Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Madhuri, moderator for the conference call.

Welcome to KSH International Limited Q4 FY '26 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participants will be in 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 and then zero on your touchtone telephone. Please note this conference is recorded.

I would now like to hand over the floor to Mr. Gulshan Singh.

Over to you, sir.

Thank you, ma'am. Good morning and very warm welcome to everyone.

On behalf of Sunidhi Securities, I welcome you all to KSH International Limited Q4 and FY '26 earnings conference call. Today we have with us the management, represented by Mr.

Rajesh Hegde, Managing Director; Mr. Amod Joshi, Chief Financial Officer; Mr.

Dhruv Chopra, Head of Investor Relations; and Mr. Nakul Patil, CS and Compliance Officer.

We thank KSH International Limited for giving us the opportunity to host the call. Now I would like to hand over the floor to the management for their opening remarks, post which we will open the floor for Q&A.

Thank you, and over to you, Rajesh sir. Yeah.

Good morning, everyone. This is Rajesh Hegde, Managing Director for KSH.

I extend you a warm welcome to our fourth quarter fiscal 2026 results call. I am extremely pleased with the execution and momentum this year, and it sets the stage for us going into fiscal 2027 and beyond.

Our fourth quarter and full-year financial results along with supporting information have been submitted to the exchanges and have been uploaded to our website. On today's call, I would like to focus on some of the strategic developments and demand trends we're seeing, as well as some of the key developments and operating performance of the company, including a status update on our Supa project.

Amod will then discuss the financial and operating metrics for Q4 and full-year FY 20 '26. To refresh all, KSH International is a 45-year-old manufacturer of magnet winding wires, which is the most critical components of coils used in large and small electric machines, from proud power transformers down to the smallest compressors for air conditioners and everything in between.

We are the leading manufacturers of specialized winding wires in India and the largest exporter of winding wires from the country. Our installed capacity at March 20 31st, 2026, was 43,445 metric tons.

Once phase 2 of our Supa expansion is complete, we will have an installed capacity of roughly 59,000 metric tons. We are a B2B company servicing over 120 leading domestic and global OEMs OEM customers and maintain long-term relationships with these customers, resulting in repeat revenue above 95% during FY 20 '26.

Additionally, our business is made to order, which means we procure the copper and begin processing only after receiving a purchase order from the customer. Thus, LME copper price and exchange rate is a direct pass-through, and we do not take any exposure to the short- or long-term variations in the copper price.

Roughly 75% of our revenues comes from large power transformers used in T&D, renewables, railways, and data centers, driven by our core continuously transposed conductors, or CTC product, in which we are the market leaders in India. CTC is a complex, engineered product, and all of our exports are exclusively to T&D customers across four continents.

What is our competitive advantage for CTC? Being the first company to introduce scale and scale CTC in India 20 years ago, we have the most robust approvals and the longest track record of actively deployed transformers in in the field across classes and across continents.

Over 20 years, we have refined, efficient, and integrated production lines, which allow us to turn around an order in 15 to 20 days, which increases throughput and also improves profitability. We focus on ultra-precision technology to improve quality and lower losses for our customers, ultimately saving them even more than the cost of the product itself over time.

Our special-purpose machines are built as per our own specifications, and that takes years of experience to achieve such stringent quality standards. We also have long-standing relationships with all the leading transformer OEMs in India and abroad, which is built on years of trust and execution.

By now, most people acknowledge that the T&D sector is in a structural, long-term cycle driven by renewable energy, grid modernization, urbanization, and growing power demand for the AI data centers. This is not just an India phenomenon, but a global one.

The primary bottleneck is the supply of all types of transformers, which is driving the capacity expansion by OEMs globally. This directly feeds into demand for our products.

At this point, it's worth noting that should all this transformer capacity come come to market over the next 3 to 5 years, the whole supply chain, including magnet winding wires, will still have a lot more capacity expansion to do to keep up with this demand. With this demand demand backdrop, some of our large transformer clients have also begun to explore long-term multi-year agreements to ensure predictability of supply as they ramp up their capacity.

We are evaluating the strategic and financial implications of this model, as well as our need to maintain our ability and capacity to attract and service new customers. Looking at our export performance in Q4 of FY '26, our export revenue increased at an incredible 92% year-on year-over-year rate, accelerating from 37% growth in Q3 of FY '26 and 22% in the quarter before that.

Specialized wire revenues overall also grew 103% year-over-year compared to 50% to 60% growth in the prior two quarters. Domestically as well, we continue to outpace the market.

Specialized wires represented approximately 75% of revenue in both FY '26 and FY '25. Speaking of new customers, with our capacity available now, we are working with a number of new global transformer clients predominantly across the Americas and Europe, as seen by our export growth performance in Q4.

For most, initial quantities are modest to test out, but they have the potential to scale up over time. In India, we already work with most of the large power transformer OEMs, and thus the focus domestically is to maintain and grow wallet share.

Domestically, we have added a number of standard wire clients as well, particularly as capacity has ramped up in Supa. As we have stated, our focus for standard wires is predominantly select end-use industries, such as EVs, AC compressors, motors, etc., where precision technology plays a critical role.

Let me briefly touch on recent events in the Middle East. Like every company, directly or indirectly, we also face some impact.

However, none of the repercussions were material to us specifically. I think it is important to note that we serve six to seven countries in the Middle East, any effects were on a country-by-country basis.

We had some shipments to customers deep in the Gulf that got stuck, but ultimately were rerouted, the impact was a delay of a few weeks. Our Supa expansion continues to remain on track for FY '27 completion.

We ended FY '26 with 43,445 metric tons of annualized capacity, which is available now for the full year. We expect the next set of new capacity to come on online around Q2 of this year.

Consolidated company utilization was approximately 70% during Q4. Earlier this month, we completed another one of our IPO project objects by commissioning our 3.2-megawatt rooftop solar project in Supa, bringing total company solar production capacity to 4 megawatts.

These projects are for captive use and are expected to reduce power costs for the operating businesses as well. In addition, our green copper backwardation integration backward integration project has also made progress, and we expect to commence this facility during H2 of FY '27.

Overall sales volume were approximately 7,600 metric tons in Q4, up from 7,400 metric tons in Q3 and 5,900 metric tons a year ago. Volumes would have been higher had we been able to deliver some of our Middle East export shipments during the month of March, which we have been able to eventually deliver in April.

Nonetheless, volumes grew 29% year-over-year, which is again at its highest levels in many years. Revenues and volumes only make up one part of the story.

Revenue ultimately needs to translate into bottom-line contribution. In Q4 of FY '26, we reported an EBITDA per ton of approximately ₹74,000, up from roughly 64,500 in Q3 and 60,000 a year ago, largely on account of better product mix and an increase in export volumes.

The key drivers for the improvement are volume growth in higher value-added products, volume increases in export, and some positive contribution to exports from a weaker rupee as well. I briefly want to highlight some of the financial trends of FY '26 that we expect to continue.

First, in FY '26, with Supa capacity only available for part of the year, we delivered full-year volume growth of 21%. The higher capacity will be available for the full FY '27 as opposed to only for a part of FY '26.

Therefore, we feel that we should be able to sustain at the very least last year's growth rates. Second, we reported an EBITDA per ton of approximately 68,000 in FY '26 and ₹74,000 in Q4.

We believe that we should be able to sustain this range, and actual the actual performance will, of course, depend on the the product mix. In summary, our key strategies to drive sustained growth is: to grow volumes from higher value-added segments like T&D, EV motors, and exports; second, to expand our international presence, include expansion with our global clients; to also increase wallet share with existing custom- customers and clients; finally, to drive operating efficiencies through scale and backward integration; and lastly, of course, to improve our sustainability efforts along the way.

With this, I would like to ask Amod to go over some of the financial and operational details. Over to you, Amod.

Thank you, Rajesh. I will discuss our fourth quarter and FY '26 financial and operating performance now.

During FY '26 and Q4, our revenues from operations were ₹3,107 crore and ₹1,018 crore respectively. This shows an increase of 61% and 101% compared to the same periods last year.

Specialized winding wires represented approximately 75% of total revenues excluding other operating revenue in FY '26 and Q4, an increase 62% and 103% versus a year ago, driven by ongoing demand from our T&D clients. Standard winding wires wires also grew 58% and 80% in FY '26 and Q4 respectively.

Revenues from exports grew 92% compared to Q4 of FY '25 and represented 27% of total revenues excluding other operating revenue. Volume, mix, and material prices were key drivers of the top-line performance.

For FY '26 and Q4, EBITDA of ₹190 crore and ₹56 crore improved from ₹123 crore and ₹35 crore last year respectively. As we have stated, reported margins can fluctuate due to movements in copper prices given that copper is a pass-through.

This quarter, copper prices increased sharply, negatively impacting margins, but as you can see, did not impact EBITDA per ton. Therefore, to evaluate the underlying progress of the company's profitability, it is more important to look at the unit unit economics of the business.

EBITDA per ton for FY '26 was approximately 67,600 per ton on a consolidated basis, up from ₹52,500 in FY '25. For FY '26, we delivered EBITDA per ton above our expected range of around 65,000 to 67,000 per metric ton.

Now during Q4 FY '26, we reported a quarterly record PAT of ₹34.5 crore, which increased 87% from Q4 of FY '25. For FY '26, we reported annual record PAT of 110 crore, which is an increase of 62% from ₹68 crore in FY '25.

Lastly, turning to balance sheet and cash flows, and the steps we are taking to improve cash flow generation in the high-growth environment. First, we have significantly deleveraged our balance sheet, including most of the long-term debt, in turn bringing the debt to EBITDA ratio at 0.39x to FY '26 from 1.21 in FY '25.

We are also working on the working capital days, calculated on average balances, which remained between 65 to 68 days in FY '26, though we expect this to start trending lower incrementally over the next several quarters. For this, we are in active discussions with banks to evaluate optimizing our banking products to achieve the desired outcome.

With that, I'd like to hand the call back to the moderator to open up for questions, please.

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

If you have a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad and wait for your turn to ask the question. If you would like to withdraw your request, you may do so by pressing star and one again.

The first question comes from Mohit Kumar from ICICI. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Hello?

Hello. Yeah.

Good morning, sir, and thanks for the opportunity. My first question is, of course, I think you've mentioned that Q4 was impacted by the Middle East, right?

Is it possible to quantify the impact in terms of volumes or in terms of revenue during the quarter?

What was the Middle East effect, is it?

Yes, sir. Is it possible to quantify that impact for the Q4?

Yeah.

Yeah. Roughly I can say dispatches of around 100 to 150 tons could not happen in March, which later on in April were dispatched.

Understood. My second question is how to think about the volume growth in FY '27, especially given that whatever happening around us, the war and the inflationary environment, copper prices have jumped up, right?

Yeah. We've not seen any effect of in terms of the war, like we said, there was a temporary effect, but then finally looks like the Middle East is back up, and we seem to be continuing that same momentum that we had in the previous quarters when it came to the Middle East.

The other areas in terms of exports, we've not really seen any real demand coming down. There has been some effect on the transport-related prices, but then this we have been able to effectively pass it on to the customer as well wherever we have been doing on a CIF basis after discussing with the customer.

Having said this, we've not really seen a reduction in terms of demand either because of copper prices nor because of the war. I think that's to answer your question.

Sir, any volume growth guidance for FY '26 if you are giving?

Hi Mohit, this is Dhruv. I think we said in the prepared remarks that we had the new capacity at Supa for part of the year, and we still delivered 21% volume growth for the full year.

Now that that additional capacity is available for this year, at the very least, we should be able to do last year's growth, which is 21%.

Understood, sir. Understood, sir.

Thank you, and all the best, sir. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you, sir. Participants are kindly requested to ask two questions in the initial round, and may join the queue for more questions.

The next question comes from Dikshi Jain from InCred Research. Please go ahead.

Hello. Congratulations on great numbers.

My first question is regarding the high EBITDA per ton for quarter four. What is the sustainable EBITDA per ton going forward for FY '27-'28?

Right. Like you correctly pointed out, FY '26 Q4 EBITDA per ton almost crossed 70,000,

but crossed

₹70,000 per metric ton. We feel a range of around 65 to ₹70,000 per metric ton will be sustainable on a long-term basis.

Okay. My second question is regarding the payable days have improved significantly, but inventory days have also gone up.

Going forward, are the payable days going to be sustainable? What is the expected working capital cycle?

In fact, for the payable days, our target is to improve it much more than what we have achieved for FY '26. With our negotiation with the banks, we expect the payable days to go upwards of 25 days going forward.

From that perspective, the working capital cycle will reduce by those many days for this year, is what we're expecting.

The inventory [unclear]? Yeah.

In

inventory days, what happens when in the business of large power transformers, sometimes when we take an order, say for one transformer, it requires say 60 metric tons per transformer, then eventually that 60th ton has to be manufactured before it gets dispatched. That kind of increases our inventory days because we are in that type of a business.

That's one of the reasons why the inventory days had increased slightly over the previous quarters.

Okay.

Also the Middle East did have some effect because we were carrying some inventory in the last quarter, which was manufactured in Q4, but finally it got shipped out in Q1 of this year.

Okay.

Thank you, ma'am. The next question comes from Suryanarayanan Nayak from Sunidhi Securities.

Please go ahead.

Congratulations for great set of numbers. Sir, one question is that because of the EBITDA margin improving significantly, and we are not reporting CTC as a special segment in the specialized, just to understand, can it be possible to give data regarding the CTC volume so that we can gauge something?

Surya, hi, this is Dhruv. That level of granularity is not something that we do provide.

I think we've said that CTC does make up more than half of our specialized winding wires, but we haven't gone into specific details.

Okay. Sir, one basic question is that there are in the wake of a few players entering into CTC area, one of the competitors and even one transformer company also has entered.

In that light, just to understand how long it takes for a new entrant to get approval for CTC for the PGCIL?

For an absolute new entrant in this business, generally what happens is they have to start with the lower kV segment, which is probably your entry level for CTC would be your 50 MVA or a 100 MVA transformer, and then kind of work through to reach the level of say HVDC, which is the highest level of transformers which uses CTC. In the past we've seen new entrants have taken anywhere from 5 to 7 years to finally come up to a 765 kV range as well.

Our guess is that it does take a long time because this is a product that goes into a transformer that goes into the grid as well. Generally onboarding of suppliers, utilities are very careful.

Also, it's not just that you have PGCIL approval, and then you automatically are approved for everybody, because every utility has their own approval process, whether it is local or global. I think for a new entrant which is coming for the first time, my guess is that it would take anywhere from 5 to 7 years.

Okay. Sir, in the empanelment list of the PGCIL, just to understand, because you have nearly have a mastery over the annealing science and enameling chemistry.

When a particular batch of let's say production, when you get orders from the different transformer companies, is that the margin are pre-decided and because we are not going to participate in the PGCIL directly, but the OEs are participating. In that case, in the set of the complexity of the annealing and enameling, is that margin are decided by you time to time?

How this business works is, our customer is not PGCIL, our customer is a transformer company. Normally we have a year-long contract, or maybe a multi-year contract now is something that we were discussing.

Where we decide on the value addition depending on the complexity of the product they're going to manufacture. Again, as you go up higher in the complexity chain, say HVDC or 765 kV, the value addition is obviously higher as you move up the segment.

That's how the price is decided unless it's an absolutely new customer where we are quoting for the first time, then we would obviously quote on the basis of what is the complexity of the design of the product here. Does that answer your question?

You have any say over different variability, that is what I'm asking. Or let's say OEMs are very big, how relationships we are maintaining because not to accommodate our say in the matter?

That is my point.

Surya, hi, it's Dhruv. Just to try and clarify, normally, as Rajesh pointed out, we work with these one-year or longer value-addition agreements with the OEMs, where we fix on the basis of a permutation and combination of various products, services, complexities, materials, etc., as a matrix for them.

With each permutation and combination, there is a prescribed value addition per kg or per ton that is set. It's not based on copper price.

We operate with that. Depending when they raise a purchase order with us, where it falls in the matrix, that value addition is determined for the duration of that contract.

Perfect.

Yeah.

Thank you, sir. The next question comes from Mahesh from LIC Mutual Fund.

Please go ahead.

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

Sir, I think our capacity is around 43,000 metric ton, and our presentation talks about reaching capacity to around 59,000 by Q4 FY '27. My question is for FY '28, how much production is possible given if demand remains robust as it is now?

Generally, in our business, we say that peak capacity utilization is somewhere around 85% of your installed capacity. It is safe to assume that if we have 59,000 metric tons of capacity on the ground, then the peak capacity would be at about say 85%.

Now, obviously, you are asking me a question how much we would be manufacturing in FY '28. Our endeavor is, when a new plant starts, it does take about say 2 to 3 years to reach that 85% figure.

Of course, we'll try to do it much faster now that the demand environment is very different. It is safe to say that it takes about anything from say 2 to 3 years to reach that 85% capacity utilization.

Sure. Sir, given the strong demand on power side and opportunities in EV side, any plans of further adding any capacity, any plant or any new product line over next 18 to 24 months?

We do have the space required for us to add another 10,000 tons of capacity if required, and that is something that we'll evaluate as time goes by. It will take us a shorter amount of time to add that incremental 10,000 tons of capacity because we have the land, the building, as well as some of the utilities, etc.

is already there at the Supa site. We will wait and watch because it's not just the T&D that we are watching, we are looking at the EV side of it as well as the standard wires as well.

Whichever sector is growing at a faster space, we will look at that point in time. I would not rule out that over the next 24 months, we won't add capacity, but at this point in time, it's still something that we'll wait and see how the market plays out.

Thank you so much, sir.

Thank you. Thank you, Mahesh.

Thank you, sir. The next question comes from Jay Shah from HDFC Securities.

Please go ahead.

Hi, sir. Am I audible?

Yes, Jay. Yeah.

Congratulations on a good set of numbers, sir. Couple of questions from my side.

First would be how does your EBITDA per ton differ between HVDC wires versus standardized transformer wires or versus upcoming EV traction motor wires? Is HVDC meaningfully attractive to your 67,000 per ton FY '26 average, or is that a meaningful number in terms of HVDC?

I just wanted to know on that part.

Yeah. If you divide our business up, we've said like it's specialized and standard wires, right?

If you see on an EBITDA per I mean what we report, of course, is a blended EBITDA per ton, and which is approximately around 74,000 for Q4 of this year last year. A ballpark numbers, is like 3:1 is the if you look at specialized, it's about three times more than standard wires in terms of EBITDA per ton.

We are growing, on both fronts, that is also on the standard as well as the specialized. We expect the same blend to continue is what is what I'm going to say.

Okay. Also on your export revenue significantly grew in FY '26 and Q4 as well.

What geographies and product categories are driving this acceleration? Are these one-time project wins or recurring relationships?

All our exports is actually going to the T&D sector, which is transformer companies around the world. So 100% of our exports goes to transformer companies across four continents, which is basically the Americas, North and South, Europe, then the Middle East, and some to Asia as well.

We have long-term customers here in most of these geographies, and then we are also working with some new customers as well who are expanding their facilities. All of our customers where we export to are in the process of adding capacity, which we feel will come about sometime in this financial year or some of it in the next financial year also.

If you look at our exports, we've been at approximately about 30%. In the past, we were as high as 40% also.

Our endeavor is to take it back up to about 40% over the next couple of years, and that's what we are going to be working on actively as well since the demand environment for transformers is quite good right now.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah. Thanks, thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you, sir. The next question comes from Govind Chellappa from CSIM.

Please go ahead. Yeah.

Hi Rajesh, thanks for taking my question. I have two questions.

First, given what's happened with currency, how does that change your pricing, especially where the competition is imported, maybe in HVDC? Secondly, how does that impact your competitiveness globally?

That's the first question. My second question is if copper price were to remain where it is, part of the increase in EBITDA per ton, I'm assuming is because of the higher inventory holding cost.

If the mix remains the way it has been for the last few quarters, which is what you've just commented, shouldn't the EBITDA per ton stay where it is in the fourth quarter? Thanks.

To answer your first question, which was the impact of FX. See, when it comes to import of CTC, obviously imports become much more expensive because it's not only the dollar to rupee, but also there's an import duty of 10% on the overall value, that is also on the copper portion as well.

I would say, as it is, anything that was being imported was coming at a landed price which was much higher than what the Indian prices are. This would actually I guess importing would be even more not beneficial for the transformer manufacturers, that is number one.

Your second question was what you said is the inventory holding cost, right? If I can request you to repeat the question?

The second one I couldn't really understand. You're saying that yeah, go ahead.

I'm trying to understand the impact of higher copper prices, which leads to higher inventory holding cost for you, and that you've said in the past gets passed on. Yes.

Yes.

Right? That's part of the reason why EBITDA per ton has gone up.

Is that a fair?

It's all when we say the value addition, it all comes within that as well.

Okay. Now if the mix were to stay the same, which is what you just mentioned a couple of minutes ago,

and

if copper prices were to stay where they are, there is no reason for EBITDA per ton to come below 74,000. As long as the product mix lives.

There

would be expected to be

yeah. It's a blend of exports, then the higher value-added products.

If the copper prices were to stay at the same level also, I think we should be close to that number what we are talking about.

Govind, hey, this is Dhruv. Just one additional data point.

I think one of the key drivers is clearly the mix between standard and special. If you look at both last year and last quarter, specialized has outpaced standard, but they've both grown at a healthy pace.

We do expect with capacity standard also to grow. As long as they grow at similar rates, I think the relationship should be similar.

If standard were to grow higher, then obviously it would reduce the ability of specialized to pull EBITDA per ton higher.

Cool. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. The next question comes from Vinay Mariwal from [Edelweiss and Rye?]

. Please go ahead.

Hi Rajesh sir, thank you for the opportunity. Sir, I was tracking your share of exports and share of share of specialized wires.

Your share of specialized wires and share of exports have remained same from the last quarter. What I can see is your gross profit per ton has gone up from 1,12,000 to 1,20,000.

The sole variable I could attribute this is is the increased share of CTC within the specialized wires. Do you think so am I right on that track?

Like this gross profit per ton increase is because of that?

Yes, yeah, you're right on that. In terms of CTC, obviously in the specialized wire, like we had mentioned, we have front-ended some capacity of CTC, which is there in Supa, and that has been utilized.

Within that specialized bucket, CTC has been a major contributor.

Got, sir. Sir, also I wanted to understand the extent of volumes we could have done if not for the Middle East disruption, and also if there was a component of deferment of demand from our domestic OEM customers.

If not for these factors, what could have been the utilization in this quarter? Once these factors, which I would assume are temporary, wind down, what is the capacity utilization you could see for the whole year in '27?

It would have been a few hundred tons. Around about 200 because it was not only what deliveries got postponed, but there was some orders we didn't start manufacturing as well in the last quarter seeing the Middle East situation.

That was the effect for the last quarter actually. I would say maybe about 2 to 300 tons would have been the overall effect when you look at it.

Sir,

are you seeing any deferment of demand from domestic OEM customer because of the whole transformer oil and company price increases on their part?

No, because our business, we are quite well spread out. It's not that we are dependent only on one or two transformer manufacturers.

That's why I can say that we are able to, if at all we see any deferment of demand or any situation that occurs with any one customer, we are able to actually look at other areas or other customers who's adding capacity or has the demand on their side also.

Sure, sir. Sir, last question if I could add.

Your employee cost per ton and if I calculate other expenses per ton have gone up from the last quarter. Is there a room for operating leverage to play out as the volumes increase going forward?

Maybe our EBITDA per ton increases from here itself because of operating [unclear]?

Look, as a new capacity comes up, we started the Supa plant sometime in Q3 of FY '26, and that's why the fixed costs, employee as well as other expenses have kicked in in the last two quarters of FY '26. Now coming to FY '27, also we have a lot of new capacity that is going to kick in in Q2 and over the years.

We expect that at least for FY '27, our fixed costs will play out for the new capacity as it is played out in last two quarters. The operating leverage, if any, should kick in maybe gradually after Q4 of FY '27.

That is very helpful, sir. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir. The next question comes from Lovish Soien from Bahman Capital.

Please go ahead.

Hi. Thank you for the opportunity.

Am I audible?

Yes, Lovish. Great.

Congratulations, sir, on a great set of numbers. My question was specifically on the CTC side.

I wanted to understand what is the total demand for CTCs in India in metric tons, if you can help me with that? How much of that demand is currently being met by imports?

Total demand, what we expect somewhere around 2030 is somewhere between 100 to 120,000 tons is our estimate in India, that is. Of that, I think what we roughly saw was approximately about 1,000 tons of CTC was being imported every month because of non-availability.

That was actually a few months ago. As of right now, when we've added capacity and some of the others have also added capacity, we feel that this import trend will go down, not only because of capacity being available, but also because now in terms of the dollar to rupee exchange rate also makes it prohibitively more expensive.

Now that capacity is available here, I think we should see that availability factor going down.

Sir, I just wanted to confirm. You said 100 to 120,000 tons just for CTCs or is it for the overall winding?

I'm talking about only CTC. Only CTC, since you asked me only CTC.

I'm talking about CTC. That is India demand.

Then again, global is something else.

This is Dhruv. Also just to clarify, that's where the market expectations are for 2030, 2032 time frame.

If you look historically from the data where we are, I think FY '25 was probably about 40,000. From what we've seen, FY '27-'28 is probably going to be closer to 70, 75,000.

75,000. Got it.

Great. This is helpful, sir.

Sir, also from what I understand, all the major players are adding capacities. How do you see the competitive intensity going up given that there's a lot of capacity coming online in India as well?

You mean to say in terms of CTC capacity or transformer capacity, you're saying?

CTC capacity, I'm talking about, sir.

Yeah. Obviously in a high demand environment, we expect new capacity to come in.

What we should really see is which of the players are already qualified. CTC obviously is going to be used in the higher kV segment.

Qualification-wise, the existing players who are already qualified to supply to the market, that capacity is meaningful, I would say, when you look at the Indian demand scenario. Any new player, let's say a round wire manufacturer who's now decided to come in at a subscale level into CTC because of the demand, we feel that, like I said earlier on in the call, that it might take anything from say 5 to 6 years for someone like that to really get approved and come to the segment that we operate in, which is about 765 kV, HVDC, etc.

That's the way to look at this business.

Got it.

Thank you, sir. The next question comes from Rutu Chavan from PhillipCapital.

Please go ahead.

Hello, sir. Am I audible?

Yes, Rutu. You're audible.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for the opportunity, and congratulations on a great set of numbers. Sir, I wanted to know that out of the total capacity, is there a specific amount of capacity which is dedicated for the specialized wires or is it all fungible?

No. For specialized wire, some processes are fungible, but otherwise, we have distinctively standard wire is a separate capacity and specialized wire is a separate capacity.

That's how it is broken up.

Is it possible to give bifurcation about the around 43,000, how much is for specialized and how much is for standard?

Around 65% is for specialized and balance is for standard.

Okay. Understood.

Sir, the second question is so currently as our EBITDA per ton is already at 67,000 per ton, and since we're already at 75% of the specialized magnet winding wires this thing. In terms of FY '27-'28, do we see an additional improvement in the EBITDA per ton, or is it possible just to sustain the 67,000 per ton?

We've said it's going to be between 67,000 to 74,000 is what we expect. Though 74,000 is what we had for the Q4.

Somewhere in between is something that is sustainable is what we're talking about.

Even if currently it is at 75,000, there is still a scope to improve it more than 67,000?

Yeah. Because it all depends on the product mix eventually, and then how much exports we do.

What we are saying, I think in the call also earlier we said, you can take it that it'll be anything from 67 to 74. Okay.

Okay.

Thank you, sir. The next question comes from Pranav Jain from Ageless Capital.

Please go ahead.

Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity.

Mine was more on a sourcing perspective. While I agree the demand is really strong for all the products that you're into, and the end-user demand is also picking up really well, what I want to understand is with respect to everything that's happening in the world right now, does sourcing ever become an issue?

Do you ever look at that as a potential question mark going forward in case the situation persists?

No. Our supply chain is quite well diversified.

We don't depend on only one supplier for anything. In terms of cost, it can become an issue.

Let's say transport cost or something goes up, but it doesn't mean that availability of material is an issue at any point in time. That's how we've managed this business so far.

Got it. Sir, with respect to this quarter, was there any contribution from the additional capacity or it was all from the existing line?

You mean to say in Q4?

Are you asking about contribution from Supa?

Yeah.

Yeah.

No. Supa started contributing last quarter itself.

I think in the first quarter of operation, which was Q3— We were almost more than 50% 55%. Capacity utilization.

That has pushed higher in Q4. Again, it's not based on sort of annualized capacity.

You have to see what is available capacity for that period.

Because

Supa came online October 1st onwards, and then we added some more capacity in the Q4 as well.

Yeah. What I meant was the additional capacity that you added in Q4.

There was some contribution. Contribution is there.

There was contribution.

Okay.

Thank you, sir. The next question comes from Jenish Karia from Union Mutual Fund.

Please go ahead.

Yes. Thank you for the opportunity, and congratulations for a very good set of numbers.

My question is more on the competition. While you alluded that new competition will take time for approvals and everything, do you envisage a scenario where the demand on the transmission side is very good, and the transformer companies have been guiding for a very strong cycle for 5 to 7 years, considering the insourcing and indigenization requirement, do you see a scenario where the transformer companies can set up smaller capacities to meet their timelines?

Do you see that scenario panning out?

Transformer companies setting up capacity for CTC, you're saying? Hello?

Yes, sir, that was the question.

See, right now, that challenge was there for these companies when availability was an issue maybe a year ago because all of us were in capacity expansion mode. I don't see that happening now where it makes a case for any transformer company to really do a backward integration proper because there is capacity available, and we've also made it available.

I don't see many transformer companies backward integrating because this is a complex product again, and there are a lot of continuous processes in this. You need orders to feed these processes in order to run them efficiently as well.

My guess is that, barring one or two manufacturers who thought about backward integration, I don't see that being the general trend going forward because there is capacity available also in India.

Got it, sir. Globally, are they backward integrated in any regions or that is not the trend globally as well?

No. Globally, we've seen none of the transformer companies are backward integrated, actually.

Got it, sir. Understood.

Thank you, sir. The next question comes from Chirag Jain from Spark Capital.

Please go ahead.

Hello. Thanks for the opportunity.

I hope I am audible. I had just one question.

Most of my questions were answered. Sir, can you give any update on PEEK-insulated wires, what is the current status?

Yeah. Hi, Chirag.

This is Rajesh. See, PEEK is a new product which we are going to introduce, and sometime end of Q2 this capacity is coming online.

This is at a very concept stage. In terms of overall capacity also, it's not a very large capacity that we are starting off with.

We are talking to OEMs where we will be providing some samples and then they will make the traction motor out of it. PEEK will really make a meaningful difference maybe about say 1.5 to 2 years down the line where we would be looking at increasing capacity as well as the market matures to the 800-volt traction motor architecture as well.

Okay. Sir, can you just [unclear] how much capacity we are adding?

Sir, you're not audible, sir.

Yeah.

Chirag sir, can you please speak louder? Yeah.

Yeah. Can you just confirm how much capacity we are adding?

Of PEEK, is it? PEEK.

We haven't specifically mentioned for PEEK or other EV products, but I think in terms of once our full capacity of 59,000 tons is set, somewhere between 5% to 10% of that capacity would be for the automotive sector.

Okay. Understood.

Yeah. Thank you, sir.

All the best.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir. The next question comes from Vandana Rathi from Korman Capital.

Please go ahead.

Yes. Most of the questions are answered.

I have just one question regarding the cash flow, sir. As we can see, the operating cash flow have been negative since last two, three years.

Do you want to throw some light on that, by when can we see it improving?

Right. Hi, this is Amod here.

Regarding the cash flow, see, once the turnover if you see is gone up by almost 29%, and considering that our working capital cycle is around 65 to 68 days, there's an investment needed for funding the additional revenues that are there. That's why you can see the cash flows from operating activities mainly because of the investments that have gone into the receivables as well as inventories is negative in the current year.

Having said that, what steps we are taking to improve that situation, one is the payable days, like we mentioned earlier, is expected to go up. In FY '26, it has already gone up by almost 4 to 5 days as compared to last year.

The current year also, our target is to improve the payable days beyond 25 to close to 30 days by the end of the year, and that should significantly improve the cash flows for '27.

Sir. Thank you so much.

That's all.

The next question comes from Purva Jhaveri from 1Up Financial Consultants. Please go ahead.

Hi, sir. Am I audible?

Yeah.

Yes, sir.

Hi. Good morning, sir.

Yeah. Congratulations on a good set of numbers.

Sir, just wanted to ask you about the EBITDA per ton which you can do in PEEK wires. What is the normal EBITDA per ton which you can do, and is it specific to some kind of OEMs or it will be a mass market product or premium product?

Can you just throw some light on that front?

For PEEK, you're saying, right?

Yes, sir.

For PEEK, it would probably be the highest EBITDA per ton or value addition within our basket of products. Again, this is something that will go into traction motors for 800 volts and above.

That's a new market that will come about sometime in the future. I would say, in terms of EBITDA per ton, it would be similar to CTC or slightly higher.

This market will really mature sometime say about 1.5 to 2 years down the line. Then we have to be able to supply this at an initial design stage or a validation stage in order to get qualified with the automotive OEMs.

All right, sir.

Sir, even another question regarding receivable days. What is the reason behind the increase in the receivable days?

Is it a normal increase or one-time increase?

No, receivable days, if you see in FY '26, there's a slight improvement from FY '25. You mean to say I think inventory days may be with increase as compared to last year.

All right, sir.

Thank you, sir. That will be the last question for the day.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using Door Sabha's conference call service.

You may disconnect your lines now. Thank you and have a pleasant day.

Thank you so much. Thank you.