Thank you, Tania. On behalf of ICICI Securities, I welcome you all to Q1 FY '27 post results concall of Finolex Industries.

From the management side, we have Mr. Udipt Agarwal, Managing Director, and Mr.

Chandan Verma, CFO. Now I hand the call over to Udipt, post which we'll open the floor to the question and answers.

Thank you.

Thank you, Arun, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Finolex Industries earnings call for quarter one FY '26-'27.

We all are very pleased to have you here. I remind everybody that this call may contain certain forward-looking statements based on management's current expectations.

Actual results may differ. I want to begin by saying that the quarter one of this current financial year was marked by volatility in polymer prices, which became the dominant macro factor for the industry during the quarter.

Average PVC prices higher year-on-year, at about US$875 per metric ton in the quarter as compared to about US$707 per metric ton average according to the ICIS reports, largely carrying forward the elevated level seen in the quarter four of FY '26 as well. However, prices saw a sharp intra-quarter correction, which triggered a channel destocking and impacted volumes even during what is typically a seasonally strong pre-monsoon quarter for us.

Two regulatory developments which I would like to also bring to everybody's attention is that the withdrawal of the customs duty exemption on PVC resin prices, which happened during the mid of July, and the imposition of the minimum import price for the PVC resin. These two developments should help and support some stability in the PVC prices as we go forward, and I think this should also help the with the channel inventories, and we look forward to having somewhat improved volume and business momentum over the coming quarters.

As we all know that PVC demand in India follows a well-established seasonal pattern. Demand peaks in the pre-monsoon period, January to May period, as the farmers and the agriculture segment prepare for the kharif seasons.

Then, it starts to moderate a little bit during the during quarter two, quarter three, and then we also again see the the impact coming up and back in again in quarter end of quarter two, quarter three because of the rabi season coming in. With this, I would also like to give a little bit comment about the As we look into the rest of the year, I mean we are we remain optimistic, however with a caution, about recovery of the volumes and realization as the inventory is normalized, polymer prices stabilize, aided by the the current two developments which I talked about, the recent customs duty and MIP interventions.

We believe that the structural demand drivers continue to remain in place and intact and will continue to underpin the medium-term confidence. This year, we are also celebrating 45 years of Finolex Pipes & Industries.

We remain equally committed to our brand, our distribution partners, and the communities which we serve. Thank you for your continued trust and support.

I will pass on the the floor to Mr. Chandan Verma, who will talk about the numbers on the quarter one FY '27 performance, and then we will open the floor to question and answers.

Over to you, Chandan.

Hi. Good afternoon everyone.

As you know the number already we have published in our investor presentation uploaded in the site. Though I want to give a brief highlight on the numbers what we have.

Overall sales volume declined by 27% from the corresponding quarter of the last year. Total volume we have registered around 68,000 metric ton during the Q1 FY '27.

Though that we have seen a decline in revenue by 27%, the overall decline in revenue is moderately moderate but moderated by around 15% only. Our total revenue for the Q1 is ₹884 crore compared to ₹1,043 crore of the same quarter of the last year.

We have seen a significant and healthy jump in EBITDA by 14% and EBITDA margin improved from 9% to 12%. Current quarter EBITDA stood at ₹107 crore whereas the last quarter of the same year same quarter of the last year, it was ₹94 crore.

PBT is currently we're at ₹148 crore, and PAT is around ₹107 crore. We have a strong liquidity.

As we continue, we are having ₹2,636 crore of cash in hand, which which we will continue to have in our balance sheet over a period of time. The floor is now open for the question.

We'll invite question one by one and we'll address the as and when possible.

Hi, sir. I have a couple of questions, but before that, couple of data points, it will help us to ask the relevant questions.

For this quarter, what was the agri share, fittings share, CPVC share in the total volume?

Current quarter, we have the agri share is 69%, and fittings share within agri, 5%, and within non-agri, 25%. Overall basis, fitting percent on a total volume is 11%.

Okay. CPVC share is 7.5%?

CPVC share for the current quarter is around 7%. Yes.

Got it. Now given I understand the volume significant degrowth is there which we have seen across the companies who have reported results, Prince and Supreme also.

In terms of the realization front, our QoQ jump is just a 1% versus both the companies who reported, they reported a 7% and 9% kind of a QoQ jump in the realization. Just wanted to understand why our realization was not on a QoQ basis a jump.

Okay. On a Q-on-Q basis, if you have seen, our realization per kg has gone up by 15% with the same quarter of the same year, whereas our peers are also in the same range.

I think we are well within the range of the realization per kg. We do not see off from our other peers.

Whoever's data is in the public domain.

Okay. No, I'm I'm talking about on on on the QoQ front particularly, because for QoQ, us the realization is is broadly if I if I do the math with the with the volume, 1.1% QoQ improvement in in the realization in this quarter versus I was seeing that the other two players who have reported numbers, there it was significantly higher.

I understand the volatility, but in the in April there was a there was a a downtick in that. Given the maybe the March where we have seen the significant prices up and maybe the pass-on would be happening with a maybe a 10-days, 15-days lag, so that maybe the reason why the others players were able to kind of a so the improvement, but we haven't.

Just wanted to understand was there any specific reason on that front?

You're talking about for the entire quarter or March to April only?

For Q1 versus Q4.

Q1 versus Q4.

Q1 versus Q4

definitely you have seen See, Q4 is a pri- is a year is a aberration is a quarter for the aberration of the quarter where we have seen a un- unprecedented increase in the prices of PVC. That has resulted into unprecedented unprecedented realization hike.

As we move in the Q1, as well and particularly in the month of April, there was a sharp decline in the PVC prices, and the PVC prices has gone, if I need to quote a number, it has gone from 96 to 92 then 82. This is the reason that the prices has gone down per kg.

That is how the realization has been moving from the quarter-on-quarter from the last year and from the current year. It's more about the realization within the industries, plus there are quite a quite of incentive and discount also plays in the factor when we compute our landed price realization, net realization per kg.

That is how things will work upon. However, from the Q-on- quarter-on-quarter if you see, from the same quarter of the last year, we are fairly within the range range bound that other public domain number we can see.

Okay.

Now two things. On the volume and then now on the realization and obviously that will lead to kind of a margin also.

First on the volume, have we started seeing the kind of a channel level inventory, because in last 15-odd days, we have seen a ₹12-₹13 per kg price hike in the PVC because of MIP and the import duty withdrawal. Have we started seeing the growth particularly in the July and maybe in the June also?

Have we seen that kind of a growth? Now for full year, how are we looking at on the volume front?

Realization also, given the ₹12-₹13 hike which has happened in last 15-20 days, can we see a sharp QoQ jump in realization in Q2?

Certainly, Shravan, there has been an impact to the market because of the factors which you talked about, and also the destocking in the channel. Yeah.

All these have an impact both on the volume and the revenue on the realization side, and we will see how does it play out over the course of the year. For now, yes, the minimum floor is set for the PVC price because of the MIP.

We should see a little better quarter two in terms of the realizations. Yeah.

Also in terms of volume, as you have rightly said, post-MIP, the volume has started to pick up. We have seen a quite good uptick in the volume in the month of July as well.

For full year, how now we can look at the volume for us as a full year?

No, no. Full year, see, Shravan, at this moment, it's too early to say anything because PVC industry is surrounded by a lot of uncertainty and volatility.

At this moment, whatever the position we have given during our Q4 concall, we will continue to stay. We will see how the year progresses, because it's only the Q1 that we have completed.

Let's see how the year progresses, then we will give any commentary on the full year numbers.

At margin level also, any kind of a guidance that we want to give?

We will continue with our same last quarter's anticipation that we have given.

The 15% kind of a number that we have said for full year.

We said sub-15%. Sub-15

around somewhere we will continue to say that. If everything goes well, then we'll see how the number will look like throughout the year.

It's too early to say anything because it's just a Q1.

There is a lot of volatility also, global geopolitical situation is still fluctuating. Yeah.

True. Any inventory loss in Q1?

See, there are inventory losses and too early inventory gain and loss definitely would be there, but it's too not to report it at this moment. Whatever the gain and loss that is there, that will be neutralized over the period of Q1 Q1 Q2 over the period in time.

Okay. Thank you.

Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity.

I just had one question in terms of volume degrowth. I understand that the market was down and everything, but we have, I think, degrown substantially compared to our peers in the market.

Just trying to understand what exactly happened.

Shravan, as our dominance or our larger presence in the agri segment, which was more affected than the other, which is the plumbing or non-agri segment as in college.

Yeah.

That's the primary reason what we see is,

yeah,

as part of the reason for lower volumes for us, other than the channel which we talked about in the beginning of the call.

Understood, sir. In terms of expansion, I understand that right now market is off and everything, do we have any idea in terms of expanding capacities?

Do we have any plan in terms of increasing our plants, any of that? Yeah.

The capacity planning is always done on a long-term basis, mid to long-term basis. Capacity or the capex plans do not get impacted by this short-term macroeconomic environment.

All our plans with respect to capex and capacity expansions remain in place.

No, sir, but so exactly at this point of time, do we have any greenfield or brownfield things we want to do? Because I understand it here right now with that probably plants, we've only catered to largely the agri and well our mix is also mostly focused that way.

In terms of reducing reliance, are we doing anything in terms of more material like putting plants closer to urban locations or something like that? Yeah.

We are expanding capacity and we are also augmenting capacity via debottlenecking. As we have said in our previous calls also, the capital outlay remains about around ₹125 to ₹200 crore range, and that remains intact.

Got it, sir. Do we see structurally anything affecting us?

Because on at least on the ground level, it's been noted that Finolex has not been that aggressive as compared to other peers. What do you have to say about that?

Because there has been many people who have been saying that on the ground, at least.

At this moment, our capacity, see, we have the headroom to grow, right? At this moment, we have the total installed capacity of 520 and our last year volume was 333 only.

Still, we have the headroom to grow at a healthy rate of 10-12%. Let our installed capacity get exhausted first.

Because

Yeah. Apart from that also, as Mr.

Agarwal has just pointed out, there is a continuous process going on in our organization with respect to debottlenecking, where we remove our old lower capacity extruder and keep adding our higher capacity extruder. In a way, within the same periphery, the few capacity we keep adding every year rather than announcing a big in terms of greenfield and brownfield expansion.

Still, as I have mentioned, we still have the headroom to grow at a healthy 10-12% over the at least 2028 year next one year, 1.5 year.

Correct, sir, but I understand there's headroom to grow. It's just that because the last few years and whatever there's been some at least distress in terms of the agri segment also.

I'm just trying to understand, is there potential that we are actually meaningfully looking for some other segment? Because I know you already have plans and growing beyond agri itself, but is it working out is my question.

Other sector because non-agri is a wide area where we are looking into, but not in the other adjacent sector. We are definitely not at this moment looking for adjacent sector.

Got it, sir. Understood.

That's it from my side. Thank you.

Sir, one final question in terms of JJM. Do we expect any substantial revenue growth from JJM 2.0?

From September, they expect some substantial rollout. How does the company see it?

See, JJM 2.0, for the current financial year, government has announced the outlay of, I think, ₹67-₹60 ₹7,000 crore, somewhere ballpark figures. The second point is how is the realization, how is the distribution of this?

Yeah. I think in JJM 2, they also have a different mechanism of distributing the coppers.

As you would know that all our businesses through channels. All our channel partners participate in this, yeah, and so we do not have a direct measure or direct correlation of the JJM impact or the any other, for that matter, the other infrastructure-related schemes onto our volume, yeah, because as I said, all the sales are through channel.

Yes, as the money gets distributed from the government funds, that will certainly have a overall impact on the demand. No, but

in terms of allocation, is it in terms of the sheer quantum of value, is it higher than JJM 1.0 for JJM 2.0 for piping, at least for the segments we cater to?

I think on an overall basis, it is not higher than JJM 1.

In terms of percent value also.

In terms of the value, I'm talking about. I think I don't remember the JJM 1 number on the top of my head, but I know that JJM 2 is about ₹67,000 crore and it is lower than JJM 1.

For piping allocation, thank you. I'm asking more specific to piping.

That is the overall number, right? Piping, do we have any specific insights?

No. I don't think I can add anything more than what I have already said.

Got it. Understood.

Thank you, sir. That's it from my side.

Hi. Good evening, sir, and thanks a lot for the opportunity.

Just a couple of questions from my end. Firstly, with respect to again your volume growth, which has been substantially lower than peers, not only this particular quarter, but even if I look at quarter four now, what are your thoughts on market share loss?

Because if we look at the industry level numbers also, I think industry would have degrown by around 8% to 10-odd percent versus our degrowth would be much higher in volume terms. What are our thoughts here and how do we expect to gain back this market share?

Thanks, Sneha, for the question. I just want to bring to everybody's this that if we look at full year FY '26 and the top five reporting companies who report their volumes, yeah, and on that basis, our share for the full year 22 was about for the full year FY '26 was about 22%.

Okay. When we look at market share, we should look at it over a longer period of time and not on a quarter-to-quarter basis.

We do not have the numbers from all the reporting companies for the quarter one as yet. I think one or two are still to report their numbers, but I don't see any change in the market share, yeah, even for the quarter one as compared to full year FY '26.

Okay. Let me just put it this way.

If I look at top six companies, and if I compare that data from FY '23 to '26, our market share used to be 27%, which has come down now to about 22-odd percent. This is just top six, not even thinking about industry-level growth and all.

How would we face that and what are plans to basically get back, is all I'm trying to understand?

There is a constant push in terms of increasing penetration in the market, increasing our presence in the underrepresented areas, and there's been a push from our side to grow our volumes. Yeah.

There are a few segments of the market where we are not present, yeah, where some of our competitors are present, yeah. You have to also take into perspective when calculating the overall market shares, yeah.

I think to better understand the question and the underlying dynamics, we have to look at absolute like-to-like. Finolex Industries is a pure-play PVC pipes and fittings producers, where other producers also have a larger share of other polymers, yeah, into their portfolio.

That could also be a factor which might have an impact on the numbers the way they are looked at.

Understood. That was helpful.

The second question is regarding PVC prices now that they are on upward trend. What sort of a volume rebound can we see and, more importantly, out of the total PVC price increase that we've seen in this last one month, how much of it is passed on to the end user at this point of time?

Chandan, you want to take that?

Sneha, we have seen there is a upward trend as you're rightly saying in the prices of PVC in the market, and I think largely, hardly barring rupees ₹1 or ₹2, I think most of the things have been passed on to the customer at this moment, talking on today's date.

Understood. How's the demand after the price increases that we've seen?

Yeah. As I have mentioning, July was quite good volume pick up that we have seen.

Since it's the six or seven days of August only, but numbers are looking in the right direction.

Understood. Thanks team, and all the very best.

Thank you.

Sir, thank you for the opportunity. Sir, my first question is again on the volume.

We understand that agri pipes is about 70% of your mix. Could you help us understand of the volume decline of 27%, how much was the decline in agri versus plumbing?

We have seen the overall total volume degrowth is 27%. If you compare our volume from the Q1 of current year versus last year of the same quarter, the agri has declined by 27% and non-agri is around 24%.

Both are in more or less similar direction.

Understand. Sir, it would be really helpful if you could help us understand the month-by-month very approximate volume trends.

The reason I'm asking is because we saw maximum amount of volatility of PVC in April. Of the 27% for the quarter, how much was the degrowth in April, May, and June?

That would be very helpful.

I think Chandan will have the exact numbers. He comment on that, but as you rightly said, April was the month where there was maximum volatility.

Out of the three months, April was the lowest volume month, and then we saw the pick up in the month of May, yeah, and June was like a normal month, I would say.

Yeah.

Chandan, if you have the specific numbers.

This is what the trend that we, as Mr. Agarwal rightly pointed out.

April was a quite dismal perform, then May and June are fairly in the way that things should have been there. July, as I have mentioned, it's quite good number.

That's it.

Chandan, sir, do we have the numbers for April, May, June, please? No,

at this moment, I don't have. We can reach out separately, then we can discuss.

At this moment, handy is not with me immediately, month-on-month. Generally, we quote the number on a quarter-on-quarter basis.

Sir, is it fair to assume that May and June was a growth, and April was a degrowth, or even May was a degrowth?

No. May was a growth.

May was a growth, May and June were growth and April was a degrowth?

Yeah.

All right. Hello?

Yep.

Yeah.

Go ahead, Sonali.

Yes. Thank you.

Sir, my second question is, obviously, 27% volume decline means a lot of weak operating leverage. Our margins have surprised quite positively.

I understand you talked about the better realizations, but having said that, the lower margin agri is still about 70% of our mix. Sir, how should we look at the margins?

What, in your view, has supported? Is there any element of inventory gain that you would like to talk about?

Whatever the operating performance you have seen, Sonali, this is largely the top-line driven. Where cost wise, more or less cost remain range-bound, but the bottom-line contribution largely came from the top line only.

That's it.

Sir, but in the sense the volume was quite weak. I'm just trying to understand what could have supported our 300 bps year-on-year margin improvement despite a sharp decline in volumes.

You see, if the cost will remain range-bound and we will see good realization during the current quarter, then the things will definitely get percolated down to the EBITDA level now.

All right, sir. Sir, my next question is channel inventory.

As of now, what is the scenario of the channel inventory? Is it normal, below normal?

Could you quantify that in a number of days, if possible, please?

The third part of your question is the easiest part, I'll take that first. It's very hard to quantify the number, how many days of inventory is there, okay?

Yes, there's been quite a lot of stocking which has happened in the month of July because the expectation was that the prices will go up and which have gone up. Okay.

I would say that henceforth, the demand would be more like stable, okay, because we have a minimum floor set for the pricing. The volatility part should get somewhat moderated, okay?

If there is a stability, that also has a steady impact on the demand, that the demand remains pretty stable and channel also do not want to stock too much, yeah, more than what is required in the market.

Does it mean that the channel inventory is normal right now, almost normal?

It's near-normal, I would say. There is still some room, but if the situation continues to remain like this, we would be reaching that stage not too far away.

Got it. Sir, and lastly, if you could help us with a few data points on PVC, EDC, VCM, and the spread for Q1 this year, Q1 last year, and if possible, how it stands right now?

PVC for the Q1 current year is $866, and PVC-EDC spread is around $500, $501. Same for the last last quarter of the first quarter of the last year, 698 was the PVC prices and spread was 522.

As latest as current, 795 is the PVC prices and spread between the PVC-EDC is around 490.

Understand. The spreads year-on-year have marginally gone down, right?

522 to 501.

Yeah.

Yes. All right, sir.

That's it from my end. Thank you.

Thank you, Sonali.

Hi, sir. Sir, you said that the non-agri pipe volume declined by 24%, what could be the reason for this steep decline, because we see that the other pipe companies have not seen such kind of decline in Q1?

If you see in terms of the peer comparative, the non-agri segment peer also have more or less declined by, I think, around 18% to 20%, if I'm not wrong, in terms of totality. The volume demand generally is given by two factor.

One is the price and second is the price anticipation in the market. In both the scenario, as prices we have seen the volatility for the agri, and the same prices that holds good also for the non-agri as well.

In anticipation of the price volatility, the volume of the non-agri is also in the same direction as we have seen in the agri sector.

Okay. Sir, for pipes, what was the price difference compared to Supreme for, say, two, three years back and what is the difference now?

See, it's very hard to define in exact terms, but more or less, we are 10% to 12%, I think, we are pricey in market. Just a ballpark number, not exact number.

This is also driven by the commodity prices, yeah? No player would be too far away from market benchmarks, either on the positive side or on the negative side.

Sir, next on the margin guidance, you are giving a sub-15% kind of a margin guidance, whereas in an environment where the resin prices are falling and the volumes are also declining, we have delivered a 12% kind of margin. Why are we underwriting on that front?

As we have just I have mentioned, we are we are we are continue to hold back whatever we have said in the Q4, and Q1 is the because we have seen too many volatility during the current quarter, we will remain our guidance remain same what we have given, a sub-15 kind of thing during our Q4 concall. Let's see how the quarter progresses over the period, because there are a lot of geopolitical scenario and uncertainty that surrounds our PVC industry.

Let's move for for another quarter, then we'll see whether this need to be revised or not. At this moment, we are holding back whatever we have said.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Yeah. Hi, sir.

I'm audible enough?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Just two questions from my end. Could you please provide some color on the gross margin performance?

If you see sequentially the PVC-EDC spread has got declined, yet our gross margin got expanded. What were the factors driving the margin expansion?

As I have just mentioned, if the prices of material will remain range-bound and we will see a growth in the realization, then definitely that will contribute to the gross margin. Yes.

The second is if I had missed out some data points, could you please repeat the spread of PVC-VCM for the quarter one FY '26 and '27?

Q1 '26, PVC-EDC spread was 522, and current quarter Q1 FY '27, the spread is 501.

No, sir. I just want PVC to VCM spread.

PVC to VCM spread. Q1 last year, it was 163, and currently it's 122, Q1 '27.

Sir. Thanks.

That's all from my end. Thanks.

Hi, sir. Sorry, sir.

Again, coming to the volume front. Sir, is it possible to maybe directionally quantify the July volume growth?

Will it be a kind of a 15-20% kind of a number? Ultimately, what I'm trying to understand for full year, can we see a degrowth or not?

That's the one I'm trying, because as you've mentioned, the April was kind of a wash out, May and June was a growth, and July obviously should be a better growth. If that's the case, then can we see a kind of a 15% kind of a growth in Q2 itself so that we have some fair bit of understanding what kind of a volume for full year can we look at?

Or maybe the other way is, can we see a flattish or degrowth for the full year?

Shravan, I would say that July was the best month of this four months, yeah, of this year. At this moment, as Chandan also earlier mentioned, it's very difficult to say that the full-year out guidance, because volatility has been too much in the quarter one, and if we see that what is happening in quarter two, and then probably we would be in a better position to give a more realistic guidance for the full year.

It's just past one quarter and which was also so much of uncertainty, volatility. I would not like to make some forecast based on just one quarter number, one quarter developments.

Yeah.

At least July, whatever the growth, will it be a kind of a mid teens kind of a growth that we are witnessing? Some understanding on that will help us.

July was a good number, but let us not get it quantified at this moment. We have seen a good growth in the month of July, but let us not get into the quantification at this moment, Shravan.

Okay. In terms of for last many times we are saying that agri, non-agri, 50-50 we want to achieve.

Looking at this quarter, obviously 69%. Do we have internal any kind of a yearly number that we want to do at least 2% to 3%, 3-4% kind of a improvement from agri to non-agri kind of a thing?

Because I don't see anything broadly happening there.

If you look at our last couple of years, last year, our agri versus non-agri was 63% agri. The year before was 67%, there's been a constant improvement in terms of share of our business in agri and non-agri, better portfolio balanced in terms of the market segments.

I think we'll continue to have that directional approach, which we have always been saying, that we want to have a more balanced portfolio in the market segment which we operate in. Yeah.

As we said, in the case of market share also, and so I would say here also in the case of the segments in which we operate, probably one quarter is not a representative number for a longer period of time. True.

Sir, given the kind of a ₹2,636 crore cash, there also we are not even finalizing how we will be distribute to the shareholders. At least why even we are not finalizing in terms of the growth plan?

Maybe here we are very less in terms of the CPVC, which is a kind of a high-price, high-margin. Why we are not even thinking to deploy some money there, at least it will help us in terms of the growth and also better realization and better margin?

See, the investment into the business for the current portfolio organic is always there, yeah. We are continuing to invest into the business and we will continue to invest into the business to support the growth across all sectors, whether it is UPVC or CPVC, yeah.

The second part of your question is that all these investments, the large-scale investments, I'm talking about, are guided by the board, and the board has to take a call when is the right time to do with this strong cash, yeah, and whether it is giving back to the shareholders, whether it is investing into large-scale investments. That's a constant discussion with the board, and since we are guided by the board in this matter, so as soon as there is some decision, I think we would be happy to announce.

Sir, that's the main thing, because this cash is piling up. We are not even saying that distribute the 100%, but even ₹500, ₹700, or even ₹1,000 crore, if we would have invested in let's say expansion of the CPVC plant there or the capacity, it would have helped.

Even right now also, you are not even planning to deploy or start. Otherwise, when we can start seeing the kind of a overall, because that will ultimately help us to reduce our agri share.

Once the CPVC share keep on rising, unless we start, how we will reach in 7-8% kind of a CPVC share, that too in our volume is there. I don't know if I look at the entire industry and against that our CPVC volume, maybe even that would be lesser than 5%.

Why not we are even thinking to have at least 10%, 15%, 20% kind of a share in CPVC? For that, we need to expand the capacity.

For that, we need the money. That money is there, but we are not even thinking for last many years.

It is already there.

Just to bring one point, we have enough CPVC extrusion capacity. For manufacturing of pipes, we have enough CPVC extrusion capacity to support the growth of CPVC segment.

Okay? If that is the question, so that's what our response would be.

If you also look at the overall share of CPVC in the entire PVC market,

yeah,

which is around 7-8%, yeah, our estimation is that about 7-8% is the total CPVC in the pipe segment, yeah. This is the same share which we also have.

We are also moving along with the industry.

Thanks.

Yeah. Hi, sir.

Thank you for the opportunity. Just one question.

With respect to earlier answer on the margins for this quarter, as you said, the costs remain range-bound. Are you trying to say that we had some low-cost inventory from the previous quarter that we liquidated during this quarter and that's how the margins have come up?

Two things you have to keep in mind, Hena, that we have the certain cost advantage in terms of our being a backward-integrated player. Whereas the other player are procuring the raw material directly from the market, the core raw material, we are a one step back where we procure the raw material for the manufacturing of resin.

That depends upon at what point in time we have to book our procurement consignment. That's how the dynamic keeps playing in our case, which is quite different from the other player in the industry.

That is how we are getting certain cushion over here.

Understood, sir. That was my only question.

Thank you.

Sure.

Sir. Sir, in the last call, we indicated about the VCM sourcing.

Are we facing any issues in terms of availability or we were able to diversify the supply chain?

The the VCM availability continues to remain limited because of this issue in Middle East, okay? The one of the challenges with VCM is that it requires a specialized logistics.

With the with the feedstock also going to the in the Northeast Asia, where most of the material in India comes from, is is also constrained. Okay?

Overall availability of VCM is also also limited. It's not as freely available as it was in the previous years, and this also has an impact on availability of VCM for us for us.

The Middle East producers continue to remain under force majeure, and wherever and where we had major contracts. To give also tell you that we were in any case not importing VCM during the four months from end of May till end of September, because our jetty in Ratnagiri is is a fair weather jetty.

During this monsoon periods, we in any case, in a normal year also, we were not importing VCM. Okay.

The last question is what is the expected capacity utilization of the PVC plant for the remaining nine months of FY '27?

PVC, we continue to produce in Ratnagiri, yeah. As you all would know that we have two lines: one is based on EDC, one is based on VCM.

EDC line, we continue to produce without any interruption. Hello.

Hello?

Yeah. That answers your question, Anup?

Yes, sir. What about the VCM line?

No, as I said, in VCM line, in any case, during the month of monsoons, we do not produce, because we cannot import VCM during this time because of our jetty limitations, and it's a difficult product to transport. Okay?

It's also not like that we can import it at the other port and bring it to Ratnagiri. During these four months in any year, we are not producing PVC with the VCM line.

Sir, what about H2 FY '27 for VCM?

Our efforts to secure the VCM supply chain are ongoing, and we expect that the situation in Middle East should also get better with all this, but situation remains also a little unpredictable there. Depends on the availability of VCM, competitive VCM, okay, because one of the questions which was also asked is the spread of PVC-VCM.

That's also a factor which we also have to keep into perspective.

Thank you, sir.

Hi, sir. Just one clarification.

Based on whatever you've seen in July and the trends in the near term, do you think for the first half of this financial year, will we at least be flat YoY?

Arun, as we have just mentioned, July was a good number, we're hopeful that a slight plus YoY basis we can expect. Still, the August and September we need to see how the volume comes.

Since as per the performance of July, if we continue to go that, then definitely we can see a slight plus number.

That's it. Thank you.

Sir, last on the other income, this ₹75-odd crore, was lower because of some there. Now this number is kind of a sustainable?

On a full-year basis, can we kind of a look at ₹300-odd crore kind of a other income?

No. That's the one you have to keep in mind, because this is purely driven by the bond yield scenario in the market.

These are the mark-to-market gain/loss, not the realized gain/loss. As the bond yield will see the stable bond yield, then the number will remain in the range-bound.

If you see a quite volatility in the bond yield, because of the lot of factor keeps in place while deciding the yield of our portfolio. If the bond yield will remain range-bound, then the number will definitely come.

Otherwise, this is simply purely a mark-to-market gain/loss, not the exactly realized gain/loss.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for the interesting discussions, yeah, and a lot of questions around growth or around market shares. I just would like to comment that our endeavor will remain focused and to be able to deliver sustained margins over time.

Yeah. With that, I would like to say thanks to everybody for your continued trust and support.

Yeah. I look forward to interacting with you all next quarter.

Yeah.

Thank you so much to all of you for your continuous support and confidence in the Finolex Industries. Thank you so much from my side as well.