Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the quarter 3 and 9 months FY26 earnings call. I'm pleased to have all of you all on the call, and we'll be discussing the performance and the business updates of Q3 and 9 months.

I'm joined by our CFO Ashok, and Samarth from the finance team, as well as the SGA team, our investor relations advisors. I'm sure you've had the opportunity to look at the results and the investor presentation, which are available on the stock exchanges and on the company's website.

I'll give you a small brief about some business updates of the last quarter, and just take you a little bit through the financial performance before I hand over the call to Ashok. On the business side, on the laminates side, the brownfield expansion at the Naidupeta plant is progressing more or less as on track, and we should be up and running with our two additional lines in Q4 of FY27.

On the laminates, in last quarter we were awarded the largest exporter of laminates for, I think, our 16th year now, and this clearly marks our performance in the category considering the quality, innovation, dimensions, the global presence, the diverse markets we have, and presence across categories of laminates. During the last quarter, we also streamlined our brand architecture.

As we move ahead, we are going to work on two brands: the Greenlam brand, which will carry Greenlam Laminates, Greenlam Clads, Greenlam Sturdo, melamine chipboard, etc. The second brand will be Mikasa.

Mikasa brand will carry the laminates. The erstwhile NewMika becomes Mikasa Laminates.

We have the Mikasa Plywood, we have the Mikasa Veneer. The erstwhile Decowood becomes Mikasa Veneers.

Obviously, we have the Mikasa Flooring and Doors. We have two brands in the market which we are going to push and promote and build.

I think that streamlines a lot of our operational issues on ground, and also increases the value of every brand and the spend we do on brand and promotion. On the chipboard business, I think the chipboard business is also gradually improving.

We improved our numbers and performance, reduced our losses there in Q3. We also successfully launched a high moisture resistant chipboard, the product comes with special moisture resistant properties, and we've had good feedback on the product.

As I talk with you, we are in the process of building the network and the customer base. Broadly, these were the large-ticket business updates.

On the revenue side, although we grew 17-odd percent at ₹706 crore in Q3. From our expectations, the numbers were a bit lower.

One is that versus Q2, sequentially, we obviously came down by nearly ₹100 crore of revenue. Q3 usually has been a slow quarter for us considering the holiday season, etc., where there's work disruption in India.

For our exports, too, in the last 10, 15 days of December, people postpone shipments. I think that's impacted the Q3 revenues.

Also the domestic business has been a bit slower than our expectation. As we move ahead, I think Q4, we are driving to build the numbers well.

As we talk, things are going in a good direction. We hope the Q4 numbers will be in line with the 18-odd percent top-line growth.

Now on the margin front, at the gross margin level, I think we improved in percent versus Q2 also. I think pricing discipline, raw material costs, value addition, and that's all going in a good direction.

I think we've had one of the highest gross margins in Q3 of 55.5%, right? Slightly higher than Q2 also in terms of percent, not in terms of value.

At the gross margin level, I think we've done reasonably well. EBITDA, obviously, we had a little bit of higher cost of operations.

There's been some exceptional losses on the wage code matter. Obviously, we still have higher depreciation and interest due to the recent capitalizations of the plants over the last 3 years.

I think the revenues need to kind of pull along, and we hope that Q4 is better than what we did in Q3. Usually, Q4 and Q2 are better quarters, as we've seen in the past.

We're fairly confident that business will move in that direction itself. I think that's it for me at the moment.

I'll hand over the call to Ashok, and Ashok will take you through all the numbers, post which we can address your questions and queries if any. Ashokji, over to you.

Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, everyone.

Let me take you through the financial performance for the quarter and for the 9 months. First, coming on to the quarterly performance, on a consol basis, our net revenue grew by 17.3% on year-on-year basis to ₹706 crore as compared to ₹602 crore in Q3 last year.

Gross margin grew by 60 basis points and stood at 55.6% in this quarter from 55% in Q3 last year. Gross profit in absolute terms also grew by 18.6% on YoY basis to ₹393 crore as compared to ₹331 crore in quarter 3 last year.

EBITDA margin before forex fluctuations and exceptional item, declined by 170 basis points to 9.2% in this quarter as compared to 10.9% in Q3 last year, mainly on account of higher operating cost and the and the Naidupeta chipboard unit. EBITDA before forex fluctuation and exceptional item in absolute terms remained flat at ₹65 crore in this quarter as compared to last year.

We incurred a net loss of ₹0.6 crore for the quarter on account of forex fluctuations, exceptional item, higher operation cost, higher interest and depreciation for chipboard businesses. Moving on to 9 months, net revenue for the 9 months grew by 15.9% on year-on-year basis and stood at ₹2,188 crore as compared to 1, ₹1,888 crore.

Gross margin was up by 160 basis point to 54.4% for the 9 months in comparison to 52.8% in 9 months last year. Gross profit in absolute terms grew by 19.4% to ₹1,191 crore as compared to ₹997 crore in 9 months last year.

EBITDA margin before forex fluctuations before forex fluctuations and exceptional item was down by 80 basis points at 10.4% in comparison to 11.2% in 9 months last year. EBITDA before forex fluctuation and exceptional item grew by 7.5% to ₹227 crore in 9 months as compared to ₹211 crore last year.

Net profit was down by 77% to ₹15.5 crore in 9 months as against ₹66.9 crore in 9 months last year. Now I'll move on to the segmental performance.

First, the laminate and allied segment. In the quarter 3, revenue grew by 8.1% on year-on-year basis to ₹562 crore in this quarter from ₹520 crore in quarter 3 last year.

EBITDA margin before forex fluctuations and exceptional item stood at 14.5%, a growth of 100 basis points on year-on-year basis. Production volume stood at 5.08 million sheets at a utilization level of 83%.

Sales volume for the quarter stood at 4.75 million sheets, a decline of 0.4% on year-on-year basis. Our average realization for the quarter was ₹1,143 per sheet.

Moving on to 9 months, laminate revenue grew by 7.5% and stood at ₹1,775 crore from ₹1,651 crore in 9 months last year. EBITDA margin before forex fluctuation stood at 15.4%, a growth of 150 basis points on year-on-year basis.

Production volume were at 16.14 million sheets at a and at a utilization of 88%. Sales volume for the 9 months stood at 15.48 million sheets, grew by 4.4% on year-on-year basis.

Our average realization of laminate for 9 months was at ₹1,112 per sheet. Moving on to another segment, plywood and allied, which consists of plywood, decorative veneer, engineered doors, and engineered floors.

Revenue for the quarter grew by 9.5% to ₹90 crore in this quarter in comparison to ₹82 crore Q in Q3 last year. EBITDA loss before forex fluctuation stood at ₹13.3 crore.

For the 9 months, revenue grew by 18.6% on year-on-year basis to ₹281 crore from ₹236 crore in 9 months last year. EBITDA loss before forex fluctuation stood at, for the 9 months, stood at ₹25.8 crore.

I'll move on to the next segment, which is panel and allied segment, which consists of chipboard. For the for this quarter, chipboard revenue grew by 13.3% on quarter-on-quarter basis to ₹54.2 crore, since there was no sales, since we have started our business in quarter 4, there is no comparison figure for the last year.

EBITDA loss for the forex, before forex fluctuation stood at ₹3.2 crore. Production volume stood at 30,028 cubic meters, and at a utilization level of 41%.

Sales volume for the quarter stood at 28,954 cubic meters, a growth of 10% on year-on-quarter on quarter basis. Average realization for the quarter stood at ₹18,668 cubic meters.

For the 9 months, chipboard revenue stood at ₹133 crore. EBITDA loss before forex fluctuation stood at ₹20.9 crore.

The production volume were at 78,146 cubic meters and at a utilization level of 36%. Sales volume for the 9 months stood at 69,851 cubic meters, and our average realization for the 9 months was at ₹18,992 cubic meters.

Moving on to balance sheet item, in this quarter, our working capital cycle improved by 9 days to 58 days as compared to 67 days in Q3 last year. Net debt as on 31st December stood at ₹1,010 crore.

That's all from my side. Now we we will open the floor for the question and answers.

Thank you.

Hi. Thank you for the opportunity.

Sir, firstly on your guidance which you have given, top line 18% to 20% for this year, still that holds true in light of challenging demand environment? Secondly, the ply and chipboard should EBITDA break-even next year?

The sales growth, 9 months we're at about 15.9% precisely growth. Depending on how Q4 goes, maybe we'll probably end up instead of 18%, 20%, maybe a percent lower maybe somewhere on an annualized basis.

Plus, minus a bit here, but I think we're not so way off despite the ground challenges of demand. In terms of break-even of plywood and chipboard, we expect that this will break even in the next year next year.

Got it. How are things evolving on the US US tariff side for laminate?

Is it, customer and you both are taking the hit of the tariff?

Yeah. As of now, since there is no end of the light in terms of when it will come kind of a thing.

As of now, the tariff is applicable on our product. We have increased some of the prices to the market.

Some of the hit has been taken by the customer, and rest is taken hit by subsidiary and as well as India offers. Some of this has got offset in terms of when the depreciation in INR.

Some is this getting compensated from that.

Got it. Last question from my side.

How are the laminate pricing trending domestic and export market, and lastly, how is the cost piece moving?

Sorry, will you come again, Keshav, what was?

My question is, how has been any change in laminate pricing in domestic or international market? Secondly, is there any changes in raw material cost?

Laminate pricing in domestic is by and large stable. International pricing is also more or less stable.

In few cases, due to the currency depreciation, we've had to kind of agree on certain discounts due to competitive pressures. On the raw material cost side, also by and large, things are stable.

Despite the rupee depreciation, chemical costs are more or less in a similar range. Décor paper where we import the paper from Europe and from Asia, there obviously rupee term costs have gone up because of the currency depreciation.

Otherwise, the base price has more or less remained similar. Net-net, you could assume that both sales prices and procurement prices are in a similar range or not much movements there.

Got it. Thank you so much.

Hi, good afternoon, sir. Sir, my first question is regarding your particle board division.

Sir, just wanted to know rupee has weakened quite a lot over the past few months. Whether the industry is planning to take a good price hike in this category due to the impact of weakening rupee, or particle board prices are likely to remain stable due to the supply overhang in the domestic market for the next few quarters?

Sir, just wanted your view on this.

Right. Chipboard because imports of chipboard into India was anyway quite small, and post the QCO implementation in 2025, I think it further shrunk a bit because Indian capacities came up, high quality, and availability of better dimensions, and local availability, etc.

Unfortunately, there's not much impact of the rupee depreciation in terms of making imports more expensive and us more competitive. On the pricing side, as we see things now with the demand and supply, we're not seeing much room for price increases in chipboard.

What we are trying to do is improve the value mix by promoting melamine faced chipboard, which is pre-laminated particle board. I also said earlier on the call, we launched high moisture resistant grade in particle board, which earlier it was not so available in the market.

Now two or three companies have launched that, where the realization per cubic meter is higher than the plain board. I think steps are being taken to kind of upsell and also introduce superior product variants in the chipboard range.

I think that might lead to certain price realization improvements.

Okay. Sir, what is our targeted capacity utilization for the particle board project for FY27?

On the CapEx side, sir, if you can give some idea how much CapEx we have already spent till December '25 and how much is remaining, and by what timeframe we would spend the remaining amount?

For the next year, we have targeted around 55%, 60% of the capacity utilization for the chipboard. What is your next question?

Sir, CapEx, how much we have spent till date, and how much it is pending?

CapEx, in terms of that, most of the CapEx has been done in terms of that. Roughly around ₹50 crore to ₹75 crore is pending, with some of this which may be spent in this quarter.

If at all anything is remaining, that will be done in the quarter 1 of next year.

Okay. Sir, my next question is on the plywood segment.

Earlier, we were targeting to reach the break-even point in plywood by Q4 of FY26, but in Q3 of FY26, what we saw that our operating losses has gone up. Just wanted to know whether we would now like to revise our timeline of reaching the break-even point, which we were earlier targeting Q4 of FY26.

Q3 in the plywood segment, actually, if you see, we slipped versus Q2 in terms of revenue. Gross margins also in that segment came down a bit because in that entire segment, a lot of raw material is imported.

In rupee term, the currency impact was there. I think operational deleverage and some RM cost increase in rupee terms because of the currency movement has happened in the ply and allied category.

We are hoping that Q4 will be a better period across all those subsegments in the ply business, and we remain optimist that things will improve in that segment also.

Sir, what would be our targeted capacity utilization for plywood plant for FY27?

If you see, as of now, on a 9-month basis, we're at a capacity utilization of around 34%, 35%, close to 35% kind of a thing. There also, our expectation is that we should be in the range of around 55%, 60% kind.

Okay. Sir, lastly on the laminate side, sir, you have mentioned in the press release that we have seen modest volume growth in the domestic market while our volume was relatively flat on a YoY basis, it implies that our export volume has gone down.

Can you please specify the reason for the decline in our export volume, and how the export is shaping up in the current March quarter? On the realization front, sir, there has been a sharp improvement in laminate realization in December quarter.

Sir, is it majorly because of the weakening rupee effect, and whether such higher realization is likely to be sustained going forward, or we will have to pass on the benefit of weak rupee to the consumer to push our volume in the export market going ahead? These are my two questions on laminate.

I'll take the volume part. In exports, like I said earlier also in the call, that in the month of December, we've had postponement of shipments for our European and UK market, postponed shipments to Jan from, let's say, December.

Our inventory in transit actually has increased substantially, and so those sales should show up in Q4 as far as exports is concerned. On the price realization improvement, you're right.

Largely, price realization improvement has happened due to the weakening of the rupee and some value mix improvement in the export business. Ashok's question was...

In terms of the volume, if you see for the export, 9 months volume is higher.

In this quarter, as sir has mentioned in terms of that only. Otherwise, we are on track in terms of that.

There will be volume growth in both the segment will be there. Full-year also.

Okay. Got it, sir.

Thanks a lot.

Yeah.

Hi, team. Good afternoon, and thanks a lot for the opportunity.

Just two to three questions from mine. Firstly, on the call, you mentioned that there were a couple of one-off impact, like the case of wage impact, you also mentioned I think there was some forex loss.

Could you quantify all the one-off impact in this particular quarter?

Those one-off impact, like forex detail is already there. One-off is the exceptional which is on account of wage code kind of a thing, that is ₹6.2 crore.

Some additional higher operating costs versus let's say Q3 or Q2. No specific one-off case which we can mention right now, but yeah.

Understood. Secondly, with respect to demand, what we could see is of course there is quarter-on-quarter dip, which is seasonally there.

Even in case of newer segments like plywood and all, we've not seen any particular improvement in a strong way this particular quarter. Even your doors and flooring business is again making losses in this particular.

Was there any demand issue in quarter 3 as such, or you would just mention the seasonality impact in quarter 3?

If you see Q3 on Q3, yes, obviously, we've grown at 17-odd percent, but in some segments, the growth's not what it should be, and we said that earlier. One, there is a seasonality impact because typically, Q3 is a bit weaker, at least in our case, traditionally also has been a bit weaker than Q2.

Q2 and Q4 are the better quarters. On the demand side, also feedback we have from our teams on ground and from our partners is demand is just generally a bit slow, and there are cash flow challenges.

That's just more like a general feedback. I can't quantify it or put a data to it, but that's a feedback we receive from people.

Our domestic business also has grown at 17%, but yes, it could be because when you see it in light of Q2, sequential Q3 looks a bit weak in terms of the revenue growth, and it is weak actually versus Q2. Yes, people do say that demand's been a bit low on ground, seasonality, Delhi-NCR GRAP issues, I think there are so many issues people keep talking about, but I can't put a finger on it actually.

Yeah.

In that case, we should see a bounce back in terms of profitability and revenue growth for all these divisions like decorative veneer, doors and floors, everything being back to profitability by Q4?

If you see Q2 performance, at an additional of ₹100 crore revenues, our EBITDA was about 106, 107. Fixed costs are more or less done.

GP is being maintained, price points are maintained, product quality, supply chain, factory is all doing it reasonably well. I think if revenues go up, I don't see reason why that won't happen actually.

We are pretty hopeful that revenues in Q4 should be decent. Traditionally also, we have done nearly similar numbers in Q4 and Q2, maybe at times slightly higher than Q2 also.

Lastly, on the plywood front, our utilization is still hovering at about 30%, 35-odd percent. It's been roughly around 2.5 years of operations.

What is lagging in this particular segment? Is it as per the track that the company would have anticipated, or are we facing delays?

If yes, this is on account of what? What's your reading on this?

It's been slower than we expected. I think we're doing reasonably well in South India, and the other market which we opened over let's say this FY and some in last year, I think they're still yet to kind of mature.

We also have now, towards the end of Q3, done a soft launch of a variant below the marine grade variant called BWP Plus, which is at a 5%, 6% lower variant. I think that offering was missing from our house, we've done that also.

We still are hopeful that we should improve. Feedback on product quality and secondary working is pretty good.

I think with this brand architecture also which we streamlined with Mikasa brand carrying plywood, laminates, veneers, flooring, door, and that will also give it a bit of a more branding push and help in better demand creation. We remain positive on the segment, but yes, it's been a bit slower than we expected.

Understood. One last one, in case I may.

You also mentioned that you streamlined brands, and you have launched even laminates under Mikasa, and plywood was always there. Just want to understand what would be the difference between the Greenlam brand and Mikasa brand?

What would be the price change between both? Let's say laminates of Greenlam is sold at what pricing range, and what would be that for Mikasa?

Similarly for maybe one or two other product in case you can give some color there.

We didn't launch a brand-new collection of Mikasa. We already had a brand called NewMika in that 1 segment.

That's been rebranded, repositioned as Mikasa. At one point, we had four brands: Greenlam, Mikasa, Decowood, and NewMika.

Decowood, because the ply businesses move together, was rebranded as Mikasa Veneer sometime earlier in FY26. Now with the new range launch of NewMika, we rebranded NewMika as Mikasa.

It was already existing. We just corrected the whole program and put it under one brand.

The Mikasa brand now is nearly a ₹1,000 crore potential portfolio with all these categories. As far as the difference is concerned, they're two different brands which have two different product programs and ranges.

From a price point difference, it's not much. Greenlam and Mikasa on the main category would be maybe 3% to 5% lower.

Mikasa is probably 3% to 5% lower than Greenlam Laminates, but it's not a price point driven program. It's more of a range, catalog, common dealers, common specifications.

I think that's the model of Mikasa Laminates as we move ahead. That's the only product which has a overlap.

Otherwise, chipboard and plywood, flooring, doors, veneers. We don't have multiple brands.

It's only in laminates we have a two-brand strategy.

No, I think that was pretty clear. You also mentioned that this brand has potential of ₹1,000 crore revenue.

If we may ask what would be in FY26 estimated, or FY25, what that would have been?

I don't have that math right in front of me, and Ashok is smiling, I think we'll have to deal with Ashok on this separately, please.

Sure. Sure.

We'll take it one-on-one.

You connect post-call.

Sure. Thanks a lot, team, and all the very best.

Thank you.

Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity.

First question is related to chipboard, sir. Any indication of India-level supply in terms of CBM as of now, and any gauges or any ideas on new capacities that are coming up?

See, we have all this data, but it's not available right away on total installed capacities because chipboard capacities have to be seen as wood-based particle boards and bagasse-based. Then wood-based, there are continuous lines and multi-day lines.

I think we have all this data. It's not right off available here, I think maybe Samarth can help you with that at a later point.

As far as new capacities coming up, as far as I know, no new major capacities are coming up. We do hear of some bagasse-based boards plants coming up in some parts, but on the wood-based particle board or board plants of our size, I haven't heard of anything as of now.

That's what I know, but I'm not so sure on that. With my understanding, literally none new capacities are coming up at this moment, unless you have anything to add, Ashok, yeah.

No.

Okay. Sir, what...

Sorry, I was saying a capacity to put up, was at a ₹85 to euro euro-rupee conversion. Now now with the price points, clearly, I think CapEx costs also go up with the depreciation both the dollar and the euro.

Obviously, it's going to be a bit harder in terms of CapEx costs, etc. Sorry, go ahead, please.

Right, yeah. In case of raw materials, sir, post BIS, what we have seen is decline in production of plywood by unorganized players, and what we understand is there is a case of shortfall of scrapped woods, which is generally used as a input for making chipboard.

Is it by any chance impacting us, or have we seen any inflation over that in that part of the value chain?

As far as we are concerned, this is not because we were not using plywoods, we were using our own generated waste of our plywood factory and the wood we were using. From that point, we haven't seen much impact in our business.

Maybe certain factories of chipboard were based on wood waste generated from sawmill and plywood mills, but that's not the case in our factory. We have our own chippers, we are buying agroforestry wood from Andhra Pradesh and surrounding area.

That's not impacted us in terms of supply chain or cost.

All right. In case of resin prices, due to this ongoing political issues, how have you seen resin pricing reacting after December?

When you say political, geopolitical, right? Geopolitical issues.

Yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Yeah. I said that earlier to somebody, I think chemical and resin more or less been stable despite the rupee depreciation.

Maybe there's a lack of demand or something of that sort. Actually, despite the rupee depreciation, resin cost or chemical cost, by and large, some have gone down a bit, some have gone up a bit, but at an overall level, as cost of chemicals in raw material, it's been about the same.

All right. One last question.

In case of chipboards, there is obviously higher presence of unorganized players. What I understand is their quality is subpar versus our product, right?

To compete with them, do we have any product which is at parity or comparable to them, or we don't produce such quality or mass end of the product?

As far as board quality, we have just one board quality, we don't have a B-grade board quality. In terms of the décor range, we have two décor range in melamine faced chipboard.

One's a Studio, which is more premium, only European papers, and it's called Universal, which is a bit lower than the Studio, where the décor papers are more suited to residential usages of people who make furniture for residential purposes, which are from Chinese origin or Indian origin. That's priced slightly lower point.

The absolutely local market bagasse-based model, that's really, really cheap quality. We can't even end up producing that in our factory, or we can't even imagine producing that.

Yes, we're not in that space, but you do appreciate with better quality chipboard, I think the market is also moving up with the offering. Earlier, there were not too many companies who were focused on this category.

Now we have two, three companies who are focused and they have meaningful capacities, they have a pretty good range, they have teams on ground. I think the category will itself kind of get uplifted.

For sure. Sir, how should one understand the pricing differential between our product versus unorganized players?

In chipboard?

Yes.

Unorganized would again you have to see in two parts. One is the bagasse-based producers, the other is the wood-based producers.

Many of the local companies are limited by the dimension they can produce or the thicknesses they can produce. The flexibility of their equipments or the technology can't produce 6x8, 6 feet by 8 feet, 6 feet by 9 feet.

Some can only produce some sizes. It's a bit more longish discussion.

Clearly, I think with the quality of board, they will not have magnetic controls there. Their boards would consume more blades of the OEM producer.

The finishing will not be nice, the undulations, the texture product will not be good, the resin emissions could be higher. I think there's so many parameters on that.

A

point taken, sir, but how should one understand the price differential? I understand that...

Pricing again would vary, it depends on what you compare with. You could assume that local players would be what, 15%, 20% lower in some cases, some could be 7% to 10%.

You can't put one number to it, but yeah, that could be a range, yeah.

Fair enough. All right.

Perfect, sir. Thank you so much.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you for joining in for the call.

In case you have any other questions, you can reach out to us or to SGA for any further clarifications. Thank you, look forward.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone.