Thank you, Dhanesh. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining Bansal Wire Industries Limited Q3 FY26 earnings conference call.

We at Anand Rathi are pleased to host the management of Bansal Wire Industries Limited. From the company, we have with us Mr.

Pranav Bansal, Managing Director and CEO, and Mr. Ghanshyam Das Gujrati, CFO.

We would now like to invite the management for the opening remarks, which will then be followed by question and answer session. Thank you and over to you, sir.

Thank you, Parthiv. Good afternoon everyone and welcome to Bansal Wire Q3 earnings call.

We are pleased to report that Q3 has been another strong quarter for Bansal Wire, reflecting better operating execution and sustained demand across core and end markets. During the quarter, we delivered our strongest ever operating performance, supported by robust demand across automotive, infrastructure and general engineering.

For the nine months ended, we have maintained a consistently strong growth trajectory, reflecting the depth of customer engagement and the scalability of our operating platform. Even though it was a challenging first couple of months due to labor shortages on account of early Diwali and Bihar election, but we picked up in December, achieving our highest ever monthly sale of 45,000 tons.

This growth has been effectively supported by our expanded manufacturing base of over six lakh tons, which has enabled us to serve rising customer demand without compromising on delivery timelines, product quality and service levels. More importantly, this capacity is no longer just driving volume growth; it is increasingly helping us upgrade our product mix towards higher-value segments.

During Q3, we made a significant strategic move by strengthening our specialty wires added portfolio. We have successfully launched induction hardened and tempered IHT wires by adding 9,000 tons of high-performance capacity.

This product is primarily used in automotive suspension springs, allowing us to deepen our engagement with automotive OEMs and Tier 1, while improving our long-term margin profile. I am also pleased to tell you that we were able to stabilize this product within the first month of installation and have already started commercial sales.

Looking at the response we are seeing from our customers, we have also started phase 2 of expansion by adding another 6,000 tons of OHT wire, which would also come on stream within the next two to three quarters. Alongside this, we continue to see strong traction from LRPC, which was launched at our Dadri facility with a capacity of 18,000 tons.

This product caters to infrastructure applications such as bridges, beams and long concrete structures, enabling us to participate more meaningfully in India's growing infrastructure pipeline. Together, these launches not only expand our volumes but also reposition Bansal Wire towards structurally high-growth areas and higher-value-added end markets.

Another positive I would like to highlight is that we have generated almost 240 crores of free cash from operations, which was almost our full-year target, and with another quarter left, I am confident we would be able to achieve much better than expected on that front. Our ROC has also been consistently improving every quarter, and I believe we are on track to achieving 25% ROC by the end of next year.

That's all from my side. I would like to hand over the call to our CFO, Mr.

Ghanshyam Das Gujrati. Thank you, Pranav sir, and good afternoon everyone.

I will briefly summarize the key operating and financial performance for Q3 and nine months FY26. During the quarter, company delivered a record sales volume of 121,090 tons, representing a strong 32% year-on-year growth and 6% sequential growth over quarter 2 financials FY26.

This is the highest quarterly volume ever recorded by the company. For the nine months period ended FY26, total volume stood at 3,40,000 metric tons, compared to 2,46,000 metric tons in nine months FY26, reflecting a healthy 38% year-on-year growth, underlying the consistency of our operating performance.

This strong volume has been supported by our expanded installed capacity of approximately 6,80,000 metric tons and commercialization of new products such as LRPC wire with 18,000 metric tons, as already mentioned by Pranav sir. The healthy demand from the K1, automobile and general engineering sectors, these drives have enabled us to scale efficiently while improving the quality of our revenue mix.

Turning to the financials for quarter 3 financial year, our revenue stood at 229 crores, representing 11% year-on-year growth. EBITDA increased by 19% year-on-year to 87 crores, with a margin of 8.4%, while the net profit for the quarter was 43 crores.

That is up 4% as compared to the previous last year. The operating cash flow generated during the nine months period to Rs.

233 crore and the company generated cash flow from the operation during this quarter, that is Rs. 85 crore.

For the nine months period ended FY26, revenue grew by 18% year-on-year to 3223 crores, while the EBITDA came in to Rs. 243 crore, reflecting an increase of 19% year-on-year.

Net profit of nine months for FY26 stood at Rs. 121 crore, higher by 6% on year-on-year basis.

This concludes my remarks, and we will now open for the floor for the question.

Hi, Pranav, good afternoon. I hope I'm audible.

Yes, you are, please go ahead.

Yeah. Sir, I was just wanting to understand, can you please throw some light on the GST-related issues which we faced a couple of months back?

Notice was somewhere around 206 crore. What's the status on that regard, and how does that impact on our financials if being imposed by the GST council then?

Sure. Actually we have already intimated which we exchanged.

Now everything has been sorted out, and there is no demand as at now, and there is a little bit demand, little bit demand is there, and we have already filed appeal to the higher authority for quashing of the order which has been given by them. Basically I think these were some unrealistic demands that came from the GST department, which I think we have already settled to the tune of, we have reduced it to the tune of 98-99%, and the remaining will also be squashed very soon.

We are not going to see any impact on our financials for this?

No, almost nothing.

My second question, during the quarter, we got an approval from the customer for IHG, right? Will you please elaborate more on this particular thing on the volume side, and how would be the quantum, and what are we supposed to close by the end of this FY26 with regards to IHG and OHT if you can?

Sure. IHG was a product that we started, which is used majorly in the suspension application for two- and four-wheelers.

This is a product that is increasingly replacing regular steel wires in all high-end and EV vehicles. We started this product in Q3.

The thought process was that we would take about six months to receive some customer approvals, but I think the team did a great job there. We were able to stabilize our product within the very first month, and from the demand side, I think it has been quite positive.

We have already received some customer approvals, and I think this month we are looking at maybe a 20% capacity utilization already. Our now target, revised target for this year is to reach about 40% capacity utilization.

I think that's the main thing. Looking at this, we have already started the phase two expansion.

The capacity was 9,000 tons, which we are now expanding to 15,000 tons. This should be done in the next two to three quarters.

For the IHG, right? 9 to 15.

IHG and OHT combined. These are similar products.

IHG is what we call a thicker size, and a finer and a smaller size is what we call OHT. A similar application.

From 9 to 15,000 tons, that's the thought process now.

how would that be beneficial for us to accelerate the margins going forward then?

Sure. We are already, we have already achieved our margin target here.

Although we are not seeing absolute profitability in this segment today because of low capacity utilization, but we will get there within quarter four. Margin-wise, it's almost double than the regular high-carbon wires that we make.

Okay. If you can throw more light on the product mix, considering the specialty wire, where we stand today, and what are we targeted to by the end of this FY26 of the year?

Sure. I think there was an unfortunate incident in our plant, where there was a fire in our specialty wire shed.

Although there was no material damage, but I think we have now received approvals from insurers to start back the project. I think it will still take us about a month, month and a half to stabilize the steel cord front, after which we will resume our approval cycle, which was already set.

I think the target for us was mid of next year. I think we are still on that, maybe delayed by maybe a month or so.

Once we achieve that, we will be able to achieve our commercial production or sales within Q2 or Q3 of next year. Apart from that, IHG and OHT, they have done well, better than expected.

Bulk of the growth for next year will come from IHG and OHT, and from, I think FY27 is when we will be looking at good numbers of steel cord coming in. Once that does, I think our margin profile will significantly improve within next year and the year after that.

Okay. I guess the product mix, somewhere around 4 to 5% of the entire volume, the specialty wire, considering all these three?

Yeah. The product mix is now about 5% of the total volume.

That's to start with, but in terms of volume, yes, it is about 4 to 5%. In terms of contribution towards EBITDA, I think this can be contributing about 15 to 20% of the total EBITDA going forward.

Yes. My third question, Pranav, I just want to understand your thought process on the profitability.

The run rate has remained same over the last many quarters, despite of showing 20% growth in the EBITDA. Why it's not reflecting into our PAT, and what do you see, the gradual recovery in the PAT as well?

Yeah. As I mentioned before, our target for this year was a growth of about 30%, which we revised to maybe towards 40% within this year.

I think we are already on track for that. I think we've done more than 35% growth till now.

That should remain positive for the first fourth quarter as well. We were looking at a slight dip in EBITDA starting at the start of the year, owing to a product mix change, which has not happened, which was what we explained on the last call as well.

I think our EBITDA, which was supposed to dip, is now constant, and it should remain constant within this year, even after this volume growth. Next year we are looking at a better product mix.

This will give us a better perton EBITDA going forward. This year our focus was more on cash flows and our return profile.

I think that's the main focus area this year. We want to focus majorly on cash flows and our ROC, which has started increasing already.

You mean to say gradually, from FY27 we start, the EBITDA will start reflecting into the PAT as well? Because over the last many quarters we have seen 42-43 crore of PAT, right?

Yes. In the last quarter we have capitalized all interest cost.

We have capitalized all investments. Therefore you see a jump in depreciation as well as interest.

Although our cash profit has increased by 15-20%, but PAT level does not reflect that because of higher depreciation. We don't have any more interest or depreciation cost that we are capitalizing anymore.

Any growth here on in EBITDA should also reflect in

PAT. Thanks.

Thank you, sir.

Hi, Pranav. Good afternoon.

Hi, sir.

Pranav, my first question is looking at our current run rate and EBITDA per ton being broadly stable now for the last two-three quarters at 7, 7.1 rupees per kg, don't you think our EBITDA growth, if we include other income as well, the way we define it, should grow closer to 25% than 20%? Similar could volumes be closer towards the upper end of the guidance, 35-40% guidance?

That was exactly our target for Q3. Q3 has not— although we have shown good results in Q3, but it could still have been better because of October-November, we lost some volumes because of labor shortages.

I think Q4 is something that we also look forward to. We are already seeing good tractions from all our segments.

Yes, in terms of volume, we should be able to do a little better in Q4, and if we do good volumes, our EBITDA should also increase. As of now, I would like to stick with my guidance.

I don't want to take a lot of pressure on the system. Yes, we do have scope to improve.

We do have room to grow, but let's see how it goes.

Fair, fair, fair. Secondly, Pranav, the question was on cash flow.

This year we've done decent OCF in the first nine months of the year. You're expecting that to continue in Q4 as well.

How should we think about FY27 from a cash flow perspective, posters? If we are assuming a similar sort of run rate in terms of OCF, what should drive this?

Is it the case that we've not started any discounting as yet, which will contribute to positive OCF going into FY27?

Sure. This year our target was to maintain the same level of inventory, same level of receivables, even while growing at 35%, at the same level of debt without, doing anything else, but still being able to grow at 35%.

If we were to do that, we estimated that we will get about 250 crores of free cash flow, which we now have already done. I think we have a quarter left; we should be seeing similar trend in Q4 as well.

For the next year, our target was 350 crores. I think that is still intact.

Looking at what we did in this year, we should be able to achieve that easily as well. This will come definitely from a lot of discounting and other provisions that we are making for inventories and receivables, but also through channel financing and a lot of operational changes as well in terms of inventory and receivables that we have done.

I think, yeah, a combination of what we have done this year should also flow into next year, and we should be able to achieve our target.

Understood. We maintain that roughly 600 crores of OCF over two-year period, still should be doable.

Of course. Perfect,

perfect. Thanks, Pranav, for this.

Thank you. Just, Pranav, last one from my side: if you can give some updates where are we on the approval side with customers on the steel cord business, lab trials, field trials, how long will it take?

What should be the timeline step we should consider?

I think we are behind by a month because of some approvals that we have now received from the insurance companies to start production. Other than that, I see no major change there.

We are on track otherwise for field trials and lab approvals. I think the last company that we are expecting lab approval from should also come in the next 10-15 days.

After that, we go to field trial once we have our plant up and running, which will take about a month, month and a half. Q2, Q3 is our target still for starting supplies of steel cord.

Apart from steel cord, the second product for specialty was IHT. That has already started, and that's doing well.

I think we should be able to see some traction there from steel cord.

Understood. Thanks, Pranav, for this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello.

Yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

I just have one question. Wanted to quickly get an update on the consolidation of our related party entities, that is Balaji Wires and Bansal High Carbons.

If you can help us know where we are, because last couple of con-calls we had mentioned that we are planning to consolidate it, and it will happen maybe in the next 18 to 24 months.

Yeah. There are two parts to this consolidation.

First, on financials, that has been consolidated last year. I think last December, last year Q3 is when we consolidated all financials.

The only thing that is left right now is that there is still some production happening in those two entities in the older plants, but that is only being done for Bansal wires. Those two companies are not operating independently anymore.

Whatever they produce, it is for Bansal wires, which is still happening, and should, we would take another, I think, two quarters or three quarters for that to shift to Dadri, because of the Dadri ramp-up, which is slower than expected. Although on Dadri front also we have done well.

I think we have improved our capacity utilization. In fact, we ended the year at almost 60% capacity utilization in Dadri.

I think as and when this improves, even the production for those two entities will stop. All revenue and profitability has been in Bansal wires for all these companies from last year.

Only the... We will...

so correct me if my understanding is wrong. Only the consolidation is yet to happen, that is in terms of the entity-wise, that you...

them merging into... So

there is no plan of any merger or anything like that for those two entities. Those two entities have to just shut down.

Understood. So

Bansal Wire, they are only producing some quantities for Bansal wires in their own production center, which is not very viable, and will shut down in due course.

You have already clarified that they only do job work for the current listed entity, but just wanted this update that you provided. Thank you so much for that, and wishing you and the company all the very best.

Thank you, sir.

Hi, Am I audible, sir?

Yes.

Thanks for the opportunity and thank you for allowing us to host the call. I just have a couple of quick questions.

Just, one of your remarks from earlier, taking forward that you said that, your older facility is basically doing job work for Bansal Wire, right? Once the entire capacity moves to Dadri at the end of the day, what is the plans to do at these older facilities?

Any idea?

These are two very unviable and very old facilities. Right now we are only running it just to service the market because we don't want to lose our customers till the time we have the right production in Dadri.

We don't earn much from these two entities. As and when we are able to shift our capacities, I think this will just shut down.

That's the plan. The two entities, they are outside of Bansal Wire, and we have no plans of merging these two entities because there will be nothing left here.

The plant and equipment, all of it was already purchased by Bansal Wire, they're just operating on lease as of now.

All right. Thanks for the clarity.

The next question is pertaining to the fire. I think your insurance claim, your settlement is still going on.

I just wanted to get your idea on what is the expected losses you expect post your claims and everything. Because in that will have some overhang on quarter four.

Sure. We have already posted an exceptional loss of one and a half crore.

That was due to the inventory loss in the fire, which we have estimated. Everything else was insured.

I think the only loss that we were looking ahead was in inventory, which we have already done in Q3. We do not expect anything material to happen in Q4 as well.

That's actually good to know. The third question, I just wanted to get your clarity because I think there has been some confusion that, what is the current capacity between high carbon, low carbon, stainless and speciality?

How the roadmap is planned out, in say FY27 and 28. Because in presentation you have indicated that you are planning on 90,000 ton kind of a capacity expansion, say by FY28 in Gujarat.

Can you just give a breakdown of high carbon, low carbon, stainless steel and speciality? What do you expect from 27 and 28 going forward?

Sure. Right now out of our capacity of 6,28,000 tons, I would say about 55-60% is low carbon, 20% would be stainless steel and the rest will be high carbon.

I think going forward also we are looking at similar numbers. The only difference could be in low carbon where we expect at least 60-62% of the total capacity.

If you look at our Sanand CAPEX also, we are expanding low carbon and stainless steel there, whereas in high carbon we have capacities to expand in the Dadri facility in phases. Overall again, the thought process is to still have 60% kind of a low carbon capacity and 20-25% high carbon and 20% stainless steel even on

6 lakhs. What about the specialty?

Where do you categorize it? Because I know speciality, depending on the product, it basically moves across the category.

Just wanted to get an idea.

Specialty right now we have a capacity of about 29,000 tons, which we will expand to 35,000 tons within the next two to three quarters. That will still be maybe 5% of the total installed capacity.

This includes the steel tire cord 20,000 tons.

This includes the pilot of 20,000 tons for steel tire cord.

Also the one which you are taking from 9,000 to 15,000 high HTO, right?

Speciality comprises of these two products, steel cord and hose wire, which is 20,000 tons, and IHTO, no HT, which will gradually be 15,000 tons. So 35,000 tons combined for these two products.

sir, I think you just mentioned that one of you are waiting approval in the next couple of days from, I think that's a phase one approval, right? From one of your clients is still pending.

Yes, for steel cord, we are anticipating the last approval that we were targeting maybe within the next 10-15 days or something like that. After this, we will start phase two for all customers.

Okay. Sir, if I may just squeeze a quick last question.

I just wanted to get your EBITDA per ton guidance for 27 and 28, because right now in, I think quarter three finally you have inched back to that 7,000 mark after almost three quarters. I just wanted to get your guidance on what do you expect EBITDA per ton going forward, improvement there?

Sure. I think we are not looking at a very significant change in terms of our product mix.

There will be a bit of low carbon increasing, but there will also be numbers coming in from speciality. This year we were anticipating our EBITDA per ton to go down.

Next year we do not see that. We see speciality wire kicking in, and gradually the target, of course, is to increase this to 8, 8 and a half or 9 over the next one or two years.

Perfect. That actually answers all my questions.

Thank you so much.

Overall I think for EBITDA per ton, we focus more on the final growth. I think the standard 20-25% kind of a growth we would like to achieve every year.

Overall sounds.

Perfect. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thanks for the follow-up. I wanted to know your thought on the Sanand facility.

We now dropped the backward integration plan. Still we have 43 acres, I guess, of free space over there.

What is the status on this particular thing? Where are supposed to put the bead wire and the stainless steel wire, I guess, if I'm not wrong?

Bead wire we have already started, and this was planned for the Dadri facility, not in the Sanand plant. In Sanand it is more low carbon and stainless steel.

So 50% of the land that we acquired was for backward integration, whereas 50% was still for wire. I think we are utilizing that 50% as of now.

We started with this 90,000 tons CAPEX, and this again has the potential to go much higher than the current numbers in different phases. For the balance 50% land, I think we are still evaluating.

We see a possibility of being able to utilize this in the current wire facility also. I think that's still yet to be decided.

We might take a call within the next one or two quarters where we sell it off and monetize, or we will use it if we see further expansion, need of further expansion there.

On a capacity utilization, today we stand at 78% and we guided for 82-85% in the next two to three years, I guess FY27, FY28. Are we sticking to the guidance now?

No. As far as capacity utilization go, our target is always to achieve 90% kind of a capacity utilization.

That's where we are able to get the best returns of our investments. Yes, we have come out of a major CAPEX cycle.

That's why in the last one, one and a half year, we've seen these kind of numbers. Otherwise historically we generally only operate at 90% kind of a capacity utilization.

Going forward also our first target is to achieve 90 and then to expand each and every quarter or every six months wherever required, so that we do not come down to this level again. And

by when we are targeting to achieve 90%?

Sir, if you look at our current trajectory, we are already at 78%. Within this capacity that we have of 6.2 lakh tons, I think we should be able to do that within the next two quarters, two or three quarters, I think.

With this we are also expanding. Every quarter or every six months, we now want to keep expanding as well.

There is still a 60,000 ton capex lined up in the Dadri facility for us.

At the end we want to be at the 80,000 ton capacity, blended, combined, all the facilities.

As of now, the capex that we have planned is 60,000 tons additional for Dadri and about 90,000 tons for Sanand. From 6.2, we should be able to go to about 7.7.

We will be the largest player in the country, I guess we'll be supposed to Tata wires. Post, and considering the 90% capacity, what are the market share that we are expecting and what's the trend over the last, I would say one or two years?

Where are we stands today as far as the market share is concerned? The market is also...

Yeah,

the market is growing at about 7-8%. I think we were at about 6 or 7% a market share.

With the current capacity, yes, we are now, as far as capacity goes, I think we are now the largest in India. I think we'll...

and obviously we want to keep growing at 20-25% in terms of volume as well over the long run. Once we do that, every year I think we are capturing market share.

In the very near future, in the next two to three years, I think we should be able to go to a 10% a market share.

Yes, I see. Thanks for now, and best of luck.

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible?

Yes, hi.

Hi, Pranav. Pranav, just a quick double-clicking on that fact you said that we want to expand our capacity from 6.2 to 7.7, with 60,000 coming in Dadri and another 90,000 at Sanand.

Just wanted to know what is the commercialization timeline for this? Because I thought that 60,000 incremental was supposed to come in Q3, but hopefully I think it may come in Q4.

Just could you highlight, when do you plan to commercialize both these facilities, 60,000 at Dadri and 90,000 at Sanand?

Sure. Sir, for a greenfield project, I think that requires a long planning.

For a brownfield expansion, like what we are doing in Dadri for another 60,000 tons, that is a very flexible thing. We keep on tweaking the timelines based on the capacity utilization, because we don't want to end up in a phase where we have excess capacity.

If we are able to sell, we are able to fast-track the expansion. If we see that, okay, it might take another two, three months, then we can delay.

Similarly, for the 60,000 ton capex for Dadri, I think now we have, I think we will be commissioning it in another three, four days. That's where we are at.

For 90,000 tons, I think the timelines are still intact by end of next year is when we are expecting that to happen.

Okay.

Again, these are very modular things, we keep on adjusting it. Do you think we...

Yeah. So

it would be fair to assume that 60,000 may come in Q4 and the 90,000 may come by, let's say, third quarter of next fiscal year, correct?

Yes. Third or fourth quarter, yes.

Okay. By any chance could you provide the split between, let's say, stainless steel and low carbon in that 90,000?

What about the 60,000, the split between the capacity where we are making most amount of investment? Because somewhere I feel that if you have already called it out that if you want to increase your low-carbon capacity from 55% right now to let's say 60%, now obviously this will weigh on our EBITDA per ton.

I know that we are also ramping up the IHT and other specialty wire, but somewhere I feel that some netting off might happen and we may not see any improvement in EBITDA per ton. Would that understanding be correct?

Sure. Our thought process on EBITDA is to grow at 20-25% on the absolute number.

I think that we are confident about. In terms of per ton EBITDA, yes, there is some change, but there is a minor change in product mix from 55 to 60%.

That will not change much. Also in low carbon, our EBITDA per ton is also increasing.

Even in the first three quarters, we have seen better EBITDA levels in low carbon, and low carbon is a product wherein we have the B2C segment that has started kicking in. In the third quarter, in the second quarter, we were at about 5% B2C sales.

In the third quarter itself, we have already crossed 7% B2C sales, and our target for next year is to achieve a 12-15% kind of a number. Even in low carbon, once we are able to get a better B2C portfolio, our EBITDA per ton there will increase and go to maybe the similar levels of our average EBITDA in the long run.

With that, our addition of specialty, I think it definitely will help in absolute EBITDA per ton also going up.

One final question. If I recall correctly, our EBITDA per ton have gradually reduced over the last three, four quarters, and one of the two reasons was one is your sales mix changed more towards low carbon wire, and also we may have offered some price and discounting low carbon wire.

Just wanted to understand from market perspective, let's say if you have reduced some pricing to gain market share, would it be easy for us to again go back on the previous price level, or then does it benchmark us to a new price level after whatever discounting we have done to gain market share in low carbon wire?

Sure. This year, that was the thought process from the start of the year that we will have to price our product aggressively to gain market share.

In the second quarter and towards the third quarter, I think this is what we have realized. In the last call also I highlighted this, that we have taken some initiatives in different products where we, in fact, increased our EBITDA per ton.

The strategy of gaining market share by reducing prices did not really happen. We have not actually increased EBITDA per ton on any of our product.

Only difference right now that you see in the blended EBITDA is because of product mix and not because of any reduction in margin. Even after this, we were able to achieve 35% volume growth.

Even in the future, in the next one year, two years, or three years, we do not expect a trade-off between volume and EBITDA per ton anytime soon. We expect that our EBITDA per ton should be intact even if we want to grow at 20-25%.

Very helpful, Pranav. Thank you and all the best.

Thank you.

Thank you all for joining us for the conference call today. We at Anand Rathi would like to thank the managements of Bansal Wires Industries Limited for giving us this opportunity.

This concludes the conference. Thank you everyone and have a good day.