Good afternoon, everyone. A warm welcome to all.

Thank you for joining us today to discuss Best Agrolife financial performance for the first quarter of the current financial year. This year started with an apprehension regarding the monsoons, primarily driven by the early indication of 2026 and part of 2027 being a Super El Niño year.

The early predictions indicated that in 2026 itself, El Niño could become the strongest event in the last 150 years and may push global temperatures to a record high, triggering extreme weathers. The impact on monsoons and its cascading effect on sowing and agriculture was a concern.

In the first quarter of FY27, the key observations were delayed monsoon with irregular rainfall and above-normal temperatures across several agricultural regions. Overall, as on date, the cumulative deviation from long-term average for rainfall is around 113%.

The central region has hardly a deficit of 1%, while the deficit rainfall in the east and south is higher. We have been monitoring and adjusting our placements in alignment with the season dynamics.

The current water storage situation across all reservoirs is at 81.5 billion cubic meters against the expected level of 87.6 billion cubic meters. These are positive signs to tide over the rabi season, especially in the south, where reservoirs play an important role.

As of now, reservoirs in the south are receiving inflows, and we hope this will improve in the following months. Overall, the impact has been on seed treatment.

Primarily, the demand has remained subdued due to the delayed planting, while lower crop establishment reduced the requirement for the first round of herbicide and insecticide applications, primarily in soybean, cotton, vegetable, chili, groundnut, and these are major crops. Despite these seasonal challenges, I'm pleased to share that Best Agrolife has delivered a resilient performance during the quarter.

We are also cautiously optimistic about the rabi season and our next few quarters. The revenue from operations increased 4% year-on-year to ₹396 crores.

More importantly, our profitability improved significantly, with EBITDA growing 70% year-on-year and PAT little bit more than doubling to ₹41 crores. Our gross margins expanded by 37%, while EBITDA margin reached 20%, reflecting on the strength of our differentiated product portfolio, disciplined pricing, operational efficiencies, and our focused cost management.

The improvement in profitability demonstrates that our strategic initiatives for the past few years are translating into better quality earnings rather than merely higher volumes. Our differentiated product portfolio continues to gain strong acceptance among the farmers.

We also see the benefits of our digital outreach via social media as well as WhatsApp. We have been pruning our product portfolio with emphasis on patented products.

We have increased the branded contribution of our patented portfolio from 45% last year Q1 to 64% this quarter. Our products such as Bestman, Fitzen, Warden Extra, Ronfen, Tricolor continue to perform well over the key crop segments, including paddy, cotton, sugarcane, and vegetables.

We have been in touch with the farmers and ground level to be able to understand their feedback, and we have had consistently good feedback. This has been encouraging.

We are also observing the repeat purchases, and we hope this will continue to increase as we consolidate our farmer confidence. Our recently launched products are also progressing well.

We have always been committing to continue to introduce key patented products and key specialized products which will help our farmers. Our new products portfolio, Fulfill has demonstrated excellent efficiency in the groundnut seed treatment.

Skuben Power Extra has delivered promising field performance and is expected to contribute meaningfully during the second half of the financial year. Similarly, based on our market feedback, we introduced a new PGR portfolio.

While this witnessed a relatively slow start due to the delayed crop growth, however, as the crop enters active vegetative phase, we expect the demand to improve from the second quarter onwards. The ground feedback that we have been receiving for the PGR portfolio has been positive.

Across the country, we continue to invest in farmers engagement through field demonstration, dealer meetings, village campaigns, farmer interactions, mandi activations, and as putting a lot of focus on our digital awareness programs. These initiatives are strengthening our brand recall and accelerating the farmer adoption of our differentiated technology.

We also continue to be remained focused on improving operational efficiency. Our gross margin expansion was supported by a favorable product mix, selective price increases, and disciplined procurement and manufacturing practices.

At the same time, we maintained tight control over our operating costs while continuing to invest in the market development activities. Working capital has remained an area of focus, and during the quarter, our inventory levels reduced compared to the same period last year, reflecting our emphasis on inventory optimization and efficient capital utilization.

We continue to progress across key international markets, with successful product registrations happening in Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam, and Mexico. Our regulatory approvals for patented products has also been approved for being fast-tracked in Sri Lanka.

Looking ahead, the outlook remains encouraging. Monsoon activity has improved across most agricultural regions.

Sowing has gathered. As crops move into vegetative and reproductive cycles, we expect demand for herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, PGRs to improve during the following quarters.

Our strategies remain unchanged. We will continue to strengthen our innovations pipeline, extend our differentiated products, increase market penetration across key crop segments, deepen farmer engagement, and improve operational efficiencies.

We remain confident that these initiatives will enable us to deliver sustainable, profitable growth while creating long-term value for all our stakeholders. Before I conclude and hand over to Mr.

Vikas, I would like to thank our farmers, channel partners, employees, research teams, shareholders for the continued trust and support. With that, I would now request our CFO, Mr.

Vikas, to take you through the financial performances for the quarter in greater details. Thank you.

Thank you, Sai ji. Good afternoon, everyone.

I will now take you through the financial performance for the first quarter of FY27. Despite a challenging operating environment during the quarter, we delivered a strong improvement in profitability while maintaining healthy revenue growth.

Revenue from operations stood at ₹396 crore compared with ₹381 crore in Q1 FY26, a year-on-year growth of 4%. The most significant improvement came at the gross profit level.

Gross profit increased by 32% year-on-year to ₹146 crore compared with ₹111 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. Consequently, gross margins improved to 37% from 29%, reflecting a favorable product mix, selective price increases, and our continued focus on procurement and manufacturing efficiencies.

This improvement was further supported by our ongoing product rationalization strategy. During the quarter, we reduced the number of generic products, increasing the contribution of our patented portfolio to 65% from 45%.

Despite higher raw material costs arising from the US-Iran conflict, we were able to successfully pass on a significant portion of the cost inflation across our product portfolio. We also implemented selective price increases for certain patented products.

Combined with our strengthened go-to-market strategy, these initiatives positioned us to further incentivize our dealer network while supporting sustainable margin expansion. EBITDA for the quarter stood at ₹78 crore compared with ₹46 crore in Q1 FY26, registering a growth of 70% year-on-year.

EBITDA margin improved significantly to 20% compared with 12% in the same period last year. The expansion in EBITDA margins reflects the combined impact of higher gross margins, improved operational efficiency, and disciplined cost management.

Our brand business continued to demonstrate healthy momentum during the quarter, with volumes of branded sales to dealers increasing by 13% year-on-year. Within this growth, our patented portfolio delivered an impressive 37% increase in volumes, reflecting the strong acceptance of our differentiated products.

On the other hand, sales of generic products declined significantly, in line with the company's strategic decision at the beginning of the year to discontinue select generic products and sharpen its focus on higher-value branded and patented offerings. Profit after tax more than doubled during the quarter to ₹41 crore compared with ₹20 crore in Q1 FY26, representing a growth of 104%.

PAT margin improved to 10% from 5% during the corresponding quarter last year, demonstrating the operating leverage in our business model. Operating expenses, including finance costs and depreciation, increased only 4.5% year-on-year to ₹92.97 crore despite continued investments in market development and business expansion.

This reflects our continued focus on cost optimization while supporting long-term growth initiatives. From a balance sheet perspective, we continue to improve working capital efficiencies.

Inventory stood at ₹764 crore as of 30th June compared to ₹812 crore a year ago, representing a reduction of around 6%. Inventory optimization remains an important management priority, and we expect further improvements as sales momentum strengthens during the kharif season.

Overall, the first quarter demonstrates the resilience of our business model. Although weather-related disruptions affected the timing of market demand, our differentiated product portfolio, disciplined pricing strategy, and operational efficiencies enabled us to deliver significant improvement in margins and profitability.

Looking ahead, improving monsoon conditions, healthy crop prospects, and increasing acceptance of our differentiated products provide confidence of stronger business momentum during the remainder of FY27. We remain focused on maintaining profitability, improving working capital efficiency, optimizing cash flows, and delivering sustainable returns to our shareholders.

With that, we conclude our remarks and are now ready to take questions from the participants. Thank you.

Hello. Am I audible, sir?

Yes.

Thank you so much, sir, for this opportunity. Couple of questions, sir.

Firstly, we've seen very strong gross margin improvement and EBITDA margin improvement, we've alluded to the fact that it was because of the product mix. Could you elaborate a bit more on what has worked right for us, and we've seen 37% increase in the patented products volume, where are we seeing the most traction, and how sustainable are these margins?

With respect to product mix, there were two points. One is we cut the sales mostly.

There are many generic products which we decided to discontinue, so that portfolio went down. Secondly, we also launched new patent portfolio of three products.

In addition to our previous nine products, we launched further three new products. As of today, we have around 12 patent products.

The increase in this patent portfolio went up by 37%.

Right.

In this segment, also one of our key product, which is Ronfen, plus our three new products contributed at much higher pace, resulting in if you see our overall portfolio of branded, in last year it was around 45%, and this year we reached around 65% in patented sales within our branded. This was the reason that the margins went up, and this will continue because this is part of your second question that whether these are sustainable.

This will sustain because the portfolio of generics obviously, once we have discontinued, will be lower. As and when we are launching newer products, the proportion of patent will obviously go up, and then the margins will remain at higher levels.

Right. Right.

Yes, Disha?

Yeah.

Okay. Just to add to what Mr.

Vimal said, your very valid point is about sustainability. Now what happens over the ground field and farmers and dealers is that there is a preponderance of wanting to have a basket of availability.

A large number of the specialized and patented products require the presence of these baskets to be available. Generally, what happens with a basket of generics is that they will pull down the profitability, and they pull down the gross margins.

What we have been observing on the ground and what's happening at the farmer level is that the growing adoption of the specialized products is helping us to avoid piggybacking on the generics. We will continue to focus our marketing strategy and sharpening our marketing strategy as well as our digital outreach to ensure that there is only a relevant and a meaningful percentage of generics that we carry along with our specialized portfolio.

We hope this will help us to be in a sustainable manner where we are able to deliver higher top line as well as a better bottom line. Please continue.

I think you may have had another question.

64% of the sales have come from the patented products, if you could just

Hello, am I audible now?

Yes, you are.

Sir. For first quarter, I think 64% of the sales came from patented products.

Where do we see this percentage going to for this year, and what is the target for the next year? Any sort of new products launches that are in pipeline for this year also, if you could just elaborate a bit more on that?

In the sense, in our previous calls as well, we had given an indication to say that the company's moving towards more specialized products. Our patent portfolio over the last 2 years has been going up.

This year, in addition to launching three new products, we cut few of the low-margin generic products. We believe, in current year or in future, this should be anywhere higher of 60%.

Now, depending upon season the crop, it could vary. We believe it would be anywhere between 60% to 70% where our patent portfolio should remain out of our total branded sales.

Any new launches planned for this year, sir, except for the three that we've already done?

Three launches which we have already done and have been already there in the market. As of now, no new products for the current year because once we have launched, this would obviously take care of the current and the next season.

There are pipeline for which the products will come. Now it could be starting in Jan, Feb, or it could be next year onwards as well.

It all depends upon the registration, how quickly we get. Already three are in the pocket and pipeline is already there.

Just last question, sir, from my side. In terms of the demand and what sort of overall growth should we expect for this year and for the next year?

How are you seeing the overall demand environment?

See, in the sense, if you would have spoken to me same thing 10 days back, then we would have been in worse situation because the rainfall was pretty lesser as compared to what we are today. Within a span of 10 days, we see a lot of coverage which has happened.

Obviously, still the situation is difficult in few of the pockets of the country, but we believe at least we are better off than what we were 15 days earlier. What we understand is it should get better in next another 10, 15 days.

If all this goes pretty well, then you'll see the consumption also following and the growth also comes in the same manner.

Okay. That is it, sir, from my side.

All the best. I'll get back in the queue.

Thank you.

Thank you, Disha.

Hello. Am I audible?

A little louder please, Rehan.

Hello, am I clear now?

Please continue.

Yeah. Sir, my first question is around your patented portfolio side.

You say your patent portfolio is now contributing 64% of branded sales in quarter 1 FY27 versus 45% last year. While branded sales mix increased 39% from 35%.

What is your medium-term target for patented products contribution in these trends? Can this portfolio cross 75% to 80% of branded sales over the next 2 to 3 years?

What do you all see? What's your view in this?

See,

your voice was not clear, if I understand correctly, one of the question was whether our portfolio of patent will go up to 80%, right? That's one of the question?

Yeah. That's.

See, in the sense, since we have to provide a entire portfolio of products, and generally how it happens is the season starts with generics. Our team has to engage with dealers and start with generic products, followed by specialized product.

It's very difficult for any company to just work only on specialized products. This ratio would continue at around 60%

to 65% for patented. [unclear]

Yeah. Patent portfolio will continue at that proportion of 60%, 65%, and balance would be generics.

This will remain, more or less. If I understand this was with respect to margins you are asking on the generics and?

Yes, sir. That's the reason, yeah.

Yeah. I think you can see from the margins what we have reported this quarter, which itself justifies to say that the margins on the patent portfolio, because those are specialized, and also we need to do a lot of work at the field level to create awareness among farmers.

The margins are higher here, and the generics obviously are in competition and has to go as per the market price. Till the time we are selling higher patent, our margins will obviously be on the higher side.

Sir. Fine, yeah.

Sir, my second and last question is on your market share regarding about kharif season. Sir, considering the strong growth in patented products despite a weak kharif season, can you please quantify its current market share in branded crop protection market, and what do you expect the share to be over the next 3 years?

See, this is with respect to the season. It generally happens on a day-to-day basis to say that, okay, today there was a good rainfall in say any part of the country.

Then discussion on the sales team picks up there and then starts selling and the liquidation happens. It's never about as a general condition, but the improvement in rainfall ensures that it improves in the business.

Also, as I said, 15 days back, we were in not so good situation. Since we are speaking today, we are a little better off.

We're confident that within next 10 days, it could be further better. It all depends upon the monsoon and how it is covering the country.

The best part about our product portfolio is we are there across almost all the states, covering most of the crops, and providing better solution. Wherever there might be few pockets, for example, one or two of our patents, the sales were little lower, but we are better off in other four products, so that will continue.

Just to add on to Rehan your query, I think maybe you're also looking from a perspective of a longer-term growth prospects. Would that be the right understanding?

You're looking for that information?

Yes, sir. What's your view for the long term regarding this kind of crop protection market?

How you are seeing? Yes.

From a macro perspective, while the crop protection market growth in India has been relatively on a modest scale, there are a lot of intricacies on a crop-by-crop or a region-by-region sort of a situation. The more detailed sort of analysis on that would be take a longer time, but on a very high level, there are two, three things which are happening.

One is, of course, the pest resistance. Although the IPM sort of a methodology has been promulgated by the government and is attempted to be followed by a lot of farmers, the integrated crop protection and the way to be able to juggle among different pesticides to be able to get the maximum yield with a very modest set of pesticides is promulgated, it is being difficult to be get the education across.

What this essentially means in one-liner, there is a increasing amount of pest resistance. Attempting to be able to counter that pest resistance is something which is of a challenge.

There are two ways of solving this challenge. A is increasing a little bit more usage of the generics, which is not a really great idea.

Other option is to go for very specialized and newer molecules, which have a lower toxicity, higher efficiency, and also are working on different modes of action. This is a sort of segment that we are targeting, and we are trying to actively counter the ongoing pest resistance by introducing new formulation with newer technicals.

While the overall projection of the crop protection market in India might be anywhere between 4% to 6%, we are hoping to be able to do a little better, where the challenge has been is always on the market adoption and ability for us to be able to get the farmers to be educated to continue with their focus on our special portfolios. This is also one of the reasons why, with the farmer acceptance, we are able to prune our generic portfolio and be able to push our patented portfolio more.

We hope to continue to work on this. Farmer education is very important, and thank you for this question because it sort of relatively tells us how we are in a differentiated segment.

Yeah. Sir.

Thank you for detailed answer and good luck for the coming quarter, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you. Sir, we've started tracking the company recently, and we see that last 3 years, 3 years back, we used to do almost ₹190 crore of PAT, and last 3 years, our revenue as well as bottom line has dropped substantially.

Could you just quickly summarize what were the challenges for last 3 years?

In the sense, for one quarter we are discussing, for 2 years it will be much longer discussion. Quickly if I summarize, one of the year we had a challenge with respect to China price crash.

Just year before that, we launched in a big way in B2C segment, which is through dealership network, our own brands, patent portfolio. We had a very good year, also our inventory were higher, our procurements were higher, and suddenly there was a price crash, which affected our existing inventory, and we had to sell at much lower gross margins.

Then next year majorly, if I say, was because of the seasonal factors. We got a lot of sales return, and that also impacted our numbers.

Also in our factory operations, we were trying a lot on newer products and then products which are not easily available in India and trying to compete on cost-competitive basis with China. We spend a lot of time on those products, and the capacities got utilized there, which otherwise would have gone in other products, and our turnover could have been higher.

These three, four issues happened over last 2 years, because of which the numbers at top-line level as well as bottom-line level went down. You see, in the sense, we are pretty new in the B2C segment.

We are learning since last three, four years. Also we are one of the fastest growing in the segment, wherein if I say that in 3 years from branded business, we went up from ₹400 crores to ₹1,000 crores.

With this strategy of reducing B2B, we went higher in branded products, our own, and reducing the B2B business, which is more of a generic kind of portfolio. Yes, these few factors resulted.

Now, after 3, 4 years, we are more experienced, you can say, with respect to the kind of issues we faced, we are able to tackle it much better. On expense front also, we had spend a lot because if you are coming with newer patent products, you need to have much larger efforts on the market, on the field.

That also we spend higher in last 3 years, but now we are trying to manage that at reasonable level. These were the factor, but it looks that from whatever learnings we had, we are back to our growth phase, wherein we will continue to push sales of our patented products, improve the top line as well as bottom line.

Right, sir. Thank you for that.

Sir, when do you see our top line reaching say ₹1,500 crores? Also, for a sustainable margin, is it fair to say that about 13% or 13%-14% will be a sustainable margin for the business?

I'm not asking for a specific year, but in general, how do you see sustainable margins for the business?

As I said, the reasons for each of the years were obviously different. As I mentioned that we were pretty new in the sense because we keep on comparing ourselves with peers who are 20, 30, 40 years in the industry.

Obviously, we have to be compared, but we have our own challenges which we faced and which we improved. What you mentioned is right.

At EBITDA levels we have achieved earlier as well at much higher of 15% as well. So 13-14 is a pretty reasonable ask to achieve for us under normal circumstances, and we are pretty confident that at each of the years we should be able to have this level of 13-14%.

Not as a specific guidance for this year, but yeah, we are pretty confident that seeing that our Q1 went good and including July numbers, which already ending today, which we see the sales are going pretty good as per expectation, so that number should be easily achievable. Even turnover as well, we are pretty confident, if not touching it, but okay, if we are even closer also.

The point is, till the time our specialized portfolio is higher, will ensure that profitability will be higher, top line could be little here and there, but yeah, we are confident of easily achieving 13-14%.

Right, sir. My last question is on revenue growth on a slightly longer-term basis, 3-4-year basis.

What do you think will be a revenue CAGR or what is the internal aspiration to grow revenue at what rate?

We have mostly bottomed out last year in March '26, and from year on, in the sense the plan is to easily be achieve a growth of 10% to 15% each year. Now there could be year where it could be little higher and then little lower as well.

On an average, CAGR should be anywhere between 10% to 15%.

Great, sir. Thank you.

That's it from my end.

Thank you, Amit.

Congratulations on good set of numbers, huh. I have been following the company for the last three to four years.

Are you sure you are not front-loading high-margin branded products to distributors in Q1 and to show good numbers and take hit in the Q3 and Q4 you have been doing in last three years, or as in the nature of the sector?

In the sense, obviously the products initially would have sold our patented products, but still, because of the delay in the season, our patented portfolio and especially few of the products are for south, and the season starts from August itself, and also there's a delay. The sales of patented products will continue not only just in Q1, plus in Q2 also.

With respect to Q3, Q4, obviously those are the time when the season gets over and we get some sort of sales return. This year we have been more careful as we have been doing with respect to sales return provision.

We have created a buffer for the sales return provision, which we expect that will start coming from September, October, which we are trying to reduce that volatility which used to happen in last 2, 3 years. Hopefully, if at a reasonable season level, we should be able to curtail that volatility which had happened in Q3 and Q4.

We are conservative to that extent, and we have created little higher sales return provision.

Thank you, sir.

I want to understand what are the margins of our patented products and of the generic products.

In the sense, it will be difficult to say exact margins. At least gross margin.

Are at lower levels, and obviously patent, depending upon different patents, we have a different margin. As you can see,

If you can give a difference between the margin, how many basis points would the patented products be higher in terms of gross margins?

Sorry, I couldn't get you. What was your last sentence?

Broad range directionally.

Broad range is for most of the patented products, we are 40% plus margin. For generics, it's in the range of, say, gross margins in the range of 15% to 25%, 30%.

Got it. In this quarter, did we see any increase in raw material prices?

I want to understand if there's inflation in our raw materials, are we able to pass on the [unclear]

Mr. Gunit, we're not able to hear your question.

Could you be a little louder and repeat it, please?

Hello, am I audible?

Yes, please. Please go ahead.

Yeah. I'm saying that if there's inflation in our raw materials, if our raw material costs go up, are we able to pass on the price hikes?

In my speech, I had mentioned two things. One is we were aware that the prices were going up, and in first week of April, even before the season started, we had increased our prices.

Then for further few of the products, we did a second round of increase in first week of May. For most of the price increase, we have been able to pass on.

For some of our patented products, rather we had done a selective increase as well. Overall, our price increase is positive in the sense we were able to pass on the cost increase, and for selective products, we had increased little higher as well.

Got it, sir. This quarter, did we have low-cost inventory which we had built up earlier before the prices started increasing [unclear] war, and is that the reason that our margins are [unclear] this quarter?

If you

One minute.

I just understood the question, possibly I'll just answer. One is, yes, we had a little bit of inventory which was at low cost, which always happens in the sense you always have 60 to 90 days of inventory.

There was part of inventory which was at lower cost, and then obviously there were few inventories which, during the panic time of Feb to March and April, we had imported at higher price as well. Then later on, the prices stabilized as well.

It's an average of low-cost inventory, buying at the time when there was a shortage situation, and later on stabilization. It's a mix of all three, not necessarily that our gross margins are better just because that we had a huge low-cost inventory.

Got it.

Just to add to the question, Mr. Gunit.

One of the key advantages that we have been trying to have is that we have the technical manufacturing unit, which is sort of a feeder to the critical and important molecules which go into the patented products. There is a resilience that gets built in.

The challenge has been over the last couple of years has been the R&D to be able to have these complex molecules being produced at a price point which is comparable or competitive with China. The advantages of this particular whole ability to have a supply chain which is a feeder into our important molecules is a resilience which gets created.

That resilience did take time, and we are cognizant of the fact that it took us a couple of years to get to that resilience. We hope to continue to focus on the R&D to be able to build in that resilience so that fluctuations in the raw materials are sort of absorbed, and we are able to be ahead of the curve as far as maintaining our gross margin is concerned.

Got it, sir. In terms of now that the prices of our inventory would also have caught up with the increase in the prices of our products, do we expect some normalization in the EBITDA margins, or can we expect this 20% margin to continue?

What are your thoughts on that? For the financial year '27, what kind of a margin range can we realistically look at?

In the sense, we are not giving any guidance to say that what would be in future. Generally the Q1 and Q2 are at much higher levels because of the season.

You will see continuation of what we had done in Q1 and Q2 as well, because that's Q2 is our major season, major quarter. You'll see a higher sales and higher gross margin continuing the way we had done in Q1.

Q3, Q4 all depends upon how the rainfall pans out in next 2, 3 weeks, and it all depends upon sales and all. Difficult to predict any specific number with respect to 20% what you're mentioning.

What we feel is we should be back to our earlier growth trajectory and profitability. Top-line wise, we are not very aggressive to say that we will do at higher 15%, 20% which we used to guide earlier.

Now concentration is more on the profitability because we are also reducing some of the generics, which would have been much easier to get our top line. That we are reducing as well as the tail, and improving our patent.

Q2 will be good. Q3, Q4 it depends on season how it pans out, so that anyways we will be watching.

Got it, sir. Thank you very much.

All the best.

Thank you.

Hello. Good evening.

Am I audible?

Yes, please, Mr. Sanjay.

Sai and Vikas, really congratulations on your good operational performance. It was really tough.

The rain was delayed, and situation was not that great. The margins were good, but definitely top lines was little bit subdued.

The rain started late and because of that was there any impact on the top line in Q1? Otherwise, it could have been a better quarter.

It is of course in the sense, because the situation was such that it was pretty dry spell. The farmers and the dealers tend to delay their purchases.

If the rainfall is across places, then obviously the movement happens. Obviously you would have thought that the quarter would be little better, but because the deferment of procurement from farmers and ultimately from dealers happened, something gets pushed to Q2.

Yes, you're right to the extent that Q1 could have been better with respect to top line, but yeah, even if rain happens now, we are confident to be able to show a good Q2. Right.

That means a lot of business has moved from Q1 to Q And a lot means at least some business has moved from Q1 to Q2. If the rain continues, we are seeing the Q2 is going to be good if the rain continues, right,

compared to

last year, yeah, I mean on that.

Yes,

Vimal. Yes, Sanjay.

Hope that rain continues. My second question was about this raising funds.

The warrant conversion didn't happen last year. Last warrant was issued and those were not converted, we couldn't raise the funds.

Now for this financial year, whether you have any plans to raise funds and by what means, and the capex plan for this financial year?

Capex presently is on hold, because in the sense you would have seen that last 2 years we have been struggling with respect to the numbers, the top line as well as profitability. We didn't wanted to shift our focus into newer capex.

Rather, we wanted to first strengthen our existing business. Capex plans are on hold.

With respect to this QIP which we have done, obviously the last date was around June '26 which ended, and then because of the obvious reason that the price was at much lower level, the investors obviously didn't put the balance 75%. That also got closed in the sense.

Now we are in discussion with the investors to say, okay, what would be our next Obviously, we don't want investors to lose the money. Once that discussion still is on, then possibly could be that, okay, we might come with another QIP.

Still it is, as I said, under discussion stage. That will once we have some confirmation, that's the time we'll be able to But yeah, but presently the open QIP has been got closed wherein the investors didn't because of the obvious reason didn't pay the balance amount.

Otherwise, the working capital has been improved drastically. The inventory since last 2 years, we have reduced from about ₹1,000 crores to present ₹700 crores.

This has ensured that the working capital management has been at much better levels. Till some time back, there were some delays in payment to creditors also.

Those has also been all closed now. Presently we are at a level wherein almost all the payments and everything are paid on time, and the advance collections also we did at a much better levels this year.

Working capital-wise, we are pretty stable. We have to see what we'll do with the QIP.

Yes, to

Mr. Sanjay, I get your point.

In terms of a capex, there is a huge advantage of taking capex. The primarily reason for our capex requirement was to increase our manufacturing capability.

Manufacturing capability would have helped us produce more material and be able to increase our top line at a good pace. We did face this challenges as Mr.

Vikas has been saying in the last 2 years where we had little bit challenges in terms of our top line. Now that once we are on a steady wicket, we will look at the right time to be able to get into the capex, where we will be able to utilize the capex in the manner that does not stress the system.

It is there in our mind, and we have all the plans in place, and we are looking for an opportune moment to be able to trigger those.

Sure, that's great. If you decide to launch the QIP, will it be in Q2 or Q3, if we decide, is it something?

No, no, still there is no confirmation on that. As I said, it's still under discussion.

Okay.

Once we have some confirmation, then only we'll be able to tell you. Sure,

sure. All right.

That's all from my side. Thank you very much and all the best.

Thank you, Mr. Sanjay.

Appreciate your comments.

Namaskar, Surendra ji. Namaskar, Vikas bhai.

Hope I am audible to both of you. Ha,

namaskar, Saket ji.

Yes, sir. Thank you, sir, firstly for the opportunity and their opening remarks and the good set of numbers, which were not visible for quite a long time.

Firstly, in continuation to the earlier participant on the capex front, if I am not wrong, the earlier capex was also put on hold. What is firstly the status on the nature of the same wherein we were trying to, I think so, expand our capacity at our existing facility.

I think so with the technical part, if I'm not wrong, correct me there. Firstly, what is the update on the same?

With respect to that capex plan, based on that capex plan and the sales deriving from that capex plan, our growth projections also were given at around, say, 20%. In our earlier earnings call, where we said that we are going to go with the capex, based on that turnover, we had given the projections of, say, 20% plus growth.

Now if you see that since it is on hold, we are back to our normal organic growth from our existing business, which is around 10% to 15%. That is the impact.

As I mentioned, the focus was mainly to stabilize and to improve the existing business. Once we have that confidence, if one year looks great and once we have that confidence, then automatically the capex and everything will follow.

That was the reason we thought as a management that we'll keep it on hold. That obviously will have some impact on our top lines in future, which we have mentioned that instead of 20, now we'll have between, say, 10% to 15% of growth.

Sir, Vikas ji, when you were mentioning about the current financial year and particularly for Q2, correct me here, you seems to sound confident that with now 1 month of the quarter underway and definitely with the sales reporting and the weather turning conducive for the industry, you are confident that we are able to repeat our or we are on track to be in line with what Q1 has been. It is only in Q3 and Q4 we will be able to know how are the sales return going to happen or can you just explain to us what is our preparation this year, and then my second question.

As I had mentioned earlier, if we had been discussing this 15 days earlier, I would not have been so confident. Generally I keep this IMD map on daily basis to see how much it's raining across various places.

So

Right.

what it was 15 days back, most part of the country was at deficient rainfall and going up to minus 40%, and which as of today is just about minus 15%. We see that different parts which hardly received any rain across last 1 month or so are getting rains.

Today's the situation is little different, and July we see that even though our sales is putting a lot of effort, we see good amount of sales coming in July. Still there is some postponement from July to August as well, which we see in various parts.

At least we are better off than minus 40% than today minus 15%. Hopefully another 1 week, 10 days of good rain will ensure that we do much, much better than what we anticipated.

Sir, on the sales return front, how prudent are we in terms of we posted top line of ₹396 crore? On a prudent basis, what percentage of the same have we already being provided in sales return, and what is our thought process on this?

We have provided a good amount of sales return. We have taken a number of, say, 20% as expected sales return, and we have done a provision of around ₹60 crores.

Whatever numbers you see is actually ₹60 crores has been reduced to that extent that we believe that tomorrow it might come, which is at a reasonable estimate. That should take care of some sort of volatility which happens in Q3, Q4.

Also we have also taken the gross margins for that sales return at little higher level, that tomorrow it should not happen that we receive some products which are of higher gross margin and again hits my profit at that time. We have taken enough buffer in this quarter itself, and if Q2 also goes well, so that buffer will take care of Q3 if there are any higher sales return.

Sir, you were mentioning about Yeah. Yes, sir.

You are

Saket, just adding one line to that. Ha, Saket.

Basically just as we were mentioning that rabi we are cautiously optimistic. Overall, as you rightly mentioned, there is a 10% to 15% deficit in the rainfall.

As far as the south reservoirs are concerned, they are a little bit on the lower side, but overall reservoir capacity is more or less as per the long-term averages. Hopefully, in the south we should be able to see as expected, even if assuming there is some amount of a deficiency in the rabi rainfall.

We are cautiously optimistic. The lot of discussion is on the El Niño and the impact on that.

For first half of the year, the El Niño's impact has been there, but relatively less. We will continue to monitor the situation, and we will plan to be able to change our placement strategies and our sales strategies based on how the sort of rabi season progresses.

Right, sir. Sir, because on a comparable basis, last year is not a comparable number on any front.

There were many one-off or the factors that have not played out earlier. Only to keep the revenue base, on last year top line of I think so we were at 1,300 or 1,250, I think so.

Last year was

1,250

on consolidated level. What should we factor in with ₹400 crore top line for the first quarter as a number or a growth number on a base of 1,250 and last year's?

Not giving any projection to say that tentative where we will land because, again, this situation is still dependent upon certain factors which are not in our control. We are pretty positive with respect to whatever sales we have done and then looking at July, plus the operations with respect to one of our factory last year where we're doing on our newer products, which also we feel will be better placed this year.

Few of the issues which happened last year and subdued our turnover, we are seeing that those will not play out, and we'll be in a better position. Not giving any number as of now, but believe that let it happen through each quarters as and when it comes.

You'll see a good effect coming in this year.

All right. We thank all our investors, stakeholders, suppliers, and customers for their support as we transformed our business.

We welcome the voice of investors, and assure our stakeholders of our intent to create a long-term sustainable. Thank you.

Thank you very much to all. With this, I log in.

Thank you.