just, you know, when you go back, when you look at your subsidiary performance, I mean, just, if you just, deduct the consolidated minus standalone. Now, when I look at this, of course, you've plugged in the losses, losses have come down from the subsidiaries. And when I look at the EBITDA margin, it's around breakeven 0.3% for FY 2024. Okay. Now, just, sir, I mean, of course, it's a combination of Romania and China. Those are your main subsidiaries overseas. So, sir, going ahead, how do you look at the EBITDA margin for both these subsidiaries going ahead? I mean, just some color on that.
Yeah. So, as we were, you know, I don't have an exact number in front of me.
Mm.
From a, you know, where exactly it's gonna go from a percentage point of view. But what we are sharing that definitely it has turned positive for China and Romania in terms of losses have also reduced.
Mm-hmm.
Ultimately, we expect the EBITDA margin to turn significantly positive and expecting positive PBT, PAT from China, and roughly breakeven from Romania. That's the transition we are working on. That's for the current year.
In current year.
But, yeah, just to add, you know, the targeted blended EBITDA-
Mm.
at China level would be in the range of around 12%-13%.
Mm.
In Romania, in a good year, normal year, it should be around 6%-8%.
Interesting.
Not, not 24, 25, okay?
Right. Right. This is the blended EBITDA, what you expect in a good year, right? For Romania.
Only in 20. Yeah.
Okay.
But it's too early to comment about that.
Yeah, sure, sir, I understand that. No, I was just, my question was from a, I mean, in, on an FY 2024 basis, it's 0.3. I mean, just talking only about the subsidies. So just wanted to know how you, you see it going ahead. Okay. Sure, sir. And sir, just finally, what, what I wanted to ask you is, when you look at, of course, your, say 30%-40% business is coming out of India, so that is, and 40%, 35%-40% is domestic, I mean, coming in from India. Just wanted to know from your side, which pockets do you see, like, for example, say, it could be railways, it could be auto, of course, auto you have mentioned, railways. Which pockets do you see good growth in terms of domestic and exports, both? If I could ask you.
Sure. So-
Yeah.
For FY 2025-
Mm.
Basically, we are domestic side, we are seeing a positive growth across.
Okay.
Little less on the industrial side of the things, because partly because, you know, our customers also export to other markets. But overall, we are seeing growth, projecting growth or expecting growth from a railway segment.
Mm.
We are seeing growth on the automotive side, as well as predicting growth on the industrial side. Little muted versus, you know, relatively other, segment on the industrial side. That's what we are seeing for India. Globally, as I mentioned, most of the growth projections are somewhat moderate.
Mm-hmm.
Definitely there's a growth, we are expecting over FY 2024, specifically because it was a significantly down year. When, you know, we see a down year, usually our customers also tend to, conserve inventory. They take some action to, you know, reduce inventory, which sees a little bit bigger, degrowth sometimes for us. In somewhat of a growth year that.
Okay.
So in India, we are, you know, expecting that this from our international customer point of view, we should see for established business we should see a moderate growth and not a significant growth, and then we continue to work on additional business opportunity with various customer so which would include some of the outsourcing projects as well as some resourcing projects. The combination of that, we still see internationally for us, Harsha, you know, growing about you know about 8%-10%, it's my rough average, overall. And then India would grow more than 10%-12%.
Mm.
And then the difference will be kicked in through the products, what I talked about, bushings and stamping and all that.
Sure. And sir, lastly, just wanted to ask you, I mean, it's commendable that in 2024 I'm just seeing your standalone results. So margins in engineering, your core engineering segment, you have managed to, you know, keep it at 21.7% or 22% odd levels, which is very commendable. Sir, do you think this would, should be a sustainable margin going ahead, 21%-22%? For engineering, I'm talking about.
Yeah. Yes, yes, I think so, definitely.
Sure. Sure. Sure, that's all from my side, sir. Thank you so much for answering my questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Divyam Gupta from Gupta Family Office. Please go ahead.
Hello?
Yes, sir, you may-
Yeah. Hi, Divyam.
Yeah, hi. I appreciate the opportunity, sir. I just have one question regarding our solar EPC business. I know it's a really small part of our overall business, but when I look at our margins, we make only single-digit EBITDA margins, but other players in this segment, they make mid-teens margins. So why are our margins so low in this segment? Thank you, sir.
So, a couple of things within this. There is certain legacy to this business, which has certain costs attached to that, which is driving the margins on a slightly lower side. Also, I think we are also not too scaled in terms of, you know, the opportunity. Higher we scale, we could get a much healthier, better margin in this. And again, we are also not very aggressive on scaling, because with that comes in additional capital allocation and other things. So, we are somewhat conservative on our approach. The third big element is that there are a couple of one-offs, which, you know, we had faced.
So if I talk about fourth quarter or last quarter, basically, we took a INR 67 lakh loss on account of U.S. subsidiary which was created a few years back, and we had decided to wind it up, close it. So that's the one-off. Another one-off, we shared, I believe, first quarter or second quarter, I don't remember exactly, of FY 2024, where we had to incur a significant expense on one of the O&M contract, where O&M payout is still yet to happen. So those combination of the two, three factors I mentioned, the margins are somewhat muted versus, you know, if you compare.
However, we think that there is still a continued opportunity within that segment, and we want to play the right scale role and not be over-aggressive. Otherwise, you know, what we, you know, what we have seen in the past that it can create a receivable and other issues, so we are trying to, you know, avoid that.
Great, sir. Thank you so much, and wish you all the best for FY 2025.
Thank you, Divyam.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor & Company. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Manish, sir, just to take the conversation forward, so what is our roadmap in terms of the solar EPC segment, and what kind of order book do we have in the execution period?
So, as I was mentioning, you know, our current strategy is to focus on industrial rooftop or ground mounting. And right now we are not, you know, we are limiting our focus to the Gujarat state and not venturing out on significant projects beyond that. And we see that there is a healthy margin we can make with that because of the favorable opportunity. I think. Yeah, I think we should continue doing this in the region of INR 150-INR 200 crores. See what will happen?
.Currently, the government policy is very favorable, so we see a lot of traction, even in this limited sphere where we want to operate. And I think about INR 150-INR 200-odd crore as a run rate now, with the same level of capital allocation, which may be mid, say, mid-single digit margin is what should happen.
Sir, I think with this rooftop part of the opportunity for one crore homes, getting rooftop solar, being installed. So does that also provide a good runway for companies like us to get a pie, a share of what may be in the annual going ahead?
Yeah, you're right. But as Vishal explained, see, what is happening, as an engineering-focused company, our entire focus, capital allocation is on the opportunities where we are working. Solar happens just like that, okay? And we don't want to allocate more capital. So we will be content with whatever little positive contribution this business gives. It goes sort of in an auto mode without too much of a management bandwidth being really, you know, focused on that as a growth. This is where we are, honestly.
Sir, so just to harp on slightly more, then what are the synergies of we doing this as a business, when we are, we are not providing the right management bandwidth?
No, no, we-
We are not getting the right management.
No. So, Saket, I'll explain. See, maybe you haven't caught us up earlier, so this is more like a legacy business. This business was handled by Vishal's younger brother, and then unfortunately we lost him. And then, you know, it just merged into our, the business, sort of to give a support and continuity to ensure that there is no sudden disruption, and that's about it. So really, it was not a synergistic move, but more of a action that we took at the family level, and now it just continues as a small division. That's all. Nothing more to be read into it.
No, no. Okay. Sir, and also this bushing part of the story. Sir, what led to exactly this bushing into the gearboxes, and what's the outlook going ahead that. For going ahead, the new boxes for the turbine, which will be done, it will come with a bushing. Does it any regulatory change? What has led to this demand?
Yeah, so, bushing, where our, the bushing is an extension of our current competency when it comes to machining the non-ferrous castings and high precision machining capability. So that's what, you know, what got us in there. Specifically on the bushing adoption in the wind industry, what we understand is happening is that our customers, the gearbox designers are basically trying to reduce the weight to power ratio. Basically, shrinking their design size of the gearbox for the same power transmission. And one of the strategies to achieve that they have adopted is replacing some of the bearings with the bushings. These bushings are of high precision cylinders, under which the shaft rotates.
And, basically, through adoption of bushings, we are able to shrink the design, space taken by bushing versus bearing would be significantly different. And, so this requirement by wind customers of reducing the weight, and possibly also the cost overall of a gearbox for the set, power transformation, is driving the conversion from a, a non-bushing, gearbox to a bush-designed gearbox. So just to add, we got this, lead from our Romanian subsidiary 3-4 years ago. We found it very interesting. We developed it. We are very good at precision. Anything to do with precision is our core competence, and that is how we branched out into this related diversification. And now it's panning out to be a very good, branching out, because there's a lot of synergy with what we already do.
Sir, so just to conclude, it is on the efficiency part, and then there will be an incremental demand since it will lead to lower operating costs for the windmill. This understanding is correct?
Yeah, we believe that. Efficiency, not necessarily on the operation of the bushing, but overall wind mill efficiency, gearbox efficiency in terms of weight and other things, yes.
Sir, what is our capacity for the bushing segment as a whole? We did INR 40 crore annual number for FY 2024, and you are looking for INR 70 crore-INR 75 crore for the next financial year.
Correct. Our capacity, as I mentioned, that, you know, we had installed capacity with the order book, a potential order book of order of, you know, INR 100 crore-INR 120 crore orders, in mind, so we have installed capacity for that. And further, we are working with our customer to take care of next set of, you know, transitioning, with this bushing kind of design for gearbox.
. In terms of overall market opportunity, you see, this is, as I mentioned, we talked about, this is a transition where we are moving from one design to another, and this will take a time. And we ourselves started this, you know, in 2019, when we started making prototypes, and it was approved in 2022 or, end of 2021 kind of thing. So, ultimately, what we expect that when the full transition happens to the bushing, this could be a INR 5,000-5,000+ crore market opportunity globally, and we are a very early entrant to this. Probably first one in India. We are trying to tap into this opportunity. That's what it is.
Yeah, and our targeted market share is about 10%, so about INR 500 crore at the peak. This is what.
Okay. But that, this is one-time business only, sir. INR 500 crore, if you will target at its peak, will be one-time replacement.
No, no, this is regular. So, you know, the wind market will keep on growing, new gearboxes. And currently, we are not even looking at any replacements. We're just looking at the new incremental CapEx and the gearboxes that are required for that.
Okay, sir.
You can repeat.
Sir. Okay, sir. Sorry, thank you for correcting me. So currently, we have a maximum of INR 120 crore annual capacity, and we have current-
What Vishal said, that at the current capacity, I can do 120. As a part of my greenfield, I'm adding another further capacity for bushing. We'll keep on adding as we grow. It's, it's a modular approach.
Okay. On last question on the greenfield part and the employee cost also, sir. What steps are we taking for rationalization of, firstly, the employee cost or our business is structured in this way, I think so more than 10% is our employee cost, employee benefit expenses. And on the greenfield project, sir, if you could give us some more color, what would be the size of its product profile also? And we have mentioned in our presentation that the greenfield project is satisfactory and is expected to commission in FY 2025. I think so for this financial year, 2024-2025, we'll commission it?
Yeah. Yes.
Yes. So, we have talked earlier that now we are expecting to invest about INR 300-odd crore in the greenfield side over next 2+ years. We are expanding our existing product. Basically, our large-size cage product portfolio, we are expanding. We are doing some expansion of industrial bearings as well as some bushings, is what we have planned so far. And we are also going through, you know, significant growth on the stamping component side. So that's what is getting expanded on the third site, which is under construction, as we talk, will be commissioned in fourth quarter.
And, then we will continue to invest, and that it will take a couple of years before it can really-
In a phased manner.
Yes. So it will take some time before we can actually have a significant volume out of it. But these are very long-term investments. Currently major investment going on in the building and land and other infrastructure, which will be used as a foundation for the next phase of growth.
On the employee cost?
Yeah.
No, sir.
So, see, in our industry, we estimate asset turn to be two, but in day one, we cannot achieve two because the bigger chunk or the initial chunk of investment is going into infrastructure, which will be used as a foundation for a lot of other investment and so on. So initially, it may be lower, but this is our benchmark. We average about two on the investment to.
Turnover.
Turnover, yeah.
Yeah.
Yes, and just to touch upon, Saket, your point on the employee cost, it is around 10% at a standalone level. Reason mainly, we have a high mix of, skilled and unskilled labor, considering that we are into precision engineering, and we need a quite a good qualified engineers, teams, deployed on the various, activities, including the new product development activities and, production activities. So this is the average yield, and where we are focusing as of now is to improve the productivities, as a yearly output, and also to work on the various automations, which we already deployed in various, lines, and we continue to deploy in other lines in the automation mode so that we can reduce on the labor cost.
Sir, last point, sir. If I have suggestion from my side, correct me there also. In our presentation-
. the number of plants we have, and the product profile, I am unable to find any slides there. So correct me if I'm missing something.
So if you can refer to our previous investor relationship slide, we have a company overview in our quarterly presentation. In the latest presentation, we have just removed the company overview slides, considering that now it has been published on this now.
So we have, we have two major plants in India, near Ahmedabad. One in Romania, one in China, and the third greenfield site is coming up again, just adjacent to our, Ahmedabad plant facility. So there's total five plants once the greenfield becomes operational. And details are there.
I think, sir, we should continue with that. We are still a very new company in the electric space, so a lot of investor interest would be there to understand the. And you are doing CapEx also. So if you could add the same and provide us with an input of what actually the specialization in the different facilities, that would suffice a lot of questions. Hardly a page or two in your presentation would serve the purpose.
No, point taken. Point taken. No problem.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you, sir, for all the response and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shirom Kapur from PL Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for the opportunity and, you know, congrats on a good set of numbers. I just had a few bookkeeping questions. If you could help us with the revenue numbers for Romania and China individually for FY 2024.
Yeah. So you need, the China has done the revenue, for the full year of FY 2024 is around INR 92-93 crore, and Romania is around INR 224 crore.
Okay, thank you. And, you know, if you could also share what the capacity utilization has been in your, you know, for Romania, both in your castings as well as the large-size cages, because. And, you know, whether there's been any capacity expansion outside India in the last year or so, are there any plans for that going forward?
So on the casting front, Romania has a lot of capacities, and it's very nominal utilization as of now, considering they have a huge free capacity, maybe in the range of 20%-25%, I don't have handy numbers. While on the cage front, the utilization is around 40%+ in Romania, and China is around 50%-60% around-
On the cage.
In China cages.
This is for the current quarter, recent numbers.
Recent numbers, yeah.
Okay, I see. I see. And, thanks. And just, last question, you know, if you could also share. So I believe you mentioned the Japanese contribution. I might have missed that. What the share of Japanese revenue being you had mentioned earlier that you would get back to us. Do you have the number handy, or would we have to take that, maybe offline?
Yeah. So Japanese, the last year, sales is around INR 65 crore.
Yeah, in fact, this was also one of the earlier questions, so we just got the data.
Yeah.
It's sixty-five.
Yeah, sixty-five.
Right. Yeah, yeah, that's. I was just following up on that. So INR 65 crore in FY 2024?
Yeah.
And you expect this to-
Yeah.
Grow maybe about 20%-30% in FY 2025, correct?
Correct.
Yes.
Right.
Because there was some muted growth, but yes, it will improve this year.
Sure. Sure. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Pankaj Motwani from Equirus Wealth. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. A follow-up question on bushing growth. So, just I want to understand, the bushing growth is due to the conversions of switchgears, or there could be some increase in volume of switchgears, too?
Can you repeat your question?
Yeah, we didn't understand. Can you repeat, Pankaj?
So I want to understand that you explained that bushing growth is due to the conversion of switchgears, so there could be some also reason, like increase in volume of switchgears or?
No, I think, maybe, we did, probably I said something which created this confusion. The growth is because, more gearboxes are going with bushings versus earlier.
Earlier bearings.
Earlier it was supplied with bearings, and only some of those bearings are now replaced with bushings. And the bushing, the gearbox with bushing included in it, as a percentage, is rising in our customers' supply, and which is driving the growth of the bushing.
Okay. And so, where. Yeah, yeah, that I understand. And where these conversions are happening, like these are happening in India or over the globe?
Currently, our majority supply is in India, to our customers in India. Some quantity, minor quantity, goes outside India. However, we understand that our customers are sending these gearboxes, is supplying in India as well as, supplying outside India.
. Okay. And what are the margins in our bushing segment?
They are comparable at India level, around 20%-21% EBITDA.
Okay. Just a single bookkeeping question. So if you look at our solar EPC, EBITDA, and PAT, so data slightly different in our standalone and consolidated business. I believe that solar EPC business is in our standalone books only. What is the reason behind this difference?
So Pankaj, as we mentioned during the call, there is a INR 67 lakh of loss in standalone books.
Uh-huh.
On account of, on account of USA subsidiary closed down.
Right, okay.
That was a solar subsidiary, and hence,
Okay.
In consolidated it has been eliminated because loss was booked in previous years in consolidated.
Got it.
Hence there is a gap.
Got it. Got it. That's all on my side. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Saket Kapoor and from Kapoor and Company. Thank you. You may proceed now.
Hello? Hello.
Yes, sir.
Sir, can you provide me-
Yeah, yeah.
Sir, can you provide me the mix of sales between our bearing cages and bushings in the split up of the same? What are the key components, sir, of the sales mix in percentage terms?
Bushing numbers we have already given you. We have given you the stamping numbers, so rest are the cages and semi-finished products in Romania and the byproducts, scrap sales, and we don't give that breakup.
Sorry, sir.
Saket, we don't give that breakup so far.
Sir, lastly, sir, have we hired any IR for our company, or is it in-house?
It is in-house.
Yeah, in-house.
Sanjay is also on the call, support us in all the IR activities.
Okay, sir. So we should ideally look for engaging an IR firm, so because of the story of the company and also going ahead, the type of CapEx the country is witnessing, and how well the story can be shared along with the CapEx, which is in the annual of completion and then taking place. The investor needs to be abreast about the activities and that should improve. That should be given with an improved quality of our investor presentation also. So I request the board to take note of engaging with an IR firm. There are various people associated in the country which can provide superior services for the investing community. So kindly consider this.
Sure, sure. Point taken.
P lease, please take note of it.
And lastly, sir, on the AGM, AGM part also, we find it that, today in the month of May, we are, we have announced our numbers, and we are done with it, and we are coming up with an AGM in the month of September. So why, what led to this 6-month preparation or 4-month preparation to hold an AGM that was also on an OAVM platform? And again, the dividend also of INR 1, although you have mentioned about the policy and all, but still that payout will happen also in the month of September. So just wanted to understand that thought process, if that could be taken on the call or if you want to one-on-one also, I can understand that.
A four-month gap should not-
One on one?
Yeah.
One important thing is, we have started, Saket, giving, integrated reporting, and which requires some more efforts on finalizing the overall integrated reporting activities through with our, consultant and advisor.
Mm-hmm.
We are not able to share the numbers with them in advance till the time we did the board meeting and put it in the public domain.
Correct.
And hence, this is some incremental time for that, additional activities in the IR for integrated activity. We have noted your time, and we are focused on reducing the timeline. As you can see, that our board meeting is in the sixteenth May, not in the last week of the May.
Correct, sir. We hope for better interaction, better, more understanding of the company. And are you, are you looking to meet investors also, sir? We, investors can come down and meet also?
Yeah, yeah, you can connect us, and we can, we can plan it out.
We meet regularly. There's no problem. We attend conferences, we attend calls.
Fine.
We are always available for all interaction. Not a problem. Okay?
Okay, sir. Thank you, sir, and all the best.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vishal Rangwala, CEO of the company, for closing comments.
Good. Thank you, everyone, for you know patiently attending this call and listening to our you know commentary and inputs. We hope you received all the relevant information, and as Sanjay mentioned, you can reach to us, and we can support if there is further gap we need to fill in. With that, really appreciate your time, and thank you very much, and have a good evening. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Harsha Engineers International Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.