Varroc Engineering Limited

Varroc Engineering Limited

761.65
INR
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13.08EPS
49.60P/E
97.71BMarket Cap
Nov 18Next Earn

Q3 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptFebruary 5, 2026

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Varroc Engineering Limited Q3 FY '26 earnings conference call hosted by Equirus Securities Private Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes.

Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded.

I now hand the conference over to Mr. Mihir Vora from Equirus Securities Private Limited.

Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Mihir Vora

Thank you, Palak. Good evening everyone.

We are pleased to invite you to the Q3 FY '26 post-result conference call of Varroc Engineering Limited. The management team will be represented by Mr.

Tarang Jain, Chairman and Managing Director; Mr. Arjun Jain, Whole-Time Director and CEO, Business Unit 1; Mr.

Dhruv Jain, Whole-Time Director and CEO, Business Unit 2; Mr. Mahendra Kumar, Group CFO; Mr.

Bikash Dugar, Head IR and Finance Controller, Business Unit 2; and Mr. Vishal Dhawan, Head Financial Controller, Business Unit 1.

Without further ado, I will now hand over the call to Bikash for the disclaimer. Bikash, over to you.

Bikash Dugar

Thank you, Mihir. Thank you, Equirus team, for hosting the call.

Just a small disclaimer before I request our Chairman to give his opening remarks. The disclaimer is that the call today may include statements which may constitute forward-looking statements.

All statements that address expectations or projections about the future, including, but not limited to, statements about the strategy for growth, business development, market position, expenditure, and financial results, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions and expectations of future events and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors.

The actual results, performance, or achievements could thus differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. With that disclaimer, I'm handing over the call to our Chairman.

Tarang Jain

Thank you, Bikash. Good evening to everyone.

I'm Tarang Jain here. Let me start by stating that India has delivered a robust 8.2% GDP growth in July to September '25 period, the highest in six quarters, driven by strong performance in manufacturing, services, and construction, despite global uncertainties and tariff-related pressures.

The GST cut introduced during the festival season gave a significant boost to consumption and enabled strong growth for the manufacturing sector also. The inflation in India continues to moderate, which augurs well for the growth as the central bank can further support growth by easing the monetary policy.

The recent free-trade agreements with the European Union and reductions in reciprocal tariffs with the US shows that the world is recognizing the importance of India both as a market and as a reliable supply chain partner also. The automotive industry is also preparing to deal with these uncertainties and geopolitical challenges.

In these uncertain times, it becomes very important for the company to find ways to manage this uncertainty and grow simultaneously during this period. As evident from the recent stock exchange disclosures we made recently about our VRS program and some of the large order wins from reputed global OEMs, our company is taking some tough decisions to make the cost structure more robust and also focusing on winning large businesses in India and abroad for its future growth.

Coming to the performance in this quarter, let's first understand the industry performance in India. In terms of automotive production in India during Q3 of FY '26, all segments of the automotive showed strong growth on a year-on-year basis, supported by a strong economic growth and GST reduction.

On a year-on-year basis, two-wheelers grew by 15%, three-wheelers grew by 34.7%, passenger vehicles grew by 19.1%, and commercial vehicles grew by 17.5%. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, two-wheelers degrew by 1.7%, three-wheelers degrew by 4.6%, passenger vehicles grew by 5.4%, and only commercial vehicles grew by 9.7%.

Sequentially, that is quarter-on-quarter, the growth was not as strong as the year-on-year due to seasonality effect as generally quarter three is sluggish in comparison to quarter two due to the model year change. In the first nine months of financial year '26 also, we saw similar positive trend across all the segments.

On a year-on-year basis, nine months of financial year '26, two-wheelers grew by 8.8%, three-wheelers grew by 21.1%, passenger vehicles grew by 9.8%, and commercial vehicles grew by 10.4%. Coming to the operational performance during Q3 FY '26, the company registered a consolidated revenue of Rs 22.9 billion with a growth of 10.2% year-on-year, with the India operations growing at 12.3%.

Our EBITDA for the quarter was around 9.3% as compared to 9.2% on a year-on-year basis. Our PBT before JV profits was 4.4% of revenue in quarter three of FY '26 as against 3.2% in quarter three of FY '25.

The revenue from supplying to EV vehicles in this quarter was at 14.3% of the revenues, and which grew by 50% on a year-on-year basis. We had some exceptional items in this quarter.

The first one is a launch of a Voluntary Separation Scheme in which more than 400 employees opted for the benefits of the scheme, and this resulted in a separation cost of Rs 799 million. We continue to explore such restructuring operations in the near future, which will make the company more and more robust in the medium term and the long term.

The second exceptional item pertains to change in a definition of the wage as per the new labour code, as a result of which we had to recognize an estimated incremental expense of Rs 225 million towards reassessment of gratuity and leave encashment costs. However, I'd like to bring to your attention to the point that the India EBITDA and PBT were strong at 11.9% and 7.6%, respectively, and grew both on a year-on-year basis as well as sequentially.

As explained earlier, the overseas electronics, lighting, and the forging business continues to face challenges due to customer concentration and the macro environment. However, we are winning significant orders for the overseas electronics and lighting businesses already, and a turnaround is expected to be visible from H2 of financial year '27.

The net debt of the company in the nine months of financial year '26 is Rs 4,405 million. This has increased for the first time after many quarters due to the one-time cash outflow pertaining to our VSS.

The net debt to equity is very comfortable at 0.26. With significant growth-enabling investments planned in the coming quarters on back of strong order wins, the net debt and interest cost may only see modest improvement in the coming quarters.

In nine months of financial year '26, we achieved net new business wins with an annualized peak revenues of Rs 20,636 million. Notable business wins among these in the last quarter are: the high-voltage electronics business for a range of high-performance e-powertrain components for a Romanian plant from a global EV player; the four-wheeler lighting, headlamps and small lamps business for a Thailand plant from a global EV player; and the four-wheeler lighting business for our India operations from an incumbent OEM for its upcoming EV vehicle.

All this business wins helps us to fill the existing capacity and sweat our assets even more. In this quarter, we also had some business wins from the non-automotive segment.

As emphasized earlier, in this volatile new normal environment, we continue to strengthen our company for a long-term growth and performance by taking appropriate decisions and meticulously executing them. With this, I will now ask MK, our Group CFO, to walk you through the presentation and give more insights into the financial performance in Q3.

We've uploaded the investor presentation to the stock exchanges as well as on the website.

K. Mahendra Kumar

Thank you, Tarang. Good evening, everybody.

I will take you to slide number 7, which is about the highlights of Q3. As our CMD explained, the revenue was Rs 2,288 crores with a 10.2% growth.

Within that, India operations registered significant growth of 12.3% year-over-year. The interesting point here is within this, the EV models, the revenue from EV models in Q3 was at 14.3%.

As some of you may recollect, it was in the range of 10% to 11% earlier. This is actually amounts to a growth of 53% year-over-year within Q3.

If you take nine months together, revenue from EV models was at 12.1% and there was a growth of 38% year-over-year. Coming to PBT, it was at 4.4% compared to 3.2% last year in the same period of Q3.

EBITDA was 9.3% versus 9.2%. Another significant highlight is the highest-ever new order wins in this nine months, which has the annual peak revenue potential of more than Rs 2,000 crores, is the highest-ever order win for us.

Another important point here is 74% of this relates to EV models. Net debt increased this quarter to Rs 441 crores.

As you may recollect, in the last three years we have been steadily reducing the net debt quarter-on-quarter, but this time, because of the VRS spending of close to Rs 80 crores, there was an increase in net debt. This particular initiative, as our CMD explained, is going to strengthen our cost structure further, and this will give us a payback within four years.

Coming to patents, in the nine months, we filed close to 15 patents taking the tally to 130-plus. Within the order wins, we also have these three significant order wins which we also announced to stock exchanges earlier.

There's one HV, high-voltage PCBA order which is going to be met by our Romanian entity for a global EV OEM. We also have order wins in four-wheeler lighting.

One is from a global EV OEM which will be met from our Thailand entity, and another one is in India. The next slide is about the industry trends.

Our CMD already explained these numbers in detail. There was this significant growth in Q3 largely helped by the GST reduction plus the elimination of that rare earth constraint which we had in Q2.

That also helped us help helped the industry across different segments to show the significant growth. Moving to the next slide, which is about the consolidated financials of Q3.

As I mentioned, 9.3% was the EBITDA. In terms of PBT, you really see it's about Rs 101 crores compared to Rs 66 crores of last year, which is more than 50% growth.

PBT went up by almost 53%, to be precise. The exceptional items had two parts.

One is the new labour code impact, which most of the companies are picking up this quarter. That was about close to Rs 23 crores.

We also had VRS impact of Rs 80 crores, as I explained in the previous slides. The PBT growth was largely enabled by significant PBT growth was also enabled by the interest cost reduction over a period of time, and also strict capital controls, which enabled us to control the depreciation charge also.

Coming to the nine-month numbers in the next slide, close to 8% growth in the top line, EBITDA at 9.3%, and PBT at 4.2%. Here again, about more than 30% growth, 33% growth was there in the PBT in absolute terms.

In the next slide, we are continuing this trend which we started last time of showing the split between India business and overseas businesses. As we can see, the India business growth was pretty strong: top line growth of 12%, but EBITDA growth was 30% and PBT growth was more than 80%.

The overseas businesses, of course, they have the challenges, but we explained it in the previous meetings also. This will now be a temporary phenomenon with the strong order wins which we got in the recent times.

This picture should look significantly different next year and in following years. The third bar denotes the invest spend or the spending which we are doing in the R&D activity.

In the next slide, we have the net debt trend. As I mentioned, we have been reducing net debt significantly in the last many quarters.

This time, we see this as a temporary blur, temporary phenomenon. Before end of the year also, we may not see a significant change in the net debt level.

It will more or less continue at this rate because we are also planning for some land purchase in Q4. Part of that may come this year and part of may come to may spill over to next year.

Our effort will be to move to a zero debt status by end of next year. Next slide, we have the revenue breakdown, more or less similar to what we have been showing earlier.

The two- and three-wheelers now add up to 76%. Customer segmentation, if you really see, Bajaj adds up to 46%.

Within India, 89% versus 11% outside. In the next slide, we have given the details about the order wins.

As you can see, the annual peak revenue potential of new orders which we have taken in the last nine months adds up to more than Rs 2,000 crores. Of this, nearly about Rs 982 crores will move to SOP this year.

In terms of the split, if you really see the two-wheeler and three-wheeler, that's about 34%. For here, it is the other way: four-wheelers and others add up to more than 66%.

EV orders also add up to 75%, which actually indicates the strength of our EV product portfolio. Let me stop here.

The subsequent slides are more about the product information and other generic details. Thank you.

We are happy to take your questions.

Operator

Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session.

Anyone who wishes to ask a question may please press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two.

Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles.

The first question is from the line of Preet from InCred AMC. Please go ahead.

Preet Pitani

Hello. Thank you for the opportunity.

My first question would be on line of the revenue growth of the India business. It was around 12%.

We have seen that industry-wide revenue growth was some what in the range of 15% to 20%. What led to the underperformance in respect to industry?

Arjun Jain

I would say there's a couple of different topics. I think if you think about our portfolio from the perspective of ICE and EV, yes, I think on ICE, I think driven by a customer mix, driven also by some significant models undergoing changeovers, we had a muted impact on growth over there.

However, if you look at our EV performance, we have grown by almost 53%. I would say it's a combination of weaker performance on ICE versus EV for us, and also I would say driven really by mix and model changeovers.

Preet Pitani

Thank you, sir. That was helpful.

Second question on the line of the new order win which we have got, when do we expect our overseas business to be breakeven?

K. Mahendra Kumar

I think in some of the markets, like electronics in Romania, we may reach cash breakeven by next year. Full PBT-level breakeven may happen in the following year.

Preet Pitani

Thank you, sir. I'll join back in the queue.

Operator

Thank you, sir. The next question is from the line of Ankur Poddar from Swan Investments.

Please go ahead.

Ankur Poddar

Hi, sir. My first question is regarding the VRS cost which you have taken of Rs 80 crores, one-time expense in this quarter.

In the presentation, it's mentioned that the payback period for this is four years. Is it safe to assume that this leads to annual saving of around Rs 20 crores in the employee cost for you?

K. Mahendra Kumar

That's right. Could be a little more than that, but, yeah, that's a safe number to go with.

Ankur Poddar

All right. Thank you.

My next question is about our gross margin which have declined during this quarter. Is it due to increase in RM prices?

If so, will we be able to pass them on with a lag, or what's the lag with which we can pass it on?

K. Mahendra Kumar

No, it's not because of the raw material changes.

Arjun Jain

I would say on the raw material, there's definitely a level of topic with respect to certain commodities and also forex, but those are largely passed through, and I would say majority is also passed through.

K. Mahendra Kumar

It's largely driven by this mix changes, product mix as well as market mix.

Ankur Poddar

All right. Understood.

My last question is about our debt level. Our net debt has increased, which you have explained.

Can you give me the gross debt level currently as at the end of December 2025, and also what do we see as our total interest expense for the entire year, which for nine months is close to Rs 100 crores, and where do we see this going in FY '27?

K. Mahendra Kumar

Gross debt, you can add another Rs 300 crores to it, which is what we keep in cash. About Rs 750 crores was the gross debt.

In terms of the interest cost, yeah, like what I mentioned, there won't be a significant reduction between now and end of the year. It will more or less be in this range.

Based on this, you can compute for rest of the period. Next year, by next year-end, we should come close to the zero debt level, there should be a gradual reduction, maybe largely happening more between Q2 to Q4, because Q1 also we may have some land purchase.

Part of the consideration for land purchase and all may go during Q1 of next year. We will again start seeing some good reduction in net debt starting from Q2 of next year to Q4.

Ankur Poddar

All right. Understood.

Thank you. That's all from my side.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and one now.

Participants who wish to ask questions may please press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Ronak Jain from Equirus Securities.

Please go ahead.

Ronak Jain

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. My first question is, the growth was very strong in the e-mobility and HMI division.

What has driven this growth, and how much of this growth was due to non-Bajaj customers, how is the traction with non-Bajaj customers currently?

Arjun Jain

Yes, I would say, sorry, what was the first part of the question?

Ronak Jain

How much of the EV growth was

Arjun Jain

No, that was the second part. What was the first part?

HMI and EV.

K. Mahendra Kumar

E-mobility.

Arjun Jain

I would say one big driver for the growth, in particular in e-mobility, is the fact that the crisis around rare earth magnets has been solved for. There's definitely a level of backlog also that was covered up through this quarter, so that has been one big driver of growth for e-mobility.

Further, from the standpoint of Bajaj versus non-Bajaj customers, there is growth in both, right? There is growth in both of these segments.

Ronak Jain

Okay. During the quarter also, both non-Bajaj customers and Bajaj customers contributed to the growth.

Arjun Jain

Sorry, I have a clarification. Do you mean the e-mobility segment we report or are you talking about sales into EV models?

Ronak Jain

E-mobility. E-mobility segment that you report.

Arjun Jain

E-mobility segment is driven today purely by Bajaj.

Ronak Jain

That is purely Bajaj. Are you getting any traction from non-Bajaj customers?

Are you in discussions with non-Bajaj customers?

Arjun Jain

We have business wins, one of which we should be SOPing sometime soon. We also have further formal engagements with other customers as well.

I think our strength really is the ability to ramp from business win to SOP very quickly. We feel confident that we will see through FY '27 further customer additions and revenue.

Ronak Jain

Got it. My second question was, lighting was a drag during the quarter, was it mainly due to the overseas subsidiaries, overseas business?

Arjun Jain

Yes.

Ronak Jain

Okay. Any colour on the new orders, both in the domestic and export segment on the lighting side, new orders?

Arjun Jain

I think as you would have seen in our presentation also, I think two of our biggest business wins are actually in the lighting space: one in India, one abroad. I would say our order pipeline on lighting is extremely healthy and

Tarang Jain

Four-wheeler lighting.

Arjun Jain

Passenger car lighting, two-wheeler lighting, both is extremely healthy, and from an India perspective, lighting has grown fairly strongly for us.

Ronak Jain

Okay. You mentioned in the PPT that one of the orders for lighting is from the Thailand facility.

By when do you expect the Thailand capacity to ramp up to optimal levels?

Tarang Jain

I would say that definitely in 2027. I'll say in 2027 is when the revenue will increase for this location.

Ronak Jain

From 2027?

Tarang Jain

Yes.

Ronak Jain

Okay. Thank you so much.

That's it from my side. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and one now.

Participants who wish to ask questions may please press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Aditya Jhawar from Investec.

Please go ahead.

Aditya Jhawar

Thank you for the opportunity. Congrats on good set of numbers and good order wins, especially in the overseas business.

My first question is, the VRS, the quantum seems to be relatively bigger in terms of the number of employees, almost about 5% of our workforce. Do you expect any impact on revenue in the near term, and these employees were part of which business division if you can throw some light?

Arjun Jain

Hi. The VRS is already fully executed now.

We have been living in the new reality for approximately a month and a half. We have not seen any impact.

Of course, that is really driven by the fact that, touch wood, we have been able to transition the workforce quite effectively. Secondly, I would say a bulk of 95% of the headcount here really comes from our ICE powertrain product group.

Tarang Jain

No, and let me add, Aditya, that we are not doing this from the point of view of any business going down. Nowhere has our business gone down.

It is just that it's an initiative from our side to make better our cost structure going forward. Because a lot of these plants are our older plants.

We just wanted to mitigate the cost impact moving forward. We have never done a VSS before in this company, it was for us the first time while a lot of the other companies have done it over the years.

We felt it was probably the right time to take a call in this regard. Just improve the cost structure.

Aditya Jhawar

Okay. That's quite helpful.

Now second question is, in the overseas business when you look at it, of course, a lower base will kick in hopefully in the next couple of quarters, and you will start seeing some of the new orders from Romania will also start coming on stream in '27. If you can split the overseas overall business into the premium two-wheeler lighting, IMES, and the Romania part.

If you can help us understand, Romania clearly, as Dhruv also mentioned, that second half of next year you will see that business flowing into numbers. The current business that we have, whether it is premium two-wheeler lighting, IMES, where are we in terms of the base?

Are we seeing the hurdles, for example, one of the customers had started doing insourcing, the customer was also losing market share. What is the way ahead of the other overseas business other than the Romania business?

Tarang Jain

Yes. No.

I'll just comment on the different overseas locations. When it comes to premium two-wheeler lighting, I think here you're referring to maybe the Vietnam and the Italy locations.

Of course,

K. Mahendra Kumar

there's a DGA here as well. However, there's actually an upcoming launch of a certain program.

We're expecting actually a revenue growth in the coming fiscal year compared to the current fiscal year. However, the big wins are more with respect to and I think what we've also mentioned earlier, is more with respect to our Romanian plant for electronics and the Thailand plant for lighting.

While there are new business wins that are coming into production in each of these locations, of course, the bigger growth is going to be with respect to Romania and Thailand compared with the Vietnam and Italy locations. I'm not referring to IMES here.

I'm only referring to the other locations.

Tarang Jain

On this and also this two-wheeler premium lighting business, we have seen a degrowth last three years, I would say, but now we are looking at a doubling the growth in the next four years. We have some new customers also here in the two-wheeler premium lighting segment starting from the next financial year.

Here also we have won certain significant orders going forward. We're looking at a growth not only in the future in Romania and Thailand, where, of course, the revenues will be in a much bigger way because it's in the four-wheeler segment, but two-wheeler also, we are looking at a good level of growth on the back of new customers and not really relying only on Piaggio over here.

When it comes to, I think, IMES, I think here, we are, of course, looking at the moment of turning around this business from a profit standpoint. That a lot of work is going on.

We've made investments in the past to recondition some machines, replace some machines. We will see some good momentum from a point of view of profitability in the next financial year.

Going forward, in the long term, we will have to find a good solution over here because this is also more a non-auto business where we are not really that focused.

Aditya Jhawar

Understood. Very encouraging to hear.

Clearly, we are talking about a growth rebound in the overseas business and also profitability, excluding the Romanian operations, right, in FY '27?

K. Mahendra Kumar

Romanian operations also should show improvement. It will be more like a cash breakeven next year.

Aditya Jhawar

That's good. Congratulations on the four-wheeler lighting win for a BEV.

I'm sure this would really help in overall our contribution from four-wheeler and EV in next couple of years. That's it from my side.

All the best.

K. Mahendra Kumar

Thank you, Aditya.

Operator

Thank you, sir. The next question is from the line of Sachin Kasera from Svan Investment Managers.

Please go ahead.

Sachin Kasera

Good evening, everyone, and congratulations on a good number, especially in India. I had two, three questions.

One was if you see the India numbers as per the presentation, we seem to have seen some margin improvement there. Can you just comment a bit on that?

One, is it sustainable? Second, was it driven by gross margin or operating efficiencies or both?

K. Mahendra Kumar

It's a combination of both, but mainly if you really see the fixed cost part of it, I think there was a good amount of cost control which we did there. If you really see the year-over-year increase in fixed cost, it was pretty less.

We took some tough decisions Q4 of last year in terms of cutting down some headcount. Plus we also had some strict controls on the other elements of fixed costs.

The operating leverage is getting magnified because of that. That's the main reason.

Sachin Kasera

We should see this more sustainable, there is no one-off in that and the India numbers are more or less something which you can look to be sustained. Yeah.

K. Mahendra Kumar

It should give us flexibility to do maybe 0.2%, 0.3% this way or that way, but, yeah, directionally, yes.

Sachin Kasera

Sure. Secondly, I think there've been a couple of questions and you clarified on the overseas operations, but just to again get a more clarity, I believe your presentation mentions that there are two parts which are dragging the profitability.

If I see, you reported Rs 160 crores of PBT in India, and around Rs 35 crores is the negative delta from overseas operations and some Rs 27, Rs 28 crores from your R&D initiatives for mainly I again believe for your global lighting foray. You mentioned that Romania will start to breakeven, or do you mention about the entire overseas market breaking even in second half of next year?

K. Mahendra Kumar

I mentioned Romania for cash breakeven next year. See within this overseas businesses, the two-wheeler business is already making profits, it's not incurring losses.

Then the remaining part is IMES. IMES, as our CMD explained, we are taking some actions.

That should also improve EBITDA significantly next year. For it to turn to profits, it will take some time.

Sachin Kasera

Currently what would be the drag because of Romania in the first nine months or for the quarter, if you could give some sense on that of the losses that we report in overseas operations?

K. Mahendra Kumar

Sorry, come again?

Sachin Kasera

What would be the drag from Romania to the profitability for the quarter, because that's what you said will turn around from next year?

K. Mahendra Kumar

That country-level breakup we generally don't give, but you will anyway see the results coming in the

Tarang Jain

net. Basically, to say that Romania at present, the utilization is very low of the capacity.

You will see that with all the lot of new orders kicking in from the second half, the revenue growth will be significant from the second half, and, of course,

Sachin Kasera

that

Tarang Jain

it will then grow even more in the following year. These are some of the big businesses that we have won actually.

Compared to where we are today, it will be a lot more going forward. Romania will do exponentially.

Two-wheeler lighting is already profitable even at a lower base. That will also see a growth next year because we have new customer over there, a significant new customer.

Where it comes to our Thailand facility, that only will start in the calendar year '27 because that business is in a cycle is 1.5, 2 years after you win a program. That will only start in the calendar year '27, somewhere in the second quarter or something, and then you will start seeing that utilization and numbers coming in the Thailand facility.

A lot of this cost which you see, the R&D and all are actually been incurred in the last one year mostly to win these programs. You need a very strong R&D team.

We've created a very strong engineering team in China also. We already had in Poland and in India people supporting these four-wheeler electronics and lighting.

Now this lighting electronics team in China is for us a game-changer because it's cutting edge. That's what will drive more of business wins also going forward.

Without this investment, we call it as a big investment. It's not a cost for us.

It's a big investment for future exponential growth. That's what we already see the wins coming because of the team in China also playing a very big role here.

Sachin Kasera

Sure. Just to understand this R&D bit, this R&D, what you mentioned in the presentation around Rs 27, Rs 28 crores of negative on the PBT, that will remain, but because of this investment in R&D, we will see improvement in the core EBITDA or the PBT at the India as well as the overseas operations.

Is that the way to look at the combined numbers in the next few quarters?

Tarang Jain

I think it will be more abroad, I would say, which is this thing. I think this engineering team is there, of course, even for part of the India projects on four-wheeler, but mainly it is definitely for lighting and all for India also.

Basically, yes, it will drive a lot of growth abroad also, which today is quite low. Our revenues abroad are quite low.

I think going forward, we are looking at a much bigger level of revenue abroad.

Sachin Kasera

Sure. Just to understand, you mentioned that overseas lighting is already profitable and Romania will see breakeven next year, but despite that, we are seeing overall PBT will still take some time for breakeven.

Does it mean that Thailand and Italy are a larger part, and hence that is the reason why, even next second half next year also overall at the breakeven level it will be bit challenging for us to become breakeven?

Tarang Jain

See, today, the two-wheeler lighting business is already profitable, and that's our main revenue at the moment. Today, we hardly have any revenues from Romania and almost negligible in Thailand.

Basically, all this investment in R&D has led to quite a few big business wins, which will start playing out from the second half of the next financial year for us. Therefore, this business wins and revenues coming out of there will cover a lot of all these R&D costs which we have incurred already.

Dhruv Jain

Maybe I'll just try to clarify something for you. Our two-wheeler lighting plants are the ones that are already profitable.

We also have a new four-wheeler lighting plant in Thailand. This is the one which will ramp up only in calendar year 2027.

Maybe, I don't know if that clarifies that the entity that we said is profitable is more the two-wheeler lighting plants where, of course, Vietnam is one of the bigger drivers of the profitability. The Thailand plant for passenger vehicle lighting is a new plant, so that will only ramp up next year.

Sachin Kasera

Sure. Lastly, on the CapEx, you mentioned about some land being acquired.

Are we looking at a fresh round of greenfield CapEx, and what is the plan for the next two, three years on the land that we're looking to acquire?

K. Mahendra Kumar

I think we explained it in the previous calls also. We plan to invest close to about Rs 150 crores in land.

This for, yeah, of course, greenfield facility in Pune. Entire thing may not come and hit us in Q4 this year.

Part of it may come this year and part of it may spill over to Q1 of next year.

Sachin Kasera

My question was, sir, about over and above the land, because land is basically like the basic infra for the greenfield. My question was more in terms of the CapEx over and above the land in the next two, three years on that parcel.

K. Mahendra Kumar

Next year, let's talk about could be in the range of maybe Rs 300 to Rs 350 crores. Then the outer years, it should moderate to maybe Rs 250 to Rs 300.

It also depends upon the new programs we win. If we win a significant

Sachin Kasera

program

K. Mahendra Kumar

overseas, then we may have to invest temporarily for those programs.

Sachin Kasera

Sure. Thank you very much for answering all the questions, and wish you all the best.

K. Mahendra Kumar

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and one now.

Participants who wish to ask questions may please press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Rahul Kumar from Vaikarya Fund.

Please go ahead. Mr.

Rahul, your line has been unmuted. Please go ahead.

As there is no response, we'll move to the next question. The next question is from the line of Priya Ranjan from HDFC AMC.

Please go ahead.

Priya Ranjan

Hi. Thank you.

Just a couple of clarifications. Tarang, since we have win decent orders and a lot of probably the program is going to start for overseas operation probably in '27, '28, how should we look at in terms of the balance of the business going forward from, say, 88%, 12% to India, overseas?

Do you see substantial change in terms of the mix of the business in next two, three years down the line?

Tarang Jain

No, definitely, you will see a better share coming from our business abroad. Today, I think largely the revenue is all mostly coming from India.

More than 90% is coming from India. Going forward, with all the business wins and all and a focus on select businesses, certain four-wheeler electronics, certain lighting both two-wheeler, four-wheeler lighting, and so we are going to drive a lot of the revenues out of selected plants abroad.

Hereon I'm talking about a forging business. Forging business, we have to look at what to do going forward.

It's a non-core area for us at the moment. We don't know about the growth.

The rest will definitely drive more growth, and you will see that the share of the foreign business will grow as we go along. Not that the India will degrow.

India also we are looking at a good double-digit growth year-on-year, but then it will be augmented by a quite a large growth abroad, where the abroad business, of course, percentage of a total overall goes up to a decent percentage.

Bikash Dugar

Also a negative growth which has been affecting us the last two years will now become a positive growth, so that will also bring in good improvement.

Priya Ranjan

Sure. Just one clarification on this.

The three charts you have shown, India business, overseas, and four-wheeler R&D side, overseas business includes this foreign four-wheeler R&D and all, or it doesn't include the overseas?

Bikash Dugar

The four-wheeler R&D is the last box, third box.

Priya Ranjan

Okay. That is separate.

That is over and above the overseas business losses, right?

Bikash Dugar

Correct.

Priya Ranjan

Got it. Thank you.

All the best.

Bikash Dugar

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and one now.

Participants who wish to ask questions may please press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Harshit from AM Investment.

Please go ahead.

Hello.

Operator

Yes, sir. Please go ahead.

Sir. Based on the order wins in both India and overseas markets, what kind of revenue growth are we projecting going forward, sir?

Tarang Jain

I think we mentioned earlier also. Our target is to grow between 15% to 20%, ahead of the market, at least 4% to 5% ahead of the market.

That direction still remains.

Sir. That's it from my side.

Thank you.

Tarang Jain

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, sir. A reminder to all participants, to ask a question, please press star and one now.

The next question is from the line of Mihir Vora from Equirus Securities Private Limited. Please go ahead.

Mihir Vora

Yeah. Sir, just a clarificatory question.

On a steady-state basis, the R&D expenditure which we are mentioning in the overseas part, the lighting and electronics, what will be that amount in a steady-state basis as such? Because we are seeing that amount increasing right now to around 28-odd crore Rs 25 crores.

Some colour on that part.

Tarang Jain

No, see the overseas R&D investment will more or less be around these levels for the near future. There should not be a significant increase in the overseas R&D spending.

Mihir Vora

Okay. Last second one is on basically, there is a note in your financials where the arbitration case with the OP Mobility is still going on right now, which is roughly around say EUR 66 million.

Sir, what's basically the issue we are facing there, and what do we think about that part, when do we close on that, some colour on that?

Tarang Jain

Yeah. Basically, the dispute has two parts.

One is about the supply agreement which PO terminated abruptly without enough notice and without proper justification. For that, we filed a court case against them, which is going through the process now.

Then this arbitration is something which they initiated, saying that some of the divestment agreement conditions have not been met, and there's some warranty obligations, etc. It's a combination of many issues.

In terms of timeline, if you ask me, it's difficult to put a timeline because these arbitrations go on for two to three years. We will see how to actually manage this the coming quarters.

Mihir Vora

Right. We haven't made any provision for that, right?

Tarang Jain

No, it doesn't need this. Claims itself are getting disputed, there's no question of claim.

Priya Ranjan

We feel that these claims are very unreasonable, and

Tarang Jain

Some of them are frivolous, Tarang Jain (Chairman and Managing Director): Why do we

Arjun Jain

provide for that?

Mihir Vora

Right. Sir.

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, sir. The next question is from the line of Ritik Chopra from Beyond Capital.

Please go ahead.

Ritik Chopra

Hello, sir. You mentioned in your opening remarks that you're going towards non-auto side.

What are we doing over there, and how much CapEx are we putting in, and what is the size of opportunity that you're trying to cater

Arjun Jain

to? I would say from a non-auto perspective, I think our primary interest in the space is also to drive alternate utilization for capacities that we've already built for ICE powertrain, which means primary target applications would be lower-wattage motors.

The business wins that we have so far are also really in these motors and in plastic. In terms of an incremental CapEx commitment, I would expect it to follow similar economics to what we would have if we were driving automotive growth, for example.

Again, I will say, right, I think it's really because the products we pursue in non-auto utilize the same competencies we already have from a design, development, and manufacturing perspective.

Vishal Dhawan

Very close adjacencies.

Ritik Chopra

Okay. Are the margins similar to our auto business?

Vishal Dhawan

It's too early to comment on margins because we're just making a beginning, but, yeah, in the long term, yes, there should be.

Ritik Chopra

How much capacity have we built, and any customer over there, any colour?

Arjun Jain

We've won business, there are customers, and we will SOP in FY '27. Like I said, I think the way we look to mitigate the investment is to redeploy existing capacity.

That is the first choice. Of course, you cannot 100% do that, which will mean there will be a level of delta investment, but the first preference is to deploy existing capacity.

Ritik Chopra

All right. Thank you.

That was helpful.

Operator

Thank you, sir. The next question is from the line of Avnish Tiwari from Vaikarya Change LLP.

Please go ahead.

Avnish Tiwari

Hi. This IMES, the forging business, which is non-core for you, would you be open to exit this via sale or other measures?

Arjun Jain

See, we are not decided anything yet. At present, we are trying to see how to make it profitable with the level of business we have.

Yes, we will be looking at also all other options in regard to this particular business.

Avnish Tiwari

This US and European deals which we are had at the country level, does it create any positive environment for you anyway?

Arjun Jain

Definitely, I think both these deals will definitely encourage auto components exports to Europe. Europe is anyway a very big market for us for quite a few of our products which we export.

I think we can further grow in with various other customers and existing customers here in Europe. North America, we don't have much of a presence today, but then with this new trade deal which has been signed with the lower tariff, I think that we will have a lot of future potential with various customers, and some of them we already know.

We've been discussing with, but because it had to be stalled because of this 50% tariff by the US, but now again, we are going to start those discussions, and I think we will win business also in the US, export business.

Avnish Tiwari

Which products are we going to do?

Arjun Jain

See, largely, I think a lot of these products are the metallic products, including engine valves, which is a very big product for us, a lot of the forged, machined products, which we do already. We see a huge scope of growth more in these products.

Then, of course, we're looking at selective things could be in electronic space, electrical space. We're looking at also some of the other of our product portfolio, but maximum, we see the potential more on the metallic space presently.

Avnish Tiwari

Lastly, this discussion you are having with non-Bajaj EV two-wheeler customers where you are confident that something can fructify in FY '27, will that be a motor, motor controller, or non-EV components to begin with?

Vishal Dhawan

We're talking about EV components only.

Avnish Tiwari

We're

Vishal Dhawan

talking about motor, motor controllers.

Dhruv Jain

Non-EV components we already do with multiple non-Bajaj customers, lighting, seats, switches, displays. When we talk about early FY '27 SOP, we're talking primarily about e-powertrain.

Avnish Tiwari

Right. That's helpful.

Arjun Jain

Yeah. We're already starting an SOP with one of the customers for this e-powertrain from early next year and also in discussions with others, and we are very close to winning an e-powertrain business also with one more premier customer going forward.

We are very closely aligned.

Avnish Tiwari

Great.

Arjun Jain

Yeah.

Avnish Tiwari

Thank you. Just to conclude this, say these customers you are talking about, they have a reasonable market share in electric two-wheelers, right?

They're not a smaller guys in the electric two-wheeler space.

Arjun Jain

One of them is actually a newer player, but got a strong player. Other one, of course, is a very established player.

Among the new people we are going to be dealing with.

Avnish Tiwari

Sorry, I missed the last sentence. What did you say about second player?

Arjun Jain

No, let me clarify. One is a fundamental incumbent.

The other is a newer player, but is definitely somebody who's in the top seven, eight.

Avnish Tiwari

Okay. Both of these will significantly expand your target addressable electric two-wheeler market effectively for motor, motor controllers?

Arjun Jain

Yes.

Avnish Tiwari

Okay. Great.

Thank you, and wish you the very best.

Arjun Jain

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today.

I would now like to hand the conference over to management for closing comments.

Arjun Jain

No, thank you everyone for all your questions and for joining the call, and also for your continuing support. See you in the next quarter.

Operator

Thank you, sir. On behalf of Equirus Securities Private Limited, that concludes this conference call.

Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.