Thank you. Good afternoon to all the participants on this call.

Before we proceed to this call, let me remind you that the discussion may contain forward-looking statements that may involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties, or other factors. It must be viewed in conjunction with the business risks that could cause future results, performance, or achievement to differ significantly from what is expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

Please note that we mailed the results and the same are available on the company's website. In case if you have not received the same, you can write to us and we'll be happy to send the same over to you.

To take us through the results and answer your questions today, we have the top management of NRB Bearings Limited represented by Harshbeena Zaveri, Vice Chairman and Managing Director. We'll start the call with a brief overview of the quarter gone past and then conduct the Q&A session.

With that said, I'll now hand over the call to Harshbeena Zaveri. Over to you, ma'am.

Hello, everyone. Apologies for my voice.

Just like most of Mumbai, I have a sore throat and a slight problem because of that. I hope that I'm audible and that my voice is clear enough.

Is it clear enough, ma'am?

Thank you very much. I'm very delighted to be interacting once again with all our investors.

Our Q1 performance reflects the momentum created through a year of disciplined execution. NRB trailing 12 12-month profit growth is the highest in the group of competitors we are generally benchmark ourselves against.

This is due to our high growth and highly diversified approach while staying true to our competencies. This is also evident that NRB's diversification strategy is showing results.

Our margin improvement is driven by structural action, capacity expansion, and thoughtful diversification. Throughout the year, we've remained prudent in our capital allocation, steadfast in our focus on delivering long-term creation for our shareholders, moving step-by-step into an accelerated, profitable, and sustainable high-growth trajectory.

Our key performance indicators and financial highlights are: revenue from operations, which stood at ₹370 crore in Q1 compared to ₹310 crore the year before, reflecting a growth of 19.2% on a consolidated basis. Profit after tax increased to ₹38 crore in Q1 FY27 as against ₹33 crore, registering an increase of 15% on a consolidated basis.

Standalone results showed extremely healthy growth with sales rising 14.7% Y-o-Y and PAT rising 31.7% year-on-year. Similarly, standalone EBITDA showed a growth of 21.7% Y-o-Y.

These numbers not only demonstrate the resilience of our business and the strength of our intent, but also underscore our ability to consistently deliver profitable growth. The numbers are proof that our strategy has begun to work.

Behind these strong financial results lies this transformative story in the making of NRB's deliberate, deeply studied strategic pivot. This is built on advanced manufacturing processes, proprietary and copyrighted computational analysis software, simulation capabilities, and a totally integrated approach, which combines a lot of technical strengths, particularly on the R&D side, including kinematic motion studies, dynamic, light-weighting, noise reduction technologies, and domain expertise in material science, sealing, and lubrication technology, to deliver breakthrough friction solutions.

Our backbone is our R&D, and transforming engineering prowess directly into growth of new verticals is our focus. We've identified the verticals for future growth based on such capabilities that exist in our company today, and selected products through which we can enhance our leadership position.

I want to be clear: while this is a fresh start, it's not any speculative leap into unknown territory. The strategic direction is built entirely on the corporate strengths we've systematically developed over the last decade, and the target markets are adjacent space where customers seek the same strengths that our traditional automotive customers rely on us for.

The idea is unlocking the true commercial value of our core assets. Having built these world-class foundations, we are now deploying it to capture high-margin opportunities across emerging and traditional segments both.

We are strategically broadening our addressable market across six vital vectors. Many of these are between $10 to $14 billion market opportunities.

The first, small, but critically important in the future, is aerospace. What are we doing here?

We're buying speed, not scale. Many people have asked us why we acquired a relatively small aerospace company whereas our plans for this space are extremely ambitious, which they are.

The answer is simple: we bought access, not capacity. Moving to automotive adjacencies is the next.

We are moving beyond traditional boundaries within our core automotive business, going well beyond legacy products into adjacent, higher-value spaces where our precision engineering manufacturing capabilities are a huge advantage: tapered and ball bearing wheel hubs, spherical roller bearings, automotive applications beyond transmission and chassis to steering systems, one-way clutch, wheel bearings. The third, beyond EV electrification.

You already know our EV and AV agnostic strategies, but we view electrification holistically. We have recently combined our electric mobility vertical in our engineering to go beyond just mobility to electrification.

I mentioned last time about the business that we've got with Siemens in this space. There are many more new announcements which will follow in the next 3 to 6 months as we connect opportunities and engage with potential customers in this space.

We will move, of course, into high-frequency drives, commercial EV fleets, electric vehicles, electric two-wheelers, off-highway e-mobility, industrial electrification, where electrical erosion mitigation and ultra-low friction torque are paramount. The fourth one, mobility beyond current segments and beyond the vehicles that define us today.

NRB defines mobility as the movement of systems, not just cars. This includes high-growth, high-tech sectors such as robotics, automated guided vehicles—the AGVs—urban air mobility, drone systems, and advanced automated transit, all of which require micro-precision friction management, including industrial and heavy construction equipment.

We are deepening our footprint in heavy-duty off-highway segments, and we recently announced in our AGM the acquisition of JCB UK as a customer. Extreme loads, harsh operating environments will showcase the superiority of our sealing, lubrication, material, and design prowess.

Mission-critical friction solutions, both stationary and mobile, are also an additional future focus for us, whether in mobile applications or stationary industrial infrastructure, such as industrial gearboxes, data center cooling architecture, renewable engineering, energy drives, and precision gearboxes. We are deploying friction solutions where operational failure is not an option and downtime carries massive penalties.

NRB already possesses superior R&D and product development capabilities. What we needed was an operational runway that bypassed the multi-year gestation periods and lead times in the case of aerospace and OEM certifications.

By acquiring an established pre-certified platform, we stepped directly onto the market, day one. We are now scaling this business aggressively by applying NRB's manufacturing horsepower and software-driven analysis and design capabilities, while maintaining the financial discipline and margin structures that are our hallmark.

NRB's strategic pivot is all the more vital because it leverages what makes us fundamentally stronger and more resilient. While our growth strategy across these high-tech adjacencies is aggressive, our commitment to financial discipline remains absolute.

Expanding into application-engineered, high-margin niches that protect and enhance our profitability, we are scaling without diluting or altering the prudent capital allocation strategy that has earned your trust. By combining technological leadership with financial discipline, we are building a stronger, but also increasingly more agile and profitable NRB, one that is uniquely positioned to lead in an era of high-tech mobility and industrial innovation.

I think with that, I come to making an exciting announcement. We secured a production order to supply high-precision planet pins for a prestigious General Motors Corvette program through a leading Tier 1 transmission manufacturer, who is our existing customer.

This program is only open to US bearing manufacturers, and NRB USA marks this as the first win for that facility in Columbia, South Carolina. This milestone directly validates NRB's strategy of establishing a localized Made in USA footprint to serve high-performance automotive and industrial applications, demonstrating the confidence that global OEMs place in our brand new US manufacturing capabilities, thus setting the stage for accelerated growth for the NRB Group in North America.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, ma'am. Congratulations on a set of great numbers.

My first question is on FY27. I think we started Q1 off very strongly with 19% growth.

Will this growth momentum continue throughout the rest of the year, and will we close FY27 at a 15% to 20% total growth? Also, for the medium term, would you like to revise your guidance for FY31 from 2,500 to 3,000 cr, looking at the strong momentum?

Let me put it this way, that I think all of you know that I'm financially very conservative when it comes to any kind of guidance. If you look at our past 12 months revenue growth of exactly 14.38%, we would hit 2,730 by 2031.

I think I really leave it to all of you to do the calculations of whether it's 2,700 or whether it's 3,000, but I would like to highlight that we've already shown a past 12 months track record of 2,730.

Sure, ma'am. On the Unitex JV, the final location will be near Aurangabad or will it be Hyderabad?

Secondly, we had planned ₹110 cr for the capex there. Will all of that ₹110 cr be done and we'll commission the plant by end of this financial year?

We will commission the plant by April 2027. Right now, we are looking at a turnover of ₹110 crore, not our capex.

Both.

Investment is 110.

Okay. The investment is 100, right?

110.

110. Sorry.

The investment is 110 and the capacity that will cover would be 130. Now, the location: we did decide to move the location from Hyderabad to Aurangabad, and there were many reasons for that.

We were finalizing the start of our building just when the war situation arose, and we just felt, looking at the entire sort of logistics situation and the potential rise in cost in the future for logistics, and the fact that we have already such a strong base in terms of people and infrastructure in Aurangabad region and a very strong reputation, also in terms of attracting people and suppliers and every kind of support, we decided to move it, and we've already purchased a partly ready facility, because that also cuts down the lead time for being able to commission, because as you know in the current global scenario, everything is getting slowed down, and we did not want to move away from our timeline of April 2027.

Hi, am I audible?

Yes, you are.

Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations on a great set of numbers. My first question is on the industrial opportunity.

What percentage of our current revenue comes from industrial bearings, and how quickly can this move towards the 20%-25% level that you have previously discussed? My second question is on the EV content.

Are EV programs resulting in higher bearing content per vehicle for NRB compared with ICE vehicles, and could you quantify the difference in revenue per vehicle if possible?

Okay. I'll answer your first question.

Currently, and we track this on an annual basis, we do not track this on a quarterly basis in terms of at least giving out the guidance, because there are a lot of different seasonal variations between the segments. Our industrial business is 14% of our total now.

It's grown steadily from 11 to 14. Our growth was 34% in industrial.

I think that answers your first question. The second question, I have reiterated many times that NRB has fundamentally an EV-agnostic strategy when it comes to EV vehicles, which means that we are in those applications predominantly that will be common in the future for EV, ICE, and hybrids.

We focus on chassis systems, which will be the same on trucks and cars. We focus on transmissions that will have a commonality when they're connected into the steering column, because our steering applications are common.

For example, if you see the BMW i steering that we are going to launch in 2027, that BMW i steering is through ICE, hybrid, and the i lineup of BMW. Does that answer your question?

It doesn't matter what the bearing offtake is in pure EV, because we are majorly 70% in those applications which are going to grow because of our technological expertise. We can partner with companies that are coming up with one platform for that aggregate to cover all three technologies rather than predict them.

That's the big reason why we grow so fast.

Hello. Am I audible?

Yes, you are.

Could you please provide a clean outlook on the defense business, particularly the current order book and RFQ pipeline, and the expected conversion into executable orders, and what revenue contribute can we realistically expect from the defense in FY27 and in FY31? Basically, I want a defense business outlook and what capacities or capabilities are being added to support this group.

I will look at defense aerospace and commercial aerospace together, and I will look at non-aerospace defense applications separately when I answer this question. This particular acquisition and the entire product offering from Mahant is focused on aerospace, defense, and commercial applications.

There, we have predicted ₹300 crore, but with a revenue of ₹300 crore and profitability contribution of ₹90 crore by 2031. We're really looking at very high-end applications.

The current order book, as I mentioned, because this was just closed literally a month back, the current order book is ₹25 crore, not taking into account a few more orders that we've received on the spherical bearings. You're talking about maybe ₹30 crore or something like that currently in hand.

Now, talking about defense in general, NRB Bearings is an accredited US defense supplier for heavy vehicle applications. That is completely different, and we supply French defense, US defense, and it goes into many, many other heavy defense launch equipment, which are supplied through Meritor.

That is part of what we call our heavy mobility business. Does that answer your question, ma'am?

Yes, yes. Got it, ma'am.

Okay.

Hi. Very good afternoon, ma'am.

Just one clarification before I ask my question: you mentioned ₹25 crore orders in hand for the defense, Mahant's tool room. Last time in the concall, we mentioned ₹50 crore, and in the latest interview, we mentioned ₹70 crore.

Could you help me understand this?

That's why I specified. Even that time, the question was more linked to defense, and now that we've unveiled our different verticals, I wanted to separate what MTR has in hand, which is, as I said, approximately ₹30 crore, and then the additional ₹20 crore that NRB has in the regular defense, not necessarily aerospace defense.

Okay. Okay.

Total would be around ₹50 crore in hand currently?

Total will be around ₹50 crore. Okay.

Okay. Ma'am, regarding the JV, Unitex JV, I think in the latest interview, you mentioned that the company has been planning to enter data centers as a market as well, and you have already went into the boardroom and started discussing it internally.

Just wanted to get your perspective on where we are in terms of finalizing the strategy for data centers. A lot of bearing companies, our competitors have already been into this space.

How are we trying to tap into this market since the opportunity is huge?

That had nothing to do with the JV. That was NRB Bearings itself that we were talking about.

Okay. That would be a part of the industrial

The JV is focused on industrial cylindrical roller bearings, which is for industrial gearboxes, large, large gearboxes, and other such applications. Data centers is a whole new line of bearings, and we're in the product development stage.

I don't think that we have anything concrete that we're ready to announce while we are working on it. Since the question came up, are we working on it?

Yes. Do we have something to announce there?

Not yet. There are many such emerging segment products that we're working on, which are linked to, I would say, the new technological opportunities which are out there, including robotics like humanoids, including different kind of automation systems.

We recently announced that we got an order for hubs automotive systems. Each of these orders that we have from these different segments are let's say 250,000 each, and when you put them together, they're starting to create a new vertical.

To that, we're also adding data centers, where we are still in the research and development stage.

Okay. Just one big picture question, ma'am.

Because directionally, we've become very clear since the transition in the ownership control has happened, and the pledging has finally been reduced. I just wanted to get your perspective because we are trying so many new verticals, and the opportunities are just increasing in every quarter when we see the result updates.

That doesn't gel with the 12% CAGR that we've been mentioning over and over again. Could you help me just get to a certain figure that resonates with the strategy that we've been adopting?

As I said, because we're conservative, we prefer you actually use our last 12 months results as the baseline, and that brings you to 2,700-odd crore. I prefer that if you see our actual 12-month average performance and extrapolate it into the future, is the aspirational vision ₹3,000 crore?

Yes. Is ₹2,500 crore too low?

Definitely, it looks like lower than we're going to achieve for sure, which is why the guidance is being corrected based on the last 12 months average, which was 14.28. Does that answer your question, ma'am?

Hello. Can you hear me?

Yes.

My question is regarding SNL Bearing. Considering the miniature size of that company in relation to NRB, is there any thought process towards merging it with NRB Bearings?

We do not have a concrete plan to merge it at this moment. There is a lot of proprietary technology that they have, which is very beneficial if they are in their own niche space.

Is it a great contributor? Yes, it is.

NRB is one of those groups which believes that in today's world, there is much more strength in having smaller-sized subsidiaries, smaller-sized verticals with people who are extremely excited entrepreneurially to take that to the next level. That resonates very, very well with the youth of today as well, and also with the management aspirations of people.

SNL has its own brand, and yes, it does cannibalize our products on and off, but in many ways, it also allows us to focus on the bigger things without losing the smaller, but strategic businesses that we have. They have been growing extremely aggressively.

Their strength is actually making machines as well as making products for certain core industrial applications and for two-wheeler and for agricultural applications. They also have a brand which, while extremely respected, is at a slightly lower price point than NRB, which gives a very high-quality alternative in the replacement market to more price-sensitive clients, rather than leaving it open to competitors who could move up the value chain.

We see this all as a very strong strategy.

Okay. Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon, ma'am.

I had one question on this quarter's other expenses. Typically, we've been in the 90 ₹91 crore range, ₹92 crore.

This quarter, we jumped by ₹10 crore. Just trying to understand what that constitutes.

It basically constitutes cost escalation in terms of electricity, cost escalation in terms of logistics, all that the newspapers are full of, right? Is it something that we're dealing with well?

We have a combination of VAVE, which is value engineering, and cost reduction in the plant, and price increase to deal with this. All those three are happening.

All right. It's basically all logistic and power-related cost.

Obviously dollar obviously, petroleum products related. Those three.

Understood. Okay.

That's all from my end. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, ma'am, for the opportunity.

Ma'am, my question is on the capex side. We're planning to invest around ₹250 crore, right, in our capex program.

How much have we invested till now, and how much do we plan to invest in this year?

Basically, it's a total of ₹270 crore. 60 has already happened.

Another ₹100 crore is either already ordered or in the process of being ordered. We will be using all this capex that we've passed.

Got it. In this financial year, right?

Roughly, as I mentioned before, ₹100 crore of capex gives us ₹130 crore of sales. You can do your math when you're asking me for growth.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you so much for the opportunity. Good afternoon, ma'am.

Congratulations to you and team for a great set. Ma'am, I had a couple of queries.

One is that, on a long-term basis, we had been doing more than 20% margins on a steady basis in the past. Do we see that happening in the future again with the kind of businesses that we are getting into?

Second question, ma'am, was that, with the Mahant Tools acquisition, have we absorbed in the core team as well? Just wanted to understand whether the top talent has been retained with NRB post the acquisition.

These were the two questions, ma'am.

Your first question, and I'm going to ask you for the second question again, but as I answer the first question, I have repeatedly said that our margins are between 18 to 20. The reason I say that, and I keep reiterating it, we're not a quarterly-driven company, and we don't want to be a quarter-by-quarter-driven company.

Sometimes there's a time lag. You have cost increases, escalations, the world is a very fluid place.

Are we flexible and able to surmount that? Yes.

You'll see this trajectory moving between 18 and 20 over a kind of annual period, and depends on which quarter hits what. That is not our driver.

Do you get what I mean? The kind of businesses we choose tend to, by design, take us to what is considered a highly profitable outcome for an engineering manufacturing business.

Now, your second question, Samarth, sorry, I missed it. If you can ask me again?

Ma'am, my second question was that with the acquisition we have done of Mahant Tools, have we absorbed the core team as well? The team which was there at Mahant Tools, the top talent and all that has been retained with us?

That's panned out post the acquisition? That was the second question, ma'am.

Very much so. In fact, that was one of the reasons for the acquisition, and Mr.

Malappa now leads our aerospace defense segment and is very much an integrated part of the NRB supply chain management in terms of all the different subsidiaries and all the different companies together acquiring this business, with Mahant Tools being the primary supplier. That was the whole idea, to take somebody who is so incredibly respected for his capabilities, but he didn't have the resources to really grow to the extent of his own dreams.

Ma'am. Just a quick follow-up on that: so, you said that he did not have the resources, post the acquisition, I'm sure that we are investing in all the resources when it comes to manpower also if it was not earlier, right?

That is all into place now.

Manpower is a very small and significant part of this kind of business. It is really equipment and sheer infrastructure in terms of the quality of the space and the quality of the supply chain, and NRB itself is part of the supply chain.

Understood, ma'am. Yeah.

Thank you so much, ma'am, and wish you the best, and the team as well. Yeah.

Thank you very much.

Yeah. Thank you, ma'am.

Ma'am, from last concall, has the lifetime nominated business increased from 800 cr, and has the Mahant Tool Room order book increased from 50 cr? Secondly, for FY27, will we do any revenue from Mahant Tool Room?

What is the last point that you mentioned?

The second part was that for FY27, will we convert some of the order book into revenue?

Of course we will. Yeah.

My question was that what is

As I said, I prefer giving longer-term guidance on things like that. It's very hard to predict in the aerospace field.

Like we mentioned, recently we got the Sukhoi 30 order for a plane spherical bearing. Now, this is a breakthrough order.

There are a handful of companies in the world, not even five, that can make this type of bearing, okay? You're really talking about entering a space where literally there is no one other than the Europeans and the Americans, okay?

That global leaders have not managed to do, because most of our impressive global competitors have sold off their aerospace business, because it's a very specific, fully focused, hard-to-deliver, but extremely high-margin business. To predict if you're going to get a ₹50 crore in a certain year when you design it along with HAL Nasik, or whether HAL Nasik will go and get the door, for example, on a commercial aircraft from Airbus for 350 or not, is hard.

The point is it's not that different from when we said that we're going to enter the Mercedes transmission or the BMW transmission, and today, every BMW from 1 Series to 7 Series has our bearings in their transmission, and Mercedes from A-Class, not just to S-Class, but even to the Maybach, has our bearings in their transmission. It's more a question of not whether it's going to be ₹20 crore this year, but whether this year's ₹20 crore will become ₹100 crore next year.

I really feel that answering that specific question is not as relevant as the track that we are on, which we're trying to highlight. Does that make sense?

Yes, ma'am. Got it.

Just last question: so, has the lifetime nominated business increased from 800 cr, which it was in the last quarter? If yes, what new platforms have we won?

Secondly, have we purchased the land in Aurangabad for the capex, because we plan to start production in 12 months?

Yes. It has.

For example, this business that I just mentioned to you for Made in USA, that was not even part of the nominations, because there were many businesses which were not open to us unless the bearing was made in USA. This itself is a 300,000 peak volume business for the Corvette, what I mentioned.

That alone has taken the 800 to 1,100, and then there are going to be a lot more, and there are a lot more other nominations which have been converted. Yes, the answer to that question.

On the land part, I already just announced, maybe you missed it because you hadn't joined the call, that we've already purchased a land with a partially ready building for the joint venture in the Aurangabad, in Shendra region, actually.

Okay? Ma'am.

Got it. Thank you, and all the best.

Thank you.

Hi, thanks for the follow-up. Ma'am, you mentioned that we are going to enter robotics and humanoid industry.

What kind of products are we going to supply to them? Do we have those products already, or are we going to develop new products?

Sorry, can you just repeat that question?

Yeah. I'm saying you mentioned that we're planning to enter the robotics and humanoid space.

My question is: do we already have products that we are going to supply to them, or we are going to develop new products that will cater to that industry?

See, we are a company that makes 4,000 products, even today. This is not like a whole type of bearing.

These are precision components. See, the reason that people value us is we make bearings, but we also make precision components using the technology capabilities that we have.

It could be a shaft, it could be a housing. Everybody designs their robots and automation equipment differently, and we are a customized solution provider.

What they do is they tend to share the design with us, and then tell us, which are the products that you think you can make in this design? Or they tell us that we have a problem with this robot lifting the arm in this particular way.

Can you find us a solution? Then we come up with an innovation which is a combination of some precision components and bearings that does that task.

Understood, ma'am. Thanks, that's all I had.

I think that we close the call, and I really thank you very much for all your very interesting questions. I must say that when you ask me the question about 800, okay, I was more looking at the US business, and I mentioned $300,000 because it's 800 + $300,000 that we were looking at for that year, but you were talking about the nominated business that I announced earlier, which was in crores of rupees.

I just want to clarify that yes, the ₹800 crore has moved ahead. Again, we like to give the guidance and the complete rundown on that once a year.

Because if I give it at a quarterly basis, then it unnecessarily causes this kind of confusion. Has it gone up?

Definitely, yes, it has gone up, which is why we are seeing this higher growth rate, which is why we're saying that if you compound the last 12-month growth rate and then you calculate it going forward, we are already talking about very, very likely achieving 2,700 with what we have in hand. Then when we add all these other new products that you all talked about, which is on the aerospace side, and we gain traction on these five other verticals, including the various other products that we detailed out, then you are speaking about getting to a vision that is a lot closer to 3,000, keeping in mind that we don't like to give forward guidance, but that is the way it's been progressing.

I thank you very much for the stimulating questions. There was a lot of food for thought.

It gives us insight into not just how you think, but in ways that we can use your thought processes to define our business and our future more clearly. Thank you very much for your support, investors.

That really means a lot to us.