Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm pleased to welcome you to this financial results conference call on behalf of Century Plyboards and SKP Securities.

We have with us Mr. Sanjay Agarwal, MD and CEO; Mr.

Keshav Bhajanka, Executive Director; Mrs. Nikita Bansal, Executive Director; along with Mr.

Arun Julasaria, Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Navarun Sen, COO, Plywood; Mr.

Sumant Wattas, CEO, MDF and Particle Board; and Mr. Vishu Goel, CEO, Laminates.

We'll have the opening remarks from Mr. Sanjay Agarwal followed by a Q&A session.

Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Agarwal.

Thank you, Navin. Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone, and a very warm welcome to our Q4 and FY 25-26 earnings conference call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties.

This call is not intended as a solicitation to invest. The financial results and investor presentation have already been shared and are available on the stock exchange websites.

FY 25-26 has been a landmark year for the company, marked by strong growth across businesses, significant improvement in profitability, and continued strengthening of our market position. I'm pleased to share that the company reported its highest-ever quarterly revenue of ₹1492 crore during Q4 FY26.

The top line registered a strong growth of 10.5% quarter-on-quarter and 24.5% year-on-year, reflecting healthy demand across our product portfolio and improved contribution from newly expanded capacities. At the profitability level, consolidated EBITDA margin, excluding forex losses, improved to 13.6% compared to 12.6% in the previous quarter and 12.1% in the corresponding quarter last year.

The improvement was driven by better operating leverage, higher capacity utilization, improved product mix, and our continued cost optimization and operational efficiency. For the full year FY26, the company achieved top line growth of 19.2%, while EBITDA margin, excluding forex loss, improved significantly to 13% from 11.1% in FY25.

In absolute figures, EBITDA, excluding forex loss, has increased from ₹502 crore to ₹702 crore. Profit after tax increased by 44% to ₹268 crore compared to ₹186 crore in the previous financial year.

These results demonstrate not only strong revenue growth, but also substantial improvement in the quality of earning and overall business efficiency. Segmental performance: let me now walk you through the performance of our key business segments.

Plywood segment: the plywood business continued to demonstrate sustainable growth momentum, supported by healthy demand, strong brand positioning, and distribution expansion. During Q4 FY26, the segment recorded revenue growth of 11.4% quarter-on-quarter and 17.9% year-on-year.

EBITDA margin, excluding forex losses, stood at 16.1%. For FY26, the segment delivered revenue growth of 15.6% with EBITDA margin at 15.2%, reflecting strong operational performance and continued margin resilience.

Laminate segment: the laminate business delivered a turnaround during the year after remaining relatively subdued over the past 1 or 2 years. In Q4 FY26, the segment recorded revenue growth of 8.3% quarter-on-quarter and 16.3% year-on-year, while EBITDA margin improved to 10.3%.

For FY26, revenue grew by 13.9%, while EBITDA margin improved significantly to 8.5% compared to 5.2% in FY25. The improvement was driven by better capacity utilization, improved product mix, and efficiency.

The next segment, MDF: the MDF business continued its strong growth trajectory, driven by improving utilization levels and sustained demand momentum. During Q4 FY26, the segment recorded revenue growth of 8.9% quarter-on-quarter and 31% year-on-year.

EBITDA margin, excluding forex losses, stood at 11.3%. For FY26, the segment achieved revenue growth of 25.5%, while EBITDA margin improved to 12.7% from 10.1% in the previous year.

In the current quarter, we have taken a shutdown in our Badvel plant to increase the capacity by 20%. Particle board segment: the particle board business witnessed robust growth during the year, supported by new capacity addition and improved utilization.

In Q4 FY26, revenue grew by 3.9% quarter-on-quarter and 108.3% year-on-year, while EBITDA margin stood at 7.2%. For FY26, the segment recorded revenue growth of 38.2% with EBITDA margin at 1.2%.

We expect further improvement in operating performances as utilization levels continue to increase. Century Ports, a wholly owned subsidiary of Century Plyboards (India) Limited, commenced commercial operation during Q4 FY 25-26 at the rejuvenated Kidderpore Docks, CPD 1 West, at Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, Kolkata.

The commissioning marks a strategic diversification into port logistics and infrastructure, aimed at enhancing supply chain efficiencies and creating new growth avenues for the group. We will be cash positive in Q1 FY27 from the port business.

Financial overview: from a financial perspective, FY26 reflects a year of strong execution, improved profitability, and disciplined growth. Excluding forex losses, ROE improved from 10.6% to 15.2%, while ROCE increased from 12.5% to 14.6%, reflecting stronger operational performance and improved capital efficiency.

Our continued focus on operational excellence, prudent capital allocation, and strengthening of brand and distribution capability has enabled us to improve both scale and earning quality. We remain committed to investing in manufacturing excellence, distribution expansion, brand, technology, and sustainable long-term growth.

Looking ahead, we remain optimistic about the medium to long-term outlook for the building material and interior infrastructure industry. The sector continues to benefit from strong structural drivers, such as rising urbanization, disposable income, etc.

With our diversified product portfolio, strong brand equity, expanding distribution network, improving capacity utilization, and additional capex on new capacity across businesses, Century Plyboards remains well-positioned to capitalize on the emerging growth opportunities across segments. We also expect further improvement in ROE and ROCE as we continue to sweat the substantial assets that have been created over the last 3 years.

During the quarter, the industry witnessed inflationary pressure in certain chemicals and resin-related input cost due to ongoing geopolitical conflicts and supply chain disruptions in global market. However, the company was able to effectively manage the challenges through operational efficiency, strategic sourcing initiatives, improved product mix, and calibrated pricing actions.

Going forward, we will continue to focus on profitable growth, operational excellence, prudent financial management, and sustainable long-term value creation for the stakeholders. We will now open the floor for questions.

Hi, sir. Many congratulations

for a

good set of numbers. Sir, my first question is related to the MDF where you had given around 39% of YoY growth in a quarter.

Can you make us understand from where such kind of outperformance is coming? Is that the market share you are gaining, or the channel expansion?

How that's going on? Related to that, at what level of utilization in the MDF you are running with?

Also in this, also if you can give some color on the price hike as you also highlighted related to the chemical price increased.

Related to the MDF. Sumant, it's already quite a lot of questions.

Sumant?

Yes. I think you asked three questions.

One, I think, on the Q-on-Q growth. It's a multitude of factors.

Obviously, in March, some stocking does happen because the market was expecting price increases. That has certainly been one factor, but not the only factor.

As we are aging more in the south, we are continuously expanding our network and also working on the secondaries, which is the carpenters and retailers. It's a mix of, I would say, a little bit of year-end stocking, but also a lot of fundamentals playing out in terms of enhanced network and enhanced demand generation.

That's part one of your question. I think your part two was on capacity utilization.

With the current numbers, we're at about 80% to 85% capacity utilization, give or take, for our full capacity. This is against the rated capacity.

If you look at the product mix, typically you can go up to 85% to 90% as a max capacity on top of rated. This is the reason why, as MD mentioned in his opening remark, we're also taking the extension in our south plant, which will add another 60,000, 70,000 cubes per year of capacity going forward.

On your third question in terms of price increase, given the disruption in chemicals and supply chain, on, forth, we and the industry have taken a 15% price increase, which barely actually covers the cost that has gone up on account of chemicals disruption. It is very early days to see how much of it sticks and also given the uncertainty right now on supply chain again, we'll have to wait and watch to see will it sustain, will we need to take more price increases, or will we need to take some corrections.

Okay. Okay.

This time you are not giving a guidance for all the segments for FY27?

Actually, the present situation is so I think fluid, it will not be right on our part to give you anything right now. Maybe by next time we will be in a better position to, because till now whatever we have projected, we have been able to mostly achieve.

The situation is really, really And we do not know what will happen to this war because they have given 60 days for that uranium, something, they will again sit down. It may or may not.

The war may again start. You really don't know what is going to happen.

That's why we are reserving, otherwise there is no other reason.

Thank you, sir. I'll come in the queue.

All the best.

Hi.

Thank you for the opportunity, sir. Sir, congratulation on a strong set of numbers.

I can

see in ply, you have announced multiple expansion, one more new expansion announced. How should we see ply capacity, what numbers in FY27, '28, '29?

Give us some sense on that. Secondly, because of this war

I will just tell you about the capacities. On the capacity front, actually a lot is happening.

Right now we are utilizing our capacities at practically 100%, you can say. The way we are growing, we have to take this chance, and that's why we are expanding our capacities into our existing plant also.

Our plant at Hoshiarpur is practically on the I think Nikita can tell better. Nikita, are you there online?

I'm there.

I think you can say better, yeah. Yeah.

Actually, in Q4, we had a capacity utilization of about 99%. We are increasing our capacity by about 30% within this year.

Part of it is about 20% is with internal plant expansions, and another, the Hoshiarpur plant, is supposed to come up in October this year. That would make it a 30% expansion.

Next year plan is another actually, the UP plant is a bit delayed. We are looking at actually, we had earlier projected that we will be making capex in this year, but it seems because we just got the land, I think the capex of the same would start probably towards the end of this year, maybe Feb, March, or maybe even Q1 next year.

It'll be ready in Q1 '28-'29. In the meantime, we also have started the process of procuring land in Orissa.

Given the way we are expanding, we believe that we will need a new plant, one leaving one year apart. If we got Hoshiarpur this year, we need a new plant in '28-'29.

That's our projection for the next 5 years. That's how we're going about it.

In between all years, we are expanding within our existing plants whatever is possible.

Understood. Chennai will double by Q3 FY27?

Chennai is doubling in July this year. That is the 20% expansion that I was talking.

Not really doubling because it's already taken out a lot of meat within its existing plants, about 40,000, maybe 30,000 or 25,000 CBM will increase in Chennai by July.

Got it. Understood.

This particle board, I can see in the press release you have mentioned as the capacity as 240,000. We can see the real capacity of 72,000 old plant you're not counting in.

The plan is to completely scrap the old plant, or possibly once this new plant will ramp up, you will start to use the old plant also? Lastly, particle board this time the capex is ₹500 crore for 240,000 CBM capacity.

Earlier, same plant which you did, the capex was higher at ₹700 crore. Why is that so?

This is Sumant here. Let me answer.

The old plant, which was a multi-daylight, slightly older technology, that we have shut down. As of now, there are no plans to revive it.

We will most likely scrap it. Even if we add future capacity in particle board at a later stage, should the market allow, it will be in a new greenfield capacity.

That's your question number one. Can you repeat question number two?

I forgot. What was the second question on particle board?

This time the particle board expansion cost is ₹500 crore, while earlier the similar capacity costed you ₹700 crore.

We have not taken any particle board expansion earlier. Which one are you referring to?

This is our first

I'm talking about the Chennai.

Chennai Chennai was

240,000, which where you incurred ₹700 crore.

No ₹700 crore. Chennai to naya plant jo lagaya, that is what we are running now.

The earlier plant which we have closed down, so that we are scrapping. There to I think we invested some 200-some crores, the first plant.

The old plant was ₹70 crore. I think you have got your numbers mixed up.

The old plant was an old technology, which was multi-daylight press, and hence the capex cost was much lower. This is a continuous production line where the cost will be higher.

Sir, I'm talking about the Chennai greenfield which you did particle board expansion of 240,000. That plant costing was around ₹700 crore.

Is this number right?

No, the number is incorrect. The plant costing was about ₹550 crores.

Okay. Assuming the plant costing was ₹550 crore, but now the Odisha one which you are doing,

which will come around in FY29 Odisha right now, it is just an MOU. It is just an MOU that we have done with the government with very, very rough calculations.

It is something that we are still exploring. Odisha, nothing has been finalized yet.

Odisha, have we done a MOU for particle board plant or for a plywood plant?

For both, papa.

For both, okay. Yeah.

Yeah. No,

I think if you're comparing the MOU, I think it's a wrong comparison to do because the MOU right now, we have got it with a caveat, if you read, that it could be a MDF or a particle board. We will take a decision when the time comes.

As in India, it takes a little bit time. We are just in the stage of procuring land.

You've seen, even in the past, when we actually start procuring land, I don't see Orissa going live till another 2 years from now in as getting the land. Then all the formalities will start.

I think 2 years from now, we can give you a better idea on cost and all the breakup. I hope that clears it.

Understood. Got it.

Quite clear. This MDF AP is already done, the debottlenecking thing for MDF?

Sorry, could you say again? Your voice was not clear.

They're asking for the debottlenecking. MDF, you were increasing capacity by 20%, 25% for AP plant, which you said in Q1.

That is already done and dusted now? No, no.

That is going on as we speak. In Q1 of this financial year, we are doing a brownfield expansion in our south plant.

That will unlock about 60,000, 70,000 cubic meters per year of additional capacity. That is ongoing currently and will get completed by the end of the quarter.

Got it. Will this have an impact on your sales volume for MDF in this quarter, or you already had the surplus inventory?

We've planned for inventory, and hopefully we'll be able to service the market sufficiently with the inventory.

Got it. One last question from my side.

In ply, you used to import timber. Now, how the geopolitical has been and container freight rates have increased.

In this way, this will increase your costing for ply timber also? You're facing any supply-side challenges?

Can you repeat it? Sorry, I missed your thing.

I said in ply, because of geopolitical, the freight rates have increased. You used to import timber in ply segment.

Is there any supply-side challenge, and whether your ply timber costing have increased due to higher freight rates? Yeah.

Actually, there is no challenge per se in getting the material. Yes, prices have increased, and we have taken a 7% price rise already in the month of April due to these reasons, because we have to import heavy as well as our chemicals, which are imported as well.

They too faced a lot of increase. You must be reading about phenol and melamine in the papers anyway.

Got it. Helpful.

Thank you so much.

Hi. Good evening, sir.

Hi. Good evening.

Sir, my first question is regarding your MDF segment. On volume side, you are doing pretty good, but on the margin side if we see, your margin has come under pressure, which earlier it was not guided.

Just wanted to know what is the reason for the margin pressure in the March quarter? What should be the sustainable margin in this segment as per you, and by when it is likely to be achieved, sir?

If you compare our Q4 versus Q3, there has been a margin erosion of about a percent, a marginal margin erosion. This is on account of two factors.

One, some production-related disruptions linked to the chemical availability and prices. Secondly, some one-off spends.

We did a little bit of ATL on the MDF side, which also got hit in quarter four. That's the reason why you see the 1% margin decline quarter-on-quarter.

I think in terms of steady state, once things stabilize on the chemical side, supply chain side, on, forth, our strong belief is that this is a high-teens EBITDA business in steady state. There are two, three reasons for it.

One, lot of operational improvement on the plant side that we do in regular course is likely to kick in again next year as well. Secondly, with this whole brownfield expansion in the south plant, it gives us efficiencies on power, fuel, on, forth.

Then a lot of effort is being made just in terms of product mix and value-added products, which we want to push further and further. In steady state, I think this is a high-teens EBITDA business, if not higher.

We hope to achieve that as the next year goes by. I think specific timeline is very difficult to put right now, given so much is happening globally.

That's our plan and our vision.

Okay. Sir, second, on the timber side, what we are hearing is that the timber prices in the local market has corrected by roughly around 10%.

Just wanted to know, are you also seeing similar kind of a correction in the local timber prices, and what's the outlook for the timber prices for FY27, sir?

I think, if we look at timber as as a raw material and if I compare to the volatility in the years before and and the year years before that, timber has remained a lot more stable this year. While it's marginally corrected, I won't say it's corrected by 10%, but it's remained stable.

There are some regular seasonal variations that happen anyway with timber. For example, in monsoon season, the availability is low, on, forth.

That happens every year. By and large, timber as a raw material has remained stable, and we expect it to remain stable going forward.

Okay. Sir, lastly, if you can just highlight how much price hike we have taken in the other segments also, like plywood, laminate, and particle board, in Q4 and in Q1 till date?

What would be our capex guidance for FY27 and '28?

I can answer for particle board and then I'll hand it over to Nikita maybe for ply. Look, particle board is a very key account management business, and the industry has not really announced any price hike per se, it's not standard.

The raw material prices on account of chemicals have taken a hit similar to MDF, and our price pass-on has also been in the same range.

I think I have already, on a plywood side, already mentioned that we have passed on whatever price increases we had so far in April of 7%, but it's a wait-and-watch scenario. If we feel that prices continue to rise, we will take further price rises accordingly.

Okay. Ma'am, what would be the capex guidance for '27 and '28 on a consol basis?

Vinay, can you answer that at a company level?

I'll take that. The basic capex where we are going to incur, the majority of it is going to be towards our new Hoshiarpur plant.

Other than that, once we are online with Uttar Pradesh, once the land is in hand, we should be looking at commissioning Uttar Pradesh over the course of next 2 years. Other than these two, we have no major frozen capexes yet.

The capex will be predominantly directed towards plywood.

Okay. Thanks a lot, sir.

Hi. Very good evening, sir, to everybody on the call.

It's two questions. One is more longer-term, mid-term in terms of strategy.

Our operating cash flows every year are about ₹600, ₹700 crores. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Our capex, total including UP, Odisha, is ₹2000 crores next 4 years, 5 years, roughly about ₹400, ₹500 crores a year. Most of the heavy lifting on cash flow right now is plywood.

60% of EBITDA is coming from there. Just need to understand your thoughts on how do you manage your risk going forward, right?

Since a lot more on execution, which will depend on to fund this capex. Second is, at the same time, we've got to control on our financial leverage on the balance sheet, which is ₹1600 crores right now.

Third is, of course, spreading out this capex over 4, 5 years' time so that the capex which we've just finished over the last 2, 3 years should actually generate the ROCE you want. How do we play a balancing act here?

Could you just explain in terms of your own thought process for the entire business? That's the first question.

Hi, Rahul. I think the way to look at this, we are a company that you've seen has invested when we believe that there is money to be made.

At the same time, for us, turnover is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is reality. Return on capital is one of the most important metrics that we track.

Currently, as you've rightly pointed out, we have invested substantially over the course of the past 2 years, and right now, I think it is opportune for us to sweat our assets to generate returns. We are looking at growth that is not exponential.

We are looking at a sustained growth. Towards that, maintaining balance sheet discipline is one of the most important priorities.

At this point in time, like I have already mentioned, our priority is going to be in creating capacity for plywood, where we are seeing that we might face a shortage say, 1, 1 and 1/2 years from now, due to very strong action on the ground. Other than that, we will take a call on the other segments as and when we reach capacity utilization.

There could be stagnation in a couple of segments where we will not benefit substantially from volume addition for a period of one or two quarters, maybe from the fag end of next year onwards, but this will be offset by higher realizations and by higher value addition sales. I think currently there's no frozen capex for MDF or particle board, which are large, substantial capexes.

We are going to be using our internal cash flows predominantly to strengthen our balance sheet. Going forward, as and when we take a call, you'll be the first to know.

I would like to add one more thing to this, that see, in plywood, we are not doing unrealistic expansion because all this while, you never saw expansion was because our existing plants had a lot of juice to actually take out. We could really do massive expansion within our plants.

We've actually double, tripled our capacity within our existing plants over the last 5 to 6 years. That is now no longer feasible, and because of that, we need to put up new plants, and we are looking at securing raw material sources, because of which we are looking at Odisha or a UP, etc., for future whenever we come back to local timber.

We are taking a very muted growth of 10% to 12% and a capacity utilization of 80%. Basis that, we are planning our expansions.

Right. No, absolutely get it.

Just in terms of follow-up, for plywood, Nikita, the base is going to be very high, right? This year we've done exceptionally well.

To actually do the heavy lifting next year, you're talking about 10%, 12% growth for next year is what you're talking about?

Like MD said at the beginning, we don't want to give any numbers for this year. I think in the next call, we will talk about the numbers for this year, what we are expecting.

Obviously, you will also see how we performed in Q1 by then.

Sure, sir. I get that.

Just in terms of your own comfort on debt overall levels versus if I look at EBITDA, what's the comfort level from a balance sheet consol perspective? Right now we are at about 2 and 1/2, if we look at debt to EBITDA gross levels.

We should be reasonably assured

Operating debt or working capital debt is something because we are growing and we are in a high-growth phase. 19% growth year-on-year for a business like ours does require certain working capital.

Long-term debt, I don't think we'll exceed 1:1 EBITDA going forward.

Perfect. Got it.

Just lastly on forex, just wanted to understand what are these liabilities where forex in case INR devalues substantially in any quarter, which has just happened like that right now, what are these liabilities? Rahul,

our total forex is within ₹600 crores. Over the course of the past two decades, we have benefited substantially because of a natural implicit hedge, as you are aware.

One year, yes, there's been a stark loss. This is predominantly due to the fact that currencies appreciated beyond what anyone could have imagined.

Having said that, I think our total forex exposure is ₹600 crores. It is going to be limited to within that space, which is not going to have a very meaningful impact on our balance sheet going forward.

We're not going to increase our forex exposure going forward.

No, absolutely understand. What I was asking was, is it part of debt, or is it realized, or this is mark-to-market?

No, no. It is mark-to-market.

Right. Okay.

This is part of Yes.

It is pure mark-to-market. Okay.

This is not realized loss. This is largely on liabilities on short-term debt, is it?

No, it is on long-term debt. Majority of it is long-term debt, no, because we have imported machinery in buyers' credit.

That is very clear. Thank you so much, and wish you all the best for the next year.

Thank you.

Hi. Good evening, team, and congrats on a great set of numbers.

Hi, Sneha. Hi.

Thank you.

Hello, sir. Hi.

Thank you.

Just a couple of questions, sir. First, in the plywood segment

Sneha, sorry to interrupt, your audio is breaking. Can you come in a better reception area, please?

Is it better now?

Yes.

Yeah. Sir, I was just asking whether on the plywood front, whether we have opportunity for outsourcing?

If yes, what would be the contribution of outsourcing currently? That's one.

Although I understand you said that for incremental even 10%, 12% we need to add growth, but the possibility of the outsourcing front also to get a higher growth, that's first. Secondly, a lot of your peers on the call mentioned that on MDF front, although we've taken price hike, but it's being partially passed on and due to competition there are schemes and discounts going on.

Just wanted to understand that how much of the raw material cost absorption across the board is done, and could we see any margin impact starting Q1 because of higher inflation?

Let me take the outsource question first, and then Sumant can take the next question. The thing is with respect to outsource, I think I've mentioned it in the last call as well and our meets, that we want to actually make it a complete 100% in-house production.

We are hoping that by the time there is a internal expansion next year April and Hoshiarpur, once Hoshiarpur comes, we will start moving a lot of our Sainik MR, which is the only product we outsource, in-house. By the time we are here next year, we would probably make it 100% in-house.

Got that, Nikita. Thanks.

On the On the pricing, Sneha, hi, this is Sumant here. Like I'd mentioned previously, we and the industry have taken a 15% price increase this quarter.

That more or less covers the cost increase on account of supply chain disruptions and the war. You are right, some peers in the industry have done selective rollbacks on this.

Right now, it's in a bit of a flux, given that the global tensions are again at play. We don't know which way the prices will go from here.

Also, in the market, like you rightly pointed, there's been some rollbacks by few players here or there. I think we're waiting and watching and see which way it'll go.

Our hope is that we are able to pass on the cost increase as an industry in terms of prices, and therefore there should be no margin impact. Right now, it's wait and watch for us.

It's very difficult to say currently.

Got that. Lastly, just a third and last question from my end, which is related to across the categories.

The reason I'm asking this, we've seen significant inflation in March. There was a lot of channel pushing, be it tires, be it pipes, be it even your space, like MDF, where the traders or the distributors were expecting price hikes.

That is why they stuffed material in the month of March, and probably because of which April has been slow. Just a sense that I wanted to get, how has May picked up?

Are we seeing any scope of channel recoupling and now taking material?

No, no, no. Okay.

Sneha, for us, April was not slow,

so. That answers

Actually, it was not slow, yeah. I want to clarify one more thing, Sneha, as far as this outsourcing is concerned.

You see, we know that Century is absolutely into quality. We have seen that outsourcing in plywood has really not worked as far as the quality is concerned.

That's why, as fast as possible, we are trying to withdraw from outsourcing, reduce outsourcing, and do everything in-house. Because the quality is of utmost importance to us.

Got that, sir. That was really helpful.

Thanks. Thanks a lot, team.

Why I'm saying so, because next time you build your house, you must buy only Century Ply. Yes.

Yeah.

Understood, sir. Thank you.

Thank you so much, team, and all the best.

Hi, Mr. Nedar.

Hi, thank you for the opportunity. Sir, just an extension to Rahul's question on the overall capex.

On the MDF front, you seem to be running at pretty high capacity utilizations, right? This debottlenecking probably helps you for growth up till next year.

What are the plans beyond that? If we want to expand capacity there, I'm sure some things must be planned by now so that it's commissioned by FY28.

Any thoughts there? Or would the idea be to focus on more value-added products?

How should we think about it?

Keshav, are you there?

Keshav, would you like to take that?

okay,

okay, okay. Meanwhile, maybe I can take a stab at answering while Keshav joins.

Look, like Keshav mentioned a couple of questions back, obviously debottlenecking is one area which will give us 60,000, 70,000 cubic meters more of capacity this year, and we would like to obviously try to sell it off as quickly as possible. In parallel, move towards value-added is certainly very high on the agenda.

That also gives us EBITDA uplift. In terms of capacity addition beyond that, nothing is firmed up and nothing is announceable as of now.

We're obviously doing our internal brainstorming. Once we're in a position to give you specifics in terms of timelines and capacity, we'll come back.

With our UP land acquisition, if it happens correctly and on time, we'll be ready with the land. The land is ready, then rest of it is absolutely ready with us.

There is no more science to it for us. We will be able to put up a plant within say, 15 to say 16 months' time, I think.

Right now, yes, there is nothing absolutely frozen.

Because of plywood, we would actually get the land ready regardless, because we would need the common facilities and more or less the roads, etc. The land will be ready if ever MDF decides.

It won't take as long a period as it takes for a fresh project.

Understood. Just to sort of clarify that it's more a timing or a capex issue, nothing to suggest that the growth opportunities are sort of saturated.

Should I be taking it? No,

no, no, no. We are very bullish on MDF rather.

The capacities are going to expand really big time. A lot of progress is going to come in.

These are only, wo kya bolte hain, toofan ke pehle shanti.

Understood.

No, and I think this division will deliver a EBITDA where you all will also get the confidence that we further grow into capex. I think that is also important.

Yeah.

Now looking forward to that. Thank you, and wish you all the best.

Thank you.

Hi, Amit. Sir.

Thanks for the opportunity. Hi, sir.

Congratulations for good set of numbers.

Sir,

just two questions. One, on the demand, how are you seeing right now, given the fact that you have taken price increases in most of the segments?

Second, when you take price increases, I just wanted to understand how do you, just as a bit of a mathematical thing, trying to understand whether this price increases ensures you a percentage margin, or suppose the raw material prices would have gone up by how much for MDF at an aggregate level, or in plywood, if you could give me? Is it a raw material price increased by 7% and 15% for you, and that's why the amount of price increases has been taken?

If you could help me with that.

It's not that complicated. It's very simple.

You see, there are very different factors in costing. We have a very efficient costing management system.

Very fast we get the calculations that what are our costs going to be in, say, next 1 month's time also. Accordingly, we take the price increase.

It is not only raw material, timber, because the timber is only maybe certain percentage of the whole thing. Then there are chemicals, then there are factory inputs, and then there are logistics costs, and then there is a dollar rupee.

All these things we take into account, and we take the increase. It's much simpler than

No, I just want to know, is that what is the raw material index for you increased in MDF and plywood, if you could just tell us that on a YoY basis for you to take 7% and 15% price hike?

What is the raw material percentage in the total cost?

It's something I personally don't want to share. I think at least for plywood, I don't want to share, and I think Sumant would say the same for MDF.

No. I don't think we should share for all these things.

Yeah. As far as the demand part goes, I would request Mr.

Sen, if he's on the line, he should answer for ply, and then Sumant can answer for MDF.

Navarun, are you there?

Okay. He's not there.

Let me take it up. Take it up,

yeah.

The thing is that whenever we do a price increase, we expect that things will fall, but we are not seeing any drop in our secondary. That to me shows that there might be some hoarding with the big dealers, but because we have such a wide expansion, and we actually run roots on a daily basis when it comes to feeding smaller dealers, I feel that demand is continuing even post the price increase currently for ply.

I think just to add to that, sorry, you were saying something? Please go ahead.

No, continue, and then I'll just have one small follow-up on that.

That's it. No, just a quick addition to that on the MDF side.

Look, for us also, demand has been quite stable. Usually April, May, as compared to Q4, of course, there's a little bit of correction that happens from the Q4 exuberance, but in general, we don't see any fundamental weakening of demand.

It's quite stable and healthy.

Sure. Just, sir, I understand you may not like to share the exact percentage, but can you just say whether it is higher or lower versus the price increase that you have taken?

Oh, it'll always be higher, right? The raw material increase will be higher because of the ratio of the raw material to the pricing it's not 100%, right?

Obviously, the raw material price rise would be higher. Obviously, but we pass on the exact rise.

We do not let our EBITDA get hit. That's usually how we work as a company.

Okay. On a per Amit,

I think that answers your question. You're trying to ask, are we trying to get more margin from the price increase, or are we just covering our cost?

I think Nikita answered. The philosophy is to pass on as much cost as possible.

That's the intent.

Sure. Thank you so much.

Thanks.

Hi. Thanks for the opportunity,

sir. Hi.

Sir,

first question related to plywood. Last quarter, we said 8% of our total revenue in plywood is with respect to Sainik MR.

First, if you can tell us what is it in terms of volume? Second, now we plan to bring in Sainik MR in-house, does it mean that volume growth won't be commensurate to capacity growth going ahead?

Is that a fair understanding?

Let me answer it in two ways. Number one, we do not share breakup of Sainik MR and Sainik 710 and Club Prime.

We maintained this in the past, I will not answer that question. With respect to the second part, yes, if you say in terms of the growth, the capacity expansion that is happening is quite aggressive at a smaller timeline.

If we've added 30% just this year, and then we're adding another further 15% next year, is all to actually take up some part of this 8%. Obviously, we are not going to grow by 45% in this 1 and 1/2 years.

Yes.

All right. What is the capa

I hope that answers your question.

Yes, it does. Just a follow-up on this, if you can call out what is the capacity right now in plywood and what will be our capacity post you're done with all the capex that we have announced in FY27?

Vinay, will you take up those exact numbers, please?

Sure. Current capacity in case of plywood is 406,000.

This is as on 31st March

Sir, sorry to interrupt you, you are sounding distant.

Am I audible now?

Yes, sir. Yeah.

Current capacity at plywood is 406,000 as on March 26. We are coming up with new capacity of Hoshiarpur, which is 48,000 CBM, which is going to come up in the second half of this year.

Apart from that, we are having brownfield expansion at our different factories, which is Kandla, Chennai, and Guwahati, which will add another 20% of this particular capacity, which Nikita had already told earlier. I hope I am

20% of total capacity, it's 80,000, 4 lakh?

Yes. Through a brownfield.

Got it. Second question related to Century Port.

We have done expense of somewhere around ₹260, ₹270 crore over 3 years. Just wanted to understand what could be the potential cost saving we can expect from this?

Hello?

What do you mean by cost saving for Century Ply?

Yes. He's talking about the port business.

Cost saving or incremental revenue. No

cost saving for Century Ply. There is no cost saving in this, actually.

It makes life easier for many, many importers and exporters, to us also. There is no cost saving for Century Ply in this.

We always maintain each thing as a separate profit center. Century Ports will continue to have its own profit center, and there's no benefit to Century Ply as a subsidiary.

Hello? Mehul.

Sir, I wanted to know the current capacity for laminates.

Current capacity for laminate.

Utilization.

Our capacity utilization is at 84%, and our capacity is 87,70,000 sheets.

87,70,000

87,70,000 sheets, and at

This is consolidated, right? Consolidated.

The Badvel capacity is 11,200 CBM. These are two different kinds of numbers because there the number was number of sheets, 87,70,000 number of sheets.

Here it is CBM because here we make a different kind of laminate, actually. It's a thicker laminate, which is mostly for exports or for use in toilet cubicles and all that.

Okay. And

Capacity utilization at Badvel is 47%.

What would be the capacity for '27 and '28?

Capacity for '27, '28? Same.

Ha,

yeah, laminate. Okay.

Like we said, we will give those numbers in the next call, because if I talk about capacity utilization, I will also end up talking about what is my plan for this year. We will give that in the next call.

Mehul, you asked for the capacity, right? The capacity is going to be 88.

No, he's asking capacity utilization percentage for this year. Hmm.

For MDF, capacity is 5,28,000, right, current?

MDF, the current capacity is about 530, 540,000 CBM per year. With the brownfield expansion, we'll add another 60 to 70,000.

We'll be, give or take, 6 lakh cubes a year.

Okay. Sir.

Thank you.

Hi, sir.

Sir,

first question is, what is the reason for weak performance in the laminate segment for the 8 quarters, and by when can we expect it to start performing?

Vishu, you have

I can answer that. Bishu Goyal this side.

I think there are two parts to the question, okay. If you were to look at the preceding eight quarters, which is FY 24-25 and 23-24, okay, we had seen a certain amount of stagnancy as far as the laminate business is concerned, partially because of some internal changes in the context of how we wanted to take up the GTM level changes, which probably have not worked to our advantage, and partially also because of the changing product mix when you look at Indian as well as both export markets.

We took some corrective actions starting last year only, and if you were to look at this year, we have started seeing some green shoots as far as the financial year '25-'26 is concerned. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, we have seen an uptick as far as the overall top line as well as the improvement on the bottom end is concerned, which essentially has come through the work which we have done both in the domestic market, including working on some price points, trying to sharpen our go-to-market strategy, and making some corrective changes there, including changes in the leadership team.

Also, at the export level, we have added the larger capacity presses, which is something which is more attuned to the kind of product mix which is utilized or kind of demanded in the global markets, all across Europe, Southeast Asia, and stuff like that. That also has started giving us some dividend.

To that extent, we are seeing some green shoots. While, of course, we are in a context of building up the space for us, but for whatever we understand, including all other published companies wherein they've published their results, we have done reasonably okay, as if now our growth rate outstrips all of them from a published point of view.

Industry itself has seen a certain amount of a 8% to 10% kind of a revenue guidance if you were to look at the market leaders and all other companies the way they are portraying, and at this stage, we continue to outgrow that. As we move ahead, we will see more improvement in consolidation moving forward, and we may continue to outgrow the market by 3% to 4 percentages.

Okay. Sir, what is the how much has been the rise in the chemical prices compared to the average of Q4 based on current market rates?

Also if you can share the chemical cost percentage as a proportion of revenue for plywood, laminate, MDF, and particle

board? No, I don't think we share such

fine

costs, etc. We do not share, actually.

Sir. How much has been the rise in the chemical prices?

Ha, ye bata sakte ho. Bishu, if

you have idea I know

I can tell you. See, for us, in the context of MDF and plywood, we have taken a price increase to the tune of 10% to 12% largely the impact in the quarter one, okay, and that predominantly covers our raw material or the chemical cost price hike which has happened, okay, because we are dependent on a lot of chemicals, and it does form a sizeable portion of our input cost.

We have been able to pass on most of the price increase to the market.

The cost increase in chemical will be a little higher than this percentage.

Yeah. Maybe we are unable to tell you at this moment exactly.

Sir. Thank you so much.

Hello? Thank you, everyone, for your insightful questions and continued interest in our company.

We are encouraged by the strong performance delivered during FY26 and remain confident about sustaining the growth momentum across our businesses. With Iran war supposedly ending, I hope progress here will be good.

We sincerely appreciate your continued trust and support, and we look forward to interacting with you again after our next quarter results. Thank you.

Have a great day.