Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Thermax Q4 FY 2026 Earnings Call hosted by DAM Capital. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then 0 on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Kunal Shah from DAM Capital. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Yeah. Hey, good afternoon. Welcome to the 4Q FY 2026 Earnings Call of Thermax Limited. We have the management today, Mr. Rajendran, the Group CFO and Executive Vice President. Over to you, sir, for the opening remarks post which we can pick up the Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you, Kunal. Good morning to all of you, to those who have joined the call. At upfront would want to inform you that Ashish Bhandari, our Managing Director and CEO, who normally heads this call, he's on travel and is unable to join this call. I would be picking this up today. I would be happy to answer your queries. Broadly talking about Q4, I think, we came good on our plans for revenue, execution of jobs and recognizing revenue this quarter better than the prior quarters. Profitability was per plans for us. The order book number, I think as you must have seen and as per an earlier disclosure we had done, we booked a supercritical job for roughly INR 1,600 crore.
That has increased our order book number for the quarter. However, excluding that as well, our order book for the quarter has been reasonably robust. I think on overall other performance parameters and the cash balance, I think you must have seen in with the presentation, we're fairly better off than the prior period. I'll keep that comments brief and would now take any questions that you may have on the Q4 numbers.
Thank you. Thank you very much. We'll now begin the question and answer session. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Ravi Swaminathan from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Very good morning. Thanks a lot for taking this call. Congrats on a good set of numbers, especially the order inflow. My first question is in terms of the inquiry pipeline for the traditional sectors that generally gives you the orders, including steel, cement, power and oil and gas. How is the momentum there in terms of inquiries and pipeline of orders? That's the first question.
Ravi, thanks for that. The general order book outlook, both from a domestic perspective as well as on our international front, is reasonably fair, reasonably robust. We're seeing a good pipeline on the sectors that you mentioned. Some on the large project for our industrial infra business. As well as for our industrial products business, where there are other sectors like pharma, chemicals, FMCG, that we focus upon. I think the order pipeline and outlook for our heating or water treatment, air pollution control businesses are also reasonably there at this point of time. We feel confident of how the working platform looks on our order fronts now at this time.
However, a point to note would be the impact of war prolonging and any other further impacts that could be occurring across various industries, both domestically and internationally. If that was to develop more on that front, then I think we believe that there could be some impact going ahead in Q2, Q3, which we'll have to watch out for. I think that's the cautious part that we have to be on the outlook front.
Are there any pipeline of large orders, from the power and steel side, just like how we had got this quarter, something similar can it pan out in the next 12 to 24 months?
Not sure that there are quite a few on the refinery side and others that we are working upon. I think there's one which we are reasonably confident of having a win, which is on the data center side, but that's more on the energy front for our industrial infra business. This is for a supply of boilers to a steam turbine-based solutions for a data center opportunity in the global market. We're looking at that closely, we are hoping that we'll be able to conclude that. We'll see where that comes in quarter one.
Sure, sir. With respect to data centers, just, double-clicking on the kind of opportunity that is there, what would be the addressable market in India and outside India, especially the U.S., that we can end up catering to? Is there any market sales for it, for the chillers and possible boiler supplies also?
Ravi, I'll take this as your last question so that we can come back on other questions as well from others. T his particular one on the data center opportunity is, the first one which we informed you was of the cooling opportunity that we had, both in the international market and the domestic one, the orders will be in the quarter three. Our outlook on the, that, cooling opportunity remains robust for us at this time. However, we haven't yet quantified the way that I think you would be looking for in terms of market opportunity, target market share, et cetera, which we would going ahead be able to do it for you.
At this time, I think, we have no numbers to share on that front. On the other part of the data center opportunity is the boiler side opportunity that has come by. That's an interesting other solution opening for us in terms of revenues. That's a good part that we see on that opportunity.
Got it, sir. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, please restrict yourself for two questions. The next question is from the line of Mohit Kumar from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Good morning, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is on the data center, sir. What is the capacity of the data center for which you are supplying the your cooling solution? Is it possible to share that number in megawatt?
Mohit, I think I can get back to you on that. I don't have it offhand. We will share that with you separately.
Understood. My second question is, sir, on the green solution. In this quarter, there are losses in the quarter. Can you just explain what led to the losses and what is the megawatt which has got commissioned at the end of by the end of FY 2027? FY 2026?
W e have two sets of businesses under green solutions that you are aware of. One is Thermax Onsite Energy Solutions that we talk about, which is the biomass-based heating solutions that we provide at our customers on site. The other is the wind and solar energy hybrid solutions that we offer to our customers, both on BOO basis. One is on the captive power side that you're aware of. I think our Thermax Onsite Energy Solutions business has done very well. I think a stable set of numbers from that. The challenge has been on the First Energy business of ours.
We've had one challenge on a project that we are executing down south, where one of the contractors, you know, has failed to perform as per the contractual terms. That has forced us to step in and complete the contract or continue execution of that contract. There's been a cost overrun on that account, which involves some picking up some of the challenges which are new to us at that location. I think it's incurring a bit more of the cost than we had planned originally for, and that's the cost in additional incurrence that we are having, which is reflecting in the results for the period, which is the unexpected impact to our bottom line.
From a capacity part of it, There are about 250 MW on ground with 2-3 large, one which has been commissioned as on 31st of March, and two other large projects, one in Gujarat and two more in, one more in south, that Vijay talked about earlier, which will be commissioned in the next 2-3 quarters. I think those would add up to the balance that I mentioned, and FY 2027 we'll close probably much better than this number.
Understood, sir. Thank you and all the best. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Aditya Mongia from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for the opportunity. Rajendran, the first question that I had was on margins in the top two segments. There one could not see any impact of RM headwinds when you do call that out in your presentation. Just trying to get a sense whether the margins were impacted by RM headwinds or is that something that can happen incrementally?
Thanks, Aditya. I think that's an important question for this quarter. We haven't shown any large impact on the raw material cost for this quarter, for sure. Because I think the impact came quite because of the war sometime in the month of March, where by which time, procurement for the quarter had all been completed and the execution was in progress. I think the price increases that we are seeing in commodities across from steel to styrene to copper, nickel, et cetera, I think all of them, we're seeing the price movements for sure. You're aware of them as well. That is a bit of an challenge for us in this quarter.
Having said that, I think traditionally, I'm sure you have seen that our margin impact on our industrial infra, the project business is fairly controllable, given that we end up tying up on a back-to-back basis on all our bought outs as well as on contractual costs for large orders. However, on the product business side, we would have a typically a shorter range of visibility on the inventory front coverage that we will have. We would be exposed to some of these challenges that we are having going ahead on the industrial product side. Having said that, these increases have not been substantial, as you will also notice, and we are handling the situation at this point of time.
We will be able to. With some coverage available on the inventories front as on March, I think we'll be able to give you a more better understanding of the impact by quarter 1 numbers. Thanks, Aditya. I hope I answered your question.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pulkit Patni from Goldman Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question, Rajendran. My first question is coal gasification. This is one opportunity where we are technology- ready, but we've never had a chance given that the commercials have not worked. Now that this is a global problem in terms of post the West Asia crisis, do you see any shift in government policy, any viability gap funding, et cetera, that has been spoken about for the coal gasification opportunity? That would be question number one.
Thanks, Pulkit. I think, overall, you're right in identifying the opportunity vis-à-vis the current energy crisis. We That, as many of our green energy sustainable that we offer currently, I think are bound for a better, brighter market, going ahead. I think you talked about coal gasifications. While we haven't won any in the recent past, but we're sure that in terms of government coming in to support some of this, is something that we would definitely look forward to.
Just to mention simultaneously another one, bio-CNG, where we see more of state government policies coming in to support that, is a way, a similar way, and better opportunity that is going to come in for our bio-CNG business. Similarly, for other solutions that we, everything else we have at this time. Yes, overall, I think this energy challenge for India is a good opportunity for us on the green solutions side.
Sure. Your line is actually not very clear, but I did get what you said. My second question is on data centers. Since bulk of the data centers globally are not being put on captive power plants or thermal power plants with either grid or renewable, is the opportunity size for us in terms of cooling towers relatively small to the overall, cooling tower or say the chiller opportunity? I'm just trying to understand, even if you don't want to talk about the numbers, but the area we can cater to within the data center opportunity is relatively limited given that we'll mostly be using thermal heat in order to convert into those chillers. Is that understanding right in the first place?
Pulkit, I would not be too much in detail to be able to answer that question a bit, but I will try and get back to you on this to help and answer for that understanding from the line.
Sure. No problem. Thank you so much, Rajendran.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kartik Kohli from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks for taking my question. I had a couple of them. First of all, I wanted to understand where is the progress for us on the coal gasification side. As far as I remember, there has been progress in a coal facility where your technology has been broadly finalized. Is there progress on that front? Do you see incremental orders that you can do or partner with players who can utilize your technology? That's my first question.
Kartik, the your understanding is right. W e have the technology solution tested fairly in place. I think the technology solution, in my understanding, has become viable for the market players to progress on this front. This is an area that we have been working on with, you know, interested customers who would want to test this out and who would have this in their plans for a sustainable energy solution. F rom earlier discussion that we had in this call, we are hoping that the government would, there would be some support and this particular area picks up.
At this time, there's nothing on the order front that I have an update for Q4. Going ahead, we're hopeful that things would get better on this space.
Your strategy here is broadly on the lines of that you will be only offering technology and doing technology partnership. You will not be taking on the risk of executing the full project. Is that understanding correct?
No. EPC capability we hold, so I think EPC would also be an opportunity for us in this.
As far as I remember, there were some talks in the past that you'll be limiting yourself to smaller projects, initially.
That's for sure. W e talked about on the EPC front, on the industrial infra, what we have been telling the market is that we have been cautious on the margin front, that I think would apply here as well. Otherwise, I don't think we are shying away from orders. Just that we would be cautious to make sure that our margins bit are protected. That I think would be the criteria. Thanks, Kartik.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Atul Tiwari from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yes. Sir, what is the outlook for revenue growth next year, given that this year the consolidated revenue growth was just about 3%, obviously our order book has filled up quite a bit?
I can't give you a number per se, but I think Atul, yes, the order balance, which is about 27% better than the prior period closing, gives us a better opportunity in terms of posting better, good numbers on the revenue front. Having said that, I think we have to look forward to executing better and specifically some of the site challenges and the delays that we have seen across customer sites on civil and other places. I think those have been the disturbances in the past that we have seen and have been a bit of cause for our revenue performance over the quarters.
I think also the Middle East-r elated crisis, while at this time, it does appear to be something that we have to watch for. T hese are one or two things that I think we have to keep in mind with the good order balance that we have for the execution ahead. We are confident that the execution plans that we have across various businesses of ours should come through. I think the Q1 and Q2, with this order balance, would tell us really as to how we are able to catch up. Yes, overall quite positive on our execution front.
Sir, as of now, I know it is still very early days and probably the impact of fuel prices and the shortage of gas and petrochemicals is still ahead of us. You know, looking at your client base in, you know, across industries, what is your sense? Are we seeing fair bit of disruption to business activity, especially for the smaller- scale industries? Will it have some kind of adverse consequence for your orders, say especially in industrial product segment?
Y ou picked up the industrial product segment, but in terms of disturbance as what you talk about, we've had some bit of challenge really on our chemicals business, which I haven't covered earlier, but I thought I'll speak about it now. O ur chemical business is having a bit of challenge clearly on the raw material side, because many of the, some of the key raw material like styrene, and some of the water treatment and construction chemicals have been disturbed in terms of supply as well as price increases. Availability and booking some of the raw material for our execution at higher costs, and correspondingly having to manage the prices with the customers to avoiding impact to our contribution.
T hat's been one reasonably high challenge for our chemical business at this point of time. We're doing our best in that regard, we are hopeful that we should be able to maintain our margin numbers and the volume that we have planned out for quarter one. Yes, extending it, the discussion to what you had talked about in terms of smaller this thing as well as our industrial product business is getting impacted. Yes, the what we started seeing in the month of March was with regards to the gas availability impacting fabrication smaller units and that of course getting stabilized down the line.
Yes, some bit of challenges around it, and the raw material price increases on, you know, various commodities that we have talked about has definitely impacted the operations for some of the smaller vendors. And that's where I think I talked to you about the cost pressures for quarter one.
Sir, finally, what is the planned CapEx for FY 2027 consolidated?
W e will have a regular CapEx of about INR 100-150 crore of regular CapEx that we would be doing. Apart from this, we have a few CapExes that we have planned upon on some bit of capacity expansion in our boiler facility as well as in our cooling facility. They are more like, I would say some bit of an capacity line extensions CapEx. I think put together, I think the number would roughly be about INR 250 crore.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Saurabh Gujjar from ICICI Prudential AMC. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. First question is on the supercritical boiler order from MB Power. If you can just elucidate more on this order in terms of the execution period and specifically on supercritical boiler from, say, other utilities. Are there similar tenders in pipeline?
Supercritical opportunities I think would continue to be there. I think we have, you know, I think clarified in the past with our stance on the public sector opportunities and the private sector opportunities. You will note, of course, our preference on the private sector space, I think this particular one is also on the private sector, as you can see. This order would get executed over a period of 42-45 months timeframe. I think you know the order value that we have disclosed about. I think the year one would be more focused on design engineering and ordering. I think it will pick up speed in the coming periods.
Okay. Yes. Second question on the Middle East part. How much is the exposure in terms of sales for you, and specifically which of these segments, maybe on industrial products and industrial infrastructure? On those exposure, are you seeing any execution challenges in terms of, say, supply chain or cost or payment challenges?
Sorry, can you just repeat the first part of your question? I missed a bit of that.
On the Middle East exposure in terms of sales, which you would have on industrial products rather than industrial infra, right? How much is that, and any cost or execution challenges when it comes to supply chain or any payment delays currently in notice?
Middle East has been a good opportunity for us over the last two years. I think we've been mentioning that. The opportunity has some order balances for execution at this point of time for us. We haven't seen specifically any delays at this stage, at this point, things are fine. Having said that, in terms of future opportunities, hopefully there could be more given the damages that have been there on account of the war. We are hoping for some opportunities coming around on account of that. T he price cost disturbances due to freight and other things was a reality when we were executing it in the month of March as well.
That's the space that we will have to be watching above. However, no executions have got delayed per se at this point of time.
Can you quantify the exposure to Middle East in percentage of order book or something like that?
W e did disclose to you that in Quarter two, we had booked a large, INR 450 crore order on the Middle East front in our industrial infra business. That's one among the large ones. The other ones will be in our industrial product business, which will be of smaller values. I don't have a consolidated number for Middle East on the order balance at this time, but we will see whether we'll be able to get together, get that together and disclose.
Sure. Thanks a lot.
Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit Mahawar from UBS. Please go ahead.
H i, congratulations on ending the fiscal with a very strong line-by-line . M y question is on segment one, we can see a very strong momentum, and this has been there, you know, for rising compliance and maybe package boiler business. Can we grow at 1 5%-20% next year on segment one? Because you also have some large wins impacting segment one. Second question is on segment two, where in the Babcock segment, beyond the utility supercritical order, you might have quite a few large boiler orders. Can we broadly achieve a 2x top line in 2028 vis-a-vis what we did in 2025-2026 on second segment? That's two questions for you.
O n the industrial product bit, well, yes, the boiler business is one specific segment and the largest segment, largest business within that segment. I think we've been commenting over the last couple of quarters or probably more on the increasing mix change that's happening in terms of our growth in our enviro, that's our air pollution control and water treatment businesses more significantly. I think those growths of those businesses have been robust as well. Industrial boilers the growth continues to be reasonably good.
On your ask as to whether we could see a 15%, 20% growth, I will go back to my comments on that the reasonable working platform on the order book looking good for us on Q1, I think we'll have to temper that with the war impact across various industries and what decisions that could cost on the CapEx front, which we'll have to watch carefully. At this time, reasonably optimistic, bit cautious on that for the future. On the industrial infra front, yes, I think you have seen the recent trend of wins that we have been declaring on the industrial infra space, especially for the large boiler business.
I think we had one in quarter two, another one in quarter three, which was from t he supercritical order in quarter four that we talked about, and I just now in the call talked about another opportunity on the data center side on the energy front. I think we are reasonably seeing a good bit of order for that.
Yes, I was talking to you about the strong momentum on the large orders that we are booking, apart from the regular ones that we have a pipeline of. Yes, we're bullish and we're confident of that business doing well, based the pipeline that we are seeing. I'll limit my comments to that. I hope I have answered to some extent.
Rajendran. Thank you. Good to see the leadership programs at Thermax working very well. Thank you.
Sure. Thanks, Amit.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Parikshit Kandpal from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, Rajendran, and congratulations on a good quarter. My first question is on the boiler opportunity which you spoke on the data center side. Is the boiler opportunity much bigger in the global markets or is the cooling opportunity? How does one look at this?
H onestly, Parikshit, this would be a difficult one to quantify at this stage. These are opening up for us. I think we've been making the similar commentary on the cooling front as well. We're seeing these opportunities. W e won the first set of ones. Yo u'll have to give us some time to be able to assess this and let you know on both on the energy side as well as on the cooling side. Give us some time on this one.
The data center one is on the large boiler and will it be done through the TBWES or we can directly do that? At least that much.
It'll be done through our TBWES, yes.
TBWES business, okay. There was a second question on the CapEx. I think CapEx and capacity building on the cooling side last time, it was mentioned by the management team that given how this order performance is, the market is quite big and competition and pricing is not that big of a concern. How are we planning for building capacity and the CapEx from the data center business side? If you can help us understand.
We have a reasonable facility to be able to handle this demand requirement at our Sri City site for our cooling business. I earlier mentioned that there is an CapEx on an line building that we would be an expansion that we are doing there this financial year. That would come in to support the growth, the demand additional demand that we can expect on this particular one.
Okay. Those were my two questions. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Priyankar Biswas from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Good morning, sir, and thanks for this opportunity. My first question is, sir, I see that, compared to FY 2025, it seems there has been a substantial working capital build vis-a-vis the last year. Can you please provide the, what are the causes for it? Is there some way that we should look at a reversal of this working capital build in the next year? How should we see it?
T his is well observed. You're right. W e've had a bit of working capital increase in this particular quarter. This has been caused by some project delays. Hence, the related collection delays on some of our receivables as well as retentions have happened across a few large orders as well as overall in some portion of our industrial product and industrial infra business. We're conscious of this fact, and we are focusing on this in the coming quarters to get back on better numbers for working capital and would remain a focus. Yes, thanks for spotting that.
Should we like see this coming off, let's say, if not next two quarters, but maybe over a period in FY 2027? Would that be the right way to look at it?
See, it's not gonna while I'll be hopeful that we should resolve all the overdues in one quarter. Yes, the business reality is I'm sure that we would be able to work it over the next couple of quarters.
Sir, the second question is, sir, we had won this contract in Dangote, if I remember, in third quarter. Usually, what we have seen from Thermax and also other companies, involved in, let's say, Nigeria and these countries, like in cases of, when hard currency, that is USD or EUR availability is kind of at a stress and when those countries go into a sort of fiscal stress, like execution difficulties tends to naturally crop up. Given that has happened in the past history, what are the risk mitigation measures that we are taking specifically for Dangote?
See, well, I think this has been the past. We've experienced it as well, though not specifically in the large order that we executed in the past, which was backed up by letter of credit and which will be the case, you know, quite a bit. The currently, I think the currency if I though not been closely following it, but if I know of what we have seen in the recent past, those issues have fairly stabilized for Nigeria. With the oil prices where they are things are fairly stable is what my last understanding of that matter was.
Yes, we conscious of that, and so we do take care of our payment terms to be secured and so that we are not unduly exposed on the credit risk side, and that would be the case for this as well. I think we'll be cautious on this front for sure.
That was broadly. If you can just answer a bookkeeping question, because a lot of the order wins that have happened this year and hopefully the next year is TBWES. Can you provide, let's say a broad ballpark number that what would be the order book of TBWES and maybe its revenues and margin for FY 2026? That's all from me, sir.
For FY 2026, I think you'll have to wait for it so that you know. You know that this is a separate subsidiary and then a 100% subsidiary, so its financials will be available in the public space, and I think you should wait for it. You'll get that answer.
That's all, sir.
Sure. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shirom Kapur from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Just wanted to ask you a little bit more on the large boiler order that you received in March. What would be your capacity on these boilers? Yeah, like how much could you execute? How many more orders could you take on, in this field?
I think we have three facilities, for this particular, overall, for the boiler business. I think we would be able to execute this particular one. While yes, to the extent that there has been other demands as well, we talked about it, on the order flow side, as well as the regular business, that we would have. Y es, our ability to service, would be constrained, to that extent of, capacity becoming available, and I talked to you about the expansion that we are doing to debottleneck the facility to a certain extent. That would, keep us, ready for any opportunities that might come in the future.
I think we also have ability to develop and execute some of them through outsourced facilities on the fabrication front. F airly confident of what we have won and what we will be able to execute. I think the supercritical one, opportunities if they were to come, we would be obviously looking at it closely on our abilities to pick them at the right price and being able to execute. I don't think I've answered you fully on the capacity front, but I think that's something that we review that closely in terms of our abilities to execute orders.
Understood, sir. Would you be able to give some sort of quantification of the pipeline for these kinds of boiler orders, specifically these large boilers? Like, you know, what is the bid pipeline and what is the outlook for the next 2-3 years or even more near term, 1-2 years?
I don't have that number. Sorry. This particular one I don't have at this time to share any with you.
Sure, sir. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Teena Virmani from Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question. Sir, I have two questions. One on the legacy orders, which were pending earlier to an extent of around INR 500 crore-INR 600 crore in the books of the company. What would be the status of those legacy orders? My second question is regarding the margin profile for the large orders that you have booked, both on the data center side and even on the boiler side. Is the margin profile of those orders much better than the margin profile that you are currently having in your current set of business? Ultimately, how to view the margin profile for the upcoming orders also on these two areas?
I think, yes, I think we probably failed to put an update in the investor presentation that we were planning to. I think on those low margin orders that we had specifically in our bio-CNG business, as well as our FGD business, as well as some bit on our power and energy solutions business. I think we almost executed them at least the bio-CNG 1 very clearly there. I think the large project NRL that we have talked about on the bioenergy solutions and the two large FGD projects that we are currently executing on the balance closure completion. NRL 1, I think we've talked about the cost overruns and this thing. We are hopeful.
We are keeping an eye on it. I think it would take the entire year and a bit to get that order to its closure. We're hopeful that we have the right cost estimates at this time for its closure. However, the FGD orders that we are executing at this time are better off for us and the margins are stable there. On the bio-CNG side, w e are in the performance completion, performance trial stage for most of our orders. I think that quarter one and two of those quarters here, we should be able to complete them and that should settle them.
All the new set of orders that we have booked, across our industrial infra, industrial product, I think every other places, I think they have been with better margin target profile that we have internally. Talking of this cooling as well as the supercritical order that you talked about, the margins on the cooling one are good. O n the supercritical one, we have been conscious on the margin front, when we booked this, and they are stable. A s per our target, the margin profile for the particular segment. I wouldn't be able to obviously talk about the margin specifically because it's a single order, and I'm sure you'll appreciate that.
There is sufficient buffer that you would have booked taking into account the higher RM prices, which are prevailing right now.
The order was finalized in the month of March. The prevalent situation obviously would have been factored in. Yes, but we have to manage that with the developing situation, and that would have to be handled over a period of time as well, because it's a long-term. A couple, you know, it'll be executed over the next three to four years.
Understood. Understood. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit Anwani from PL Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks for taking my question. First question on if you could give some color, in terms of the heating, cooling, electric boiler, how that has performed in industrial product. There was a kind of double-digit margin which we have been doing last year. We did good EBIT margin there. This year also, the margin has came off by 100, more than 100 basis points, but still we are in double digits. Just wanted to understand what one should take it as a sustainable margin for FY 2027, and how has been the performance of each of the subverticals in the industrial product business?
Okay. Thanks, Amit, for that question. W e broadly talk about the industrial product business of the multiple businesses that, under them, but we haven't disclosed specifically any margin profiles for each one of them. Having said that there have been, in the past, I can see that your question is around the margin drop over the last year, on the industrial product business. The prior period had a set of good projects where there were good savings opportunities for us. Having those projects having been picked up during a certain cycle of commodity cost being higher and being executed at a time when the commodity costs got cooled off. We had good savings opportunity in some of them.
In one of the businesses, we missed a bit of export opportunity which had better margin profile. That's been one. The other one has been on our one which I can talk about more clearly is on the Danstoker business that we have in the Euro. I think we have a mix of oil and gas as well as biomass-based boilers. I think the margin mix on the biomass-based boilers are better off than the oil and gas boilers. In the last year cycle, the oil and gas boilers were much more executed than the biomass ones. We see the mix changing for the year ahead.
I think that was also a cause of the change in the margin that you saw in that segment. A couple of reasons for this thing. Broadly, I think the mix change on the individual businesses, I think, was the main cause for the margin dip. Yes, we would, I think look forward to some improvements going ahead, subject to of course commodity cost impacts.
Right. In the infra business, does this boiler order, I am just again asking for better understanding, has the price variation clause? Second, is that the correct understanding that at least this is at a margin accretive, margin relative to the overall firm level margins? If you could give some color for this utility boiler order which you have taken, that would be helpful.
Thanks, Amit. I think I'll reiterate what I told earlier, that I would not be able to talk specifically about this job margin because it's a specific order. I can't also discuss any bilateral clauses that we have in the contracts. Having said that we at the firm level, segment level target margins, we have kept in mind at the time of finalizing this order. I think that's the confidence that I can have at this time.
Right. With this order, again, and as you explained already about the legacy order status on that orders, can we see meaningful improvement further for the industrial infra business? We had a good improvement this year in terms of margin. Is that on the card or this should stabilize at the current levels?
I think the current levels are good levels. I think you have seen them increasing over the last two, three years. I will just draw your attention to one specific state incentive that we have been receiving and which we have been disclosing in our quarterly and in our annual results as well. That's an accretion to that business which has happened over the last two, three years. That's available. I think we have disclosed it. It will be for till 2027, 2028 cycle. I think that is one piece of margin, meaning one piece of profit that I think is for a limited cycle.
Otherwise, yes, with the flow of orders, and certain operating leverage, I think we should definitely be having confidence on our margins going.
Right. Lastly, on the data center, is there any lead time or you have to get on some approval process which takes some time? Just wanted to understand when did you started applying for these orders, and when did they convert it for you? Is there, if you could let us understand the timelines or process to get these orders. Are you in touch with multiple OEMs in U.S. to get further business for cooling towers or, at least where we got the order, with that, are you looking for orders from the same vendor or you're talking to more OEMs there? Some color on that please.
Yes, Amit, the color is going to be limited. I'm not obviously gonna discuss whom, what, et cetera. Y es, as we earlier commented, we are confident of the order pipeline and the discussions that we are having. This is something that we will, you know, continue to comment in the coming quarters and I have nothing more to add than what I have told earlier. Thanks, Amit.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Renu Baid from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead.
H i. Afternoon. Morning, team. Just a small follow-up question, more on the bookkeeping side. Sir, can you help us give what is the broad order book split between fixed price and variable price projects and orders?
Y ou can fully assume that all our orders are fixed price orders. There would be a few which, if at all, very, and large ones, if any, that we would have price variation clauses. I think they would be fairly few and far. I think to by and large, all our orders are fixed orders.
Sure. Because this is more pertinent with respect to large orders. There's one or two of the large orders that we have recently won in the last two quarters. If they have price variation clause that it changes the mix materially. This is the reason why. Should we assume broadly 90% is all fixed price or, in value terms, how would this be?
As I said to you, I think you should assume fixed price orders because that's primarily the nature of all our businesses and orders.
Sure. Given the way the execution has panned out of the overall backlog, while we have these three, four large orders of which you can count on, what percentage of the backlog has execution cycle beyond 12 months?
S ome of the large jobs that we have picked up naturally, the execution cycles are more than this thing. I think the supercritical one I commented earlier as well. Would all clearly exceed 12 months. They would more be in 16 to 18 ranges for execution.
Got it. Sure. Thank you and best wishes to you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aditya Mongia from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
T hank you for the opportunity again. Rajendran, I have a few questions. As in, the context of the first question is that you had in Green Solutions a partner who did not fully do the work and then the company had to take it up. The same year earlier, there was an issue on the design engineering part with a certain partner as well. I'm just trying to get a sense whether this is becoming an issue that the company would want to kind of see through and address, and what steps are being taken in the selection wherein the partner network is if it's better off than earlier.
Agree with the question, Aditya. Unfortunately, the issue has been with the same partner that we've had. It's not across multiple partners who would want to give you some color around that. Yes, the impact we've explained that. We aren't facing this across our projects or across vendors. We are conscious of this and for future orders as well. Thanks.
The second question that I had was more linked up to the order inflows that have happened in the year on the domestic side inside Industrial Infra. With broadly the slack YoY, if I take away the thermal order, I think expectations would have been better for the year. Just trying to get a sense across customer sets, where have the disappointments come in, and if in those segments anything is changing for the better as we see through?
O ur Industrial Infra business, the two other parts, apart from what we have talked about, FGD, I think you are aware of, we've been speaking about it for the last one or two, one year or more. I think on the dry down of orders on that front. Bio-CNG business, has also been less on orders. I think in the recent past we won some change orders in the existing with our existing clients. Otherwise, I think it's been, there's been a change in the market, and I think there's some bit of slowdown. I think bio-CNG business order book has also been not as per our expectations.
That's another area that I think, yes, which is part of industrial infra, which has not picked up. T hose would be the concerns for us at this time. A s I said earlier, bio-CNG is a business that we're looking forward to a better opportunities and better market down the line.
Any comment on the green methanol endeavor of the company? There is a certain small quantum of capacity is being set up, but how does the company think through it, and any investment targets that you would want to share?
I don't have an current update, but Aditya, maybe I might be able to get back to you on this if there's any further development, but nothing at this time that I have to share.
Thank you, Rajendran, for this response. Those are the questions, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nikhil Choudhary from Toro Wealth Management. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, and congratulations on a great set of numbers. I had two questions. Wanted to understand, following on to the earlier participant with respect to the data center, we say that we have lesser competition in the North American cooling solution and our value add is higher. Wanted to get a sense around when the qualifications are done with probably, say, the hyperscalers, the incremental orders, do we get a higher chance with the same hyperscaler, or Is it like, each project is a fresh fight? Wanted to understand that. Second thing is, we've been very vocal in our earlier calls that we'll be staying away from very heavy projects, citing probably the FGD as one of our lessons.
This recent INR 1,600 crore of order that probably we have taken, it has got very long delivery timelines. Wanted to understand what was our thought process behind it. If you may allow, I have one more question.
Nikhil, I think the data center piece, I think I've spoken enough. There have been multiple questions. I've clarified as much as we can. I don't have anything to add beyond that. Nothing specific on the parts that you had to ask on that one. However, we'll add on the heavy projects or the 16 and the supercritical order that this thing. S upercritical we have been earlier clarifying that we are staying away from possible challenges in our capabilities to execute any supercritical orders on the public sector side. Had shown our preference and inclination to execute on the private sector side. I think you will see that this one is on the private sector side.
Yes, the margin concern that we had, is something that we have I've commented earlier on the call already. Yes, it is, it's a slightly long cycle order. I think this is a sort of a breakthrough as well for us in terms of the supercritical business and sets up our capability to execute more on this particular space. Y es, we are seeing this more, this opportunity as in our ability to get into the space as well as execute it profitably. I'll stop there. Thanks.
Thank you. That was the last question for the day. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thanks. I think I have nothing more to add. I hope I've been able to answer the questions today on the call. Thank you, and we'll look forward to seeing you again in the quarter one call. Thanks.
On behalf of DAM Capital, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.