Thank you. Hello, good morning to everyone.

We welcome you to Carborundum Universal 4Q FY26 and full-year FY26 earnings conference call. We have with us from the management Mr.

Sridharan Rangarajan, Managing Director, and Mr. G.

Chandramouli, Advisor and Head of Investor Relations. I would now request the management to give their opening remarks on how the fourth quarter as well as full FY26 went by, and provide some outlook for the future.

Over to you, sir.

Good morning, I'm Chandramouli. Let us start the proceeding with a disclaimer.

During this call, we make certain statements which reflect our outlook for the future, or which could be construed as forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management current expectations, and are associated with uncertainties, and risks are more fully detailed in our annual report, which may cause actual results to differ.

Hence, these statements must be reviewed in conjunction with the risk that the company faces. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning to all of you, and a very warm welcome to our fourth quarter and full-year earnings call for the financial year FY26.

I trust you and your family members are safe and healthy. We will begin this call by providing an overview of the company's performance for the full year FY26 and Q4 FY26, followed by an outlook for FY27.

We also plan to share some glimpses of our Aspiration 2030 later in the call. To start with standalone sales, on a full-year basis, standalone sales in FY26 was ₹3,024 crore compared to ₹2,784 crore in FY25.

This is a growth of 8.6%. It may be noted that the company has crossed the mark of ₹3,000 crore in standalone revenue this year.

Growth at standalone level was driven by the electromineral segment, which grew by 11.1%, recording a sales of ₹906 crore compared to ₹815 crore last year. Ceramic segment grew from ₹939 crore last year to ₹1,000 crore in this year.

This is a growth of 6.5%. Abrasives increased from sales of ₹1,195 crore in FY25 to ₹1,270 crore in FY26, marking a growth of 6.2%.

Across the standalone segment, growth rebounded strongly over H2, and particularly in Q4 FY26. Standalone sales increased from ₹1,410 crore in H1 FY26 to ₹1,614 crore in H2 FY26, reflecting a strong sequential growth of 14.4%.

On a year-on-year basis, H2 FY26 grew by around 14.1% compared to ₹1,415 crore in H2 FY25. You may note that H1 FY26 was only marginally higher by about 3%.

Standalone abrasives grew from ₹594 crore in H1 FY26 to ₹675 crore in H2 FY26, which is a growth of 13.7% on a sequential basis. On a year-on-year basis, abrasives grew 15.6% compared to the last year same period.

Ceramic increased from ₹466 crore in H1 FY26 to ₹534 crore in H2 FY26, marking a sequential growth of 14.5%. Year-on-year, it grew by 8% in H2 FY26 and 4.9% in H1 FY26.

Electrominerals, from ₹425 crore in H1 FY26 to ₹481 crore in H2 FY26, an increase of 13.2% sequentially, and on a year-on-year basis, the segment delivered a strong growth of 15.5% in H2 FY26 and 6.5% in H1 FY26. Overall, the growth in H2 FY26 was broad-based across all segments, with abrasives, ceramics, electrominerals all contributing double-digit sequential growth, leading to a strong performance in comparison with H2 FY25 as well as in comparison to H1 FY26.

In Q4 FY26, standalone recorded at ₹845 crore compared to ₹769 crore in Q3 FY26, reflecting a sequential growth of 9.9%. Compared to ₹686 crore Q2 FY26, sales grew by 23.1% in that period.

Abrasives grew from ₹323 crore in Q3 FY26 to ₹353 crore in Q4 FY26, marking an increase of 9.3% sequentially, and compared to Q4 FY25, it recorded a strong growth of 21.5%. Ceramic increased from ₹255 crore in Q3 FY26 to ₹279 crore in Q4 FY26, marking an increase of 9.2% sequentially, and compared to Q4 FY25, it grew by 21.7%.

Electrominerals rose from ₹229 crore in Q3 FY26 to ₹252 crore in Q4 FY26, marking a growth of 9.7% sequentially, and compared to Q4 FY25, it grew by 22.3%. Standalone profit after tax, FY26 PAT was ₹416 crore compared to FY25 PAT of ₹322 crore, reflecting a growth of 29.4% year-on-year.

The PAT of FY26 includes a dividend from one of the subsidiary, about ₹76 crore. H1 FY26 PAT stood at ₹209 crore compared to H1 PAT of ₹180 crore, registering a growth of 16.4%.

H2 FY26 PAT was ₹207 crore compared to the H2 FY25 PAT of ₹142 crore, a strong growth of 45.9%. Q4 FY26 PAT came in at ₹122 crore compared to Q4 FY25 PAT of ₹61 crore, resulting in doubling of profit in this quarter.

Now I move to the consolidated results. Consolidated sales on a full-year basis was about ₹5,149 crore in FY26.

This marks a growth of 6.5% over the sale of ₹4,833 crore in FY25. It may be noted that the company has surpassed the mark of ₹5,000 crore in consolidated revenue this year.

Consolidated growth was driven by ceramics segment, which grew from ₹1,160 crore to ₹1,268 crore, marking a growth of 9.3%. Consolidated abrasives segment grew by 5.1% from ₹2,159 crore to ₹2,271 crore.

Consolidated electrominerals grew by 3.7%, going from ₹1,574 crore to ₹1,632 crore. The muted consolidated electromineral growth reflects the higher base in FY25 due to VAW.

You will note that VAW was sanctioned in January 2025, in FY25 VAW had a normal sale of three quarter the three quarters. In Q4 FY26, consolidated sales was ₹1,383 crore compared to ₹1,199 crore.

This is a growth of 15.4%. Growth in Q4 was driven by abrasives, which grew by 13.4%, ceramic, which grew by 18.6%, electromineral, which grew by 14.6% over Q4 FY25.

Compared to Q3 FY26, which recorded sales of ₹1,273 crore, sales in Q4 grew by 8.7%. During the last call, I said that consolidated sales would grow by 5.5% to 6.5%.

Against this, we have recorded a growth of 6.5%. Now I will cover the consolidated PBT profit.

Consolidated PBT before exceptions in FY26, consolidated profit before exceptional item and taxes stood at ₹416 crore compared to ₹572 crore in the previous year, reflecting a drop of 27.2% year-on-year. A majority of this decline was on account of VAW, almost about ₹87 crore, Foskor almost about ₹22 crore, Awuko ₹19 crore, Rhodius about ₹46 crore.

I will cover all these in detail later. Exceptional items, Foskor and Awuko.

In FY26, exceptional items amounting to ₹135 crore have been recorded in consolidated financial statement. In FY25, there was an amount of ₹104 crore for the provisions relating to the foreign currency deposits and receivable outside of CUMI Group following the imposition of sanctions in January 2025.

During the financial year, CUMI International Limited, the holding company of Awuko, approved to initiate the closure of Awuko through a voluntary winding-up process under the applicable laws in Germany, considering the continued underperformance of the subsidiary with the mounting losses and its inability to turn around in view of the prevailing market conditions. Exceptional items relating to this closure amounts to ₹119 crore.

Foskor Zirconia Private Limited is a subsidiary of CUMI International Limited. CUMI holds 51% stake in Foskor Zirconia.

Foskor Zirconia has not been able to achieve sustainable profits since 2013 despite several strategic and operational restructuring initiatives undertaken in the past. Further, the escalation in electricity and other input costs in South Africa, coupled with intensifying global competition and foreign exchange fluctuations, has rendered the business commercially unviable.

Turnaround initiatives have been adversely impacted by the prevailing market conditions, marking continuation of operations unsustainable. Accordingly, the board of Foskor Zirconia, based on the recommendations of the management, have concluded that there is no realistic alternative to carry on the operation, and will be seeking requisite approvals in this process.

Accordingly, the consolidated FY26 financials include the impact of ₹16 crore relating to the writedown of various assets to the realizable value. Now I will cover the profit before interest and tax.

Standalone PBIT, at standalone level, the business reported a total PBIT of ₹525 crore in FY26 as compared to ₹425 crore in FY25, reflecting a strong growth of 23.4%. Segment results of ₹491 crore in FY26 is marginally higher than the results of ₹489 crore in FY25.

At segment level, electrominerals delivered a strong performance, increasing from ₹63 crore to ₹82 crore, registering a robust growth of 31.1%. Abrasives PBIT was ₹195 crore in FY26 compared to ₹193 crore in FY25, registering a marginal growth of about 0.9%.

Ceramics declined from ₹233 crore to ₹214 crore, reflecting a drop of 8%. We will cover this later in the call.

Consolidated PBIT, consolidated PBIT was ₹404 crore in FY26 compared to ₹541 crore in FY25. This marks a decline of 25.3%.

The drop is due to VAW, Foskor, Awuko, and Rhodius, as explained earlier. I will cover this later in detail.

Now I will go to the segmental performance. Abrasives segmental performance, consolidated abrasives, consolidated abrasives recorded a sales of ₹2,271 crore in FY26 as compared to ₹2,159 crore in FY25, registering a growth of 5.1%.

On a quarterly basis, sales of ₹610 crore in Q4 FY26 grew by 13.4% compared to ₹538 crore in Q4 FY25. On a sequential basis, sales grew from ₹569 crore in Q3 FY26 to ₹610 crore in Q4 FY26, reflecting a growth of 7.2%.

Consolidated abrasives sales growth was driven by growth in standalone segment, Rhodius Abrasives, Awuko Abrasives, CUMI America, and Sterling Abrasives. During our last call, I communicated a sales growth of 4% to 5% in consolidated abrasives we can expect.

We are now at a growth of 5.1%. Now I will cover standalone abrasives.

Standalone abrasives level abrasives recorded a full-year performance of ₹1,270 crore as compared to ₹1,195 crore, reflecting a growth of 6.2%. On a half-yearly basis, H1 FY26 stood at ₹594 crore against ₹611 crore in H1 FY25, registering a decline of 2.8%.

However, in H2 showed a strong recovery, increasing to ₹675 crore from ₹585 crore in H2 FY25, reflecting a growth of 15.6%. The overall performance improved from ₹594 crore to in H1 FY26 to ₹675 crore in H2 FY26, marking a growth of 13.7% sequentially.

Overall, the full-year growth was driven by a strong rebound in the second half. You would note that the business faced issues such as inventory correction from the dealer channel, unseasonal rains which delayed construction activity in some markets, tepid demand in industrial segment, and a short period of caution in the Northern markets following Belgaum attack.

We undertook a range of go-to-market initiatives, including market expansion activities such as dealer appointment, new product introductions, rebranding of established products in newer geographies, onboarding of key potential OEMs as customers, and a host of other initiatives. Besides this, implementation of GST rate rationalization and a rebound in festival season demand provided a growth impetus.

I will move to Rhodius Abrasives. Rhodius Abrasives, the sales was in FY26 was €61 million compared to sales of €67 million in FY25.

This marks a decline of 8.8%. Q1 FY26, Rhodius made a transition to a new third-party logistics partner.

Considering the long-term operational efficiencies, this transition resulted in a loss of sales of about €5 million. We communicated this earlier with you.

While operations resumed to normalcy by Q2 FY26, the lost sales in Q1 FY26 could not be regained over the rest of the years. Overall, I think they delivered sales of €61 million compared to €67 million.

We expect sales in FY27 to grow by 5% in FY27, and the PAT loss in FY26 was €2.6 million compared to €0.2 million in FY25. We expect FY26 the PAT to be of very smaller loss.

CUMI Awuko Abrasives, Awuko recorded sales of €10.5 million in FY26 compared to sales of €10.1 million in FY25. This is a growth of 4.6% in euro terms.

The loss before exceptional and tax increased from €6.6 million to €7.7 million in FY26. This marks an increase of 15.8%.

Losses were higher in Awuko on account of various factors. Anyhow, we have decided to wind down the company as following the legal process as given by respective countries.

Abrasive PBIT, standalone abrasives FY26 recorded a marginal growth of 0.9% year-over-year. Looking at the half-year dynamics, there was a strong sequential recovery with H2 FY26 growing by approximately 31.3% over H1 FY26.

While there was a significant gain in the momentum over H2 due to the reasons explained earlier, the impact of lower volumes in H1 and the resultant lower cost absorption offset the profitability gains in H2. Standalone PBIT margin percentage decreased from 16.1% in FY25 to 15.3%, 81 bps drop.

This decline was mostly on account of the lower volume in H1 FY26. At a consolidated level, PBIT margin dropped by 36.2%, going from ₹151 crore to ₹97 crore.

Higher losses at Rhodius, Awuko contributed to this decline. Rhodius lost ₹45 crore versus nearly ₹0.44 crore in FY24, and Awuko ₹75 crore of loss versus ₹58 crore of loss last year.

At the consolidated level, PBIT percentage of abrasives segment dropped from 7% to 4.3%. During the last call, I said PBIT margin of abrasives would be 4% to 4.5%.

They are now at 4.3%. EMD segmental performance, consolidated electrominerals.

Consolidated electrominerals recorded sales of ₹1,632 crore in FY26 compared to sales of ₹1,574 crore in FY25. This marks a growth of 3.7%.

The growth at consolidated level is entirely on account of lower sales at VAW Russia, which declined by 22% in INR terms in the electromineral segment. VAW Russia, in ruble terms, VAW recorded sales of almost 6 billion rubles compared to 9.4 billion rubles in FY25.

This marks a decline of 35.3%. Sales in abrasives segment in VAW was about 14% lower compared to FY25.

Sales in ceramics segment was lower by 31% compared to FY25. Profit before exceptional items and tax of the entity declined from 1.7 billion in FY25 to 617 million rubles in FY26.

Lower sales and profits are on account of the sanctions imposed by USA. Despite the volume being considerably lower, the business continues to be profitable at its current level of operation.

Standalone electrominerals, the standalone electromineral recorded a full-year performance of ₹906 crore in FY26 as compared to ₹815 crore in FY25, reflecting a strong growth of 11.1%. On a half-yearly basis, H1 FY26 stood at ₹425 crore against ₹399 crore in H1 FY25, registering a growth of 6.5%.

H2 FY26 increased to ₹481 crore from ₹416 crore, reflecting a stronger growth of 15.5%. Sequentially, the performance improved from ₹425 crore to ₹481 crore, with a growth of 13.2%.

Overall, the full-year growth was driven by stronger growth in exports. Exports grew by 100% from FY25 to FY26, and currently contribute a little over 33% of the total sales compared to 11% of the sales in FY25.

Exports were driven by leveraging business existing relationship with many global OEMs across abrasives and refractories. Introduction of treated grains, coupled with antidumping duties against Chinese grains by EU, all helped to achieve this.

Foskor Zirconia Private Limited, sales at Foskor Zirconia recorded 465 million rand compared to 415 million rand in FY25. This marks a growth of 11.2% in rand terms.

The loss after tax increased rand 27 million in FY25 to 77 million in FY26. In terms of loss before exceptional and tax increased from ₹37 crore in FY25 to ₹77 crore.

The volatility in zircon sand price, drop in Z450 price, and an appreciation of the rand against the US dollar impacted the bottom line, and hence the losses increased. We decided to find that this is not viable anymore to continue.

Electromineral PBIT, consolidated PBIT on a full-year basis recorded ₹91 crore in FY26 compared to ₹177 crore in FY25. A majority of this drop was on account of the sales drop due to sanctions at VAW, and on account of the higher losses at Foskor Zirconia.

Standalone electrominerals PBIT grew by 31.1% at ₹82 crore compared to ₹63 crore. During the last call, I gave a guidance of 1% to 2% of sales growth in consolidated electrominerals.

We are at 3.7% now. The last call, I said PBIT margin could be 4.5% to 5.5%.

We are at about 5.6%. Consolidated ceramics, consolidated ceramic sales of full year was ₹1,268 crore compared to sales of ₹1,160 crore in FY25, which marks a growth of 9.3%.

Growth was driven by standalone business, which grew from ₹939 crore to ₹1,000 crore in FY26. I'll cover in detail the ceramics.

I'll first cover ceramics portion of the business. Our ceramics segment consists of industrial ceramics, which is 57% of the ceramic segment, and refractories, which is 43% of the ceramic segment.

Industrial ceramics full-year sales stood at ₹569 crore in FY26 compared to ₹528 crore in FY25, reflecting a growth of 7.8%. Sales in H2 grew by about 10.7%.

Industrial ceramic is broadly divided into three segments: wear ceramics, engineered ceramics, and metallized ceramics. Wear ceramics, which constitute roughly 30% of the business, offers wear resistance products, and engineered ceramics, which constitutes about roughly again 1/3 of the business, has a suit of customized engineered ceramics such as feedthroughs, spark plugs, rings, X-ray image intensifier tubes, etc.

Metallized cylinders are used in vacuum interrupters in the power transmission and distribution industry that constitute another 1/3 of the business. Standalone wear ceramic business, which degrew by 9%, sells to three broad geographical segments.

It sells products to CUMI Australia, CUMI America, and India. While the Australia grew by roughly about 13%, India also grew well by 12%, the export to America degrew by 40%.

Within the wear protection business, sales in Australian subsidiary grew by 13%, driven by strong orders with the OEMs. Domestic business grew by 12%, and engineered ceramic segment grew by 30%, driven by the SOFC segment, which is seeing a strong demand in the AI-driven data center segment.

Metallized cylinder business grew by 9%. This segment, which typically grows about 14%, was impacted by a production-related challenge that cropped up in H1, but got addressed by Q4.

This was resolved by Q4. Operations are back to normal, hence there is a fall in growth to 9%.

I'll cover refractories now. Full-year refractories consists of two broad segments: refractories and anticorrosive products.

Refractories constitute 77%, anticorrosive constitute 23%. Segments stood at ₹437 crore compared to ₹418 crore, reflecting a growth of 4.7%.

The refractory business dropped by 4.3% compared to H1 FY25, and this was aided by strong return of deferred projects, especially in the glass segment. Orders in anticorrosives and structural composites business have been well sustained over the year.

They grew very well last year. Sales driven by fertilizer industry and structural composites business, demand was strong in various sectors.

During the last call, we gave a sales of growth of 13% to 14% in ceramic. We achieved 9.3% growth in ceramics.

I'll move to capex. Consolidated capex was ₹309 crore, of which standalone constituted ₹235 crore.

We communicated capex estimate of ₹350 crore during our last calls. I will provide a brief about what capex we did last year.

In FY26, we commissioned the first module of exclusive facility for the manufacturing of advanced ceramic components for semiconductor wafer fabrication equipment with a capex outlay of ₹66 crore. The facility comprised of an end-to-end capability from preparation of high-purity powders to precision machining and cleaning, will cater key global OEMs like Applied Materials.

Serial supplies of qualified products will commence in FY27, with line utilization gradually improving. Further expansions in line with the development roadmap and long-term strategy is very much there.

In the first year of serial production in FY26, the focus would be on assimilating technologies and establishing stronger system, a gradual ramp-up in FY27 with the focus supplies to the key customer Applied Materials will be on. In aerospace and defense segment, we have commissioned a new facility with an outlay of ₹49 crore to produce advanced ceramics for ballistic protection of vehicle and personnel.

The business is expected to scale up high in 2030 gradually. Further ramping up will happen around that time.

In this segment, we have secured STANAG 4 qualification for vehicle armor, and for personal protection, our ceramic qualified BIS threat level 5 and 6, equivalent to NIJ 3+ and 4 levels. We are awaiting Squamat approval, which will enable us to expand the business.

The next major program is the upgradation of existing white fused alumina furnace from 2 MVA to 4.5 MVA, which will increase the existing capacities substantially. Capex outlay for this is about ₹23 crore, including installation of 110 kV substation to meet the future power requirements of the plant.

The incremental capacity will have a maximum revenue potential of ₹95 crore for the full utilization. We have increased the treatment facility as well.

This is a capex outlay of ₹30 crore. This capex is a maximum potential revenue of about ₹120 crore.

Additionally, pilot facility was established for the manufacturing of ceramic powders for solid oxide fuel cells. The facility will leverage the technology tie-up we had with CGCRI.

During the year, the business also entered into an agreement with a leading industry expert for the transfer of technology towards manufacturing of aluminum nitride and silicon nitride powders. The next major growth project is the commissioning of thin wheel capacity at Hosur using the assets that we bought from Dronco.

Total capex outlay is ₹83 crore and can produce 46 million thin wheels with a peak revenue of about ₹120 crore. FCF, free cash flow on a full-year basis at a consolidated level is 56.6% to PAT compared to last year 16.1%.

Standalone level, the FCF to PAT was 46.5% compared to 14% last year. Debt-equity ratio is 0.08.

Now I'll go to the guidance. At the consolidated level, we expect sales to grow approximately 4% to 4.5% in FY27.

However, if we exclude the revenue contributed from Foskor Zirconia and CUMI Awuko, which accounts to ₹343 crore in FY26 sales, and compare it with our business plan, comparable growth would be 11% to 12%. Consolidated abrasives sales are expected to grow by 5.5% to 6%.

However, if we exclude the revenue from Awuko, which is about ₹108 crore in FY26, sales growth would be 11% to 12%. Consolidated ceramic growth is expected to be in the range of 15% to 15.5%.

Consolidated electromineral sales are expected to decline by 6.5% to 7% on account of the closure of Foskor Zirconia, which accounted for ₹235 crore in FY26. However, if we exclude the revenue contribution from Foskor Zirconia in FY26 and compare it with what we are planning to do in FY27, the growth would be 8% to 9%.

Consolidated abrasives margins are expected to be around 9.5% to 10%. The reported margin in FY26 is 4.3%.

However, if we exclude the comparable margin if we exclude Awuko losses, it would be a 7.9%. Basically, this will grow from 7.9% to 9.5% to 10%.

Consolidated ceramic margin would be 20.5% to 21%. The reported margin is 20.2%.

Consolidated electromineral margin could be 9% to 9.5%. In FY26, the reported margin is 5.6%.

However, if you exclude the loss of Foskor Zirconia and compare it, the FY26 margin would be 9.1%. Basically, from 9.1% it would be 9% to 9.5%.

We expect to do a capex of about ₹400 crore in FY27. The key capex program for FY27 include expansion of advanced ceramics for power electronics, including substrate, metallized tubes, rings, brazed assemblies, expansion of brown fused alumina, and addition of integrated furnace facility for thermal spray powders, and zirconia furnace, and grain processing facility.

We also intend to do 110 kV substation and a tunnel kiln for refractories. These are the major projects which should account for about ₹400 crore of capex.

Now I would quickly cover our Aspiration 2030. The company launched this Aspiration 2030, and FY26 is the first year.

The aspiration is built on seven key building blocks: building a high-performance organization, ambitious growth for the current businesses, focusing on innovation, exploring new opportunities for the growth, achieving manufacturing excellence, strengthening sales and marketing excellence, and supporting all this through digital and ESG initiatives. Progress is regularly tracked through structured reviews involving teams across the business.

In abrasives business, the company has a clear market strategy across the segments, and it's expanding dealer network, strengthening relationship with the existing partners. The focus is also gaining on the new customers and increasing business with the current ones.

The company is strengthening its presence in the areas where it has currently low presence. It has also growing sourcing of business sourcing business and has set up a new vertical for this.

A clear roadmap for the new products to be introduced with the well-supported investment in R&D team and capability and process building in R&D team. The thin wheel capacity based on assets acquired through Dronco has been discussed earlier.

To stay competitive against the low-priced products, especially from China, the company has launched a cost optimization program across significant SKUs and strengthened the coordination between sales, product development, and quality teams using digital tools. In electromineral business, the capacity is being expanded by upgrading furnaces.

The company is also increasing its capacity in value-added products in aluminas and diversifying the raw material sourcing. Exports are a key priority and already form a significant share of the business.

Electromineral, I would like you to look at it in three broad categories: core, our range of fused alumina products, including BFA, WFA, and silicon carbide products constitute our core product portfolio. We have expansion plans in both WFA and BFA.

While the core products will continue to form the bulk of our product basket, its share is expected to current level of 85%, it will come down to 55% to 60% by 2030, as other product categories would scale up. Treated products, treated products which include products that undergo heat treatment and coating are relatively high-performing in nature.

As discussed earlier, we are undertaking related capex initiative in this area. We aim to increase the share of treated grains from 5% to 6% at the current level to nearly 20% by 2030.

Specialty products, the business currently manufactures alumina zirconia products catering to the applications in abrasives, refractories, metal matrix composites, and related industries. We also produce some zircon mullite grains.

We have expansion plans for both alumina zirconia as well as zirmull. In addition, as part of the LTS initiative, we plan to start production of calcium stabilized zirconia and monoclinic zirconia.

Collectively, this suit of zirconia-based products will form specialty products portfolio, whose share is expected to increase from 8% currently to 18% to 20% by 2030. Transformational products, at the same time, the company is investing in new technologies and products such as SOFC powders and nitrides, which are expected to drive future growth.

In FY26, we have commissioned a pilot lab facility with a spray pyrolysis technology to prepare powders for SOFC and SOEC cathodes. This was done based on the technology transfer from CGCRI.

Going forward, we will focus on capacity creation and securing anchor customers. There has been good progress on nitrides side as well, with a leading technology consultant being onboarded in this year.

Apart from this, business has achieved 5N purity on HPSiC and will be working on securing customers for the same over FY27. The technology route for 6N purity of HPSiC also been initiated, and the business currently working on a pilot-scale manufacturing facility for the same.

Besides this, we are working on establishing application for graphene in bioplastics, coating, concrete, and rubber. All these areas, such as thermal spray powders, electrolytes, or ceramic powders for SOFC, SOEC, nitrides, HPSiC, graphene, are collectively called transformational products.

We expect transformational products to contribute around 10% by 2030 compared to the current level practically very little. Growth in this segment is expected to be gradual as these are advanced materials catering to the emerging sector.

We believe we need to create a good base in the transformational product in the aspiration period and would create a new leg of growth beyond 2030. Ceramics, when we come to industrial ceramics segment, we can view it as core and emerging businesses.

Wear, metallized cylinders for vacuum interrupters, engineered ceramics for diverse applications would fall under the core business. Emerging business encompass components for semiconductor wafer fab equipment, aerospace and defense, electronic substrates.

In the core segment, the business plan is to increase metallized cylinder capacity substantially from the current level. Additionally, the business would expand production facility to meet the growing demand in SOFC segment.

In emerging segment, the company is entering into high-growth areas like semiconductor through newly commissioned plant which manufactures components that go into wafer fab equipment. Products have been approved by key customers for serial production.

Work is also underway to build capabilities in advanced electronic components through global major tech partners. Additionally, the business is entering to AMB and DBC, active metal brazed products and direct bonded copper products, substrates and brazed assemblies for power electronics.

A qualification program has been drawn, and both these critical product segments and prototype development submission will be completed this year. In the refractory business, the growth will be based on both fired and monolithic business.

The fired refractory portion of the business, we are increasing the capacity by 75%. Additional capacity will focus on mullite, high alumina, and IFB bricks, PCFC shapes, for application in glass, petrochem, superalloys, and ceramics.

We are also progressing on our plans to increase our monolithic capacities. We will gradually ramp up our capacity in composites business as well in carbon bricks, floor coating, advanced structural composites.

While we do this host of initiatives at the business, we are also done a good work in terms of the support functions. CUMI's manufacturing excellence program, which works on an integrated manufacturing excellence framework, improvements in quality, cost, delivery, and operational efficiency across businesses.

This program is delivered to intended cost savings in the first year through automation, digitally enabled QA/QC, and throughput improvement in key assets. Beyond savings, the MX focuses on institutionalizing a culture of manufacturing excellence, and is supported by Manufacturing Excellence Academy, which runs the program for both management and non-management staff.

The company is also strengthening sales capabilities through CRM implementation and a Sales Excellence Academy, which aim to drive more data-backed approach to sales. Digital initiatives are further enhancing manufacturing and planning systems, including the rollout of manufacturing execution system, MES, across identified plants, and implement S&OP software.

Safety and sustainability remains central to the company's long-term strategy. Through a structured EHS excellence framework, the company is advancing its goal to near zero emission, water positivity, and improved material circularity.

FY2030 targets include increasing renewable energy used to 50%, reducing emission intensity by 25%, and lowering energy intensity by 20% from FY2025 levels. Progress is supported by renewable energy adoption, cleaner fuels, waste heat recovery, energy efficiency initiatives.

Company has also made significant progress in zero harm journey, recording a substantial reduction in LTIFR through risk management and behavioral safety programs. People capability development remains a key enabler of growth, under a program called FACED to Perform, F-A-C-E-D to Perform.

The framework consists of focus on the factory, which is the first major initiative, acquisition of talent, rewarding career path, employee experience, and development of talent. We aim to do a high-performance organization leadership development initiative include the Next 100 programs are helping build a strong, future-ready talent pipeline.

Alongside this, the company is driving cultural transformation through BE-FAST behaviors: bold and timely decision-making, embracing change with the solution-driven mindset, fairness to all stakeholders, accountability in decision-making, and standing up for each other. I would like to summarize that we continue to drive the focused execution across functions with multiple initiatives.

The progress achieved in the first year of execution is really giving us confidence. We have delivered the top line as well as the bottom line as per our internal targets, and the progress from the functional level also has gone well.

With this, I would like to open up for Q&A. I know it is a long opening remark, but I thought it is needed.

We would have a 45 minutes of the Q&A.

Good morning, sir, and thank you for the opportunity. Firstly, just want to congratulate the management in taking a timely decision on the divesture of Awuko.

I had two questions, both sort of related to your high-growth or emerging segments. Firstly, if you can touch upon the SOFC segment, where we've seen the client place some very large orders on another vendor in India, provides line of sight right up till calendar year '29, and, in fact, 2030 as well.

In your case, if you can give us the lay of the land in terms of how has that business for you grown? What is your wallet share?

Are you one of the many vendors for those ceramic parts? Do you see any disruption in the technology that leads to lower adoption of ceramics in that thing?

Can this business become a 10% to 12% portion of your sales maybe three or four years down the line? That's the first question.

Right. Thank you.

I think so first of all, we feel that we are very important share holder of the particular segment that we serve to the SOFC segment. We believe that we have a vision at least going up to the next year, and there's a line of sight the customer provides going up to say 2028 like that.

The customer also is growing well. We have to build the capacities using that as a clue, plus the intermediary guideline that they always give for the next one year.

This is how we are looking at, and we feel that given what the customer is embarked upon and the kind of growth that they are facing, we feel a very strong growth possibility in this segment, and we have grown well last year, and we expect to grow well in the coming years as well.

What would your wallet share with the client be?

We wouldn't like to share such details at this call. We have, as I said, that we feel that we are an important supplier to the customer.

Sure. Any guidelines on how big can this business be three years out, sir, for you?

Not a number, but at least as a percent, can it be meaningful in terms of greater than 10% of sales?

Definitely it'll be a meaningful share that we will have. As we said, that engineered segment itself is currently 1/3 of the business, that substantially it would grow up, is our view.

Understood. Thanks.

The second question was on the new capex that you've done for Applied Materials. If you can dwell a bit on what exactly will that help you get for Applied Materials, where is this product used particularly, and, I think, if I got the number right, you did about ₹60 to ₹70-odd crore of capex for that.

Where does it take you? Is it predominantly first to get the first articles out and get the pre-qualification, and will require a further capex, if you can give a timeline to that?

That's my final question. Thank you.

Right. We've crossed the qualification stage on set of products, and this is an initial investment, as I said.

We expect that this investment could go at least three to four times higher, and we are geared for that, and we also expect the revenue potential also is substantial in this industry.

Got it. I'll take this offline.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Hi, sir. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Sir, firstly on abrasives, China has removed the export rebate on abrasive products from 9% to 0% effective from April onwards. Has that domestic market pricing improved because of this, or we have been able to garner a little bit better market share in the last one or two months?

It's a very recent phenomenon at this point in time. A lot of people will have inventory through the imported materials, all that is happening, but we believe that this is good for the domestic industry, and it will help us to grow.

Of course, the growth in H2 is about 15% is very encouraging. A lot of that could be due to this factor as well.

I think overall we see a rebound, and our work in terms of all the areas whether it is GTM initiatives, new products that we introduce, bringing cost down of our products, all these combined effort of our strategy is playing out. This we have been doing over the last 18 to 24 months is now playing out.

Understood. Just a follow-up to that, given that we posted such a strong growth in the fourth quarter, if you could explain your growth in terms of how industrial market did, how precision did, how retail abrasives did, and what would be the outlook on these three sub-segments going ahead?

I think I gave a broad outlook in terms of the segmental sales that what we are looking at. We feel that standalone we grew 6.2% this year.

We believe that we can grow in the range of about 12% next year.

Understood. Sir, my second question is on standalone electrominerals.

What has been the contribution of volumes and higher pricing in the 22% YoY growth that we posted for fourth quarter? Even the full-year growth at 11% was reasonably healthy.

Also, you could comment on the Chinese import intensity, whether it has increased or decreased in recent times in that electrominerals business based out of India?

The Chinese intensity continues to be there. There's no kind of coming down of it, but we started focusing more on the treated products, export segments, and that is the focus that we are looking at, and that gave us this growth that we posted in the full year as well as in the Q4.

The predominant growth is come from volume. Pricing is probably you can treat it as flat or some small percentage.

Understood, sir. Thank you very much for answering my questions.

I'll come back in the queue.

Right. Thank you.

Hi, sir. Thanks for taking my question.

My first question is with respect to the FY30 vision, 2030 vision. Any revenue target or growth target that we have, and any margin targets that we have for this?

Ravi Swaminathan, thank you for asking this question. We have not been sharing a guidance.

We have started sharing only a one-year guidance, and also giving a programs that what we are looking at going for the Aspiration 2030. We believe that it would energize and bring the growth substantially from now onwards.

We have kind of addressed some of the issues that we are facing in terms of loss-making subsidiary, we should see a rebound.

Got it, sir. With respect to the ceramics and refractories business, if you can once again highlight, you had mentioned numbers in terms of bifurcation between ceramics and refractories, if you can call it out once again, and what kind of growth that we should think of in each of these individual sub-segments if you can give us complete detail?

I think I gave an elaborate one, but I'll just give a broad outlook to you is that we feel that 57% of the ceramic is industrial ceramic and 43% is the refractory business. The growth overall in ceramic segment that we are looking at, this year we achieved 6.5%.

We expect next year would be in the range of about 14%. I'm not sharing the individual data of the refractory and the industrial ceramic, but they would broadly form part of around this range, 14%.

Understood, sir. Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Hi, sir. Thanks for taking my question.

Just wanted to understand, how has been the exports across the segments? I think you mentioned something 11%, 33%.

I missed that. If possible for you to give us some color in terms of exports within ceramics and abrasives, and what is the kind of outlook there?

I shared the export share of electromineral business, which I said that we have reached a 33% share in the current business, over ₹300 crore of export in electromineral business. That's what I shared.

Right. Sir, how has been the export in ceramics and abrasives, if you can get the breakup and what's the outlook there also?

Ceramic is the biggest portion of the ceramic, over 80% of the business is all exports, and that is doing fine. Basically whatever is the growth that I talked about on industrial ceramic predominantly comes from those areas.

Abrasives is very small portion of the abrasives business is the exports. It's less than 10% is the export.

Understood, sir. My second question on Rhodius.

I think you guided about 5% top-line growth and kind of breakeven or some very small loss. What exactly we are expecting, and the growth seems to be still kind of mid-single digit, but we are expecting the breakeven, where exactly the improvements will happen?

If you could elaborate more in terms of how business volumes are happening in Rhodius and what will lead to the turnaround this year?

If you see the last year, the big reason for the drop

please?

Sorry. Yes, I'm sorry, sir.

Go ahead.

Right. Last year, we had almost €5 million impact in terms of the logistics change, and that really affected the top-line change.

We feel that they have been growing in the range of about 6% to 7%, and we feel that that growth should happen. Second is that because of this loss of sale as well as the margin impact due to this loss of sale along with the logistics cost on the shift, these things would come down, and hence we feel that we should get back to a small loss or a breakeven.

The third reason is that we have also now working on a program with the Rhodius team in terms of how do we accelerate the profitability as a special program. These are the reason why we think that we should get here.

Understood. Understood, sir.

Thank you. Thank you for answering my questions.

Thank you.

Hi, sir. Thank you for such an elaborate call.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, yes, we are hearing you. Please go ahead.

Okay.

My question is pertaining to the stationary armor within your defense and also CFRP products for aerospace. Currently there is a lot of ecosystem being developed for aerospace and for aeronautics and for this defense as well, almost 100% of that would be imported.

How do you see this in terms of commercialization, where are we placed? Are the certifications right?

Are we negotiating with the OEMs, or where are we placed on that?

I think you kind of very clearly described this. Step one is to have the certifications in place, which we are definitely doing it.

I described the certifications that we already got. Pretty much we are in good shape as far as certification is concerned.

We are working with few anchor customers at this stage. We also have the ability to work with them because they would be the front-ending in terms of what they would finally supply.

We are only a product supplier to this case. Hence, this is how we are planning to move in this model.

Thank you, sir. That was helpful.

My second question is, it's been long time that we are facing the war situation in Russian subsidiary. All this time, are we able to figure out any alternative strategy, India also imports a lot of silicon carbide, are there any alternative strategy?

If there is, what type of lower realization would SiC get in other economies?

Honestly, it's difficult to create a capacity, and the cost would be pretty high. It's going to be very difficult to recreate anything like that.

At the same time, Russia is not in a position to export products, which is what we are currently going through. Practically we need to wait for the sanctions to be lifted, which gives us an ability to go beyond Russia.

At this stage, we don't have an alternate solution for this.

Thank you, sir. One more question.

Can you just throw some light on the subsidiary you have, PLUSS? How is it doing?

PLUSS is doing fine.

In terms of profitability?

They made profit. It's a very small profit.

They are doing fine.

Okay. Thank you, sir.

That was all.

Yes.

Hello, sir. Thank you so much for taking my question.

Sir, one of the questions that I had was that, as you said, the ceramics business is around 80% exports for us, and most of our peers will be global, and they spend a lot on R&D. How do you see our business and our R&D evolve over the next few years, and what are the key areas that we'll be focusing on?

I think it's a great question. We spend roughly about 1% as R&D, and I think this needs to go up, and we expect that we should at least start spending 2% to 3% level.

We are working in terms of strengthening our R&D team across the individual BUs, and we also strengthening the new product development process, coupled with software-enabled process, so that we kind of make sure that we do the right thing in terms of new product, getting the right input from the market, customers, and the users. All these factors are now been put part of this R&D process.

Strengthening the R&D, building the capability, putting process, we need to accelerate the spend both in terms of capex as well as in terms of the opex.

All right, sir. The second question I had was more on the ceramic side.

Basically, a lot of applications in EV require ceramics. Are we working on any products or programs with any OEMs or tier 1s where our ceramics are getting used on the EV space, and how do you see it evolving over the next 3 to 5 years basically?

Yes, we do work. I think this is part of the engineered ceramics that I described, and that's why we feel quite upbeat in terms of that segment's growth.

We are working with tier 1 suppliers to OEMs, that is how our role would be, and that definitely we are doing that.

How do you see it evolving, maybe, sir? Would it be a substantial part of our revenues?

What are the key focus areas, if you could just elaborate on that?

Engineered ceramics will be a key focus area for us, which would bring a substantial share of our business, which consists of areas like that what you talked about in terms of SOFC, EVs, as well as rings, it also consists of image intensifier tubes. All these products group would fall under that, and we feel that the growth rate would be substantial, and we also feel that the share of business will go up, and that is how we are creating this capacity.

We are also trying to create, as I said, that ceramic substrate capacity for electronics, we are working on that. Technology transfer agreement is done.

Now the capacity augmentation would happen in FY27 on that.

All right, sir. Thank you so much for taking my questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir, for taking my questions. Congratulations on a good set of numbers.

Sir, my first question is on the semiconductor side. The semiconductor opportunity seems to be a massive long-term driver.

Can you split between structural ceramics for fab equipment and HPSiC for wafers, and could you map out the current qualification cycle timelines with global OEMs, and given the strict purity requirements, when do you expect this segment to cross the threshold into material revenue generation for us?

Good. A lot of loaded comments, and you are asking the right question.

Particularly on this ceramic for the wafer fab equipment, in the case that where we have built the capacity, the material qualification process is pretty long. It would take about 4 to 6 years.

We have crossed that, and that is how we have created the capacity at this stage. We have samples tested.

Now development phase is completed, and now the serial production will start. You are right, it takes long time, and that's how we took long time to get here.

We will now complete Phase 1 and then expand to Phase 2 quickly.

When can we expect material revenue generation from that?

2029 onwards, you can expect.

Okay. My second question is, given the massive power distribution and grid infrastructure capex happening domestically, how quickly we can debottleneck our current metallized cylinder capacity, and furthermore, are we seeing traction in penetrating the export market to compete against Japanese player like Kyocera and NGK?

Sure. In fact, our metallized cylinder, the biggest portion is only exports.

Definitely we are competing with the names that you are mentioning, and we are doing it well, and the expansion would happen in the next 18 months, 24 months in a phased manner. It consists of three phases, but it could happen in that fashion.

Do we have the capacity till 1, 1.5 years next to supply this, metallized cylinder?

Yes, yes, definitely. We are one of the number two worldwide player in this field, and we feel that we have headroom, plus we also creating the new capacities in this, debottlenecking and creating the capacities.

Okay. Sir, another question is, you are supplying to one of the largest SOFC manufacturers in the world.

Basically, our current realization, according to our revenue, states that ₹13 to ₹15 lakh per megawatt of deployed. Given that SOFC manufacturer has expanded its capacity from 1 gigawatt to 2 gigawatt, can I get to know what are your revenue estimations regarding that SOFC product?

Given that a 5-year 5 to 7-year replacement cycle of that SOFC cell, can we also expect revenue from the replacement demand?

I think a lot of that has got sub-elements of it. You are getting headline information, but we feel that definitely the gigawatts of additions that each of them would add would definitely help us, our demand also would go up.

As I said in the earlier question, we feel that the growth rate in this segment is going to be substantially high. We are parallely gearing up because we are also feeling that we need to work in terms of creating this capacity ahead of time, which is what we are working on this.

I think you are right, this growth would seem to be going up because of the AI-related data center demand, etc. Definitely it's a clear sign of growth in that segment, and SOFC is a clear market leader in a clean energy segment, which definitely helps us quite a lot.

Okay. If time permits, can I ask one more question?

Yes, please.

Thanks. Thank you for giving me opportunity.

Sir, basically, China has reduced its export rebate in April 2026 from 9% to 13% on their abrasive products. Are we seeing any current traction of abrasive sales growth volumes improving in current month or in last month due to this policy?

I did comment on this, Preet, a little bit in the earlier question. I think it just happened, we are in the month of May, it's just a lot of inventory would be there in the system that should get also completed.

I feel that definitely it is a good sign, it helps the domestic market to grow faster. We have grown 15% in H2.

Sir. Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Hi. Thank you for the opportunity.

Just a couple of questions on the R&D side of things in the business. What percentage of your recent R&D and innovation projects were deliberately stopped or pivoted or redesigned because customer or market learning invalidated the original assumption?

That's my first question.

That's a great question. If I just quickly look around our R&D at four BUs, I haven't experienced any such program of that we stopped or customers request change type of a situation.

Definitely not, but we have experienced cases where you need to put a particular application, but you require some more work to make sure that the application really is capable of using our product. That type of thing happens.

No, understood. Thank you.

How will CUMI ensure its investments in silicon carbide, advanced ceramics, and other high-tech materials become high ROCE, scalable businesses rather than technologically strong, but capital-inefficient platforms?

I'm not sure I get your question. Why would you think it's a capital-inefficient platform?

No, do you have internal benchmark that we are doing a lot of advanced R&D, and in the annual reports, we are almost confidently saying that post 2030, CUMI will emerge as a very different-looking business because of the initiatives that we are doing across many things. I can name maybe most futuristic opportunity to my mind is something like semiconductor linked materials, EV, but even things like electrominerals, silicon carbide, we have got most strategic capability around that, difficulty is also very high.

Ultimately from an investor perspective, it's about how scalable the business can be and what will be the steady-state ROCE it will generate. The outcome will determine the shareholder wealth creation, I was coming from that perspective.

Sure. No, I think these are definitely looked at part of our threshold to evaluate any such opportunity.

Clearly, the dimension that you're looking at: market size and opportunity, growth rate, and the ROCE that we would get in a steady state. We feel that these areas that we just listed in terms of ceramics for semiconductors, ceramic for electronics, high-purity silicon carbide, ceramics for aerospace and defense, all these areas we feel that are good areas to work on and invest, and that's how our programs are on.

CUMI is capable of funding itself. If you really look at it, we spent this year ₹310 crore plus capex, and we have zero debt, net zero debt at this point, and substantially very good FCF.

We are able to fund these type of programs, and practically we think that we would spend ₹400 crore next year as well. The year before, we did spend about ₹250 crore plus.

No. Helpful.

Thank you so much. That answers all my questions.

Thank you. Wish you all the best.

Thank you.

Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, could you please help me understand the performance of our abrasives business for our JVs, like Wendt?

See, the business for abrasives there has been declining in terms of growth as well as segmental profit margins. If you could give some color on the Wendt performance, it would be very helpful.

Hello?

Yes. Madam, I am afraid I'll refuse to comment on that.

This is another listed company, I think I would encourage you to stay in touch with the management. They would be able to provide that.

I think their shortfalls are coming because of the machine building segments, and superabrasives is doing fine. I would limit my conversation to this level.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, thank you for taking my question. First one on ceramics.

I think last call you mentioned we'll end up doing 13%, 14% growth in that segment, and then the guide for next year also is 15%, 15.5%, and we have ended the year at close to 9%. Just want to understand what's the gap between those two?

Second, again on the ceramic SOFC side, do we supply only the ceramic plates, etc., or are we also in the electrolytes for that particular business? Thank you.

Right. Two great questions.

I think, why did we miss? I think that's the only area we missed our guideline is largely because of deferred projects, which I think is substantially the one-line reason for why did we miss our guideline.

Why do we think that we can make 15% is the backlog and forecast from our customer gives us that confidence. We are not currently into electrolytes, but you're asking a very deep question.

We have the capability because of our electromineral business. We have the capability of manufacturing electrolytes.

That's the technology we had worked with CGCRI, and as I mentioned, we had a small pilot-scale plant we established to manufacture that, which is what we just shared in the call as well. We have a small capability there.

We need to now expand that. At this point in time, it's more a pilot scale.

Understood. On the overall segment, my question was earlier we used to anticipate 16% to 18% kind of growth, right, in the ceramic segment.

I was assuming because of the deferred projects, the next couple of years would be in that range, right, given this year some projects were deferred into next year. Just trying to understand if structurally there's more competition that you're seeing, or the overall market itself is kind of slowing down?

I don't see that, it's not because of structurally something is changing. I feel that it's more projects plus a lot of it would depend also on how we do business in America in terms of the ceramic side of the business.

These are factors that we have kept in mind when I told the kind of 14% to 15%.

Understood. Thank you so much, and all the best.

Thank you.

Right. I thank you all for patiently hearing us.

I just want to summarize. We have done fairly well in FY26.

We have addressed all the major issues in terms of loss-making subsidiaries. These alone contribute a loss of over ₹100 crore to ₹120 crore.

The first year of our five-year journey, we have done fairly well. CUMI has created a good base over the last 24 months for this aspiration.

CUMI has made a significant capacity and capability investment in FY26. We will see three years, ₹280 crore, ₹310 crore.

Next year, we would plan to spend about ₹400 crore. All of them are in capacity or capability building so that would give a strong future revenue growth.

CUMI has achieved a good free cash flow after meeting all capex investment. It's a good sign, and CUMI is net debt-free.

CUMI has drawn a good Aspiration 2030, and it's well-resourced both in capacity and capability. It has built a good, strong execution rhythm.

Above all, it has a good leadership and a strong team exhibiting BE-FAST behaviors, which consists of bold and timely decision-making, embracing the change with solution-driven mindset, fairness to all stakeholders, accountability in decision-making and execution, and standing up for each other. Thank you all for hearing us during this call.

Look forward to meeting you in the next call soon. Thank you.

Bye.