Thank you, Rudra. Good morning, everyone.

On behalf of ICICI Securities, I welcome you all to the Q3 FY26 earnings conference call of KSH International. Today, we have with us Mr.

Rajesh Hegde, Managing Director; Mr. Amod Joshi, Chief Financial Officer; Mr.

Dhruv Chopra, Head of Investor Relations; and Mr. Makrand Kulkarni Patil, Head, Secretarial and Legal.

Without much delay, I'll now hand over the call to the management. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thank you, Mohit. Good morning, everyone.

This is Rajesh Hegde, the Managing Director for KSH. I would like to welcome all current and prospective shareholders to our third quarter fiscal 2026 results call.

Our IPO concluded late in Q3 of FY26, and there are some moving parts to this part parts this quarter primarily due to the timing and activities related to the SUPA expansion. Year-to-date figures will smoothen out any quarter-to-quarter movements.

In our view, Q4 of FY26 would be our full first quarter post listing and more representative of the underlying and sustainable trends in the business. Given our current capacity and a robust demand environment, we have the capability to produce 28,500 to 29,500 metric tons for the full year.

Higher volumes generally also drive better operating leverage, which has adversely affected in Q3 of FY26 due to the upfront costs related to the substantial capacity addition that came online in the quarter. Our third quarter and nine months financial results, along with supporting information, have been submitted to the exchanges and have been uploaded to our website.

On today's call, I would like to focus on three key areas. First, I will address what differentiates our business and the key drivers and trends.

Second, I want to spend a little more time on our new SUPA facility and its impact on the company. Last, we will address the financial and operating metrics for Q3 and nine months of FY26.

To refresh all, KSH International is a 45-year-old manufacturer of magnet winding wires, which is the most critical component of coils used in large and small electric machines, from power transformers to motors down to small compressors for air conditioning and everything in between. Based on currently available data and our capacity addition, we may we may now be the second-largest winding wire manufacturer in India with an installed capacity of 43,445 metric tons, and we continue to remain the largest exporter of winding wires from India.

Once Phase 2 of our SUPA expansion is completed in 14 months' time, we would have an installed capacity of 59,045 metric tons annualized. We are a B2B company servicing approximately 120 leading domestic and global OEM customers and maintain long-term relationships with these customers resulting in more than 90% of the revenue from being from repeat customers.

Additionally, our business is make-to-order, which means we procure the copper and begin processing only after receiving a purchase order from the customer. Thus, LME copper prices and exchange rate is a direct pass-through, and we do not take any exposure to short- or long-term variations in the copper price.

Roughly 75% of our revenue comes from large power transformers used in T&D, renewables, railways, and data centers, driven by our core continuously transposed conductors, or CTC product, in which we are the market leaders in India. CTC is a complex engineered wire product, and all of our exports are exclusively to T&D customers across 24 countries.

We continue to maintain our leadership in CTC with a comprehensive track record as well as OEM and utility approvals. We are approved for all classes of power transformers, including being the only Indian company approved to supply to HVDC 400 transformers, 400 kV transformers.

CTC is one of the key differentiators from our peers and accounts for more than half of our specialized winding wire business. Why do we succeed?

In an ultra-precision field, our long-term mantra has been the quality has been that quality has to be built into the product we produce, not something that gets inspected at the end. This results in the quality and longevity of our products, most of which most of which are still actively working in the field.

The T&D sector is in a structural long-term cycle driven by renewable energy, grid modernization, urbanization, and growing power demand for AI data centers. This is not just an India phenomenon, but a global one.

The primary bottleneck is the supply of power transformers, which is driving capacity expansion by transformer OEMs globally, as evidenced by the public comments and financial performances reported by all our customers. This directly feeds into the demand for our products.

Though there is a growth across all power transformers, one of the most exciting opportunities, in our view, lies with HVDC, which is required to evacuate power over long distances for renewable energy projects. During the third quarter, we commenced supplying specialized winding wires towards cumulative orders of 37 HVDC transformers received to date.

These orders would be supplied over a period of 12 to 18 months, at the current level of 40-odd transformers, it will not meaningfully impact any given quarter's performance, but as more HVDC transformers begin to be supplied, which we expect to happen, it should start to have an incremental benefit to the company, given it is our highest value addition product. Meanwhile, momentum for 765 kV transformers and reactors continues, with contribution in Q3 of FY26 being higher compared to Q2 of FY26.

Shifting to exports in Q3 of FY26, our export revenue increased 37% year-on-year year-over-year, accelerating from the 22% year-over-year growth we reported in Q2 of FY26. With new capacity, we are now able to be more proactive target accelerating volumes for our existing global clients and over time from new clients in new geographies.

In summary, our key strategies to drive sustained growth is a) to grow volume from higher value-added segments like T&D, EV motors, and exports; b) to expand our international presence, including expansion with our global clients, to increase wallet share with our existing clients; and then to drive operating efficiencies through scale and backward integration; and finally, to improve sustainability efforts within the company as well. Moving now toward new facility in SUPA, we completed Phase 1 at the end of September 2025, bringing 12,000 metric tons of additional capacity online.

During the third quarter, we added a further 2,400 metric tons, bringing total capacity at December 31, 2025 to 43,445 metric tons. SUPA capacity expansion is across all our product lines, from CTC down to round wires or standard magnet winding wires.

The rapid introduction of this capacity led to a short-term increase in costs, as these are incurred in advance of the volume produced. We expect volumes to increase sequentially every quarter, in turn driving better operating leverage.

During the first three months of operation, we achieved more than 50% capacity utilization at SUPA, bringing consolidated company utilization down to 68% from 90% plus last quarter. Looking at our overall volume growth, we sold approximately 7,400 metric tons of winding wire in Q3 of FY26, an increase of almost 24% compared to Q3 of FY25 and the highest volume growth rate we have had in many years, maybe even 10 years.

We are excited with the prospect of seeing our quarterly volume trend higher off this much larger base. I would now like to ask Amod Joshi, our CFO, to go over some of the financials and operational details.

Over to you, Amod.

Thank you, Rajesh. Good morning, everybody.

I will discuss our third quarter and nine months FY26 financials and operating performance now. During the nine months and Q3 of FY26, our revenue from operations were ₹2,089 crore and ₹818 crore, respectively.

This resulted in an increase of 47% and 59% compared to the same period last year. Specialized winding wires represented approximately 75% of total revenue, excluding other operating revenue in nine months and Q3 of FY26, and increased 48% and 61% versus a year ago.

This was largely driven by ongoing demand from our T&D clients. Standard winding wires also grew 48% and 55% in nine months and Q3, respectively.

Revenues from exports grew 37% compared to Q3 of FY25 and represented around 27% of total revenues, excluding other operating revenue during the period. Volumes, product mix, and metal prices were key drivers to top-line performance.

In line with the shift to increase volumes of higher-value-added products and cost rationalization, our gross profit per ton also improved approximately 4% over Q2 of FY26 and nearly 12% over Q3 of FY25. Nine months and Q3 FY26 EBITDA of ₹136 crore and ₹49 crore improved from ₹87 crore and ₹40 crore last year, respectively.

As we have stated, reporting margins can fluctuate due to movements in copper prices, given that copper is a pass-through. This quarter, copper prices increased sharply, negatively impacting the margins, but as you can see, did not impact EBITDA per ton.

Therefore, to evaluate the underlying progress of the company's profitability, it is more important to look at the unit economics of the business. This brings me to the EBITDA per ton discussion.

EBITDA per ton for nine months of FY26 was approximately ₹66,000 per metric ton, which is almost similar to Q3 FY26 and up from ₹50,000 for nine months FY25. This performance is consistent with our prior commentary that EBITDA per ton at current levels are sustainable.

There were a few nonrecurring items during Q3 of FY26, which we believe warrant being called out so everyone can understand the underlying trends in the business. First, there was an exceptional one-time expense of ₹1.6 crore related to implementation of the new labor codes in Q3 of FY26.

Second, the SUPA Phase 1 facility, which was capitalized at the end of Q2 FY26, had an interest to the tune of ₹2.7 crore approximately related specifically to the loan taken to fund the SUPA Phase 1 expansion and was charged to the P&L in Q3 FY26. Having repaid this loan in full in the last week of December '25, this expense is no longer expected to recur.

Third, additional depreciation expense amounting to almost ₹3.8 crore relating to the same Phase 1 expansion was charged to P&L in Q3 FY26 for the first time. Though this amount is recurring in nature and one we believe would be absorbed by growing volumes, we highlight it as it impacts the comparability of Q3 FY26 results with prior periods.

Now lastly, as is typical with a new facility that starts up, the SUPA expansion saw some fixed and operating costs in Q3 FY26. As volumes ramp up, we expect these costs to be absorbed and operating leverage to kick in in due course.

During Q3 FY26, we reported PAT of ₹23 crore, which declined 9% from Q3 of FY25 due to the reasons just mentioned now. For nine months of FY26, we have reported PAT of 75.6 crores, which is an increase of 53% from ₹49.5 crore in the same period in FY25.

I will now briefly provide an update on the utilization of our IPO proceeds as well as some additional financial metrics. In late December 2025, we repaid ₹225.9 crore of long-term and short-term debt, including the term debt taken for financing the SUPA Phase 1 expansion.

Therefore, at the end of December 2025, our debt-to-equity ratio, if you exclude the cash earmarked for redeployment from IPO proceeds, has come down to 0.42x from almost 1.35x in Q2 of FY26. Additionally, in Q3 of FY26, the company spent ₹5.4 crore towards the purchase of new machinery.

Orders and advances for the new machinery have already been put in place, and we expect deliveries of this equipment to happen over the course of the next 14 months. Our endeavor is to ramp up capacity for CTC as quickly as possible, given the current demand environment.

Once completed, we would have doubled our capacity across all our products from 29,000 metric tons to 59,000 metric tons. Finally, working capital days remained in the 75 to 80-day range calculated on closing balances basis during Q3 of FY26, though we expect this to start trending lower incrementally over the next several quarters.

Let me now hand over the call back to Rajesh for his closing remarks. Over to you, Rajesh.

Thank you, Amod. Given we are approaching the midpoint of our final quarter of fiscal 2026, I want to highlight where we ended fiscal 2025 and the year-to-date trends we have reported so far this year.

First, in FY25, we reported a volume of 23,345 metric tons. Far, volume growth has been 18% for the nine months of FY26.

Q3 of FY26 volume grew at 24% due to the inclusion of SUPA, which we believe is a sustainable rate for this fiscal year, given the additional annualized 14,400 metric tons of capacity available in the second half of this year. Second, in FY25, we reported EBITDA per ton of approximately ₹52,500 per metric ton, and for the nine months of FY26, we are operating at roughly about 66,000 per metric ton, which we have previously said is a level we feel is sustainable.

Third, for FY25, we reported PAT of ₹68 crores. For nine months of FY26, we have delivered PAT growth of roughly 53%, which is a rate of growth we believe is also sustainable for this year.

In summary, we are excited with the demand environment for our products, and even more so by having the capacity now available to service this demand. Like any capacity expansion, we had some short-term cost implications for adding said capacity in Q3, but we believe that this is the inflection point and looking forward to executing our strategy for the remainder of the year and beyond.

With that, I would like to hand the call back to the moderator to open up for questions.

Yes, thank you so much for taking my question. My first question is on the duties.

Post the US trade deal, how are we looking at the duties scenario? What were the duties for India prior to this on the fabrication portion, not on the copper, on the fabrication?

Now going forward, are we in terms of cost competitiveness with China and other countries, where do we stand?

This is Rajesh. Before the duties were on the value-addition part was around 54-odd percent.

Now, of course, this is still work in progress because we are hearing conflicting information between 18% to 25%. I think we'll wait for a final revert from the information that we have to receive.

We believe that it will be somewhere between 18% to 25%. Your other question was compared to China, China is still at about 34% on the value add.

All right. Could you just call out what was the amount of exports to the US in nine months in, say, a rupee terms?

Nidhi, this is Dhruv. We provide that on an annual basis, for last year it was about 9% of total revenue.

All right.

My question on the HVDC, the 37 transformer orders that we have, I'm assuming that a portion of that comes from the BHEL order. Where is the remaining portion coming from?

Is it from India or is it from abroad? Can we assume that this order, the entirety of the value of the order for the fabrication alone, should be closer to 250 million or should be closer to 80 million?

250 million to 80 million, I'm not sure. In terms of fabrication, whether we've put out a number, but what I can tell you is that this order is from India itself, from another manufacturer of HVDC transformers.

All right.

My last question would be that given that we have seen this increase in capacity and you also mentioned on the call that we can expect this run rate going forward, did you mean for current capacity the run rate should be closer to 7,500 per quarter or is it that we can expect a similar increase in volumes for Q4 as we did see for Q3?

Similar increase we are expecting.

All right. Would that be fair to assume that by Q1 FY27 we could see probably 10,000 tons per quarter?

Nidhi, that will ultimately depend on the utilization rates, but clearly we will continue to focus on driving those up.

All right. Thank you so much.

Hi, good morning, sir. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Sir, in first nine months, we have reported a volume of around 20,500 metric ton. Based on our capability, order book, what kind of volume we are looking for this financial year?

I think we have mentioned in our call that between 28 to 29 is what we are expecting, 28 to 29,000 metric tons for the full year.

Okay. If I assume a midpoint of that as 28,500, then we will end up around 8,000 kind of volume this quarter.

That's right.

Sir, what would be the corresponding number last quarter, Q4, that number will be?

You are asking last quarter of last year, right?

Yes, Q4 FY25.

Around 6,000 it was, below 6,000, just below 6,000 tons.

Okay. That 30%, 35% growth is feasible in terms of volume.

Yeah. With this additional volume that's available, so that's what we are saying that we have this additional volume that's available for the rest of the quarter.

Sir, our utilization is around 68% you mentioned. On this 40,000 43,000 capacity metric ton, what kind of utilization we expect to achieve next year?

Look, overall 43,400, like we said, capacity ramp-up generally takes two to three years to reach 80% to 85%, and with that trajectory, we expect to keep the same trajectory over the next two to three years for this 43,400. No, but

I think your question was on this capacity base of 43,400 tons. If you do the math, then it will be approximately, if you take between 28 to 29,000 metric tons that we're saying, I don't have the immediate percentage.

About 60%.

60% to

70%,

yeah. Mahesh, just one clarification point is that 43,000 metric tons is also not static.

That capacity is going to keep increasing till 59,000 over the course of the next 14 months.

No, no, I am assuming this currently 43,000, additional comes, that's over and above, but this 43,000, which is available for next year, entire year. What kind of utilization we're expecting?

Oh, next year, you're saying. Okay.

Next year.

Next year, our endeavor is, of course, to keep increasing, like what Amod said, 85% is normally a good capacity utilization or optimal capacity utilization, and on this 43, you could probably, 80%, 85% would be our target, of course, 85%.

So 37,000 is feasible.

Yeah.

Yes. Okay.

Sir, last question from my end. The interest cost last quarter was much higher, I think ₹14 crores.

Given the loans we have paid, short-term and long-term, what kind of interest we are going to pay for the last quarter and maybe next year?

Look, as far as interest is concerned, the working capital interest actually increases in proportion to the top line, and like we mentioned, the indicative tonnage of top line for the Q4 will be higher than Q3. From that perspective, the working capital interest will be slightly more than Q3.

Having said that, we have repaid the term loan for SUPA, and that ₹2.7 crore savings will definitely kick in in the Q4 of FY26.

This ₹14 crores looks to be slightly higher, the number will be lower in this Q4?

No, because utilization also will go up, we don't expect that working capital interest to go down significantly from the Q3 level.

That extraordinary item will not come, right?

That ₹2.7 crores

for the term loan, yeah.

That's a term loan interest, yeah. That will not be there.

Sure. Thank you.

Thank you so much, sir.

Thank you.

Hi, sir. Good morning.

Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, my first question is, copper prices has grown 13% 30% year-on-year.

Will this affect all the magnetic winding wire manufacturers, and do we see a delay in order finalization due to this?

No. Like we explained, our business model, copper is a complete pass-through for us, and once we receive an order, we book the copper, and with our supplier, and then the copper LME price and the exchange is a pass-through, and we focus on the value addition.

When it comes to standard winding wire, I think, especially people who are doing more the B2C business, we are a B2B company, there you might expect people to have some exposure to the copper price, and you cannot really have a complete pass-through on that basis because there is some stock that is there at every point as well. In terms of demand, if you look at transformers, we are talking about power transformers.

These are all typically long-lead items. We don't see copper prices really affecting the power transformer segments.

Even in some of the other segments, we don't see that happening. It could be maybe in some of the small motors, people would think about like fans, etc., they would think about switching from copper to aluminum as a alternative, and we manufacture aluminum as well in our manufacturing.

That's something that needs to be seen how it will be.

Sir. Got it.

Sir, can you provide current inventory levels and net working days?

Current net working days on a overall basis is, like we mentioned, around 75 to 80 days on a closing balance basis. Inventory days are a little higher in that 75 days, which occupies almost 40 to 45 days is on account of inventory.

Sir. Sir, adding to the question of some other analyst, as you said that China is at 34% and India will come around 20% to 25%, if India comes at 24% on a landed basis, how do we compare in terms of prices with China?

If you can explain on that.

When we look at the Chinese manufacturers of the similar kind of products, US is not a market for the Chinese. In fact, Chinese manufacturers so far, at least we have not seen them, although it was at one point in the past quite a significant market for the Chinese manufacturers, but I think US has taken the view that they would look at other countries to procure from.

We are not finding them prevalent in the US market. You wanted to add something?

No, just generally on vis-a-vis the Chinese manufacturers, in any territory where you look at a level playing field in terms of duties, we are cost-competitive with them in those markets, and Japan would be an example of one such market,

yeah. Sir.

Sir, you mentioned that you do aluminum as well. What percentage of pure is aluminum?

Less than 1%, yeah.

Sir. Got it.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for taking my question.

Sir, my first question was on our current realizations. It seems like at the current top-line level and the volume numbers which you have reported, our current realization of copper was around ₹1,100 per kg.

Is that a right number for 3Q?

If you just take the top line and divide by the tonnage that we've given, the number should be close to what you're saying.

Understood. The prevalent market prices currently in 3Q, looking at some of the other companies as well as their public disclosures, it was around 1,300, 1,350.

Just wanted to understand this reasons of this gap because some of the leaders actually in this space have reported, and that is a public data which is 3Q numbers are somewhere near 1,300.

Go ahead, answer. How our business works is that when a customer places an order, it could be on an unknown LME of the day's CSP, it could be the month's CSP, or it could be like a 15-day moving average.

If you take all of this orders, it's very difficult to just say and this, from time to time, we'll keep getting these orders. If you take that average, what you're saying is that if others are at 1,350, why are we at 1,100, isn't that right?

Their public disclosures have been in 1,300, although their numbers cannot be tallied because they do not really report the quantity number which we report.

Correct, right. In our case, it's very difficult to correlate to some other company because he could be maybe only working on an average model or maybe his orders could be only coming on maybe a week's average.

That really, and again, whether it's a complete pass-through for them, I am not very sure, but in our case, it's anyways a complete pass-through for us.

Understood. From what I'm getting is there can be a lag between actual copper prices which are prevalent in the market and our realizations per ton, and it can be almost 1.5 to 2 months lag.

For us, you're saying?

For us versus the current copper prices, let's say per ton, per kg prices of realizations of copper.

Lag in the sense, see, once we get an order, we normally take about 15 to 20 days to manufacture the material on a make-to-order basis and supply. Then even for that 20 days, we don't have any exposure on the copper price.

That's why we say that copper is a complete pass-through from the date of ordering itself till the time we manufacture it and dispatch it, the invoice would carry the same copper price. I'm not sure when you say lag, what exactly you mean by lag.

I think I got my answer. I understood what you're saying.

I'll just move on to my next question. My next question was around our HVDC orders, which are currently we are executing roughly 37 orders.

Also we are into PEEK winding wire, which are used in EVs. I just wanted to understand on a two to three-year basis, how large can this new-age business become for us as a percentage of overall top line, and maybe some understanding on cadence of that coming on to our EBITDA per ton level from here, how higher we can go in terms of EBITDA per ton also.

When we look at HVDC, now of course there's the Khavda-Bhadla project which is there, that is already out, and there are still some more orders in that that still need to be finalized. Apart from that, there is a GE order which they have recently got, then there are some repair orders which some of the other transformer manufacturers have got also.

All of this is an addressable market for KSH, because there is a localization content that is required also, and we have the frets for supplying to these transformers. In terms of quantifying, I'm not able to really give you an exact number right now in terms of quantity, but we can work on that side of it in terms of quantity, and yeah, you wanted to say something?

No, I was just going to add that in terms of the new businesses, for us, HVDC is part of the existing business, and that falls under T&D, but if you would have followed what we've been saying, the two new verticals, if you call it, where we are diversifying is also in the EV market as well as on the compressors, which falls under round wires. I think over time, T&D will still remain the largest contributor.

The EVs will grow, but right now all these projects are in programs, the volumes will still take another 12 to 18 months before they are reflected, particularly on the four-wheeler side. On the two-wheeler side, we are already doing volume today.

It's a little bit premature for us to figure out what percentage contribution it can be at this point, but we expect both the compressors and the EVs to increase from low single digits today to meaningful contributors to the group.

Understood. Got it.

Sir, another question was on SUPA facility. Can you just confirm, I think you called out earlier in the introduction section where you said that we have reached 50% capacity utilization in SUPA?

Yes, we have.

5-0, 50, right?

5-0, yeah, 5-0.

If I just do the math, in 3Q, we have reported roughly 7,400 the volumes which we have, 7,400 metric tons, versus in 2Q we had 7,037, that number was that. Around 400 metric ton was increased in 3Q versus 2Q.

This entire 400 is driven due to SUPA?

Yes, it is driven, but yeah, correct, it is from SUPA 400 extra.

Then if I look at the monthly capacity of SUPA, which we have installed, is around 1,200. So 400 divided by 1,200 is actually 33% only, right, capacity utilization?

Good observation. What has happened is, till Q2 our existing facilities were operating at much higher capacity utilization at around 95%, 96%, and we have earlier also called out that percentage utilization is very high and it's not sustainable.

As Q3 SUPA facility kicked off, what happened is we rationalized the capacity utilization at the other plant, and the SUPA facility got ramped up. Where the additional tonnage what you observed directly is 400 metric tons, the remaining tonnage of 50% of SUPA that got added from SUPA, the utilization for the other plant rationalized to almost 80% to 85%.

Understood. From other plants, the production might have rationalized and the incremental one is coming from SUPA.

That's correct.

Understood. Sir, if I may, my last question on working capital, I think in last concall also we mentioned that we'll be making steps to reduce it.

What actively are we doing to reduce our working capital days, because some of our peers have meaningfully low working capital days? All goes back to higher requirement of working capital debt.

It's also goes back to the interest cost which we pay. On, let's say, a one-year or two-year forward basis, what are the strategies we are currently kind of deploying to reduce these working capital days?

A couple of things that we are actively going to do. One is our payable days are at low 5 days as compared to the peers are much higher, we'll be consciously purchasing copper on credit from suppliers as against advance payment from the bank.

Now that we expect the payable days to go up successively over the next quarters. For Q3, actually it has gone up by almost 4 to 5 days.

Second thing is the inventory levels. Inventory levels, typically in the T&D sector, what happens is the order sizes are pretty high, some 20 tons, 25 tons, as compared to the standard winding wires.

When the order sizes are high, what happens is unless you don't manufacture the last ton, you cannot dispatch the entire order to the customer. That's why the inventory levels tend to be higher, but we are closely monitoring the inventory levels going forward to ensure that the inventory levels remain within sustainable levels as compared to the peers.

You're saying that, especially on payable days, you'll be able to match some of the other peers, like maybe company like Precision have that number close to around 50, 60 days. Is that possible or is that a long shot?

That is possible.

As our production volume goes up, then we are able to get better terms from the suppliers also, and we are definitely going to move towards that.

Kushal, again, just to reiterate, this is not an overnight thing. This is cumulatively quarter-over-quarter-over-quarter.

I think in terms of production level, we'll be near to, let's say you've already called out we are the second largest, and the second-largest player, which is Ram Ratna, is already near those numbers, I would assume that exercise will start now and maybe come incrementally from here. Maybe if we take a two-year view, that can eventually be a goal in two years, right?

Yeah. Definitely.

Great. Thank you so much for answering all the questions.

Thanks.

Thank you, yeah.

Good morning, sir. See, my question is on CTC, sir.

Am I audible?

Yes, you are audible.

I believe that we are the only manufacturer of that in India. What is the EBITDA level there, and how you are going to scale the production of CTC?

No, we did not say we are the only ones. We are one of the manufacturers, but we are the largest manufacturer for CTC in India, and there are other players as well who manufacture CTC.

In terms of EBITDA per ton, we don't really report on a product-wise basis. We are on a cumulative basis, as we mentioned, we are at about 65 to ₹66,000 metric ₹66,000 per metric ton as of this quarter.

Just again to a couple of points. One is CTC falls under specialized winding wires.

That would obviously be higher than the consolidated average of the group of 66. Secondly, CTC, we are one of several players approved.

I think where you might have got mistaken of us being the only certified supplier is for HVDC.

For HVDC, we are the only ones for supplying.

HVDC, you are the only one. Right.

The specialized winding wires, that's about 75% of our total revenues, and standard is about 25%.

Yeah. Sir, can you guide the EBITDA per ton next year, if you can?

I think the commentary we have given, Sudhir, is that we've had sharp increases over the years, but we are comfortable that at this levels, we will be able to sustain, we're not looking to grow the EBITDA per ton explicitly from here higher, although some of that may come naturally as the business mix continues to shift towards higher-value-added products, whether it's more CTC, more HVDC, more PEEK wires. I think in terms of where we are on a consolidated basis, we feel the 65, 66, 67,000 number is a sustainable number for us.

My last question is, what is the market size of the HVDC CTC product for HVDC, which you are making and you are the only player, as all this transmission people are moving to HVDC, can you estimate the market size, what could be next couple of years?

No, we don't have that information available, I think at that granular a level. I think slightly more broader information is there in the CARE industry report that was part of our DRHP.

I can refer you to that, but HVDC specifically is harder to quantify.

Okay. Thank you, sir, for the opportunity and all the best.

Thank you.

Hi, sir. Just a one follow-up question.

Sir, we are operating around 68% utilization and we have still reported a ₹66,000 of EBITDA per ton. When we go to 85% plus next year, ideally this number should go up, right?

85% utilization, you're saying?

Yes. Next year it will be maybe 80%, 85% utilization.

The operating leverage should play in, and this number should logically go up.

We are basically saying that it will be between 65 to ₹66,000 is a sustainable number, and we would really focus on the volume, and some operating leverage, of course, we are getting, but we are also taking that into account. Unless like what Dhruv said, if the product mix changes, which is kind of very difficult to immediately predict in terms of it's skewed towards HVDC transformer orders which is the highest value-added product, it's kind of difficult for us to really give a guidance right now anything more than this right now.

Mahesh, if I can just add, I think it's prudent to look at it as a sustainable level for an additional reason in that we are also actively growing and consciously growing the standard wire products that we have which are at lower volume. Though specialized is significantly higher, three-to-one more profitable, we have to strike a balance.

I think between both of those factors, growth in overall special and overall standard will keep it in this range, and then of course, as we said, you get some additional operating leverage from fixed cost absorption or the mix shift goes towards PEEK wires or HVDC, then we will get some further positive inclinations. No,

I was saying this that when any manufacturing company even crosses 80% utilization, its profitability improves disproportionately. From that angle, I was asking this question, sir.

What

your observation is correct, but we have, some Phase 2 of SUPA that is still to be capitalized, which is going to happen largely in '26, '27. Now like we had mentioned earlier also, when the new capacity comes, there's some additional fixed cost also that, flows to the P&L in the initial years when the new capacities come.

Having that also in mind, we are saying that 65, 66,000 levels are sustainable, even at when the new capacity capitalization is is going to happen at in the next year.

Just one final point, Mahesh, is you are 100% correct in absolute terms profitability will increase, EBITDA will grow. We are talking more specifically on EBITDA per ton on a unit economic basis.

Sure. Thank you.

Thank you so much, sir.

Thank you for the opportunity, sir. Sir, a couple of questions from my side.

One is on the debt levels. What are the current gross and net debt levels, and what was the interest expense for the quarter towards the working capital loans that we had?

Gross level as December '25 was ₹330 crore the total debt, which includes long-term as well as short-term. Now there are some amount of cash that was generated from the IPO proceeds which were parked in deposits as our utilization certificate is showing.

Because those funds would eventually get utilized for capex and other purposes which is highlighted in the IPO, we are not considering that while calculating the debt-equity ratio. The net debt, if you reduce that, is ₹136 crores.

₹136 is post using IPO, right?

Which is not... Yeah, ₹136 crore is after reducing the funds parked in FD from the IPO.

I would urge you to consider ₹330 crore as the gross debt level, because that funds in FD will eventually get utilized for the IPO purposes.

What would be the cost of debt for this 330-odd crores? So

₹330 crore includes, say, ₹20 crores long-term debt, and short-term is around ₹310 crore. Various products within working capital range from as low as 6% to 9%.

There are various working capital products that we use. Long-term debt is again around 8% plus or minus.

Basically in this quarter, what was the interest expense towards working capital loans? If you can help us understand that number, will that be possible?

We'll get back to you. We'd have to pull out.

No worries. My second question is around that there was an announcement that now Chinese peers will also be allowed to bid in government tenders.

How are we likely to be affected with that announcement, whether it would be more towards the negative side or a positive side, if you can explain or help us understand the impact of that announcement to us?

This is Rajesh, and although there is a lot of media chatter about this announcement, but we've not really seen an official announcement come from the ministry. Also I think what has happened is that there was one company which was TBEA, which is a Chinese transformer manufacturer, who was not allowed to manufacture transformers in the past or bid for government tenders, but now I believe that they have been allowed to supply transformers and bid for government tenders.

All these companies are our customers, eventually I think from a order perspective, TBEA is a customer for us. Then what's happening in the media is they're probably talking about boiler, turbine, etc.

These are other balancing equipment that is required, because in transformers, from what I know is it was pretty clear that if you have to supply a power transformer to the utilities in India, you have to have a manufacturing setup here so that you can service the transformers, and there should be a local content as well. This I don't think that the government is still diluting, but although there's a lot of news in the media, we have yet to see something like this happen.

Nothing

from a sort of perspective that we may see an incremental competition coming in, especially for CTC products, which may come in because of this announcement. There is no concern of that sort.

No,

CTC can still come in from China, and there is some CTC coming in from China, but then ultimately, they're not as cost-competitive as the Indian manufacturers, because there is a significant duty element on that as well, and which is on the copper price as well. Today if it is coming, it is also because there is a demand-supply mismatch in India, but I think now that we are geared up in terms of volumes, that supply mismatch should get addressed as well.

Last bit from my side is whether the margins from, say, EV or a compressor-related products would be in line with the blended EBITDA per ton that we see or that would be a little lower than those blended EBITDA per ton?

In the EV side, when you look at two-wheelers or if you look at compressors, wires that are used for compressors, they would be still low margin, but high volume, and it's not really comparable to let's say something that goes into the power transformer or HVDC transformer. If you look at the EV side of it, as you move towards the wires that are used for four-wheeler applications or any four-wheeler applications, including let's say the PEEK-coated wire, which is going to be used for the 800-volt traction motor architecture, that's where you'd see a higher value addition and a higher margin because of the complexity.

As the complexity of the manufacturing process increases, and the end application also becomes more complex, that's when you have a higher margin profile.

Okay. Apart from that, what is the contribution right now that is coming from HVDC-related products, if you can have any share on that side?

In the grand scheme of things, for us it's very small and negligible. That's what we've mentioned, because 37 transformers doesn't really translate to a very large volume.

We are excited about the fact that it's the highest value-added product within our portfolio of products that we supply. In future, as more and more HVDC transformers are going to come because of the renewable push that is there, and this is globally happening where HVDC is going to really go up substantially, then we see that since you're in a high-value-added segment, then at that time, if you see more orders flowing, then we would see it making a meaningful impact on our bottom line as well.

Sure. Thank you very much and all the very best.

Thank you.

my questions have been answered.

Hello?

My questions have been answered. Thank you.

Yeah. Next.

Thanks for the opportunity, sir. My question is regarding HVDC only.

Are we the only supplier in India for HVDC CTC? Recently GE and TBEA have won one order for HVDC.

Are we expecting incremental order inflow for the HVDC segment?

Right now we're the only Indian manufacturer supplying CTC for the HVDC projects in India. Which means obviously, unless GE is going to export, then maybe they might look at importing some.

If they're supplying to anything that goes into the transmission grid, then we are PGCIL-certified for HVDC.

Got it. Sir, my second question is around the interest cost.

If I look at our EBITDA per ton, although it remains same, but our working capital requirement due to higher copper prices will increase. Eventually our PAT growth will be lesser than our EBITDA growth due to the higher interest cost.

Is my understanding correct? Or do you expect the interest cost to move in the same line?

Because although our margins will be impacted due to higher copper prices, but our working capital requirement will stretch. Eventually our interest cost will be impacted due to the higher copper prices.

That actually a couple of things to consider as far as the impact on PAT is concerned. Yes, you're correct when you say that when higher copper prices requires us to have higher working capital cost and the interest on working capital may be higher.

Having said that, there are the one-time cost that we called out in the earlier meeting, which is not going to be there going forward. That's almost ₹1.6 crore on the labor cost and interest on SUPA of almost ₹3 crores.

The PAT impact because of interest cost will definitely be there, but it will not offset the other savings that we are going to have from either the one-time cost or the increase in quantities that we going to have in, say, Q4.

Again to add to that and reiterate a point earlier that we are working towards reducing this payables, so that will also play some role.

Okay. Thank you, sir.

That's all from my side. Best of luck.

Thank you, everyone, and thanks for spending the time to hear us. Thank you very much.