Kirloskar Brothers Ltd.

Kirloskar Brothers Ltd.

1,659.30
INR
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46.92EPS
44.18P/E
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Oct 27Next Earn

Q1 FY2027 · Earnings Call TranscriptAugust 3, 2026

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q1 FY27 Kirloskar Brothers Limited conference call. 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 * then 0 on your touch-tone phone. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company as on the date of this call.

These statements are not the guarantees of the future performance of the company as on the date of this call. These statements are not the guarantees of the future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict.

I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sanjay Kirloskar, Chairman and Managing Director from Kirloskar Brothers Limited.

Thank you and over to you, sir.

Sanjay Kirloskar

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone.

On behalf of Kirloskar Brothers Limited, I extend a very warm welcome to all of who have joined us on our call today. I hope everyone has had an opportunity to go through the financial results and the investor presentation, which have been uploaded on the stock exchange and on the company's website.

On this call with me, I have Mr. Alok Kirloskar, Managing Director, Kirloskar Brothers International BV; Ms.

Rama Kirloskar, Joint MD, KBL and MD, Kirloskar Ebara Pumps Limited; Mr. Bhavesh Chheda, our Chief Financial Officer; Mr.

Devang Trivedi, our Company Secretary; and Strategic Growth Advisors, our investor relations advisors. Let me begin my remarks by giving some business highlights.

Pleased to report that for Q1 of fiscal year '27, our consolidated revenue stood at ₹11,049 million, registering a healthy 13% growth year-on-year. This performance was driven by robust demand across our diverse product portfolio of products and services, reflecting our strong market positioning, customer-centric approach, and execution capabilities.

Growth was well supported by sustained momentum across both domestic and international markets, where we continued to capitalize on emerging opportunities and strengthen our presence. The consolidated EBITDA for the quarter stood at ₹1,306 million, registering a two-year 2% year-on-year growth with EBITDA margin of 11.8%.

During the quarter, we also recorded good order inflows across both domestic and international markets. Our consolidated order intake grew by 4% year-on-year to ₹13,954 million, providing continued visibility for future growth.

Turning to our standalone domestic business, for Q1 FY27, revenue increased by 9% year-on-year to ₹6,738 million, while EBITDA grew by 16% to 920 million rupees. Profit after tax stood at ₹540 million, reflecting 15% year-on-year growth.

Our healthy order book coupled with our focused approach towards high potential business opportunities provides us with confidence in our growth outlook. We remain confident of delivering double-digit revenue growth in FY27 over FY26 for our standalone business.

As on June 26, our standalone pending orders amounted to ₹25,577 million, excluding small pumps order book, reflecting a strong pipeline. Further, we are seeing good order inflows across segments.

On the international front, we reported a 19% year-on-year growth in revenue during Q1 FY27. This performance was primarily driven by strong execution across SPP USA and Kirloskar Brothers Thailand Limited.

SPP USA continues to witness encouraging traction in data centers, fire, and HVAC projects. EBITDA stood at ₹207 million with EBITDA margin of 5.1%.

This moderation was primarily attributable to a lower contribution from the services business, which traditionally carries higher margins. We're actively focused on expanding the services portfolio, which we believe will support improvement going forward.

Our overseas pending order book stood at ₹15,045 million, providing strong visibility for the coming quarters. Looking ahead, we remain optimistic about the company's growth trajectory backed by a healthy mix of domestic and international business, a robust order pipeline, and continued focus on operational excellence.

The company is well positioned to deliver sustainable growth in periods ahead. That's all from our side.

We can now begin the Q&A session. Thank you.

Operator

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

Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press * and 1 on your touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press * and 2.

Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press * and 2.

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

The first question is from the line of Manish Goyal from Thinkwise Wealth Advisors. Please proceed.

Manish Goyal

Thank you so much, sir. I have couple of questions.

Just on the standalone business, an observation on the stock adjustment, it seems that dispatches have been delayed or because we have an inventory buildup, like in Q1 also stock adjustment is 82 crores, and FY26 annual report also shows that inventory, work-in-progress has jumped from 180 to 241, advances to suppliers have jumped from 32 crores to 91 crores. Sir, does it imply that a lot of dispatches are withheld, or is there any constraint on that front, which is probably hindering the double-digit growth for us?

That was the first question. Second question is, sir, you did allude that SPP UK had a revenue mix issue with lower services contribution, sir.

By when should we be able to see the benefit of expansion of the service portfolio to start reflecting in improvement in margins for SPP UK? Also, Rodelta has again seen a jump in losses in the current quarter, maybe how should we look at in context of SPP UK and Rodelta overall overseas subsidiaries' performance going forward?

Thank you.

Sanjay Kirloskar

Thank you, Mr. Goyal.

Inventory has gone up as we had explained in the previous quarters, we were improving our foundries, and that exercise is complete, but what had happened was some of the orders were half completed and half not, and that is why we couldn't ship out the whole order, but this month itself, we've seen huge improvements, which we believe will be reflected in the current quarters.

Alok Kirloskar

Mr. Goyal, you asked two questions.

One is about SPP UK and Rodelta. As I mentioned, I think, last time also, we expect that in their third quarter, the numbers should improve because that's how the order book was structured.

Because a lot of the historic chemical and petrochemical service order books were effectively delayed or they were not really placed in large numbers because the plants were idling. I think I saw it circulating a lot even on LinkedIn about how the Ineos Chairman has been [unclear] about oil prices.

Manish Goyal

Sorry, Alok. There was a disconnection after Mr.

Sanjay Kirloskar spoke about dispatches. We could not hear him.

Alok Kirloskar

Can you hear me now?

Manish Goyal

Now, yes, Alok.

Alok Kirloskar

Okay. I just said that you mentioned about SPP UK and Rodelta.

I mentioned last time also that the services business should start kicking in in third quarter, third third quarter for them, which is second quarter for us here. That's just because of the way the product mix was.

I had explained that the chemical and petrochemical business, service contracts related to chemical and petrochemical businesses were idling. I only said that you probably saw even a letter on LinkedIn where the Chairman of Ineos was mentioning how the high prices of energy have been killing the chemical industry in Europe and the UK.

That's reflective of that, but as I mentioned, we've got contracts with power plants, with water utilities, and a lot of those should come into effect, which will again get the blended margins back to a better level going into the last two quarters for them and three quarters for us. On the Rodelta side, I would say it's really delayed execution because you're seeing them all together, all our Dutch entities together.

We expect in the next two quarters for that to get better. We are quite optimistic about both the entities and we expect it to be in line with what we've always said, that all the entities will be profitable, and that we will look to have better than previous year numbers.

Manish Goyal

Alok, if you can also talk about how are we looking at US operations going forward?

Alok Kirloskar

Yes. The US operations, I think you have the numbers, it is growing at quite a fast pace.

In the breakup of this presentation, I think you've seen that it's grown about 20+% in the first quarter-to-quarter. A lot of it is from data centers as well as US infrastructure projects.

We continue to be strong. We are under NDA, but we are in the last steps of signing a multinational framework contract with a major US operator of data centers.

Which is not just for pumps, but modular systems. We are still very optimistic about how we look to see the US growing in the future.

Does that answer your question?

Manish Goyal

No, you said multi-year framework contract for which industry in US?

Alok Kirloskar

No, for a data center operator.

Manish Goyal

Okay.

Alok Kirloskar

Okay.

Manish Goyal

In US.

Alok Kirloskar

Data center operator, yeah, historically, we've worked with them in the US, but now we'll work with them globally, wherever they put up data centers. They're a very large I can't mention to you because we have an NDA, but it's a very large operator.

Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay.

Manish Goyal

Okay. I have few more questions.

I'll come back in the queue. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Raj Shah from Inam AMC.

Please proceed.

Raj Shah

Yes, sir. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Sir, my first question was on the order inflow side. Though the prospects have been good, and as you have mentioned in the opening remarks as well.

However, order inflows number was just up by 4% and in standalone it was up just by 3%, sir. If you can throw some light on why this number was low single digit, if it could have been better, in which areas, sir?

Rama Kirloskar

Some of those orders were delayed and we've which to this quarter. That's one of the reasons why you don't see that.

The growth on a standalone basis is around 14.9% for booking.

Sanjay Kirloskar

Year-on-year. Sir,

Rama Kirloskar

are you talking about a certain sector?

Raj Shah

No, I was talking about the order inflow.

Rama Kirloskar

That is the booking.

Raj Shah

Yes,

Rama Kirloskar

yes.

Raj Shah

It has been delayed, in the following quarters you see good order inflow.

Rama Kirloskar

There was a certain large order got delayed, but other than that we were as per plan.

Raj Shah

Okay. In the

Sanjay Kirloskar

growth over the last year's first quarter, there has been a 14.9% growth in order intake.

Raj Shah

Okay. Okay.

When I see your order book, standalone order book, the breakup that you have given the PPT sector-wise, in the customer support and engineering services division, I see on an average every quarter there is a 80 to 100 crore amount every quarter order book, but in this quarter that order book has increased to 233 crores. Is there any significant large order that we have received?

That's my question.

Rama Kirloskar

Yes, there were certain orders that we received, but I would not take that as a pattern because it purely depends on the customer's requirement. I hope that answers your question.

Raj Shah

Is that a fair assumption?

Rama Kirloskar

I hope that answers your question. Am I audible?

Raj Shah

Yes, yes, you are. I said as a follow-up, will you see that this will help us improve our standalone EBITDA margins?

Rama Kirloskar

Yes, definitely.

Raj Shah

Got it. Lastly, oil and gas side, as press release mentions, we have received a 5,000 petrol pump order.

My question was, is this a repeat order from the previous customer or we have been able to get entry into a new customer as well?

Rama Kirloskar

There are only three to four large PSUs that buy this and we are qualified by all. Now, as of the end of Q1, we have around a booking of approximately 217 crores in this business.

Okay.

Raj Shah

Got it. I have few.

Thank you so much.

Rama Kirloskar

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nirmam from Unique PMS.

Please proceed. Yeah.

Sir,

Nirmam Mehta

my first question is on the standalone business. We've seen our sales growth picking up after a few quarters now, do we see this momentum continuing and improving from here on?

As a result, will margins and operating leverage also kick in? Hello?

Rama Kirloskar

We just did a huge foundry project which we've come out of, yes, that should enable higher revenues.

Nirmam Mehta

Okay. Secondly, on the order book breakup, we've given the split for industry where our pending order book has come.

Do we see any challenges on that side?

Sanjay Kirloskar

No. Actually, it is in line with our annual operating plan for the quarter, and this was based on what we thought were going to be the orders that they would release.

This is why I've always said don't look at our business quarter-to-quarter, look at it at least half-yearly or better yet annually, then you will see the difference because these are capital goods that we supply and sometimes the orders get delayed and sometimes they all come in a rush. This is as per what we expected it to happen.

Nirmam Mehta

Okay. Alok, I had one question on the international business.

We've seen top line growth, but margins have impacted, as you mentioned, because of SPP UK. Given the increased traction in the US business and UK coming back, do we see double-digit growth and margins improvement from here on?

Alok Kirloskar

Yes, I mentioned that earlier to Mr. Goyal that one is that we expect the service business to sort of come back in based on our order book in the last two quarters for them and the last three quarters for us here because they're one quarter off because their calendar year and financial year is the same.

The second point, I think, is at overall level that as the execution of orders takes place in Thailand and in the Netherlands, because they're a little bit delayed on order execution, then those numbers also should get better.

Nirmam Mehta

Sure. Thank you and all the best.

Alok Kirloskar

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Subramaniam from Arihant Capital.

Please proceed. Good afternoon, ma'am.

Bala Subramaniam

Good afternoon. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Sir, under US business, data center share it's around 23%. I'm trying to understand which are the products we are supplying for data centers?

In the US, around 4,000 data centers are operating and I think another 2,000 is coming up. How do you plan to scale from 46 distributors to capture a larger share in the market?

If you could talk about specific addressable market for your specific pump solutions for data center, and how does that compare to your current average ticket size?

Alok Kirloskar

Market in the US has, as there are different players in the market. There are the operators, I'm just naming the operators, they're like people like Google or Amazon, who have their own data centers.

Then there are private equities as as an example, Brookfield, let's say, who, puts up data centers and other companies, hire space or, book out the data center for a 20-year period, and and these companies basically make a a utility-style cash flow. Then there are other other sort of versions of how these how these work, in terms of data center size, scale, et cetera.

Usually, our our target market is hyperscale data centers. Hyperscale data centers require different packages.

One is the intake water package, which gets the water to the data center. From there, there is a a treatment facility usually, and that requires some pumps, not usually bought by the data center, but but bought by the person or the company that makes the treatment facility.

After that are the main pumps for the data centers, which is the cooling pumps, the firefighting pumps, and the booster pumps. There is another system called on-chip cooling, which we don't do, but our booster pump sends the water as well as receives the water back with the warm sends the cold water to the on-chip cooling system and receives the warm water back from the on-chip cooling system and sends it to the chiller.

I would say this is the overall package. We don't sell just the pumps as you know anymore.

We sell modular systems that are in a container, plug-and-play along with the piping and the control systems, everything for the fire as well as the chiller system as well as the the the pumps for the chiller systems, as well as the booster package. That's usually what we what we supply.

In the past, we used to say that about 1 to 1.5% of any any capex really has pumps, relevant capex, if you talk about power plants or whatever else, and that was also the case of data centers. Now, usually, the data center package for a hyperscale data center excluding, excluding the intake water system, is between $7.5 to $10 million.

Sometimes it could go to $12 million, but this is the usual kind of package that is there. The intake water system changes because that's really dependent on what type of water you're pumping.

If you're pumping seawater, then the price is totally different from what from pumping river water or lake water because obviously the corrosion and all those kinds of things. It's not worth me telling you a number because that number varies significantly based on, what what kind of media you're pumping for, in terms of in terms of water, whether it's saline or non-saline.

I think that gives you a picture of what is happening. I think the question was, how many data centers?

I think I I have mentioned it in the past, but I think they're approximately 4,000-odd operating data centers in the US and there are another, currently, 2,000 data centers that have received planning permission, which includes power and water, in the data in the US. From that point of view, there's a good opportunity.

To answer your other question about distributors, yes, we are taking on national distributors, but those are not necessarily connected to data centers because data centers have, like I said, operators, financiers, private equity players, and all these have, some key consultants, I'll just name one as an example, let's say, AECOM, as an example. Really our work goes in working with the consultants as well as the end-users to ensure they understand what we are supplying them and what is the what is the specialty.

As as an example, hyperscale data centers claim anything from 99% uptime to 99.2% uptime, and usually this means in a whole year that there is a couple of hours, between 8 and 9 hours of total downtime available for maintenance. In our case, we have some specialized pumps where maintenance can be done from the outside.

This obviously saves time for the pumps, key key items of the pumps can be replaced and upgraded from the outside. These kinds of things are what an operator or a consultant would appreciate, but it's not something a contractor would appreciate if you if you see the difference.

I would say definitely we are working to grow the distribution channel, but that's not necessarily connected to our data center business. I hope I've answered all the questions you asked.

Bala Subramaniam

Yes, sir. My next question, that subsidiary KPML, I think it majorly deals with stampings, motors, and castings.

I'm trying to understand the margin impact from 12.5% to 7.3% in this quarter. This impact, because of the transition to EV or is there any other reasons?

If you could mention demand for stampings, motors versus traditional ICE components? Yeah.

Sanjay Kirloskar

KPML, many times we've had questions as to why we have so many subsidiaries. Internationally, we are structured just like our major competitors around the world because almost every country demands that there be a local company doing business in that country.

Domestically, we had two subsidiaries and one two joint ventures. The joint ventures being Kirloskar Corrocoat and Kirloskar Ebara, and the two subsidiaries being Kolhapur Steel and KPML.

KPML makes stators, rotors, and motors for specialized applications, as well as motors that KBL uses in captive power plants. TKSL makes steel castings for KBL, as well as other customers.

As you are aware, TKSL has been loss-making, but now they've started turning around the corner, the output has started increasing, and we expect that TKSL will also be a profitable company going forward, especially as requirements for power, whether thermal or nuclear, pumps are required. This is where steel castings and large steel castings are required.

As KBL builds on its order board, and the fact that BHEL is also a very large customer of TKSL, we expect that this company will grow going forward. At the moment, as you're aware, TKSL was making losses, and the reason for the drop in margin at KPML has been that.

We expect the margin to improve going forward.

Bala Subramaniam

I

Sanjay Kirloskar

hope that answers your question.

Bala Subramaniam

Yes, sir, got it. Thank you.

Sanjay Kirloskar

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nishita from Shankulesh from Sapphire Capital.

Please proceed.

Nishita Shankulesh

Yes, am I audible?

Sanjay Kirloskar

Yeah.

Nishita Shankulesh

Yeah. I just wanted to understand why has our margin on a consolidated basis fallen so much in Q1?

From 13% in Q4 to 10%, it's a 3% margin drop. Just wanted to understand the reason for that.

Hello?

Sanjay Kirloskar

Can you repeat your question? Question is, why has there been a margin drop?

Nishita Shankulesh

Yeah.

Sanjay Kirloskar

In the consolidated order book.

Bhavesh Chheda

In consolidated order, as Alok mentioned earlier, there is a little drop in the SPP UK business. Otherwise, the standalone profit is more than the last year.

EBITDA margin for KBL was at 12.8% and current year it is 13.7%. The drop is observed in KBL BV, including UK, and that's why the consolidated numbers are lower.

Nishita Shankulesh

Okay. As you mentioned that we expect the services business to improve from Q2 for us, now we can expect the margins to improve as well, right?

Sanjay Kirloskar

Correct, yeah.

Nishita Shankulesh

Okay. You mentioned that on our standalone business, we expect a double-digit growth for the whole year.

What is the revenue growth we expect on a consolidated basis for the full year?

Sanjay Kirloskar

There also, as we have mentioned, we will strive for double-digit growth.

Nishita Shankulesh

Understood. That is it from me.

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Priyesh from Mahindra Mutual Fund.

Please proceed.

Priyesh Babariya

Hi. Good afternoon.

Thank you so much for the opportunity, and congratulations for the good set of numbers. Just a couple of questions.

First on the order book in domestic, which is around at 2,500 crore. How much it is executable in FY27?

Sanjay Kirloskar

Almost two-thirds of this order board we believe we can execute in this year. However, I'd like to tell you that this does not reflect the retail sectors, the small pump business order board, because there is no order board.

Everything that is ordered is delivered in the same month. That is approximately 45 to 50% of our business.

Priyesh Babariya

Of the standalone business. Okay.

Sir, another question with respect to if you look at standalone gross margin, your revenue has been declined by around 26% quarter-on-quarter, but your gross margin has improved. Is it just because of the product mix or how do I interpret this thing?

Rama Kirloskar

Yes, it is essentially the product mix and the price rise that has been done.

Priyesh Babariya

Okay. How much price rise we have taken, let's say, since let's say January?

Rama Kirloskar

10% approximately.

Priyesh Babariya

Is it sufficient to actually cover up the let's say raw material costs which we have seen in last six months also?

Rama Kirloskar

Yes, we believe that will be sufficient.

Priyesh Babariya

Okay. Another question also on power order book, which has grown by 30%, and we have also spoken about nuclear opportunity for couple of times now.

Of the let's say 600 crores of order book, how much it is related to nuclear as of now? If any, then which segment is actually driving this growth in the power order book?

Sanjay Kirloskar

The exact number I would not be able to give you, but I would say that possibly a large portion of that would be nuclear. As you're aware, we have also received orders for primary circuit pumps already, close to about 70 crores in the first quarter, and we expect some more orders.

In the secondary circuit also, we've received almost 40 crores worth of orders for nuclear power plants. There is a pending order board of nuclear pumps.

On the other hand, we are supplying to some of the new thermal power plants that are coming up. I think one large order was also mentioned in that.

Priyesh Babariya

Sir. Thank you so much.

I'll get back in the queue.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rehan Syed from Shreemeda Asset Managers.

Please proceed.

Rehan Syed

Yeah. Good afternoon to the team and thanks for taking my question.

Sir, just I want one clarification regarding your segment-wise business. Sir, if we look beyond FY27, I just want to understand what's your view that which business vertical like power, water, marine and defense, we have multiple segments.

As per your understanding, which segment is expected to deliver the highest incremental growth on EBIT level? This was my question, sir.

Sanjay Kirloskar

Um.

Rehan Syed

What was the reason? For growth?

Sanjay Kirloskar

What is the reason?

Rehan Syed

Yeah.

Sanjay Kirloskar

I think power, oil and gas, marine and defense, and building and construction thanks to urbanization and if the data center opportunity grows in India, I think these will be the main growth drivers in India, to my mind.

Rehan Syed

Okay. Sir, is there any target benchmark we are keeping in mind for EBIT margin, you are targeting?

Sanjay Kirloskar

As I've always said, we will strive for double-digit growth year-on-year.

Rehan Syed

Oh, okay, sir. All

Operator

right. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press * and 1 to ask a question.

Participants who wish to ask a question may press * and 1 now. The next question is from the line of Manish Goyal from Thinkwise Wealth Advisors.

Please proceed.

Manish Goyal

Thanks for the another opportunity. Question for Rama, you mentioned that for petrol pumps, till date, we have received orders of 217 crores.

Is it 17,000 plus 5,000, 23,000 22,000 pumps are you referring to?

Rama Kirloskar

Approximately.

Manish Goyal

Hello? Sorry, the voice is very

Rama Kirloskar

It would be approximate figure, Mr. Goyal.

I don't have the volume with me just now, but, yeah, that's approximately what it will be.

Manish Goyal

Okay. This order booking is all the orders put together till date.

Rama Kirloskar

Aha, until Q1 end. Correct.

Manish Goyal

How much of the last year last large order what we received would have got executed? Because when I look at your oil and gas order book, it is roughly 150-odd crores.

I'm just wondering that definitely out of the first order large part would have got executed?

Rama Kirloskar

Yes, we executed a bit of it last year. We did around 74 crore dispatch from this entire quantum.

Manish Goyal

Okay. Rest of it should be done in the current year?

Rama Kirloskar

Yes, but what happens, we can dispatch it. We actually dispatch on the basis when the end customer wants it.

As per the timeline, we can do it within the year subject to the end customer accepting it.

Manish Goyal

Sure. Also one more observation, the industry-related order book has declined significantly this quarter.

Probably we are seeing a downward trend for quite a long time. What could be the reason and how should we look at going forward?

Bhavesh Chheda

There is a misprint. The industry order what you are looking is 556 million.

Actually, the order book is 1,497 million. The marine defense is 556.

Manish Goyal

Can you repeat? What is the actual order book?

Bhavesh Chheda

Meaning, the industry order book you said it is declined, actually the number 556 is pertaining to marine and defense and the industry order book is 1,497.

Manish Goyal

1,497. Oh, okay.

Sanjay Kirloskar

It's got switched in the slide. Okay.

Okay. Okay.

It's a print mistake.

Manish Goyal

Okay. Sure, sir.

This number has declined. Okay.

Sir, as you were mentioning, Mr. Sanjay Kirloskar, in terms of the going forward order inflow should be very strong from oil and gas, thermal, marine, and defense.

Ideally, would it mean that this would lead to higher revenue contribution from the engineered pumps and probably help us improve our overall margin profile, and it could be sustainable going forward?

Sanjay Kirloskar

Yes, this would help the Kirloskarvadi factory because some of these orders would come in large pumps and some of these orders would come under small and medium pumps. As you are aware, the numbers now from the foundry are improving significantly and we expect that our orders will be executed much faster than we were executing them earlier.

Okay.

Manish Goyal

Ideally, what I probably missed in the first round of my question was, as you are alluding to double-digit growth, now onwards we should probably see a better execution and double-digit growth. On the margin

Sanjay Kirloskar

Fortunately, I think the orders will also come in better now, especially power, building and construction, I think, oil and gas as well. We expect that orders will come in faster.

Sure.

Manish Goyal

Okay.

Sanjay Kirloskar

Marine and defense I wouldn't say because that depends a lot on budgets approved by the government and then the rate at which the companies that are building ships, the rate at which they place orders.

Manish Goyal

Sure. How would be the pipeline in thermal power?

Last year's annual report says we received order inflow of 228 crores. Can we receive much higher than that in current year, number one?

Number two, related question, are we probably dominant player for concrete volute pumps for water intake for these thermal power plants, sir?

Sanjay Kirloskar

I think now we are the world's largest manufacturers. We've made more than anyone else in the world.

We are one company, we believe that concrete volute pumps is far better for our end customer on a lowest life cycle cost basis. That's why we promote concrete volute pumps over vertical turbine pumps that need a lot of spare parts.

Concrete volute pumps, the ones that we supplied, our first supply in 1994, you'll be happy to note that the efficiency had dropped by only 2% in 30 years compared to normal pumps losing 1 to 1.5 percentage points per year. This when it's pumping seawater 24/7.

Also, the spare cartridge, they asked for a spare cartridge to be supplied along with the original pumps. That spare cartridge is still lying there.

It is our belief that customers who understand the life cycle costs are not so worried about being L1, and see the value of concrete volute pumps will go for concrete volute pumps. We're hopeful that the new plants that will be ordered in the coming years will also have concrete volute pumps based on their inherent performance.

It depends on when they place the order. For nuclear power plants, currently they are asking for metallic volute pumps where instead of a concrete casing, they have a sheet metal casing.

There also, I believe we have a 100% market share at the moment.

Manish Goyal

Okay. Sir, how is the progress on the development order for the primary circuit for the fleet ordering, sir?

Where have we reached, sir?

Sanjay Kirloskar

Where an order can be placed.

Manish Goyal

No, sorry, your voice was not

Sanjay Kirloskar

I said we've reached very close to when an order can be placed after the tender comes.

Manish Goyal

Okay. Will you be able to participate in the current tender of 14,000 MW?

Sanjay Kirloskar

Yeah. Mahi Banswara,

Manish Goyal

okay.

Sanjay Kirloskar

Yeah. Because what has happened is we have proved the hydraulic performance, it's far superior to what we had promised.

Mechanically also, we've proved the pump. Metallurgically, we had some hiccups because we couldn't get it made in India, but since these are civilian nuclear power plants, there is nothing stopping us from imports.

What we've done is we expect that we will get orders, and therefore, we have a company, a foundry in Europe as well as another foundry in India making all the trials so that metallurgically also it will be proved. We expect that by the middle of the month or by the end of the month, everything will be proved.

Manish Goyal

Okay. Thank you so much, sir.

Thanks a lot.

Operator

Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press * and 1 to ask a question.

The next question is from the line of Himanshu Upadhyay from Speedpost. Please proceed.

Himanshu Upadhyay

Yeah. Hi, good afternoon.

My question is to Rama. Rama Kirloskar, we have that JV Ebara where last year the revenues fell quite significantly and which is also in industrial and power and some of those segments.

What is the outlook on that company and how are you looking about that company moving in, let's say, one or two years ahead? Hello?

Hello?

Rama Kirloskar

Am I audible? Hello?

Himanshu Upadhyay

Now you are audible.

Operator

Yes, ma'am. Yeah.

Rama Kirloskar

As far as last year is concerned, one of our large packages we were not able to dispatch because the customer did not want that package at that point in time. That was the first case, that for a domestic order.

Then there were some international orders that got hampered because we couldn't ship them. They will go out and they've gone out in Q1.

I don't see that as a long-term issue. As far as booking is concerned, we see significant growth and export opportunities coming from the Gulf as well as from Africa.

We are quite hopeful to see that double-digit growth there both in booking and in revenue.

Himanshu Upadhyay

Okay. Secondly, we have in our presentation also we give certain slides on subscription platform and all those things.

We have said that IoT is an important pillar for us for growth and how is the progress on industrial side in domestic markets? Let's say, what is your thought process from here on, how big can it be and some thoughts on that business will help us or scaling up or it is not scaling, gives some of your thoughts.

Rama Kirloskar

We do see an order board in industrial. Now we're coming back to KBL.

One of the reasons why our revenue did not seem flat this time for industrial is because of our foundry modernization program that did affect some of our dispatches, but we do see that picking up in Q2.

Sanjay Kirloskar

As far as your question on IoT, I think it's going quite well. We've now made the second version.

We've made two versions. One is a very cheap version, which can be used for lower-cost pumps, and the other one is one which can be used with multiple pumps.

The first lot of IoT devices, each pump needed one device. Now we've made sure that more than one pump can go per device, theoretically reducing the cost for the customer for adoption.

We are quite bullish about the future of this. It can be connected into other programs, and so we expect that customers will order this in larger numbers going forward.

Rama Kirloskar

Other than critical sectors where you would expect such condition monitoring systems to be adopted, we also see significant traction in municipal water and irrigation projects. They too are asking for these.

A lot of times the pump houses are in very, very remote areas where it's difficult to find skilled manpower for maintenance. We do see a lot of demand for these systems in those tenders as well.

Himanshu Upadhyay

Okay. How large would be our base, let's say, also where we have applied IoT in India market

Sanjay Kirloskar

and the

Himanshu Upadhyay

base would be increasing, something like that?

Sanjay Kirloskar

It's in hundreds at the moment.

Himanshu Upadhyay

Okay.

Sanjay Kirloskar

Actually, we are the only ones who can supply this at the moment in India. When governments come out or customers come out with requirements, we are the only ones participating.

Himanshu Upadhyay

Is it helping us in our aftermarket business also,

Sanjay Kirloskar

means Because we're able to monitor the performance of the pumps.

Himanshu Upadhyay

Secondly, let's say, we have that CS&D business, okay?

Rama Kirloskar

Can you speak up a little bit? You're very soft.

We can't hear you.

Himanshu Upadhyay

Okay. What I am saying is on customer support, okay, though there is one large business what we have got this quarter, but is it helping us in our customer support and CS&D and can we think it can be large chunk of let's say, 10% of our order booking or revenue over a period of time with IoT and everything, or

Rama Kirloskar

Yes, we do believe that that'll happen over time, but it will still take time. Specifically for critical applications, it does help us for customer support because it helps us to ensure that the customer has no downtime.

Himanshu Upadhyay

Okay. Thank you from my

Rama Kirloskar

side. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press * and 1 to ask a question.

To ask a question, you may press * and 1 now. The next question is from the line of Sakshi Pratap from Pratap Securities.

Please proceed.

Sakshi Pratap

Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity.

Sir, I had two questions. Firstly, finance cost and other expenses have increased by 31% and 21% respectively.

Could you help us understand what factors led to this rise, and should we expect these levels to remain elevated over the coming quarters?

Bhavesh Chheda

The other expenses increases on account of two things. One is about the digitization expenses what we are undertaking, and the advertisement expenses what we are incurring.

Sakshi Pratap

Okay. Understood, sir.

Secondly, what would be our planned capex for the entire year, FY27? Also, if you can highlight where we would be using this for investment?

Bhavesh Chheda

Normally, our capital expenditure is equal to depreciation, and it is mainly used for modernization, debottlenecking, and quality requirements wherever they are.

Sakshi Pratap

Understood, sir. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to Mr.

Bhavesh Chheda for the closing comments. Over to you, sir.

Bhavesh Chheda

We thank everyone for joining the call today. We hope we have been able to give you a detail overview of our business and also the answer your queries.

Should you have any further queries or clarification, please feel free to reach out to SGA, our investor relation advisors. Thank you once again for your continued trust and support.

I wish everyone a very pleasant day.

Operator

Thank you. On behalf of Kirloskar Brothers Limited, that concludes this conference.

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

Sanjay Kirloskar

Thank you.

Alok Kirloskar

Thank you. Thank you.