Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Raymond Limited Q1 FY25 earnings conference call, hosted by Antique Stock Broking 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 the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star, then Zero on your touch tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand over the conference to Mr. Abhijeet Kundu from Antique Stock Broking. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Deepika. On behalf of Antique Stock Broking, I would like to welcome all the participants in the Q1 FY25 conference call of Raymond Limited. Today, we have with us from senior management of Raymond, Mr. S.L. Pokharna, who is Director of Raymond Limited, Mr. Amit Agarwal, Group CFO, Mr. Sunil Kataria, CEO of Lifestyle Business, Mr. Harmohan Sahni, CEO of Realty Business, Mr. Jatin Khanna, Head Corporate Development, Mr. Gautam Maini, CEO of Engineering Business, and Mr. Sameer Shah, CFO of Lifestyle Business. Without taking further time, I would like to hand over the call to Mr. Amit. Over to you.
Thank you, Abhijeet. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for the earnings call to discuss the results of the first quarter of fiscal 2025. I hope you would have received a copy of our results presentation, and I would like to urge you to go through this along with the disclaimer slide. Let me start with an update on the various corporate initiatives in line with our objective of simplifying the group structure. First, the demerger of our lifestyle business, which got completed as on 30th of June, 2024. Vertical demerger of the real estate business, which was announced on the 4th of July, 2024, and will take almost 14-16 months to complete the demerger of the real estate business. The restructuring of the engineering business, which we expect to complete in this fiscal year.
Now, for the clarity purposes, the lifestyle business comprises of branded textiles along with its manufacturing facilities, branded apparel with its portfolio of brands, Raymond Ready to Wear, Park Avenue, ColorPlus, Parx, and Ethnix by Raymond. As well as garmenting business with its manufacturing facilities and B2B shirting business with its manufacturing facilities are now demerged into Raymond Lifestyle Limited, and which will be listed as a separate entity in the second quarter of this fiscal year. The listing of Raymond Lifestyle Limited is expected in this quarter. The record date for the demerger of Lifestyle Business was on eleventh of July, 2024. As we have informed earlier, that every shareholder of Raymond who were there on tenth of July, 2024, will be entitled for receiving 4 shares of Raymond Lifestyle Limited for every 5 shares held by them of Raymond Limited.
Secondly, after the demerger of Lifestyle Business, Raymond Limited will be having real estate business and engineering business. Furthermore, Raymond Limited has initiated the vertical demerger of its real estate business into its wholly owned subsidiary, Raymond Realty Limited. Upon completion of this demerger, Raymond Limited and Raymond Realty Limited will operate as separate listed entities within the Raymond Group, which is pending all statutory approvals. The new entity will seek automatic listing on stock exchanges, and according to the scheme of arrangement, each Raymond Limited shareholder will receive one share of Raymond Realty Limited for every one share held in Raymond Limited. This strategic move comes as Raymond's real estate business has achieved scale, reported a revenue of INR 1,593 crore, and an EBITDA of INR 370 crore in fiscal 2024.
This will position Raymond Realty Limited to independently pursue its growth trajectory as a separate entity. The engineering business will continue to be a subsidiary of Raymond Limited. The engineering business of JK Files, which does engineering consumables, Ring Plus Aqua auto components, and Maini Precision, comprises of auto components, aerospace, and defense systems. Further, as announced earlier, through a scheme of arrangement, two new subsidiaries of Raymond Limited will be created, and one will focus on aerospace and defense, while the other would cater to the auto component and the engineering, engineering consumables, each charting its unique path of growth with the primary objective of value creation. Raymond Limited will hold 66.3% in both the new subsidiaries, and the remaining shares will be held by the Maini family and the minority shareholders in the 28.5% and 5.2% respectively.
Just as a reminder, that on a pro forma basis for fiscal 2024, the consolidated revenue of the engineering business, including Maini Precision, was around INR 1,800 crore, and the consolidated EBITDA for the engineering group was INR 270 crore. Now, before I start my discussion on the first quarter fiscal 2025 performance, I again want to mention that Raymond Limited now encompasses the real estate and engineering business, and during the discussion, all the numbers and details will be for Raymond Limited. The demerger of the lifestyle business has been completed on thirtieth June, 2024, and listing is expected to be in the second quarter of this fiscal year.
Since there will be no separate call for the lifestyle business during this quarter, I will cover operational highlights of the lifestyle business in the later part of my discussion. Let me start with a brief overview of the market for the quarter for real estate and engineering business. The real estate market maintains its upward momentum, driven by increasing residential demand, with expectations for this trend to persist in the forthcoming quarters. Additionally, there is a rise in demand for affordable luxury residences alongside strong interest from the first-time home buyers. Engineering market witnessed growth in auto ancillary segment, however, engineering consumables has been weak both in domestic as well as export markets. Further, the aerospace sector is also showing promising signs. Now let me talk about the first quarter of fiscal 2025 performance of Raymond Limited.
Raymond delivered strong quarterly performance in real estate and engineering business, reporting a revenue of INR 998 crore in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, with a growth of 93% on year-on-year basis over INR 517 crore. The revenue growth was driven by outstanding performance in the real estate sector. In first quarter fiscal 2025, the company achieved a strong booking of INR 611 crore, primarily driven by the demand for the Address by GS Season 2 in Thane and the recently launched Address by GS in Bandra. Further, Raymond Limited completed the acquisition of Maini Precision Products Limited, MPPL, on twenty-ninth of March, 2024. Starting from first quarter fiscal 2025, the company has consolidated the performance of its engineering business to include MPPL.
The segment has shown strong performance post-acquisition, making Raymond's Group entry into the sunrise sector of aerospace, defense, and EV components. During the quarter, the company has delivered an EBITDA of INR 162 crores in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, with an EBITDA margin of 16.2%. This marks a remarkable 82% year-on-year growth compared to INR 89 crore in the last year first quarter. So overall, the company has reported the annual profit after tax from continuing operations of INR 57 crores, making a 27% increase compared to INR 45 crore in the previous year. During the quarter, as discussed, we have demerged the lifestyle business, and because of this, there is a profit from discontinued operations to the tune of INR 7,310 crores.
According to India's accounting standards, the demerger of the lifestyle business must be recorded at fair value in the financial statements of Raymond Limited. As of 30th June 2024, the fair value amounted to INR 8,516 crore, which includes Raymond's share on gain made on sale of FMCG business, net of tax, to the tune of INR 1,178 crore. Consequently, the net gain from the demerger is totaling to INR 7,338 crore, which is recorded under profit from discontinued operations and subsequently credited to reserve in Raymond Limited. This net gain does not affect the net worth, as the same amount of INR 7,338 crore is also debited to reserve as a non-cash dividend attributable to Raymond Limited shareholders.
The engineering segment performed well with resilient demand in the domestic markets, while export orders were impacted due to challenges in the global market, and our growth is further fueled by completion of acquisition of Maini Precision in March 2024, which has a strong presence into sunrise sectors, aerospace, defense, and EV components. Now, let me talk about the segment-wise performance for the first quarter. The real estate segment, leveraging an asset-light model, in February 2024, Raymond Realty launched its first JDA project in Bandra, Mumbai. The initial response from our customers for the first two towers was overwhelming, leading to the launch of two new additional towers. With our strong brand and execution skills, we are confident in our continued success of the real estate projects.
In June 2024, we were selected as a preferred developer to redevelop a housing project in Bandra East area with an estimated revenue potential of more than INR 2,000 crore, thereby making it to the fourth JDA project under our Realty business. Raymond Realty has 100 acres of land in Thane and eleven point, which delivers 11.4 million sq ft RERA approved carpet area, which approximately 40 acres is currently under development. There are five ongoing projects of 4 million sq ft, generating revenue of INR 9,000 crore on its Thane land, with an additional potential of 7+ million sq ft to generate more than INR 16,000 crore revenue, making a total potential of over INR 25,000 crore from this land bank. Additionally, Raymond has signed four JDA projects in Mahim, Sion and including the Bandra projects.
The combined revenue potential from four JDA projects in the Mumbai metropolitan region is over INR 7,000 crore. With the development of Thane Land Bank and current four JDAs, gives the company a potential revenue of INR 32,000 crore over the next few years. Overall, during the quarter, we have seen a strong booking momentum and made a total booking of INR 611 crore across our projects. The construction momentum across all projects, both Thane and Bandra, is progressing well, demonstrating our commitment to timely delivery and adherence to high quality standards. A comprehensive update on the construction status of our projects is provided in our investor presentation.
Our Raymond Realty business, which offers affordable luxury apartments ranging from 1-4 BHK that caters to multiple segments of society, and our proven ability to execute the project at a faster pace enables our sales to increase by 108% to INR 488 crore in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, from INR 235 crore in the first quarter of fiscal 2024. The EBITDA margin stood at 17.5% for the quarter, is lower as compared to the same quarter last year, majorly made due to marketing and initial cost of new projects. Now, coming to the performance of the engineering business. Considering growth strategy in the engineering sector, Raymond Limited completed the acquisition of Maini Precision Products Limited, MPPL, on twenty-ninth of March 2024. Starting from first quarter fiscal 2025, the company has consolidated the performance of its engineering business, which includes MPPL.
The segment sales stood at INR 419 crore in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, doubling revenue compared to INR 209 crore in the first quarter of last fiscal. This performance includes acquisition of MPPL and supported by demand in flexplates and shaft bearing, workshop bearings categories in domestic markets and shielding category in the export markets. However, the engineering consumable category continued to be impacted due to sluggishness in domestic and export markets and weaker retail markets due to excessive heat and inflation. During the quarter, the business reported an EBITDA margin at 13.2%, mainly due to change in product mix. Now let me talk about the debt and cash position at Raymond Limited.
We continue to remain a net debt-free business, with net cash surplus of INR 618 crore, which has increased by INR 117 crore compared to March 2024. Our total gross debt stood at INR 870 crore, which includes the debt taken to acquire MPPL business and existing working capital of MPPL. Further, we continue to maintain liquidity with cash and cash equivalents of INR 1,488 crore as on thirtieth of June, 2024. The interest costs incurred during the quarter is INR 31 crore, which is higher by INR 23 crore as compared to INR 7.7 crore in the same quarter last year. The rise in interest cost can be attributed for the debt taken for the acquisition of MPPL business and on the existing working capital debt of Maini business.
Now, let me provide you the brief highlights of segmental performance for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 for the lifestyle business. During the quarter, our lifestyle business witnessed weaker revenue due to discretionary spend continued to remain under pressure, prolonged heat wave, which impacted footfalls in retail outlets, general elections, negligible wedding dates impacted demand and inflation, which impacted our overall revenue performance and margin. In the first quarter of fiscal 2025, the lifestyle business revenue stood at INR 1,249 crore, lower by 8% compared to INR 1,353 crore in the first quarter of fiscal 2024. EBITDA stood at INR 87 crore in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, compared to INR 180 crore in the first quarter of fiscal 2024.
The branded textile segment revenue declined to INR 565 crore by 18% over INR 688 crore in the first quarter of fiscal 2024, due to lesser wedding dates, weak demand in the market and declining secondary sales driven by lower footfalls. The EBITDA margin was at 10% in the first quarter of fiscal 2025 due to decline in revenue and average selling price because of the change in the product mix. Now, let me talk about the branded apparel segment, where the revenue maintained at INR 303 crores compared to INR 304 crores during the first quarter of previous year. Despite challenging market conditions, we continued with our strategy of expanding distribution reach and network, focusing on premiumization and casualization.
The segment delivered an EBITDA margin of 4.8% in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, compared to 6.4% in the same quarter of the previous year. The lower EBITDA margin was due to mid-season sales, which started in May and the early onset of the end of season sales in June. Additionally, we increased the investment in branding and category creation, such as Ethnics by Raymond, through additional spending on advertisements and marketing initiatives to support our brands. We continue to strengthen our retail footprint as we opened 21 new stores during the quarter, as well, taking the tally to 1,539 stores as on 30th of June, 2024, which are spread across 600 towns and cities in India, which includes 118 stores of Ethnics by Raymond brand. Now, let us talk about the garmenting segment.
During the quarter, our revenue stood at INR 252 crore, which increased by 5% in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, as compared to INR 239 crore in first quarter of fiscal 2024. This growth was driven by acquiring new customers and enhancing our presence in new geographies. During the quarter, EBITDA margin was at 3.5% as compared to 9.8% reported in the previous year, mainly due to change in product mix. In the last few days, challenges faced by the exporters in Bangladesh have presented a great opportunity for all the Indian exporters, and particularly Raymond Lifestyle, due to our integrated supply chain from fabric to garment.
We have expanded our capacity by investing INR 200 crore, which will be highly beneficial as this capacity can be quickly utilized to meet customer demand, whereas building garmenting capacity typically takes 12-15 months. We are closely monitoring the situation and have reached out to our customers who currently source from Bangladesh. However, it is a bit premature to discuss specific volumes at this stage. Let me talk about the High-Value Cotton Shirting segment, where the revenue declined by 3% to INR 186 crore, compared to INR 192 crore in the previous year. The demand for our linen fabric offering to B2B customers in the domestic market continues to be strong. The EBITDA margin for the quarter was 5.5%.
I would like to emphasize that our lifestyle business is seasonal in nature, and major sales of high-value added products are linked to festivals and weddings, so the first quarter performance is not at all an indication of the full year's performance. Now, let me discuss about the current status of the operations and outlook. In the real estate segment, residential real estate continues to demonstrate sustained demand. We are focusing on future expansion through a capital-light business model via JDA route and targeting 20%-25% growth in booking value year-on-year. We are currently in advanced discussions to finalize new JDAs as we continue to expand our operation. As far as engineering segment is concerned, the auto ancillary sub-segment is witnessing very strong growth, and the engineering consumables seems to be having still a challenge in the demand.
We are driving growth from our sunrise sectors of aerospace, defense, and EV component businesses, and the aerospace business, particularly post acquisition, is showing promising level. Lifestyle business, considering the wedding days in second half of this fiscal, indications are that we will be witnessing good sales in the second half of this year. Further, we are enhancing our product portfolio and expanding our retail footprint to capture the increased demand during the festive and the wedding season. Our focus on customer-centric offerings is expected to drive sales growth. In conclusion, Raymond Limited has made significant strides in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, and the successful demerger of our lifestyle business and the strategic restructuring of real estate and engineering segment will position us strongly for future growth and value creation.
As we move forward, our focus remains on accelerating operational excellence, strategic growth initiatives, and delivering value to our shareholders.
Ladies and gentlemen, the line from the management has been disconnected. Let me. Please stay on the line while I reconnect them. Thank you. Thank you so much for your patience, ladies and gentlemen. I have the management back on the line.
Thank you. We appreciate the continued support and trust of our investors and stakeholders. Thank you for joining us today, and we look forward to your questions and further discussions. Operator, please open the line for questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer section. 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 CA Garvit Goyal from Nvest Analytics Advisory. Please go ahead, sir.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yes, please. Yes.
Good evening, sir, and congrats for a good set of numbers. Just two questions. One is on, basically the engineering consumables and the lifestyle business. So can you, can you tell me the, what are the reasons behind this, weak environment, in terms of demand for, these segments?
Yeah. So I'll ask Sunil for Lifestyle to respond, and then after he finishes, we'll ask Gautam Maini, who is also there, who is the Managing Director of engineering business, to respond. Sunil?
Yeah, hi. Hi, this is Sunil here. I think in terms of the lifestyle business, the weak environment is primarily three factors which happen together. Normally, India sees two wedding seasons, you know, one which happens around April, May, and one is the winter season, which starts from October, November and goes on till February. This time, after a long period, there was negligible weddings in the April, May season of weddings. So that is one very large factor which normally provides a large stimulus to all the apparel businesses and more so to our business, which has also got linkages with the wedding. The second big piece which happened, which obviously nobody anticipated, was the extraordinary heat waves which spread through India right from the middle of April, continuing till June, which impacted the whole consumer footfall across all kind of sectors.
And the third is India, as we know, all saw very long, staggered, phase-by-phase elections, which put a lot of restriction in terms of movements as with cash flows into the market. So in a way, these three factors came together to create an environment which was very, very muted, you know, and that impacted footfall, and hence, secondly, sales across.
What is the outlook for rest of the year for this segment?
So one thing is very clear that, in a way, what's the good part which happened is the entire backlog of the wedding season, which normally would have happened in the first phase as well, is now going to shift over to the second half. The second half has got a very, very large number of weddings. Almost the second half of the season has got some 45 days of wedding across, spread over 4-5 months. So this is one of the largest number of wedding dates which come together. So that is one piece which is looking very, very positive. Second is that, it's obvious that the weddings which did not happen in the first half are likely to come back together with a backlog towards the second part of the season.
So the outlook is very clearly that with the festive season starting on towards end of second quarter, and with the very, very strong wedding dates in place, that the second half of the year will be very, very good. And normally, what happens in our business is, that just before the wedding starts, around 45 days or so before, we start seeing traction, which starts happening. So we would expect a gradual recovery happening in this quarter itself and momentum picking up further towards the second half itself. So that, I think, is a very, very good piece in terms of the way the outlook is.
The second part, which I think Amit mentioned, was the Bangladesh piece, which I think is a piece which we would like to watch out, and that could have a very, very positive trajectory in the midterm over for our garmenting business.
Are you expanding on the capacity to cater to that existing additional opportunity due to Bangladesh?
We've already mentioned in the discussion of Amit, I mean, from what that we have already invested around INR 200 crore of CapEx behind expansion of line. Our capacities are already being, you know, almost close to doubled, and we have vertically integrated, you know, play already. So we are one of the very few suppliers in the companies in the world who have this vertically integrated play and a skill set, which we can immediately take advantage of as a result of this geopolitical situation, which is panning out in our neighborhood.
Understood, sir. Secondly, on that engineering consumable segment, sir.
Gautam, you are there?
Yeah, I'm here. I'm here.
Yeah.
Hi. Hi. So I think some of the reasons are common, like weather was very hot, and because of which the sales were definitely affected, you know, inflation, general elections. I think it's played a role across many of the sectors, including the tools and hardware sector. Apart from that, you know, the logistics of exports have increased costs significantly, the availability of containers, et cetera. So that put a little bit of a setback in terms of the actual sales, you know, taking place. So we feel that that recovery will happen because now the productions are all, you know, being enhanced, new products have been introduced, and therefore we see a much brighter, you know, second quarter.
Understood. What portion of revenue is coming from engineering consumables to the entire engineering segment?
Yeah. So basically, it'll be about 20 odd %.
Understood, sir.
Yeah.
Thank you very much, sir, and that's it from my side. All the best for the future.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Pritesh Sheth from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. So couple of questions on the real estate business. Firstly, you know, on the margin side, while Amit, you mentioned the reasons for lower margins, but I just wanted to dwell little detail into how different are the margins for our Bandra JDA project versus our, you know, Thane project. I mean, because of that mix, is that one of the reasons that we had slightly lower margins? Yeah, that's the first question.
So, Pritesh, there, there are two things in this. This is Raymond. One is, which Amit mentioned, that the marketing expenses in the quarter were higher because of Thane, we had a home fest, and that, that provided a fillip to our sales, and it will continue for next two quarters. And then also the Bandra launch, which was there, we had a big brand launch in that. So the expenses were, as compared to our other quarters, it was higher than usual. So that has... And as the accounting that we follow is that, that comes as a period cost and it doesn't get amortized. So it, it is showing this quarter. Next quarter, it will normalize, so that impact will go away, significantly. So that's one thing.
The second thing, which you also hinted at, of course, there is a difference between the Thane margin and the outside margin, because Thane, in that sense, the land cost is very low or negligible because it's legacy land. So there is, there is an element of land cost, which is there. And we have always maintained, over the last one year and also in the last few presentations that we have made, that our margin from this business is going to be in the range of 20% or little over 20%. And that's the main reason is because of the blending which happens of the projects outside of Thane.
And, the other factor, the third factor, which is more important, and you would understand this because you understand the nuance of real estate very well, is when the project is launched, in the beginning, the pricing is different, and in the second and third year, the pricing changes after that. So over a four or five-year project, the margin of the project keeps going up, and it peaks towards the end of the project. So that the average margin comes to around 20-25%. So since this was the first year we launched the project, the Bandra project, in February itself, so first quarter is the lowest margin that you will see in this project, and it will continue to climb up. We've already taken two price hikes in this project, which will start reflecting in the next few quarters.
Also, the product mix going forward will change because we have other projects, which will be coming on stream in Thane, which have significantly higher margin. There is an element of retail that will come in. So our guidance for the full year remains the same. We will achieve our average margin that we have achieved last year, somewhere in the range of 23 or odd %. So that we will very safely achieve this year. I hope I have answered comprehensively your question.
Yes, sir, Mohan, that's, that's very clear. The second one on the balance launches, you know, it's Sion, Mahim and the new Bandra one. Should one expect that all these three projects should get launched in next 12 months, or it's little aggressive kind of a target that we are looking at?
So actually, a fair assumption would be to look at H1 of next year as the-
Mm.
as the launch period for all the projects put together. And, if something happens before that, it will be a pleasant surprise for all of us.
Sure. So I mean, right now, at this stage, none of them would get launched at this year end, is it?
By March?
Yes, by March.
Well, maybe one of them is likely, but, I won't really commit that because we are yet to go through the approval process for that. But, out of the three projects, one is definitely moving faster than the other two. So maybe one project we can expect by March, but, it will not really contribute significantly this year, even if it was launched. So H1 probably is a better assumption to make.
Sure. That's, that's it. And, lastly, on the project addition. So last year, we had, three, almost three additions. This year we have started with one. You know, that, that's the target that you would go by? I mean, 2-3 projects every year, you know, adding up to, you know, INR 4,000-INR 5,000 crore worth of GDV pipeline to our, overall portfolio.
The visibility of that seems quite clear as of now. Of course, our target and our desire is to add minimum 4 projects every year, and upward of INR 5,000 GDV is what we are targeting. But, INR 4,000-5,000, 2-3 projects, I think would be a safe assumption to make. That is quite achievable.
Sure. Sure. That's, that's very helpful. That's it from my side, and all the best. Bye.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Participants who wish to ask question may please press Star and One at this time. The next question is from the line of Himanshu Nayyer from Systematix. Please go ahead. Apologies, the current participant has disconnected. Shall I move on to the next participant?
Yes, please.
The next question is from the line of Tanmay Gupta, Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Sir, my question is on the margin side of branded textile. Like, the margin has declined a lot, like, to 10% from the range of 20%. Is that all because of the decline in sales? If you can, you know, quantify what are the fixed costs here in this segment or going forward, what kind of margin should we look in the branded textile segment?
Yeah. Sunil?
Yeah. Hi, Sunil here. See, the primary reason for this margin decline is actually scale deleverage. I think that's the big reason for this. And there's some marginal impact which has come because of a little bit of mix change, again, which is related to the wedding season. Because in wedding season, you end up selling, let's say, higher segment of, you know, suits, jackets, kind of fabrics, which are higher selling prices. But a big chunk of this, actually, I would say majority, is because of deleverage, scale deleverage, and we should come back very quickly once the business scales up from quarter two onwards. So I don't see any threat to the margin, or it's a structural change or any threat to the margin in the future.
It is just a scale deleverage and a little bit of mix change.
Okay. So mix change, you mean, it has moved more into the shirting segment, for this quarter?
No, what happens is, normally when you have a seasonal, when you have wedding link businesses, you tend to get higher value purchases which happen. In terms of the mix which happens is, they are more high value, more high selling prices. That's the whole thing. It's not a shirting versus suiting change. I mean, within the suiting business, that change has happened. But that's the margin-
Okay.
In practice, scale deleverage.
Okay, so you mean to say in suiting value segment, suit has, has sold more?
No. See, what happens is, between suits and trousers, itself there's a change. So normally, suits get changed when higher value suits get or fabric gets bought when it is wedding linked. So that's the change which happens.
In garmenting also, it's like because of the decreasing scale, the margins have declined?
Yeah, so one piece is definitely our decreasing scale, and the second piece is a little bit of a ASP change which has happened, which is a very, very temporary shift itself, which we don't see having any impact for us going forward. We again expect the ASP in the garmenting business to come back from this quarter itself onwards.
So should we expect in both the textile and garmenting the earlier margins to continue going forward?
Yeah, actually, definitely we expect the margins to come back. We don't see any structural change in the margin profile on both these businesses.
Understood, sir. Okay, sir, thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Nirav Sarvai from Abakkus. Please go ahead.
Hi. My question is regarding The Address by GS, which is at Queens Court. Now, if I look at the realizations for the first quarter, it's come down to about INR 25,000, INR 24,430 versus INR 33,000 in the fourth quarter. So what has changed those realizations? The per sq ft.
One second.
Yeah. So can you, can you repeat the question, please? Your, your-
No, so if I look at the first quarter, the blended realizations of this Queens Court is about INR 24,430, which is on 0.07 million sq ft sold, and the quantum of sales is about INR 171 crore.
Yeah.
Fourth quarter, where we had sold 0.09 million sq ft for INR 298 crore. So the per square feet realizations have come down. So our understanding was maybe on the launch quarter, we would have been a bit more aggressive, but even in the first quarter after the launch, the prices have actually gone down.
We will have to come back to you on this.
Yeah. And another thing was on the revenue recognition on Queens Court. INR 128 crore have been recognized this quarter.
Right. Yeah. So what's the question?
So my question was, we have just launched it last quarter. So, how do we read this INR 128 crore of revenue recognition in the very initial phase of launch?
It is dependent on the quantum of work which has been done.
Okay. Because I was just looking at the other projects which we had launched, and in even immediate quarters, the revenue recognition was not so high. So-
So-
Just wanted to get a sense of this.
Yeah. So each project cost structure is different. So against the budgeted cost, the cost which gets incurred really determines how much of revenue we can book, because the matching principle has to be followed as per accounting standards.
Okay.
So the approval costs are different. The premiums that you have to pay, one is in Thane, the other one is in Bombay. So all those things make a material difference.
Right. And then what was the quantum of our total marketing spends for this quarter, which has dented overall margins?
It was approximately in the range of INR 20 crore-INR 22 crore.
INR 20-22 crores. All right, so that's it from my side. I just wanted some more clarity. Maybe you can take it offline for that one.
Sure, sure, sure, sure. If you, if you could just send your email ID across, we will, we will send you the answer for the second one. We'll just study that.
I was just looking at the areas sold and value of sales, and that's where-
Right.
I found that there is a disconnect there.
Right. Right. We'll get back to you on that.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Deepesh Agarwal from UTI AMC. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah, good evening, gentlemen. My question is on the Maini Precision portfolio which you acquired. If I look at this margin this quarter, that's a, that's a beautiful quarter. I think, when we acquired it, that was a much higher margin. So what has happened in this portfolio, and how did the margin go back to the 10%-12% mark, or these are the new numbers?
Gautam, could you get the question?
I, I couldn't clearly hear the question. I mean, I, I understood that something about margin, but for some reason the voice was not very clear.
I think-
So my question is, on the Maini Precision portfolio, if you look at the margin this quarter, it can be a low single digit kind of a margin, which is much lower than the margin which we acquired. So what happened during the quarter in this portfolio?
No, I mean, the portfolio, the margins are still very similar or are on a uptrend, so I'm not sure which. What are you comparing it with?
So, sorry, hope I'm audible now. So in the precision business-
Sir, I'm so sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Agarwal. Can you please use your handset while asking the question? We are unable to hear your question.
Yeah, I'm using my handset now.
All right. Can you please speak a little bit up so that we can hear your question?
Yeah.
Thank you.
Maini Precision portfolio, we've taken EBITDA of INR 7.3 crores during the quarter. That is a value added of INR 29 crores, which is barely a 3% EBITDA margin. So what happened in this portfolio in terms of profitability?
Gautam, did you get that question?
Yeah, I think if he's comparing a yearly percentage to a Q1 percentage, then, of course, the Q1 percentage is always slightly lower because the business is in that form. So if that is the question, then, you know, there's no effect really on our margins, because they're very similar to what they were last year. And therefore, I'm not sure if you're comparing it with last year's Q1 or you're comparing it with the overall margins. But overall margins will be slightly higher as the quarters go by, and they'll go higher in Q3 and Q4.
Okay. And just one more supplementary to that. Basically, if you see the aerospace business always gets very high margins. And what has happened is, because the customers and the shipping delay which is there, due to lack of availability of containers, the proportion of revenue recognition for the aerospace is significantly lower proportion compared to the auto, as well as the engineering consumables. And that is used to be very different in the last year, first quarter, but you don't have that number. But for the overall year, that was always the case, which will get rectified going forward in the second and third, fourth quarter, so that you will get back to those margins. Because the margin differential between an aerospace as well as the auto is significantly large.
Okay. Can you share the number of the aerospace both the revenue and the profitability?
Yeah, it is in the range of, we are on a run rate of roughly INR 75 crore with a 25% margin. And this quarter it is less, the revenue for the aerospace.
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from Mr. Himanshu Nayyer from Systematix. Please go ahead, sir.
Hi, good evening, sir. Sorry, my line dropped off earlier. So first question was on the lifestyle bit, where we've seen we've had a soft quarter. So just wanted to understand whether our channel inventory or distributor inventory also played a part in that. I mean, if you could let us know, what was the difference in primary and secondary sales during the quarter? And what is the current inventory situation like with both with the channels?
Yeah, hi, Himanshu. Sunil here. Himanshu, in fact, our secondaries versus primary gap has been on the positive side. There, in fact, our secondaries have been higher than primaries. Obviously, what had happened initially was that there was an expectation of the wedding season, which did not pan out. But we still took initiatives, and across our businesses, whether it's fabric or apparels, our secondaries are higher than primaries. One thing which happened is, why to put a quantum on this exactly, that the wholesale channel in the fabric business does not really, it's not very easy to track on a real-time basis the inventory, unlike in a, you know, in our apparel business. But we have our own ways to taking estimate, and, the secondary is definitely much more than primary.
So we do not see any concern on the channel inventory buildup in the business.
Understood, sir. The second bit is, while you explained, I believe, on the margin, the reason for the margin fall in the branded textiles and the apparel piece, where I believe negative operating leverage and higher marketing spends would have contributed to that. But on the garmenting side, while we have seen a revenue growth there, the margin fall is quite significant. So can you specify the reasons of what led to the sharp decline in garmenting business margins?
Himanshu, hi, this is Sameer here. So I think as earlier also called out, there are a couple of reasons for Garmenting margins to be on lower side. We are also ramping up our capacity and hence in run-up to that, there has been relatively higher employee cost, especially the blue-collar labor. So that's one. And secondly, there has been a bit of adverse mix impact, which has also resulted in lower realizations, lower gross margins, and all the way getting reflected to lower EBITDA margins. But on a full year basis, I mean, at this point in time, we do remain, you know, of the view that we should be close to, you know, our margins which we had for last year.
Okay. We can still maintain that despite this-
We have, at this point in time, and hopefully this Bangladesh plus one, if it, you know, kind of rectifies, as and when, I mean, it materializes, it should kind of add to the overall scale and volumes.
Yeah. But we are pretty confident that, you know, this, is only a temporary blip.
Got it. And just final bit on the marketing side in the lifestyle business, can you give a number? We're talking about higher marketing spends. How much would that have grown, I mean, for the branded businesses put together this quarter?
I think the delta would be roughly around, gone up by around maybe couple of percentage points of A -to -S, advertising to sales ratio. And there are two kinds of marketing spends, Himanshu, which happen here. One is the mass media spend, which you see in the mass media. The other spend which happens is that because we are ramping up stores rapidly, we do a lot of new store activation marketing, which goes behind... When the store is launched, you have to establish a store in the first, maybe roughly around, you know, six weeks by doing lot of hyper local activations, and that is also the marketing, which is also taking place as we are scaling up a lot of new stores right now.
Got it. And despite this slightly weak performance now in first quarter and maybe second quarter also might be a bit soft, given your outlook, I mean, do we still maintain our target on our footprint expansion plans? Or are we scaling them down for now?
No, we are very clear. We had given our guidance of doing around 200+ store footprint in the year. We are continuing the accelerator on that, because we believe that we have headroom to really increase our reach across multiple points, whether it is our on store expansion, whether it is on our opening of more doors within large format stores, or whether increasing our reach among multi-brand outlets. So while there's a guidance of 200+ stores that we're talking of in, our standalone stores, but at the same time, we're also ramping up distribution across other two multi-branded formats and large format stores as well.
Got it, sir. Got it.
Himanshu, just to come back to your earlier question, the overall advertisement and sales promotion at lifestyle level went up by 10%, despite having 8% decline on sales. So we continue to invest, I mean, invest for growth. So that was the call which was taken in first quarter.
Got it. Thanks. Thanks for the data point, Sameer. That's all from me, guys. I'll jump back in the queue. Thanks, and all the best to you.
Thank you very much. To ask a question, please press Star and One now. Participants who wish to ask question may please press Star One at this time. The next question is from the line of Garvit Goyal, Nvest Analytics Advisory. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the follow-up. My question is on the MPPL. So now, the entity is consolidated, so what kind of growth do we see here for next, two to three years? And what kind of order book do we have here?
Gautam?
Yeah. So, basically, in terms of growth, we have a, you know, a mid to late teens growth that will happen. Of course, you know, based on a lot of things that are now developing, that can slightly change because the aerospace has a bigger potential. It's a long-term plan, so you take, you know, you take steps that can have a long-term growth in a long-term business. So very bullish about the business in general, that will pull us up. It's also a high margin business, so it will help us get the numbers. We're also seeing very good traction in the hybrid and EV markets for our products as well, which has also been ramping up quite significantly.
So we are seeing a very healthy growth going forward and long term as well. We generally have long-term contracts and orders, so rather than giving you a number, it varies depending on certain contracts are 3 years, certain contracts are 5 years. We also have contracts up to 10 years. So we have a significant view of the next 3 to 10 years, depending on the cases, and therefore, it allows us to plan for our resources in a very long-term manner.
Understood, sir. Thank you very much, and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijeet Kundu. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah. Hi, so basically on the lifestyle part,
Apologies, Mr. Kundu. Ladies and gentlemen, the line from the management has seemed to be disconnected again. Please stay on the line while I reconnect the line. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for your patience. I have the management back on the line. Mr. Abhijeet Kundu, you can please go ahead with your question.
Yeah, largely, most of my questions are answered. Just one clarification. Sameer, you said that in the lifestyle business, advertisement spend went up by 10%, and whereas the sales, I mean, branded apparel business, advertisement spends went up by 10%, whereas the sales growth was lower. Is that right? I mean.
No, let me just re-clarify, Abhijeet. What I said is the overall lifestyle, advertisement and sales promotion spend went up by 10% compared to 8% decline.
Okay. Understood. Understood. And, when we say that we will add 200 stores, you know, where those 200 stores will be, how much of it would be ethnics and how much of it would be other stores?
Okay. So roughly you can take maybe 40%-50% of that would be ethnics, maybe 40%, I would say, and balance 60% would be other brands of the apparel business.
Okay. Even this quarter, you know, end of season sales started off at early stage. So, the margin decline in case of branded apparel was not that substantial, but majority of it would be due to higher discounting, right? I mean, and some amount of deal outage.
You, you're talking of which business? You're talking of apparel?
Branded Apparel. Branded Apparel. Yeah, partly it would be discount led by EOSS, and, I think that's the bigger piece which is-
Also the base, Abhijeet, right? So when you're looking at YOY margins, I mean, the U.S. dollar was there in the base also.
Right.
So on a database, I mean, it's not a big, you know, kind of driver.
If you see, the big one is we are ramping up stores also, you know, which is increasing pace. As you said, as you increase stores, the hyper local marketing starts playing also a role.
Right.
That's where the spends are going. We definitely want to do this because we believe as much stores as we can ramp up throughout this year, it will really add on to the future. Plus, the season is also going to be very strong for the second half of the year.
Most of the stores, store additions would be franchisee-owned, right? I mean...
Yeah, yeah, we are operating on an asset-light model, where the ratio is very clearly right around, you know, 70% of our stores would be, 70, 20% stores would be, you know, asset-light model.
The inventory, I think, I'm not sure, but the inventories are under check. I mean-
Yeah.
There could be moderation in sales, so that is fine, but inventories are something which,
We have a very, very tight controls on the inventories. We very critically check inventories across, by and large, all points, and we don't see any issue there.
Great. Yes, that's it from my side.
Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Amit Agarwal, Group CFO, for closing remarks.
Thank you very much for taking the interest in Raymond Group, and we look forward for having the investors call once again in the next quarter. At that point of time, we will have two calls, one for Raymond Limited and one for Raymond Lifestyle Limited. Thank you very much.
Thank you. On behalf of Antique Stock Broking Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.