Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Rossari Biotech Limited Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will remain 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 the operator by pressing star, then zero on your touch-tone telephone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Mitesh Shah from CDR India for opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, Mitesh.
Thank you, Ryan. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us on Rossari Biotech Limited Q3 FY26 earnings conference call. We have with us Mr. Edward Menezes, Promoter and Executive Chairman, Mr. Sunil Chari, Promoter and Managing Director, and Mr. Ketan Saboo, Group Chief Financial Officer of the company. We will begin the call with opening remarks from the management, following which we will have the forum open for a question-and-answer session. Before we start, I would like to point out that some statements made in today's call may be forward-looking in nature, and a disclaimer to this effect has been included in the earnings presentation shared with you all earlier. I would now like to invite Mr. Edward Menezes to make his opening remarks.
Thank you, Mitesh. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our earnings conference call. It is a pleasure to have you with us today as we discuss our Q3 FY2026 operational and financial performance. We delivered a healthy 13% year-on-year growth in Q3 FY26 despite a softer domestic demand environment. The opening backdrop remained challenging. However, our diversified business model and strong customer relationships enabled us to sustain our growth momentum. All business segments registered year-on-year growth, supported by healthy volumes and sustained customer engagement.
While profitability in the near term was impacted by ongoing investments in capacity expansion, product development, and market seeding initiatives, as well as higher employee-related costs following the implementation of new labor codes, we remain confident that operating leverage, scale benefits, and an improving product mix will support margin improvement over time.
On the manufacturing front, we are pleased to report that the newly commissioned 15,000 metric tons per annum ethoxylation facility at Unitop is witnessing a steady ramp-up utilization. Availability of ethylene oxide continues to be a near-term constraint. However, we are managing supplies prudently and are encouraged by indications that the situation should ease during the course of this calendar year. In the interim, we are leveraging the fungibility of our reactors to progressively scale up non-ethylene oxide product lines, ensuring that the new capacity contributes meaningfully to production and throughput. This balanced approach enables us to optimize asset utilization while we prepare for a more favorable ethylene oxide supply environment ahead. In parallel, our phased capacity expansion program across verticals continues to progress well, strengthening our manufacturing capabilities.
In addition, the board has granted in-principle approval for setting up a greenfield specialty chemicals manufacturing facility in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under Rossari International Limited company , our wholly-owned subsidiary. The proposed project aims to enhance supply chain resilience, improve speed to market, and support the company's international growth strategy. With this, I now invite Mr. Sunil Chari to share additional perspectives on our business performance and strategic priorities.
Thank you, Edward, sir, and a warm namaste to everyone. Q1 FY26 was a relatively softer quarter compared to Q2, yet we delivered healthy year-on-year growth, supported by our diversified portfolio. While domestic demand remained muted in certain segments, exports continued to provide support to overall performance through deeper engagement with key customers and expansion in a few geographies. HPPC segment delivered 11% year-on-year growth, reflecting stable demand amidst a muted domestic environment.
The textile specialty chemical segment delivered a healthy growth of 18% year-on-year, while the animal health and nutrition business reported a strong growth of 39% year-on-year, driven by improved traction across key end-user markets. This broad-based segmental performance helped support overall growth during the quarter. On the institutional and B2C front, performance remains subdued in Q3.
However, we are making steady progress on cost and portfolio optimization and remain focused on selectively scaling this vertical with a long-term perspective on profitability. On the export front, our international business continued to contribute meaningfully, supported, growing by 26% in nine months FY26, driven by focus efforts to deepen relationships in key geographies, expand our customer base, and increase wallet share with strategic partners. Our growing global footprint and ability to offer customized solutions like chemistries continue to strengthen our positioning across international markets.
Further to what Edward outlined earlier, we view the board's in-principle approval to set up a greenfield specialty chemicals manufacturing facilities in KSA as an important strategic step for the company. The initiative is aligned with our focus on strengthening supply chain resilience, improving speed to market, expanding global footprint, enabling flexible and scalable production.
KSA also offers strategic proximity to key export markets, for example, Europe and MENA, including Africa, and deepening presence in segments like oil and gas, enabling faster delivery and improved customer responsiveness across the region. Subject to customary evaluation of and receipt of necessary regulatory and strategic approvals, we will move towards implementation of the project, which is intended to be funded through a prudent mix of equity, debt, and internal accruals, while also exploring available regional incentives. Once commissioned, the facilities are expected to cater to strong regional demand for value-added specialty products and support export opportunities.
We believe this platform will play a pivotal role in accelerating our international growth and strengthening Rossari's positioning as a leading global player in specialty chemicals. To summarize, Q3 FY26 reflects our ability to deliver steady growth in a challenging environment while continuing to invest for the future.
With our expanding capacities, strengthening product portfolios, and strategic steps to build a more resilient and globally competitive manufacturing platform, we believe we are well-positioned to drive sustainable, profitable growth going forward. With that, I now request Ketan ji to take you through the financial highlights for the quarter. Thank you once again for your continued support. I now invite Ketan ji to share the financial highlights for the quarter.
Thank you, Mr. Chari, and good evening, everyone. Let me take you through the financial highlights for the quarter ended December 31, 2025. In Q3 FY26, consolidated revenues grew by 13% YOY to INR 581.7 crores, supported by steady performance across our core businesses and continued contribution from international markets. Consolidated EBITDA for the quarter stood at INR 68.9 crores, with an EBITDA margin of 11.8%. Profitability during the quarter was impacted by ongoing investment in capacity expansion, new product development, market seeding initiatives, as well as the impact of implementation of new labor codes. Excluding the institutional and B2C business, our core B2B operations delivered an EBITDA of INR 72 crores, with a margin of approximately 14%, which is marginally lower than our normalized margin band of 15%-16%.
Our institutional and B2C businesses continued to operate in a challenging environment during the quarter.
With growth of these verticals remaining muted, losses have continued to moderate, driven by our focus on improved product mix, enhancing operational efficiency, and maintaining cost discipline. We are also closely evaluating our plans for non-profitable products in this portfolio and assessing their contribution to the growth relative to their impact on profitability. On the CapEx front, our phased expansion program across Rossari and Unitop continues to progress. These investments are being funded through a mix of internal accruals and debt and are aimed to strengthen manufacturing capabilities and improving supply reliability and supporting the future growth. With respect to the proposed greenfield specialty chemicals manufacturing facilities in KSA, for almost a year, we have been exploring a few geographies for setting up potential specialty chemical manufacturing facilities.
We now see the possibility to be able to do this in KSA, and hence, the board has granted us an in-principle approval for this. And now, we will be evaluating this further towards setting up a manufacturing facility. The project progress will be subject to all customary evaluations and the necessary statutory and regulatory approvals. We will keep updating the progress to the investors going forward. Our balance sheet remains strong, with healthy liquidity and conservative leverage, providing us sufficient flexibility to pursue our growth initiatives. On working capital, the position improved sequentially in Q3, with better collections during this quarter. While we continue to hold selective strategic inventory for key raw materials, overall, the working capital is moving back towards the normalized levels.
As we look ahead, our priorities remain focused on improving capacity utilization, strengthening our product portfolio, and remaining financially disciplined to drive sustainable and profitable growth. With a clear investment roadmap, we are well-placed to execute our growth initiatives in a calibrated manner. With this, I conclude my remarks. Thank you, everyone, and I would now request the moderator to open the floor for questions. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use their handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We take the first question from the line of Rehan Syed from Trinetra Asset Managers . Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. So I just have a little insight. First one, I just don't want to.
Rehan, I do apologize to interrupt you, but your audio is not coming in clear. Could you please use your handset?
Oh, okay. Sure, sure. Now it's clear?
Yes, please go ahead.
Yeah. Yeah, my first question is on the Dahej and Unitop, the capacity addition side. So with the successful commissioning of 20,000 metric tons per annum at the Dahej and 15,000 metric tons per annum at Unitop, when do you expect operating leverage to fully kick in to return consolidated margins to the 13% level seen in 2025? This is my first question.
Yes, so Rehan, I was not very clear, but I think I have got the gist of what you were asking. So the part of the ethoxylation capacities came up in the last quarter, and the balance second phase is expected to come on stream in this quarter, which is Q4. The ramp-ups will then happen. The first phase is now slowly getting ramped up. We would have done about utilization slowly of about 10% to 15% during this quarter. And optimal utilization of both these facilities will take at least two years plus for us to reach the optimal capacity utilization. So that's what the plan is. And as the capacity utilizations go up, we will see some of the operating leverage playing out.
Okay, so we will.
Okay.
So, just want to wrap up that you are saying that till the end of 27, we see operating leverage is kicking, right?
So, the ramp-up, the utilization will take, as I said, two years. So, around 27, by 27, we should see these capacities getting fully utilized.
Okay. Thanks. And my second question is on your MNC customer side. So you have mentioned targeting MNC customers for cross-selling. Is there a move toward an overseas manufacturing setup in place that your current export model from India is taking?
Rehan,
we are not very clear.
Not clear at all.
Yeah, I'll repeat my question again.
Yeah.
Yeah. Am I clear, right?
Yeah, tell me.
Yeah. So you have mentioned targeting MNC customers for cross-selling. So does the move toward an overseas manufacturing setup imply that your current export model from India is giving logistical or cost advantage that your lean manufacturing principles at Dahej can no longer mitigate risk?
So I think from what I understood, our plans of exploring overseas expansion is not really what to do much with the tariffs because the tariff thing came up now while we have been working on this almost a year now on our future strategy and plans. So it's not really linked to the tariff. And we've been able to grow our exports pretty well in the last one and a half, two years. And I think that is one of the reasons what drives us to set up a facility outside because now our export market is pretty strong.
We have a good customer network, and I think we can, based on that, we will be able to really service these customers pretty well from a facility which is outside India. So that was the overall thinking.
Oh, okay. Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Rehan.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one. We take the next question from the line of Sanjesh Jain from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. I got a few questions. First, on the expansion into the KSA, can you help us understand what kind of investment are we looking at from a setup perspective? Because it's a greenfield, we have to buy the land and put the CapEx and probably an admin office there. What kind of investment are we looking there?
Ladies and gentlemen, we have lost the line of the management. Please stay connected while I reconnect the management. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have the management line reconnected. Sir, you could please proceed.
Yeah. Hi, hi, sir. Sanjesh here.
Sanjesh, no, I got your question already, but I think both guys will got this one, so yeah, so as I was saying, after looking at a few geographies over the past few months, we zeroed down on KSA, and now the board has given us an in-principle go-ahead to start evaluating this further, and that's what we are going to do now. We've already formed a company in KSA, as we had disclosed a few quarters back. This project, as and when it comes up, will come up under this entity. Now we'll all start working on the evaluation process, the project cost, the land availability. We are already speaking currently to a few authorities in KSA in terms of availability of land, raw materials, and other things.
So as these things get more fructified and we have a more clear understanding of the project, I think that would be the right time for us to come back and give a little more details about the project. But to go ahead, we've talked to the board, and the board told us that in principle, we can go ahead and start exploring this opportunity. And KSA kind of suited us well in terms of supply chain, expanded global footprint, more flexibility, scalable production opportunity. And it also had the close proximity to a lot of our export markets, Europe, Africa, MENA region. And also the fact that we are also now exploring to get a little deeper on the oil and gas side of the business. So yeah, so that is basically what this KSA initiative is as of now.
But just to understand, what advantage are we looking at that's not offering, which India doesn't offer? Because I haven't seen many of the Indian chemical companies not going outside of India. If somebody has explored purely there for the technology know-how, or there are some kind of a restriction from India to export. But really, from a chemical manufacturing perspective, at least the larger setup in India has always been in India. Now, why there's a change of thought as far as Rossari goes? And we don't have a real established export business. We are a new baby in the export market, and we are trying to invest so much ahead of the time without any anchor customer or a very large contract. Now, what is giving that confidence, or what is driving this all expansion through KSA?
The primary advantage that's going on in KSA is the availability of raw material. We are already speaking to a few suppliers with whom we plan to get into a long-term contract at a specific pricing formula, which will give us a substantial advantage in terms of both availability and price. Secondly, in terms of the technology and the product profile, we've just set up a project here in India. The current plan is that the facility will be on similar lines as what we've done here in India. We're already aware of the technology, the product dynamics. Thirdly, on the customer front, we have done a complete mapping of the requirements of customers both in the GCC region and in Europe. Europe and Latin America, any which way we are already working from here.
But within the GCC region, and specifically locally in KSA, we have also talked to a lot of customers. And as this project moves ahead, we have an understanding with at least two customers currently for supply of products. So much of these actual agreements and documentation will happen as we progress the project going forward. So we are currently also not signing up too much because we want to first evaluate the project, the cost, the returns, etc., and then go ahead. But both on the raw material side as well as on the end customer side, we have pretty much a very good level of discussions with both suppliers and potential customers.
Got it. Got it. My next question is on the profitability. I was just looking at the numbers. Starting 4Q23, we are at 3Q26. Our numbers at the PAC level have been broadly at around 300 million per quarter. It has barely changed. And our ROC now stands at sub-15%, close to 13%. Now, how are we looking at scaling the profitability? Now, it's been three years. ROCs are at a level post-tax of close to that. How do we are looking at these financial metrics changing in the next two years, and what will drive this?
Yeah. So I think profitability has been around the same level of our last many quarters. So we are strategically now looking at bringing out a little more higher-margin segments. One is that the B2C segment of us is really pulling us down. We had several plans and strategies to grow that business, but it seems that the things in the B2C vertical are not really playing out the way we were expecting it to do. So we are relooking at that business all over again to reduce losses and hello? Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And on a longer-term basis, also, we are assessing this piece of business of ours. And maybe in the next few quarters, we may take some decisions on how we really plan to or what we plan to do with this B2C vertical. But apart from that, I think some of these capacity additions which we've done, which partly have come up in the last quarter, some of them will come up in this quarter. We are quite hopeful that the margin profile going forward should start seeing some upside. The EO challenge currently, because of the overall subdued market, we are not facing any issues in terms of EO availability. But as the ramp-ups start happening in the next year, there could be a few months where EO could be an issue. We really don't know how it's going to pan out.
But the expansion on the side of the supplier is going onstream, and we've been told that the additional volumes should come up by quarter three of FY26. So hopefully, post that, then there should not be any issues on EO availability. So that's how, at least for the next year or two, we are looking at the India part of the business to grow.
KJ, just one question here. I thought we had a lot of opportunity locally, but Edward, sir, has talked about extensively the new product development we have done, new category development we have done, new vertical development, seeding that we have done in the last three years. I thought there was a heavy lifting done in India, and I thought that would be more focused on encashing the efforts that have gone in the last few years. We are stretching the management bandwidth by expanding into KSA and all. So just wanted to understand for next two years what remains the priority, both on the revenue category growth investment and on the profitability?
So can you show in? I think we've been very focused on product development. We've now kind of enhanced our entire R&D capability. The last six months, we've brought in certain senior people in the R&D function. So some of these product developments that are going on currently, we should see some of these playing out in the near future. In terms of priority, I think both the India business remains the topmost priority for us, and that is the reason why we've done so much of investments in the last one year. The priority will remain to ensure the capacities get utilized ASAP. The new product developments that currently are happening, they start showing up in the numbers. In terms of the KSA, the KSA team, we are slowly setting up. As I said, it's currently just a work in progress.
Now, we will start now that the board has given us. We will start a little more deeper exercise on the project side. But that team is going to be completely different. We've already identified two senior project professionals who are going to join us once we internally give a green light to this project. And both of them will be based out of KSA. And I don't think the current management will really have the current teams will not get stressed. It will be a completely separate team. There's an overall view from the senior management here and the senior project team here. But these are some of the initial planning. So I don't think there is priority one and priority two. Priority continues to be the India business. And then the KSA business, as and when it pans out, we will have separate people looking at that.
I thought we had developed a team in Vietnam and Bangladesh to develop the export market. I think.
Yes. So the team in Vietnam, Bangladesh were primarily focused for the textile business to start with. So the fact that you're seeing the textile numbers showing an improvement has got a lot to do with the textile export, seeing a significant growth in this quarter. We are very much aligned on both these geographies. And also to add to that, we are also in the process of doing that small formulation facility in Thailand. So that should also come upstream maybe by end of Q4 or early Q1. And there also, to start with, we will see textile formulations and textile products manufacturing. And then probably once that gets set up, we can add other products of AHN and maybe some products of HPPC. So if you see textile, all these Vietnam and Southeast Asia initiatives are primarily for textile.
If you see in nine months, the entire growth of textile that has happened has all come out of exports. The exports have grown almost 30% year on year. Yeah. That's what the export was for.
Got it.
Just to add here, the Bangladesh team also has been able to ramp up the Animal Health and Nutrition exports. We have now good exports of AHN to the Bangladesh market. And our new trace minerals and the vitamin premix plant, which is already now the enzyme premix plant, which is now ready to start hopefully in this quarter. This will add good volumes to this. You also want to add here that it was a transport challenge which saw this muted, but we are seeing December has been very, very strong for us. And in fact, we are very bullish now in these times now that in spite of all the problems, global specialty chemical industry, especially from China, we have continued to grow quarter on quarter. Third quarter is normally a little weaker quarter because first and second quarter were agro.
So we hope to do much better in this quarter. In terms of export and to add for the Saudi Arabian plans, what we realized in the last couple of years after ramping up our exports is that there are a range of products which have a good potential in surfactants and also non-EO products. And where we saw that there is a possibility for us to get raw materials in Saudi Arabia at close to 35% lesser cost than India. And this is something where different raw materials because Saudi Arabia is a hub for the petrochemical industry. And the products which are competitive compared to China in Saudi Arabia are the products we are focusing. So we're still fine-tuning, and we expect a very healthy IRR and ROC for the projects. And the board was convinced on this possibility. Sorry, KJ, I interrupted. Please continue.
No, no, no, no. That was very helpful, KJ. Just one last question on the profitability. We were at 18% odd when we did the IPO. It came down to 14%. Now we are at sub-12%. How should we see this profitability? And this is on the back that raw material prices have significantly dropped from where we were today. I think per kg basis, it would have deteriorated further. How do we see profitability from here? I think that is very critical from the return ratio perspective.
Yeah. So, KJ, at least for the balance part of this year and the next year till the EO supply situation comes through by Q3, we would hazard that our margins would be in this similar range, about between 12%-13%. Unless we take what I talked about on the B2C business, if something happens on that side, then maybe there could be some improvement. Otherwise, at an overall company level, it should be between this 12%-13% at least for the next year. While we are working on improving the product mix, as I said, some of these products which we are developing now should see the production coming up in next year. But short of the B2C, I think we should be in that 15% odd range.
Got it. Got it. Thanks. Thanks, KJ.
KJ, I want to add here the new R&D products which we have developed. If you see our sales of new products now, it is 20% plus, especially because of the part where we have planned to sell part of our consumer businesses, and this part of the consumer businesses, we are expecting even about INR 150 crores coming into the company. For sale of this, we are expecting a good valuation for the same thing, so consumer businesses require money investment, some amount of cash burn investment in marketing, promotions, free sampling, which we are not doing now, so we think the board deals with it is better, so this selling the consumer businesses would automatically bring our profits back to 15%, and the new plants which are there, all the new for the fermentation, the biosurfactants, we have the best.
In fact, today, we have news that the best personal care company in the world has approved our biosurfactants. Two big multinationals of the world have approved this globally now. So we are hoping that we will do whatever 300 tons of biosurfactant next year in the production would all get sold out. So we are expecting a much better percentage of EBITDA in the coming financial year, besides growth in terms of amount. So this year, whatever we do, we'll see a healthy growth both in percentage and also in amount, definitely.
Got it, sir. And congratulations for your successful approval of the biosurfactants. I hope that turns out to be a big churn for us, at least from the margin perspective. Great to see it.
Yes, sir. Definitely. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you, sir. Thanks. Thanks for all those updates and best of luck for the coming quarters.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one. We take the next question from the line of Ranvir Singh from Nuvama Wealth Management. Please go ahead. Ranveer, if you can please proceed with your question.
Yeah. So basically, I wanted to understand the capacity expansion, what we are talking about. Can you quantify the kind of capacity utilization currently at the new facility at Dahej under Unitop as well as in Rossari also?
The new facility at Unitop has just got capitalized in the last quarter. The runs are happening. It will take some time for the plant to stabilize. Currently, if you ask me in this quarter, the utilization would be at a low of between 10%-15%. But as the plant gets stabilized and as the product continuous process starts going through, I think the capacities will slowly see a ramp up. We expect an optimal utilization happening over the next two years.
So 10%-15% capacity utilization, we are talking about 75,000 metric ton installed capacity. We are talking about that, right?
We are talking about 15,000 tons.
And so by end of FY27, what kind of ramp-up though? It may not be very clearly visible, but if you can just some ballpark number, what kind of capacity utilization this facility may see by end of FY27?
It can go up to 90% capacity utilization.
We see in this quarter, like that textile business, what you said has seen very strong performance. Going forward, is it like because the last few quarters have been muted, and so we see the sudden spurt in demand, or is it going to sustain over a few quarters now?
Yeah. So, textile, much of the growth this quarter, it has happened across both the domestic and the export market. The export is driven by customers. We've added a lot of new geographies like Turkey, Uzbekistan, Morocco, Philippines. These are all the new countries where we have started adding customers. We've also increased the number of stock points. In India, of course, the demand is a little soft because some of the end customers, like the large ones like Welspun, Indo Count, have got a little impacted because of the tariff situation. But otherwise, we've seen a good offtake in other markets like Surat and Ludhiana and all. So this quarter, we saw some of that playing out because last couple of quarters, the domestic was very slow, but maybe some demand came in. So we were able to see a good ramp-up in the domestic also.
But going forward, I think in Q4, I think it will be an average growth for us because domestic, I think unless and until something, some clarity comes on the tariff side and the end market demand goes up, we do not expect any major increase in sales. Export should continue to do well. And we are already working in some more markets and some newer products. So that should keep doing well. Next year, I think a lot of the textile will happen. Textile growth will happen through the export side as our Thailand unit will also become functional. And then we'll be able to supply a lot of our newer customers in Southeast Asia, Bangladesh, etc., from the Thailand entity.
Okay. And one last question on CapEx side, although that greenfield facility at KSA general valuation, but apart from this, major CapEx, we believe have already been done. Or for FY27, if you could guide something about the CapEx, what are some of these things?
Most of the capacity enhancement CapExes have been done. Now, for the next two, three years, we may have some CapExes towards new product development, piloting, R&D, etc., but CapEx enhancement, capacity enhancement CapExes are done, and the aim would be now for the next two, three years to optimally utilize these capacities, bring in newer products, and fill up the plants in India.
Okay. So how much CapEx we have capitalized in FY26?
So by the end of FY26, we would have capitalized total close to, I think, about INR 200 crores. I don't have the exact number, but it will be around that number across the board.
Okay. Okay. That's it. Thank you. And all the best.
Thanks. Thank you.
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Atishay Malan from Abakkus Asset Manager LLP. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Am I audible?
Yes.
Yeah. Hi. Good evening to the team. Can you help me bifurcate the revenue growth in Q3 and nine-month FY26 between volume and price growth on a consolidated level and, if possible, in the three business segments as well?
Hello. Ladies and gentlemen, we have lost the line of the management. Please stay connected while I reconnect the management. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have the management line reconnected. Sir, you may proceed.
Yeah, so as I was saying, most of the growth that we have seen on a YoY basis has all come out of the volume growth. Some price increase would have taken, but I think that the increase in one gets knocked off by a decrease in pricing in the other, but on an overall basis, we've seen our volume growth happening close to almost 10%-12%, so we can assume that the entire growth is out of volume basis.
Okay. And this would be true for nine months FY26 as well?
Yes. Yes.
Okay. And I think in your earlier comments, you had alluded to the fact that there is some demand softness in the domestic market. Can you just probably go into a bit more detail as to which end user segments are seeing this weakness and some of the reasons as to why?
So in the domestic, I think particularly we have been impacted in the textile division. That's where the end use segment or the end use customers have seen a drop in volumes. Also, in the HPPC business in Europe, the sentiments have been very low. So there also, we've seen on the export side some softness. But overall, we've been able to make up for Europe from with other geographies like MENA and the Middle East and Turkey, etc. So if you see our months of October and part of November were really very, very soft for us. The demand was very low, especially in the HPPC. But then again, in the month of December, we saw the demand picking back. And a lot of the subdued demand actually came up in December.
So we are hopeful that going forward, at least in Q4, we should see a better demand outlook compared to what was there in Q3. And apart from that, I think textiles, as I said, domestically, yes, there was softness. We are seeing that for the past almost many quarters. But in this quarter, if you ask me specifically, as I said earlier, we saw a little bit of demand coming back in textiles, but we would not assume that that is going to be the story going forward. It was just probably a quarter-specific phenomenon. But we'll just have to wait and see how that plays out. But we are going to make it up more through our exports.
Okay. And this quarter, you've seen quite good growth in the animal health business. So if you could just elaborate as to where this growth is coming from and how sustainable is it going forward?
Yeah. So in AHN, I think we saw good demand this quarter. The second half generally is a better half for AHN when you compare with the earlier half. Also, now in AHN, we are focusing to drive sales through key accounts. So some of that is playing out now. So hopefully, we should see that coming up also going forward. Again, our export initiative in AHN will also now play out. We've seen some of it happening in this quarter. So there are a lot of countries we are adding, some of them being Nepal, Bangladesh. We've also done some business in Egypt, Nigeria, Thailand, and also a few countries in South America. And we are also working towards registration to a few more countries in Southeast Asia and in the Central European region. So I think these will play out.
Plus, our premix plant will come on stream by the end of this quarter or early Q1, so next year, premix plant should also add into the AHN volumes. So I think a lot of the backend work for the next growth trajectory for AHN has been done in the last six months, and we should see some good numbers at least going forward from next year.
Okay. Just one last one from my end. So based on some of the comments you've just made, the sense I'm getting is that this quarter and perhaps in the next coming quarters, exports is perhaps something that is going to perform better than domestics, but your long-term focus or long-term growth is still going to be driven primarily by the domestic market. Is that a correct understanding?
So if you see the export trajectory of us, it has consistently grown quarter on quarter. So some of the muted demand of the domestic market has been more than made up by the exports. So if you see in these nine months, export has grown almost 26% versus last year, while domestic has grown only 10%. And today, in this nine months, the export piece is close to 30% of our turnover. Maybe three, four years back, this number used to be less than 20%. So going forward also, we expect the export to keep growing. Maybe not at this rate of 26%, but it will see a good rate of growth. Probably the rate of growth will be better than that of the domestic market. Unless the domestic sentiment really changes, especially in textiles and the FMCG business.
But otherwise, export will continue to grow.
Okay. Okay. Thank you so much and good luck for the forthcoming quarters.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one. We take the next question from the line of Tanvi Varekar from Anand Rathi Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
What is the export number or the export contribution for this quarter?
Tanvi, I do apologize to interrupt you, but if you could please repeat your question as your audio was not clear.
Hello. Can you hear me better?
Yes, please go ahead.
Yes, sir. So just two quick questions. What's the export contribution for this quarter? And you had also announced non-EO-based CapExes in Gujarat, Unitop Pradesh, and uncertain. So is there any delay in the commissioning of those CapExes?
Yes. So the export contribution in this quarter is 33% of the total turnover. And on nine-month basis, it is about 30%.
All right, sir.
Yeah. And all CapExes are going as per plan. They are on stream. The balance ethoxylation capacity should come in on stream in this quarter itself.
No, I'm saying the non-EO-based capacities that was announced for Unitop, Tristar, and Gujarat.
So those will happen in the next year. They are more phased out CapExes and more towards product development.
Second half? Around second half?
Yes. Some of them will come in Q3 and some in Q4.
Okay. Okay, sir, and just one last one. You had announced that for the Saudi Arabia. There was an investment of roughly $8 billion, and apart from this, will there be any other CapEx to set up the facility?
Sorry, I didn't get your question, Tanvi.
You had mentioned that there will be around $8 million investment.
No, no, no, no, no.
CapEx amount.
No, no, that's not the CapEx amount. That $8 million was just an approval taken for doing any kind of equity infusion for us to do the evaluation process and all. The CapEx will be substantially higher than that. That was only an initial approval we had taken to start. As I said, now in principle, approval has come and we'll need to start doing a lot of groundwork there. So once we're at that, we'll need some spend which will happen there. But that's the reason we had taken an initial approval of equity infusion of $8 million. That's not for the CapEx. The detailing of the CapEx will happen once we've done our assessment and evaluation exercise, for which we'll come back once we get a formal approval on the CapEx amount.
Okay. Okay, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, are there no further questions from the participants? I now hand the conference over to the management for their closing comments.
Thank you, everyone. I hope we have been able to answer all your questions satisfactorily. Should you need any further clarifications or would like to know more about the company, please feel free to contact our team or CDR India. Thank you once again for taking the time to join us on this call, and good evening.
Thank you. On behalf of Rossari Biotech Limited, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your.