Bharat Forge Ltd

Bharat Forge Ltd

1,711.20
INR
-29.80
(-1.71%)
14.98EPS
145.08P/E
1.03TMarket Cap
Nov 14Next Earn

Q4 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptMay 7, 2026

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q4 and FY '26 earnings conference call hosted by Bharat Forge Limited. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on beliefs, opinion, and expectation of the company as on date of this call.

These statements are not the guarantee of future performance and involve risk and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. 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 the 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. Amit Kalyani, Vice Chairman and Joint Managing Director, Bharat Forge Limited.

Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Amit Kalyani

Good evening, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining our conference call today. As is standard, I will first introduce the people with me, and then our CFO, Kedar Dixit, will take you through the numbers.

I have with me my fellow board member and head of the components business, Subodh Tandale. I have Kedar Dixit, our CFO.

I have Rajgopal, our head of investor relations and M&A, and Chinmay and Sameer. Over to you, Kedar.

Kedar Dixit

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone.

I'll just take you through key highlights for the quarter and for the year ended 31st March 2026. We'll start with the performance review of consolidated results, given that number of initiatives and investments we have made in new verticals as well as in the Indian manufacturing space.

We ended the year with revenues of 16,812 crores and EBITDA of 2,921 crores, which has a growth of 11% in revenues and about 6% in EBITDA. Consolidated net debt-equity stood at 0.41 as of March 2026.

During the year, the company also secured new businesses worth 4,814 crores across all key businesses, which includes the traditional business of 1,210 crores, defense 2,816 crores, JS Autocast, our casting unit, 292 crores, and K-Drive, which is a recent acquisition, with about 500 crores. Talking about the standalone performance, the standalone business reported a revenue of 8,396 crores, which was lower by about 5% year-over-year.

This was mainly on account of regulatory uncertainties in North America and demand challenges in US CV market, which has impacted the performance, but as we speak, we are looking at good growth in this sector. Standalone EBITDA for FY '26 was at 2,312 crores, translating EBITDA margin of 27.5%.

PBT before exceptional items was 1,826 crores, which was about 8% lower YoY. Talking about the quarterly performance, standalone revenues for the quarter was up by 8.5% quarter-on-quarter at 2,260 crores.

The quarter-on-quarter improvement in performance was driven by all-round recovery in exports and strong performance in domestic automotive segment. Q4 was up at 7.2% sequentially at 610 crores, translating in EBITDA margin of 27%.

This also includes one-time cost, retrospective cost by MSEDCL, which has charges retrospectively cess on the captive power, which is about 11 crores. Without that, the margins would have been closer to 28%.

PBT before exceptional item was about 486 crores. During the quarter, company has absorbed tariff impact of about 12 crores.

Balance sheet continues to remain robust with net debt to equity at 0.18 for the year. Talking about the overseas business, we have initiated the restructuring of our German steel business, which is CDP Bharat Forge.

We expect to complete the process by end of next calendar. For other businesses in Europe, we are simultaneously pursuing various business opportunities to leverage the scaled-down manufacturing footprint.

Performance-wise, EU operations registered revenue of 3,865 crores and EBITDA of 151 crores, resulting in EBITDA margin of around 4%, while US operations recorded a revenue of 1,534 crores, EBITDA of 54 crores, translating into EBITDA margin of 3.5%. Now, I hand over to Amit sir for his remarks.

Amit Kalyani

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. 2026 was a very interesting year.

It had its own set of challenges, yet I think our team rose up to the challenges and really performed exceptionally well. It also was a year with a lot of uncertainty, especially to do with tariffs, which to some extent persist.

Then we ended up towards the end of the year with a full-blown war taking place in the Middle East, which luckily enough seems to have subsided right now, and if everything goes well, it should really settle down and get resolved. I think this has had impacts and uncertainties on markets, imports, transportation, and many factors that affect our business.

Given that background, I think we have weathered the storm well and ended on a stronger note with very good momentum going into the new year. I want to especially commend our sales and marketing, customer-facing teams, our supply chain teams, our operating teams, and all the people in our company for really giving it their all and making this year, let's say, painless for our customers.

Driven by a combination of new business initiatives and M&A over the past 3 years, BFL is now an engineering conglomerate entrenched across processes, customers, and segments. This is an example of how we transform every 5-6 years.

Our balance sheet continues to remain one of our key strengths with a strong net cash position at a standalone level. The aerospace business, which we have been talking about for quite some time, I'm very happy to report is now a meaningful part of our industrial exports and is now almost 26% of the last quarter's exports and is the second largest contributor to our industrial exports now.

This segment has seen multiple new business wins, both across jet engine, structure, landing systems from global OEMs. We were recently selected by an aerospace OEM as their first supplier from India for any critical components.

Our acquisition of K-Drive is making significant progress and has also won a lot of new business from OEMs, which will start panning out from this year. On the defense front, our business has spread well beyond artillery and vehicles into small arms, naval solutions, and a wide variety of unmanned platforms, both sea and air.

The recent order wins are a testament to the progress made here. With an order book of close to 11,000 crores, the next 3-4 years will see stable revenue accretion in these sectors.

In parallel, we're also focusing on expanding our product portfolio and participating in new programs to build a robust and scalable revenue pipeline over the medium to long term. I particularly see new opportunities in Europe for our defense business.

Castings, despite the challenges in the export market, especially in the wind sector because of the slowdown in wind infrastructure build-up, we have seen JSA continue to grow and increase both revenue and profitability going forward. We're now expanding our customer base to cross-fertilize and to cross-sell these products into our existing customer base in the automotive and commercial vehicle sector.

The recent capital raise from Premji Invest will help us drive capacity expansion and make this business an independent driver for Bharat Forge and the Kalyani Group. This week, we acquired a 30% stake in Fortuna Engineering, which is a company based in Nashik.

This has a strong and experienced management team led by the promoters in machining, and it strategically is a very complementary fit to us because they do machining of connecting rods and some other high-value components, which are all complementary to what Bharat Forge does, and in fact also allows us to supply into them the forged components that they can machine. The company has a strong balance sheet and a net cash position.

In e-mobility, as I mentioned in the television interview earlier, we have decided to take a write-off of those investments where we don't see any immediate revenue and business ramp-up because it doesn't make sense to spend time and effort on those areas which are not going to give us returns immediately. As you are aware, globally, the electric vehicle adoption has taken a different trajectory as compared to what was originally envisaged.

Additionally, our overseas business will also see a restructuring, with our steel forging business undergoing a restructuring as we have explained earlier. We also intend to evaluate additional business opportunities in the automotive sector to leverage our market position, our customers, and our footprint globally.

Looking at 2027 as a whole, I think it's going to be a strong year for our India manufacturing operations, as the growth impetus across sectors and the kind of strategies we have put in place will bring in higher execution and growth. Barring any further geopolitical crises and their impact on demand, we should see a close to 25% plus growth in our India business.

Our ongoing capex programs across forging, casting, and products platform will translate into 800 to 850 crore capex in a 15- to 18-month period. We continue to evaluate potential M&A opportunities in India to address opportunities in high-growth sectors, which may be complementary and a good fit to our existing business.

Thank you. My team and I and Subodh will be happy to take your questions.

Operator

Thank you so much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin with the question-and-answer session.

Anyone who wishes to ask a question may 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.

Our first question comes from the line of Kapil Singh from Nomura. Please go ahead.

Kapil Singh

Good afternoon, sir. Congratulations on a good performance for the quarter.

Firstly, I had a question on your target growth for FY '27. Could you give some more color and break it down between different segments broadly?

What kind of growth you expect in defense, US exports for CVs, non-auto, and domestic?

Amit Kalyani

I'm not going to break it up into that much detail. Let me just tell you, we will see the highest growth coming from our aerospace business, and then defense business, and the automotive business.

When I say automotive, I mean the components business, which includes both automotive and industrial.

Kapil Singh

Okay. Sir, what is the outlook for domestic and global CVs?

Amit Kalyani

Outlook is strong for both. US is very strong, and so is India.

Kapil Singh

Okay. Sir, you also mentioned that you have acquired Fortuna.

Could you give us some color in terms of revenues, where does it stand, and what is the potential here?

Amit Kalyani

Yeah. We have acquired 30% for 130 crores.

The company has a revenue of about 380 crores, and they have a net cash position of about 20-odd crores. They are on a growth path to increase multiple-X by setting up new machining lines, and also we will open doors for them for our customers, because they don't make the very large parts that we make.

Large connecting rods is a big opportunity to supply globally.

Kapil Singh

Okay. Will it be safe to say that the growth target also includes inorganic opportunities like this?

Amit Kalyani

We don't currently have any other inorganic which is ongoing, but as we have mentioned, we will look at opportunities within India that makes sense for us in the automotive and industrial space. Yeah.

Kapil Singh

Sorry. Just one last question.

You mentioned that the electrification has taken a different path from what we were originally anticipating. Could you elaborate a little bit?

Amit Kalyani

About 5 years ago, there was a very strong focus on electrification across the board, including commercial vehicles, including heavy commercial vehicles. However, it is definitely not seeing the same kind of, let's say, trajectory as what was anticipated.

Secondly, even the large European OEMs are not as successful in the passenger car sector on electrification, as you have seen, both Porsche, Ford, many companies have had massive hits and write-offs because they've not been able to build a platform that has been as competitive as those that the Chinese offer. There has definitely been a recalibration of everybody's EV strategy globally, except the Chinese, of course.

Kapil Singh

Okay. Thank you, sir.

That's all from my side. Best wishes.

Amit Kalyani

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Binay Singh from Morgan Stanley.

Please go ahead.

Binay Singh

Hi, team. Congratulations on...

Amit Kalyani

Sorry, we can't hear you. Can you speak a little louder, please?

Binay Singh

Hi, team. Congratulations on good set of numbers.

My first question is on your restructuring. You highlighted that it'll conclude by end of CY '27.

Could you share your thoughts on that? In the intermittent phase, which is this year and next year, will the losses be at similar level like this year?

You had almost a 300 crore loss or so on the Europe and US operations. Happy to hear your comments on that.

Amit Kalyani

The restructuring of CDP has started. This is a 15- to 18-month process where we have to meet the customer requirements and also do a solvent liquidation of the company.

We anticipate the losses will reduce because the CDP losses are not going to be there. Whatever is there will be part of the restructuring.

Hopefully, for the year that goes by, we will have a better performance from our overseas subsidiaries.

Binay Singh

Thanks for that. Just on aerospace, what exactly was the number for FY '26 for you?

Amit Kalyani

It was about 400 crores.

Binay Singh

Lastly, just on defense, in the last call, we talked about revenue guidance on defense of 30% to 40%. Just looking at the order book, what are the key sort of milestones to watch out for?

You've talked about opportunity in Europe and all, but any key things that we should expect or milestones to see this year?

Amit Kalyani

The first thing that you should look at is the fact that the ATAGS FAT will happen, and then the ATAGS production will start and ramp up. The second is the CQB carbine also production will happen.

Those are the two big milestones that will move the needle starting this year, and then it'll continue next year and year after next as well.

Binay Singh

Anything on the order backlog, any large projects that you are bidding for?

Amit Kalyani

This will start in the second half of this year, please remember.

Binay Singh

Yeah. Anything on the order wins, any incremental order book?

Amit Kalyani

We have, as Kedar mentioned in his initial talk, we have won new orders in defense as well in the space of naval and drone systems. We have lots of other new products that we are both developing and fielding that go into a variety of platforms, including Navy, and hopefully, those should all now start, the bids should open, and then we should know where we stand.

Binay Singh

Great. Thanks, team.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Gunjan Prithyani from Bank of America.

Please go ahead.

Gunjan Prithyani

Yeah. Hi.

Thanks for taking my question. Just a couple of clarifications on this aerospace and defense.

In aerospace, you mentioned 400 crores for full year, and you also mentioned 26% of exports in quarter four, which essentially means exit run rate of almost 300 crores. Is that the number we sort of work to for the next year, that it can be a 1,000, 1,200 crore aerospace business?

No,

Amit Kalyani

what I said is that industrial exports for Q4, aerospace was about 26% of the overall export from industrial.

Gunjan Prithyani

Okay. Can you Okay.

Amit Kalyani

In any case, if we look at 400 crores as the business we did for the whole year, we will see a strong double-digit growth, higher than the overall growth that we are anticipating as a company, significantly higher.

Gunjan Prithyani

Got it. Which is similar like what we are saying for defense as well, that 30%, 40% sort of growth.

These businesses should sort of cross that number in that sense.

Amit Kalyani

As I mentioned earlier, the highest growth will be aerospace, then defense, and then the components business. In components, I include all the components that we make.

Gunjan Prithyani

Okay. Got it.

Fine. Again, the clarification on the CDP piece that you mentioned, the restructuring.

Do the losses from this German subsidiary completely go away from the operating number because restructuring has begun?

Amit Kalyani

Sorry, what will go away? No, it'll go away when it gets wound up.

Gunjan Prithyani

Which is basically end of next year, next calendar.

Amit Kalyani

Yeah.

Gunjan Prithyani

Okay. Got it.

Now just moving to the data centers bit, which was mentioned in the media. Is there something that you just want to give us a sense on what are we doing there and where does...

Amit Kalyani

No, I don't want to talk more about it, but suffice to say that data center has a large amount of manufactured input that goes into it, in the auxiliaries, in every element of managing, powering, and supporting a data center. Those are all areas where we supply product into.

Gunjan Prithyani

Got it. Last question on just the CV business both in Class 8 as well as in India.

I think just generally there is a concern that, as energy prices, particularly we've already seen them move up in US, how confident are we of the growth outlook, both Class 8 as well as the India CV?

Amit Kalyani

Yeah. My colleague Subodh will answer.

Subodh Tandale

Currently, that is a common problem everywhere in the world where energy price is going up. You have to also take into consideration that there is aging fleet in the US, and they have a certain calculation for that in terms of what they have to replace and when.

From that perspective, the demand is expected to remain strong for the rest of the year for sure. There is also an emission change coming in early next year.

As a combination of all this, there is a strong hope that the demand in the US will remain strong. As far as India is concerned, yes, there is a increase, but there is also overall increase of economic activity.

From that perspective, the energy shock is there, but it is going to get absorbed in the system by passing it along the whole value chain. We expect that there should be reasonably stable demand.

Gunjan Prithyani

Your existing pipeline that you see...

Operator

Gunjan, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you may please rejoin the queue for more questions.

Gunjan Prithyani

All right. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management will be able to address all the questions from the participants, we request you to kindly limit your questions to two questions per participant.

If you have a follow-up question, please rejoin the queue. Our next question comes from the line of Arvind Sharma from Citi Bank.

Please go ahead.

Arvind Sharma

Yeah. Hi.

Good afternoon, sir. Thank you for taking my question.

On the 25% growth target for the India operations, will it be possible to share how much would be in the standalone business, how much do you expect in the Indian subsidiaries?

Amit Kalyani

I'm not going to break it down into all that. That gives too much information.

Let's just limit to say that it's going to be at a overall India level.

Arvind Sharma

Got it. It will be...

Amit Kalyani

What we manufacture in India.

Arvind Sharma

Great. It will be between the standalone and the Indian subsidiaries.

That understanding is correct.

Amit Kalyani

Sorry?

Arvind Sharma

It will be the combined standalone as well as the Indian subsidiaries. That understanding is correct.

Amit Kalyani

Correct.

Arvind Sharma

Sure, sir. Sir, also on the orders that you alluded to, almost 4,800 crores, including the defense orders of 2,800 crores, what would be the typical gestation period of these new orders won, just from our perspective?

When should we expect the revenue to start accruing? Is there something that you can share?

Amit Kalyani

Yeah. Actually, we talked about this a little while earlier that if you look at the ATAGS order, that will start revenue in the next half of the year, same with the carbines.

Some of the data center orders will also start slowly from the end towards the third quarter, fourth quarter, and then really ramp up next year. Everything will start ramping up from this year.

Product development will start from this year and ramp up next year.

Arvind Sharma

Thank you, sir. Sir, if you could just comment on the commodity costs, anything that you would like to stress upon?

Amit Kalyani

Right now, the biggest issue on cost is energy cost, which has gone up quite substantially, and elements that depend very heavily on energy, those have gone up. We are negotiating with our customers to get compensation.

Correct?

Subodh Tandale

Yeah.

Arvind Sharma

That's all from my side, sir. Thank you so much for taking my questions.

Amit Kalyani

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pramod Amthe from InCred Capital.

Please go ahead.

Pramod Amthe

Hi. Thanks for taking my question.

Continuing on the previous question in terms of cost, do you see worst is behind or it's still a very volatile environment? Also similarly in terms of supply chain challenges, how are you seeing it?

Amit Kalyani

You got to take it a day at a time, because we're living in a time where what's happening in the world depends on which news channel you watch. It's not really the old rules of the game anymore.

Every hour, every minute, things are changing. We're doing the best we can.

As a country also, and as an organization also. I don't know if I can say the worst is behind us.

Pramod Amthe

Okay. The second one is with regard to the recent acquisition for machining facility.

You already have a machining facility in-house, and this seems to be like your captive facility which you acquired. What's the reason to do it, and how do you see make versus buy in such form decisions?

Is there any worthwhile time-saving you are doing here or capability addition?

Amit Kalyani

Sorry. Say that again.

Pramod Amthe

No, I said you have bought this entity...

Amit Kalyani

Yeah. Go ahead, Subodh.

Subodh Tandale

Pramod, the reason of acquiring this entity is this is very synergistic to what we do today. We also cannot do everything ourselves.

We need the bandwidth to be able to grow in a quantum manner. We will also be addressing many segments that we have not addressed in India so far as a part of this resource that we have, not just in India for that matter, even outside India.

We have actually already started getting a lot of positive interest from our existing customers to be able to do that. The whole idea is growth-related more than anything else.

Pramod Amthe

To

Amit Kalyani

add to one thing Subodh said, it's not just growth, it is fast growth.

Pramod Amthe

Okay. What type of margins does it operate in, EBITDA margins or EBIT margins, that business?

Amit Kalyani

It's mid-teens.

Pramod Amthe

Okay. Sure.

Thanks, and all the best.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Nitin Arora from Axis Mutual Fund.

Please go ahead.

Nitin Arora

Hi, sir. Just on the explosives side on the defense, how are we thinking about this business, because there is lots of demand globally as well?

When do we see this capex happening, and when do you see scale starts becoming bigger for you, just on the direction side?

Amit Kalyani

We don't have an explosives facility right now. As we have mentioned, Mr.

Arora, that we are planning to set up a facility, and the facility we are planning to come up in Andhra Pradesh, and we're going to do the groundbreaking of this month.

Nitin Arora

FY '27 is where we see or sorry, FY '28 where we see pretty heavy

Amit Kalyani

capex and

Nitin Arora

how much capex? Yeah.

Amit Kalyani

Let me just caveat that by saying that you need a hell of a lot of approvals before setting up such a facility and after setting up a facility like this before you can start production. Our goal is to break ground this month and start the preparatory work, and then once we get our approvals, start construction by the end of this year, and that should be ready in less than 15 months, and then another 6 to 8 months from then we should be able to start pilot production.

You're talking about roughly 24 months from

Nitin Arora

today. Got it.

Thank you very much, sir. 24 to 28 months.

Amit Kalyani

Yeah.

Nitin Arora

Thank you. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sonal Gupta from HSBC AMC.

Please go ahead. Yeah.

Sonal Gupta

Hi. Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my question.

Amit, very heartening to see we are aggressively moving and we've done a lot of acquisitions this year in India, with the K-Drive as well as Fortuna. In that context, I just wanted to understand the capital raise, external capital raise in Prem in JSA.

Why are we doing that, right? That's something that we can internally fund.

Amit Kalyani

That is a minor thing, actually, and honestly, we see a large opportunity in JSA, but we wanted to make it an independent business and grow it, because we see that that business could become multi-thousand crore business per year, because if you see, the biggest ingredient in that industry is energy and raw material, and both those factors are not available in required quantity or price in Europe. We see a large opportunity to move that manufacturing into India.

We want to expand that fast, and we want to do it with its own momentum and steam. That was the reason to do it.

I think there are other synergies that could come out of that relationship as well.

Sonal Gupta

You're saying that by doing this external, they can grow faster than what they would have done if we've done internally.

Amit Kalyani

I also want to build a new model where companies that we buy which are like that become more focused on their own growth and become self-sufficient. Yes, we will support them on whatever customer connect, etc.

that we can do, but I think they need to drive their growth more aggressively and not get limited by just what we can provide them.

Sonal Gupta

Okay. Sir, the second question I had was on the ATAGS.

What sort of capacity have we now ramped up to, and when do we see this really... No,

Amit Kalyani

we talked about this, that second half of this year, we will see that FAT getting completed and then hopefully production and supplies to start.

Sonal Gupta

I think earlier you mentioned that initial capacity is 5 guns a month. Is that what we are looking at

Amit Kalyani

or we... That's what we can do.

Yes.

Sonal Gupta

Okay. Great.

Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ronak Singhvi from NFA Asset Managers.

Please go ahead.

Ronak Singhvi

Hello. Thank you for taking my questions.

Am I audible?

Amit Kalyani

Yes, yes. Please go ahead.

Ronak Singhvi

I want to get specific about the 155 artillery shells. What is the current capacity?

Amit Kalyani

I'm not going to discuss that. Let's just say that we have adequate capacity,

Ronak Singhvi

and we are

Amit Kalyani

producing a large number of them.

Ronak Singhvi

Okay. Can you just say whether you are going to go into explosives or precision guidance or just empty shells?

Again,

Amit Kalyani

I've already answered this just before when Mr. Mehra, I think, asked a question.

Arora, Mr. Arora asked a question.

We are definitely going to get into explosives.

Ronak Singhvi

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Nitin Jain from Fair Value Equity Advisory.

Please go ahead.

Nitin Jain

Good afternoon, and congratulations on a good quarter. My first question is on the aerospace business.

If you could provide some outlook on the business, where do we see it in the next 3 years, and what are the kind of margins we have here? Are they above company average or in line with the company margin?

Amit Kalyani

I would say the margins are above the company average, and if you remember, Mr. Jain, that over the last 3 years, we had said the first goal is to get to 500, 600, 700 crores, and then get to 1,000 crores.

We are on that trajectory, and sooner than later, we should cross that, and then be on a very fast growth path after that. Getting to the first 1,000 crores is hard.

After that, you create lines of business, you create product strategies, and then multiple products can become 400, 500 crores each, maybe even more. We're on that path.

Nitin Jain

Okay. Safe to assume that we are targeting around 1,000 crores in the next 3 years or so?

Amit Kalyani

Easily. Easily.

Nitin Jain

Okay. Great.

Amit Kalyani

I would say even more than that.

Nitin Jain

Okay. Great.

Also, can you provide some color on the kind of revenue opportunity we are targeting in the server manufacturing business for the next 2 years?

Amit Kalyani

No, no, no. We are not looking at that business aggressively.

We were trying to look at that business to understand the data center markets. I think we've understood what we want to do and what we don't want to do.

There are some specialty opportunities where there are certain critical clients who want domestic-made servers made by an Indian company, those we will look at. Those are not very large opportunities at this point in time.

They are more strategic opportunity, and it's an opportunity to get into the whole value chain of the data center. That's what we're looking at it as.

I wouldn't look at it as a getting into electronics in a big way kind of thing.

Nitin Jain

Okay. That's quite helpful.

Thank you, and congratulations once again.

Amit Kalyani

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mitesh from Aditya.

Please go ahead.

Mitesh Kamdar

Yeah. I have a question regarding the Orissa project.

Amit Kalyani

Sorry, which company are you with?

Mitesh Kamdar

Aditya Equity Investments. Sorry, I forgot to write the full name.

Hello?

Amit Kalyani

Yeah. Go ahead.

Go ahead. Please go ahead.

Mitesh Kamdar

I had a question regarding the Orissa project. When is the environmental clearance expected for the project, and when do you expect to break ground for the project?

Amit Kalyani

We're waiting still, I don't know, maybe another 2, 3, 4 months.

Mitesh Kamdar

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Amit Kalyani

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Het Raichura from Ananya Research.

Please go ahead.

Het Raichura

Hello, sir. Good afternoon.

Just wanted to understand the gross block trajectory...

Operator

I'm sorry, sir, but your voice is not audible.

Het Raichura

Yes, sir. I just want to understand the gross block trajectory and the targets for the next 3-5 years,

Amit Kalyani

particularly in views and... Take this offline.

We're not able to hear you. I think you should call our team separately and talk to them.

We're not able to hear you at all.

Het Raichura

All right. Okay.

Amit Kalyani

Hello? Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rakesh Roy from Boring AMC.

Please go ahead.

Rakesh Roy

Yeah. Hi, sir.

My first question, sir, can you give me the full year defense revenue for FY '26?

Amit Kalyani

1,300 crores. 1,300 and Sorry, full year revenue for defense.

Sorry, 15 1,562 crores.

Rakesh Roy

Right, sir. Right, sir.

Sir, my next question, sir. Recently, army issue one RFI for bulletproof troop carrier.

Are we bidding for this?

Amit Kalyani

We're bidding for lots of new programs with the army.

Rakesh Roy

Okay. Can you highlight on this recently one product is launched in defense, especially Vikram VT-21 with DRDO and TATA.

How's the market size and where we are currently?

Amit Kalyani

Sorry, sorry?

Subodh Tandale

Vikram.

Amit Kalyani

We launched our wheeled platform, and we also had our tracked platform there.

Rakesh Roy

Right. How is the market...

Amit Kalyani

I didn't understand the question.

Rakesh Roy

My question is, sir, how is the market size for this product, especially for army

Amit Kalyani

and... They are replacing BMPs.

Replacing the old BMPs that the Indian Army has huge numbers of.

Rakesh Roy

Okay. Any idea how much number for domestic market and for export market for your point of view?

Amit Kalyani

Globally, the market is in tens of thousands.

Rakesh Roy

Oh, great, sir. Great, sir.

Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mahesh Bindra from LIC Mutual Fund.

Please go ahead.

Mahesh Bindra

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

Sir, what kind of capital expenditure are looking for next 3 years?

Amit Kalyani

I'm telling you right now what we have ongoing between last year, this year, and between last year and this year will be about 800 crores.

Mahesh Bindra

Sure. Sir, since the defense business is becoming bigger and with various dimensions, any plans of hiving off this business, maybe creating a new entity

Amit Kalyani

or bringing any... We have not thought about it.

As we've already spun it off into KSSL.

Mahesh Bindra

Right, right. In terms of creating value for investors, are there any plan?

Amit Kalyani

I hope we're creating value.

Mahesh Bindra

In terms of listing this...

Amit Kalyani

That we will look at separately.

Mahesh Bindra

Sure.

Amit Kalyani

Thank you.

Mahesh Bindra

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Nitin Jain from Fair Value Equity Advisory. Please go ahead.

Nitin Jain

Thank you for the follow-up opportunity. My question is, given the importance of drones in modern warfare, like we have seen in Operation Sindoor and other operations, what kind of presence do we have in drone manufacturing?

Amit Kalyani

We are already making drones for land, sea, and air. I would say that under-sea and the sea part, we're very strong in.

The air part, we are getting stronger. The land, we need to do more work.

We have already won orders in both the land air and the sea domain.

Nitin Jain

Right. Would it be possible to provide any percentage in terms of our defense business?

Amit Kalyani

No, not right now.

Nitin Jain

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Operator

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

I now hand the conference over to Mr. Amit Kalyani for closing comments.

Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Amit Kalyani

I think if there are any last questions, one or two, let's finish them and then we can close. I just saw that there are two names.

Operator

Sure, sir.

Amit Kalyani

Let's just do these last two.

Operator

Sure, sir, sure. Our next question comes from the line of Akshay Karwa from Abhiva India.

Please go ahead.

Akshay Karwa

Hi, Amit sir. Good afternoon.

Sir, my question pertains to jet engines.

Amit Kalyani

Sorry, Akshay, can't hear you.

Akshay Karwa

Am I audible now?

Amit Kalyani

Go ahead.

Akshay Karwa

Sir, my question pertains to manufacturing of jet engines. With the private companies coming into foray for this, how long do you think would we be ready to create our own localized jet engine in the near term?

Amit Kalyani

Are you talking about an engine for a manned or unmanned platform?

Akshay Karwa

Manned platform, sir.

Amit Kalyani

Manned platform will take quite some time. I would say not less than 5 to 10 years, but unmanned can happen very, very fast.

Already, we are supplying small jet engines for a number of drones, and we're now going to be making bigger ones also for unmanned systems. These are completely made in India, in-house.

They're designed, engineered, and manufactured. Range of 40 kg to 150 kg.

Akshay Karwa

Understood, sir. My question pertains to around the recent AMCA engines.

Regarding that, as you said 5 to 10 years, what are the companies you think would be able to get this order stood up?

Amit Kalyani

For AMCA, look, the whole program is going to be down-selection first of the consortium and then first prototype in '32. Okay?

It's still a long ways away. Initially, AMCA will be powered by imported engines.

Akshay Karwa

Understood, sir. Thank you, sir.

That's all from my side, and wish you all the best, sir.

Amit Kalyani

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our last question comes from the line of Radha from Motilal Oswal.

Please go ahead.

Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity.

Sir, my question was on K-Mobility business. Can you give us some insights on how the growth will be driven in this business beyond the normal CV industry growth?

Will it be exports, and or gaining new customers, or will it be from hybrids and EVs?

Amit Kalyani

It's a good question, Radha. We're looking at the specialty axles business and the LCV and SUV axle business, including EV for those, both ICE and EV.

That is what's going to drive the growth there.

Can this take the business 2 to 3x in the medium term? Is there this kind of scalability opportunity?

Amit Kalyani

Yes, there is. 2x in next 3 to 4 years is definitely possible.

If we are a little more lucky and we get into some super specialty axles, it could be even better.

What is the peak margins that can be made, sir, in this business?

Amit Kalyani

I think it's too early to say, but our goal is a good teen, mid-teens margin in this business.

All right, sir. Second and last question is how is the demand scenario in North America and Europe passenger car segment, and what is driving the demand here, if there

Subodh Tandale

is?

Amit Kalyani

Subodh is going to answer.

Subodh Tandale

Demand in the US is stable. When I say stable, last year's the market size was about 16 million, 15 to 16.1.

It's more or less going to be the same forecast for this year. Demand is reasonably okay.

They don't expect any changes. In Europe, we have to see because Europe will obviously face a little more challenges given how long the war is protracted.

We have to watch what happens in Europe. By and large, it is stable as compared to last year.

That's the outlook.

All right, sir. Thanks, and all the best to you.

Amit Kalyani

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Over to you, sir.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Amit Kalyani

thank you very much for your time and interest and your support to our company. Really appreciate it, and we will remain in touch, and our teams are available if you need any further inputs.

Thank you, and have a nice day.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Bharat Forge Limited, that concludes this conference.

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