Thank you, Viba, and thank you for introducing the management. We will begin this call with opening remarks from the management, following which we will have the floor open for an interactive Q&A session.

Before we begin, I would just like to point out that some statements made in today's discussions may be forward-looking in nature, and a note to that effect was stated in the concall invite sent to you earlier. I would now like to hand over to Mr.

Sreekanth Reddy for his opening remarks. Over to you, Sreekanth.

Thank you, Gavin. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Sagar Cements' earnings call for the quarter ended June 30th, 2026.

Let me begin the discussion with a brief overview of the market, post which I will move on to Sagar-specific developments. The quarter witnessed a mixed operating environment for the cement industry.

Demand remained broadly healthy across most regions, supported by continued government-led infrastructure spending, resilient housing activity, and a steady progress in construction across both urban and rural markets. While the underlying demand environment remained encouraging, growth during the quarter was temporarily impacted by heat wave across several parts of the country, which in turn affected the construction activity to certain extent, as well as election-related labor shortages in parts of Eastern and Southern India that led to a short-term execution challenges.

On the pricing front, realization improved at the beginning of the quarter, supported by price hikes across several markets. However, pricing momentum moderated towards the end of the quarter amid competitive intensity and regional market dynamics, resulting in broadly stable to marginally improved realization on a sequential basis.

Despite these near-term headwinds, the industry's long-term demand outlook remains favorable, supported by sustained infrastructure investments, continued urbanization, and a healthy pipeline of housing and industrial projects. Moving on to Sagar-specific developments, we delivered a healthy volume growth of around 13% during the quarter, reflecting resilient demand across our key markets and disciplined execution by our teams.

Consequently, revenue increased by 5% year-on-year, driven primarily by higher volumes, while realizations remained broadly stable. We remain confident of achieving volumes of approximately 7 million tonnes in FY '27, supported by our expanding market presence and ongoing operational initiatives.

Our pricing remained broadly stable, with a marginal sequential improvement, reflecting our disciplined market approach. From an operational standpoint, EBITDA per ton for the quarter stood at ₹451.

As anticipated, profitability and margins moderated during Q1 due to elevated input prices across the energy, fuel, and packaging amid the geopolitical tensions in West Asia. While the price increases undertaken during the quarter helped offset a part of the cost inflation, they were insufficient to mitigate the impact.

Looking ahead, we expect input cost pressures to gradually ease as the geopolitical situation normalizes. At the same time, our continued focus on cost optimization through waste heat recovery systems, increased use of green energy, and the ongoing plant efficiency initiatives will further strengthen our cost structure and support margin improvement over the medium term.

On the CapEx front, we successfully commissioned the remaining 1.55 MW waste heat recovery out of the total installed capacity of 4.35 MW at our Gudipadu plant and completed the 0.5 million ton capacity expansion at our Jeerabad unit during the quarter. These investments enhance our manufacturing footprint, improve operating efficiencies, and position us well to capture the future demand.

At the same time, 0.75 million ton expansion at Andhra is likely to be completed before end of this current quarter. Power and fuel costs stood at ₹1,484 per ton as against ₹1,450 per ton reported during Q1 FY '26.

Freight cost for the quarter stood at ₹858 per ton as against ₹860 per ton during Q1 FY '26. From an operational point of view, Mattampally plant operated at 65% utilization, while Gudipadu, Bayyavaram, Jeerabad, Jajpur, and Dachepalli plants operated at 79%, 67%, 96%, 50%, and 42% respectively during the quarter.

Profit after tax for the quarter stood at ₹28 crore. As far as the key balance sheet items are concerned, the gross debt as on 30th June 2026 stood at ₹1,704 crore, out of which ₹1,434 crore is a long-term debt and the remaining constitutes the working capital.

The net worth of the company on a consolidated basis as on 30th June 2026 stood at ₹1,833 crore. Debt-equity ratio stands at 0.78:1.

Cash and bank balances at ₹105 crore as on 30th June 2026. That concludes my opening remarks.

We would now be glad to take any questions that you may have. Thank you.

Hi, sir.

Good morning, Mr. Shravan.

Yeah.

Sir, couple of questions. First, on the volume front, we are maintaining a 7 million ton for this year.

Obviously, I assume this is only the sales volume and not the clinker sale. Just to get a broad understanding, how much clinker sale now we are looking at in Q2 and maybe for the full year or from Q3 onwards, do we will not have any kind of a clinker sale?

Shravan, I think the 7 million is excluding the clinker sale. As far as clinker sale is concerned, there are two aspects, sir.

One is to the outside and one within the group company. I think Andhra will continue to sell clinker to Bayyavaram.

At Jeerabad, till the volume stabilizes, which we expect the ramp-up to happen ASAP, but still till such time, we continue to sell some portion of clinker. Quantifying them at this point of time, I think we would revert with exact volumes in due course of time, Mr.

Shravan, but 7 million doesn't include clinker sales.

Got it. For next year, FY '28, can we see a kind of a double-digit volume growth for us?

I think even this year, it's a double-digit growth, Mr. Shravan, and for next year also, we are expecting something similar in terms of a percentage, Mr.

Shah.

Yeah. Now, sir, in terms of the profitability, obviously, so that depends on the cost and the pricing.

Just to cover both the aspect. In Q2, how much more for us in terms of per ton basis, whatever the power and fuel increase and maybe some marginal increase could be even on the diesel front, maybe packing bag could be a kind of a setting it off.

Just to understand, in Q2, how much are we looking to have a cost inflation on a per ton basis? If whatever the number would be, then in terms of we were looking at ₹600-odd per ton for full year EBITDA per ton.

Are we still sticking to that number?

I think, Shravan, Q2, as for the full year, we are expecting fuel plus raw material plus other miscellaneous expenditure by ₹100 a ton, sir, but we expect a matching kind of a saving. Net-net, we might remain very similar.

Going specific to Q2, sir, we would be taking maintenance at three of our plants. We do expect some amount of cost increases only on account of inventory because we have stocked up.

We don't expect a big shift in the volumes that we have to sell, but we expect some amount of inventory costs to go up. All said and done, I think we should more than make up in Q3 and Q4.

What we are indicated and what we remain committed is around ₹500 to ₹550 EBITDA per ton. I think it is doable because we expect prices to remain stable, but most of our cost initiatives, the waste heat recovery at Gudipadu, expansion at Jeerabad, as well as Andhra to be available in this next half for most part of next half.

We expect whatever cost inflation of ₹100, we expect it to more than offset and contribute. We do expect anywhere between ₹500 to ₹550 EBITDA per ton, Mr.

Shravan, assuming that there are no changes in the prices. Yeah.

There on the pricing front, currently, are the prices stable versus Q1 averages broadly in our core markets? See, I think

in the markets from March exit to July, it has been flat, sir, and from June to July also, it has been flat. Of course, there were certain price increases that have happened in between, but more or less everything got moderated.

Fortunately, prices remained flat. They did not go down, sir.

With a slight positive, I think overall we have seen anywhere between ₹50 to ₹60 kind of a realization, but I don't know what we have to attribute it to. Is it product mix or some amount of price increases that have happened in the region?

We could sustain it a very, very minuscule portion. Or else, prices remained very, very stable, Mr.

Shah.

Sir, lastly on Vizag sale, where are we now? This

We are waiting for the government, sir. We are only waiting for one final government approval.

We are expecting the GO. Earlier we were expecting it specific for us.

Now, I think government wants to promulgate it as a generic kind of a thing. We are awaiting for that to come by for us to start monetizing the land, Mr.

Shravan.

This year ₹150-odd crore we were looking at, will it be

I think that remains doable, Mr. Shravan.

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

Thank you.

Hello. Good morning.

Yeah. Good morning.

Sir, which regions are expected to contribute the highest incremental demand during the second half of financial year '27?

See, we have almost a footprint of close to 80% in South, Janhvi. Our incremental volumes are coming from South.

If you have seen the general market trends in South, they have been very robust barring Karnataka, which remained flat. Post election, Tamil Nadu demand also picked up.

AP, Telangana doing very well. In our case, even Madhya Pradesh remains a very strong market because we just expanded by 0.5 million.

We also expect our volumes to move higher in Madhya Pradesh, too. These are the regions which are likely to contribute for our 15% kind of a growth that we have projected for the current year.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah. Hi, sir.

Am I audible?

Very much. Good morning, Mr.

Rajesh.

Hi, sir. Good morning.

Sir, just looking at the individual three companies level break-up, how should we look at the cost items for Andhra? It still seems to be operating at more than ₹5,000 per ton of cost structure.

Where is the operating cost structure of

I think there are two aspects you have to look at. One is the fixed cost and the other is the variable.

The variable cost is around ₹100 to ₹125 higher at Andhra compared to Mattampally. Again, it's on relative, Mr.

Rajesh.

Yes.

The specific metric in terms of kcal and number of units, I think it is far more efficient, or at par with Mattampally. The only problem is cost per electrical unit, since Mattampally operates waste heat recovery, Andhra does not have that.

We still source substantial portion of our electricity from the grid, which is relatively higher compared to the waste heat recovery that we have at Mattampally. That unfortunately is translating to ₹125 higher price on a variable cost basis at Andhra compared to Mattampally, sir.

Sir, if I look at the cost difference here, Mattampally plant is operating close to ₹4,000, whereas this one is at ₹5,100, ₹5,200 per ton. Sir,

these are not directly, sir. These are product mix and everything would be substantially different, Mr.

Rajesh. See, Mattampally would have a lot of PPC relative to Mattampally, which would produce OPC.

Very specific metric, even if you have to look at each of the product-wise, yeah, the gap on a product basis should be anywhere between ₹100 to ₹120, sir. Okay.

Incrementally, if I have to model these three units separately, how should we look at the cost? See,

I think fixed cost is very different because, as bulk of our debt that sits is at Andhra, not at Mattampally. Mattampally is debt-free, sir.

It's only a matter of time when Andhra would get merged into Sagar, Mr. Rajesh.

Any specific, I think we would be more than happy to share those modeling details offline, sir.

Sure, sir. You're still confident that including the clinker sales volume, EBITDA per ton, which is close to ₹425 in Q1, for full-year basis, we could touch ₹600?

₹550 is definitely doable, Mr. Rajesh, as I mentioned to you.

See, waste heat recovery at Gudipadu just got commissioned. Bulk of the savings from that, we should start realizing in the next few quarters.

Same would be the case with Jeerabad expansion. Also the brand-new cement mill at Andhra is due for commissioning end of September.

These three should start contributing, assuming that prices remain stable or where they are. I think ₹550 is definitely a doable number, sir.

Great. Sir, last question.

When you mentioned on the Q2 cost structure increasing by around ₹100 per ton, and that too largely getting offset by some operating So you are implying that sequentially your operating cost, assuming sequentially there is a volume decline also and there will be maintenance-related expenses,

your

Q2 versus Q1?

I think Q2 definitely, as you are aware, it's seasonally a difficult quarter because most of the operational metric could be under stress because of rains and shutdown. At the same time, maintenance expenditure, which again optically looks higher for Q2, which will have a better spread.

Q2 is definitely going to be I would not say a challenging quarter, but these are known operational kind of where we know for sure some amount of operational metrics would be below par compared to the other. I think in our understanding, we'll more than make up for that in Q3 and Q4, Mr.

Rajesh. Understood.

Sir, just want to get some update on the land sale. What is the status?

We are just waiting for the final government approval, Mr. Rajesh, and we hope to get ₹150 crore of realization in the current year.

We are waiting for the final GO. Earlier it was supposed to be specific for that particular asset, but government after reviewing, they said that they would come up with a generic because there are quite a few assets which are similar to ours.

The department clarified to us telling that they would issue a generic GO, which should be helping us to start the process and start monetizing the asset, Mr. Rajesh.

Understood. This is more of a formality where you are awaiting getting the

Yes, sir. I think it was the case even before.

Even now, it is. We are just waiting for that GO to come, because something similar GO was issued in Telangana few months back, sir.

Something similar is likely to happen in Andhra. That's what was the indication from the bureaucracy there.

We are waiting for that to happen for us to start the process, sir.

You have the buyer in place, sir, for the confidence that

See, there have been engagements, but in our case, timelines is something which we could not address. Given the buoyancy in the Vizag market now, yeah, quite a few people have approached, Mr.

Rajesh.

Understood, sir. Thank you, sir.

I'll come back in Q.

I think, as I mentioned, demand has been very, very strong. I think Amaravati is one of the prime mover for the demand in Andhra.

Even in Telangana, government did start 6 lakh houses in Indiramma Pathakam, what they call as low-cost housing. These are two flagship demand drivers from a government-led initiatives, but even otherwise, private demand also has been very, very strong.

Will prices move up? Prices have to move up because if you look at last 10-year inflation on cement pricing, I think it is flat.

That should also push, whereas the cost inflation has been quite substantial. Even from that perspective, prices have to move up.

Prices did go up, but unfortunately they could not hold up because of the volatility in demand on a month-to-month. Unfortunately, most of the industry players are losing patience, and competitive intensity sometimes flares up.

Prices are bound to go up. It's a question of when and by how much.

Thank you for the opportunity. Hello, sir.

My first question is actually regarding demand. I wanted to give some more flavors about state-wise demand, and how is demand flaring in both trade and non-trade segment?

The channel feedback which we were getting were actually that the demand in South region is below other regions, and it's underperforming. Just if you can give some flavors demand flavor regarding that?

See,

I think for the Q1 year-on-year numbers that we see both for AP and Telangana together is almost close to 11%. Karnataka is flat, as I mentioned.

Tamil Nadu has grown close to 4%, but this is in spite of April being negative because of the elections and the post-election kind of a thing. June alone, it actually grew very, very healthily at 20% year-on-year kind of a number.

Kerala has been growing steadily at 12%. That makes the overall South demand on an average close to around 6%.

That's what we believe that South demand should be anywhere between 8% to 10% for the year, sir. Far, it is close to 6%, 6.5% in spite of few challenging months in the region, primarily on account of elections that have happened both in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Usually, the first 6 months post-election things tends to be slower, but we believe that it should ramp up to 8% to 10% kind of overall kind of a demand in South. Now, I cannot speak about all India.

Our market footprints, Maharashtra has been very healthy. Orissa has been extremely healthy because government initiatives slowly started showing up.

Madhya Pradesh, we have seen around 9% to 10% growth already, yeah. This is the information we have for the states, Mr.

Sancheti.

Yeah. Thank you so much, sir.

Next question would be how has demand actually flared up in July? We have seen delayed monsoon across the country.

Is this helping pushing up the demand or

See, actually, I think July we have to wait. We are yet to conclude the month.

More or less, demand looks to be very, very similar trend as Q1. Like Andhra, Telangana, we expect it to still grow because delay in monsoon in the some pockets of this market, construction activity is still going on.

I think labor, which was missing for most part of Q1, I have come back. We expect July month to be very similar to how the June was.

Thank you so much, sir. My final question would be you had mentioned that you are expecting some cost moderation, especially in the power and fuel cost.

Hypothetically if the West Asia crisis, it still goes on and we see further escalation, what levers does your company have to control the inflation in power and fuel cost specifically?

I don't think we have ability to control the inflation. We only have ability to control the quantity of usage.

From that perspective, most of our assets are reasonably there on the efficiency, sir. We are one of the top efficient players when it comes to consumption of fuel, specific fuel for each ton of any material.

What we are factoring at this point of time is we do have inventory all the way up to middle of October. We know we can go all the way up to middle of October.

What we have penciled in is a ₹100 price hike on account of fuel. It is ₹50 and all the other things.

Anything beyond the current price See, clinker is at its peak now. We hope for some moderation to happen in due course of time.

By October, we expect some amount of moderation. If trends remain where they are, yeah, we expect a ₹100 kind of cost inflation.

As I mentioned before, yeah, some of the initiatives with waste heat recovery at Gudipadu and capacity expansion at Jeerabad and new mill addition at Andhra, these things should more than offset and still contribute to cost savings as we speak, Mr. Sarthak.

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

Thank you.

Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity.

Sir, I just had one question on your net debt. On page number 9, we have given a projection that our net debt will move from ₹1,565 to ₹1,159.

Does this factor the proceeds from land monetization or does it

Yes, sir. ₹150 crore is what we have penciled in for the current year.

For the current year. For '28?

That would be another ₹250?

Another ₹200 should be the number,

sir. Perfect.

Thank you so much for answering my questions.

Thank you.

I don't think it has any impact whatsoever.

We have started the work. We would revert with much more operational plan by end of Q2, Viba.

See, I think specific only on waste heat recovery at Gudipadu, on a consolidated volume, we expect a ₹25 saving on that account. Though at Jeerabad volume, it could be ₹100, ₹125.

The only asset which doesn't have a waste heat recovery is Andhra. Next couple of years, the target is to go for a waste heat recovery at Andhra.

That should also contribute a similar kind of a number, Viba.

Hi, sir. Sir, my question is related to limestone reserves.

I see that on page number 30 you highlighted you have good access to resources, and the reserve life would be quite high. In terms of industry, have there been any new limestone blocks in Tamil Nadu and AP that have come for auction and at what premium are they going for?

See, there are few due both at Tamil Nadu, Andhra, and Telangana, Parth. They are not yet concluded.

The recent ones that we have seen is almost a year, year and a half back. The premiums ranged anywhere between 50% to 75% premiums.

Sir, and this would be Tamil Nadu or AP?

It's in Telangana.

In Telangana. Okay.

Got it, sir. Thank you.

Okay.

Yeah. Hi, Sreekanth.

Am I audible?

Very much, sir. Good morning.

Good morning. In the debt profile, if I see '27 and '28, there's a reduction of ₹160 crore-odd in the gross debt, assuming almost ₹500, maybe ₹550 a ton and building in 7 million ton.

Approximately ₹800 crore over the 2 years of operating cash flow '27 and '28. Are we saying that there would be a CapEx of closer to ₹900 crore over the 2 years?

No, I think, see, what we are looking at this point of time, yeah, we are not having any CapEx plans for next couple of years, sir. Except for the operational maintenance, which is roughly around ₹30 to ₹40 crore per year, yeah, we do not have any CapEx plans for up to end of '28 for sure.

What we are expecting is a monetization of land at Vizag and debt reduction. That's the key focus area for us for next 2 years, Mr.

Nahata. No.

You have already taken from the sale of Andhra assets in both the years, you just mentioned ₹150 crore and ₹200 crore.

Yes, sir. So

₹350 crore. The reduction on account of operational cash flows generated

That should be another matching number, sir. That should be another matching number, Mr.

Nahata.

That you have not incorporated in your gross debt reduction profile?

No, not yet, sir, because there are some ongoing CapEx. For the current year, there is a ₹240-odd crore of CapEx, which is ongoing, which would spread over this year and next year.

That's what we have penciled in, Mr. Nahata.

Okay. Understood.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Hi, sir. Good morning.

Thanks for the opportunity. My question is on the total cost front.

If we see, we have increased around ₹100 per ton sequentially, whereas the other players have kind of posted a ₹150 to ₹200 cost increase quarterly. Is it because we already had elevated cost in Q4 and that's because we have only seen ₹100 increase or

We had some inventory also with us, Mr. Harsh,

so. This ₹100, what would be the break-up of increase?

Power and fuel and packaging?

See, I think power and fuel we have factored ₹50, sir. All the other miscellaneous at ₹50, Mr.

Harsh.

Sure. What sort of cost increase we're looking at Q2?

I think Q2 is very specific because we expect maintenance and other costs to be elevated because we have taken most of the plants for shutdown, at least the larger ones. That's only for the current quarter, which should even out in the next few quarters.

Q2 maintenance cost would be relatively higher, sir, because Mattampally plant, yeah, there is a substantial shutdown. Is the case with Jeerabad.

These two, we expect that. Also inventory cost adjustment also is likely to happen because we have stocked up clinker for these shutdown, we don't expect sale to be anywhere lower.

Yeah. No, since there is no impact on volumes, yeah, the inventory adjustment and the other fixed cost spread because of the maintenance shutdown is likely to impact us only for Q2, Mr.

Harsh.

Sure, sir. Okay.

The regular maintenance increase that would happen in Q2.

Yes, sir.

Got it. Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

I think when we took over Andhra close to 3 years back, we did indicate that we expect a 60% capacity utilization for Andhra. The ramp-up has been smooth.

From 30 sub-30% with increased volumes, we could move close to 50% now. I think by end of this year, we should reach close to 60% capacity utilization.

From that perspective, we believe that Andhra might operate anywhere between 60% to 70% for the coming years in spite of very high competitive intensity in the neighborhood.

We did indicate earlier, we are expecting anywhere between ₹500 to ₹550 EBITDA per ton for the current year.

Thank you, Viba. We would once again like to thank each one of you for joining us on this call.

I hope you have all the answers that you are looking for. Please feel free to contact our team at Sagar or CDR should you need any further information or have any further queries.

We'll be more than happy to discuss them with you. Thank you.

Have a great day. Thank you.