Ladies and gentlemen, a very good afternoon to all of you, and welcome to the conference call to discuss Q4 and financial year 25-26 performance of our company, Sumitomo Chemical India Limited. To begin with, I'll try to provide a summary of agrochemical industry landscape during the year.

According to my assessment, this was one of the most challenging years in the Indian agrochemical industry that I have personally seen. Prolonged and excess rainfall through the peak kharif consumption window from mid-July to September and into October curtailed farmers' field activities across the country.

Key crops including soybean, cotton, groundnut, and chili suffered damage across the multiple geographies of the country. The rabi season recovery was more subdued than we had anticipated.

Biostimulants regulatory constraints affected the PGR and biological categories for a significant part of the year. West Asia geopolitical tensions and global trade uncertainties added further complexity to the operating environment in the month of March 26.

In short, it was an unstable year. Yet, I am extremely pleased to report that Sumitomo Chemical India demonstrated stability in an unstable environment.

We delivered highest-ever profitability performance in financial year 26, highest-ever absolute terms and highest-ever margin terms. Our PAT grew by more than 7% year-to-year to ₹543 crores.

PBT before exceptional items grew by more than 9% year-on-year. Our gross profit margin stand at 42%, and our EBITDA margin stands at 20.7%, and also our net profit margins are 16.8%.

All record levels in the history of Sumitomo Chemical India. We achieved all of this while growing top line by 3%, maintaining complete pricing integrity, recording negligible returns of goods from the channel, and only in exceptional, genuine situations we took the goods back.

We ensured that instead of dumping the materials, we only supplied the materials to the channel based on actual ground-level demand forecast and avoiding any short-term performance-enhancing maneuvers. One dimension of our Q4 26 performance that I want to single out for specific mention is the exceptional field engagement effort that our senior management and commercial teams undertook in the rabi season.

In what was one of the more intensive demand generation exercises, a significant number of our senior sales team leaders went directly to the field during this period to work alongside our sales teams and demand generation teams to reinforce farmer connect at the ground level and also engage with the channel partners. That effort was a direct expression of the culture to this organization and of our conviction that sustainable market leadership is built through consistent personal engagement with the farmer community and ground-level demand pull and not through push.

Before I hand over to Suresh, I want to address the changes in the board composition and management structures that are proposed to take effect from 1st September 26. I believe the quality and the continuity of our leadership transition is itself a mark of this organization's maturity.

First, on the proposed changes in the independent directors side: Dr. Mukul Asher, our current Chairman and Independent Director, completes his final term on 31st August 26.

We would like to convey our deep appreciation to Dr. Mukul Asher for outstanding leadership over a long period of time and immense contribution in our company's successful journey.

Mr. N.

Sivaraman is proposed to be reappointed as independent director for a further term of 3 years through 31st August 29. Mr.

Anand Mohan Tiwari is proposed to be appointed as a new independent director effective 31st August 26 for a term of 2 years through 30th August 28. Mr.

Tiwari has over 30 years of distinguished experience in public administration, governance, energy, fertilizers, and social development through leadership roles in Indian Administrative Service and major state enterprises in fertilizer and chemical sectors. Now I'll come to the proposed changes in management and executive side: My current term as Managing Director will be my final term in the current position.

With effect from 1st September 26, subject to shareholders' approval at the upcoming Annual General Meeting, it is proposed that I will be appointed as Non-Executive Non-Independent Director, and following such appointment, the board will consider my appointment as the Chairman. Mr.

Sushil Marfatia's term as Executive Director also concludes on 31st August 26, and he will retire from the board. Dr.

Suresh Ramachandran, who is currently serving as Deputy Managing Director, will be elevated to the position of Managing Director with effect from 1st September 26. On the management structure from September 26, the organization chart has been provided in our investor presentation for clarity and transparency.

Mr. Kunal Mittal, as Executive Vice President alongside Senior Vice President Kazuhisa Shinomiya-san and Fumio Suzuki-san, will anchor the senior management layer, ensuring that the depth of capability below the board remains intact and effective.

The organization is ready, leadership bench is strong, to approach this transition with confidence. Both myself and Mr.

Sushil Marfatia, while we retire from full-time executive roles with effect from 31st August 26, it is proposed that both of us will continue engagement through advisory roles, and our key objective would be to ensure smooth transition and mentoring the new management team, including Dr. Suresh and Kunal.

With that, let me hand over to Suresh to walk you through Q4 and financial year 26 operating performance and market outlook for financial year 27. Suresh, over to you.

Thank you, Shah-san, and good afternoon to everyone on the call. I'll focus my remarks on the operational dimensions of our performance: the category dynamics, business mix, market conditions, and new product outcomes that drove our results in quarter four and financial year 26.

The headline revenue growth of 3% for FY26 understates the underlying momentum of that core crop protection business for two reasons: interim reduction in animal nutrition distribution revenues and the adverse agroclimatic condition that suppressed industry-wide demand through the kharif window. On business mix, domestic revenue grew by 4% year-on-year in both quarter four and the full year, with the domestic franchise demonstrating genuine resilience.

Our branded formulation share in domestic sales improved to 81% in FY26 from 79% in FY25, reflecting the ongoing structural shift towards higher quality, higher margin revenue. Export revenues declined 7% in quarter four and 1% for the full year, primarily due to shipment difference in select geographies and softer demand conditions in certain markets.

On logistics specifically, global container availability remained somewhat constrained towards the end of quarter four, especially in March, and into the early part of FY27, with some shipment delays experienced including to Africa. However, we assess these delays as episodic and manageable rather than structural things.

Costs have been passed on to customers wherever applicable, as much as possible, and we are not viewing this as a significant drag on our business. On product categories: In FY26, herbicides registered a strong growth, 87% year-on-year in quarter four and 19% for the full year, driven by healthy traction of our soybean herbicide flumioxazin, very good adoption of our newly launched rice herbicide Lentigo, and our flagship brand of glyphosate, Mera 71.

Metal phosphides grew 16% in quarter four and 11% for the full year. Insecticides remained broadly resilient, and the consumption of insecticides were broadly affected because of the monsoon conditions.

The biostimulants segment was impacted by regulatory constraints through much of the year. Those clearances came through for us in November and December of 2025, and since, we have commenced sales under the new approvals.

We have additionally obtained the registration of a new biostimulant called Top Grain from our parent company, SCC, or SBC, Sumitomo Biosational Company portfolio, which we will be launching in the upcoming kharif season. [unclear] We generate approximately 8% to 10% of our revenues from biologicals, already well above the industry average of below 5%.

We expect this share in absolute revenue contribution to grow meaningfully from FY27 onwards as the new framework takes full effect. On new products, seven products were launched during FY26.

Lentigo and Excalia Max, which are our proprietary technology, patented technologies from our parent company, both the products have been accepted very well, and we could meet our internal or exceed our internal targets even in a weather-affected season of last year. On our continued expansion of digital outreach to farmers, overall, 20% localized landing pages have been increased, 35% precision-targeted digital campaigns increased, and about 60% increase in digital touchpoints annually, with a 17% reduction in engagement costs.

Our Sumitomo Connect and Sumitomo Field Connect, field force applications, are embedded in day-to-day operations, and we are rolling out our MDO tracking application in the current financial year. These are substantive capability investment, and they will compound our competitive advantage over time.

The company also received external recognition for innovation-led marketing excellence, winning the GenAI-Led Creative Award at the prestigious AgTech India New Delhi event for our digital campaign for SumiMax. Products launched in the past 3 years now contributes approximately 8% of our total domestic revenue, a healthy and growing share that reflects accelerating pace of new product adoption by the farmers.

Looking further ahead, our new product pipeline from SCC global portfolio gives a strong visibility to the next 3 to 5 years. Out of the three or four molecules, only one, that is Indiflin has been introduced in the past financial year.

That leaves us with another couple of more products in the pipeline to be launched in the coming years based on the regulatory approvals. The specialty products that have built our specialty business to 30% of our domestic revenues, and is the same new technologies where we will focus to build up the volume, will continue to drive the structural quality improvement in our revenue mix over the next several years.

Now let me turn to FY27 and talk about the opportunities and the risks we see. On the demand side, the Indian agriculture sector remains resilient and continues to be optimistic, as you would have seen the minimum support price have also been increased by the Government of India.

However, few risks warrant careful monitoring. First of them is timely and adequate supply of fertilizers for Indian farmers, which may influence farming activities and cropping patterns, or crop shifts can happen during the upcoming season.

Second risk is related to monsoon. IMD has forecast the southwest monsoon to be 92% of the long-period average, placing it in the below-normal category.

Global weather agencies including NOAA are indicating 82% probability of El Niño emergence during the May to July period. Indian agriculture today is structurally more resilient than it was a decade ago, with nearly 55% of net sown area having access to assured irrigation, and that provides a meaningful partial buffer.

However, our company supply chain planning is on the basis of normal kharif season, and we are calibrating our inventory build-up and channel stocking accordingly. Actual monsoon arrival over the next few days, few weeks, and the distribution over the next 3 to 4 months till September will be the most crucial and important variable for the industry to monitor.

On cost and pricing, FY27 will be characterized by headwinds from depreciating rupee, escalating cost across raw materials, packaging materials, solvents, transportation driven by geopolitical developments. As cost pressures have built already and continued to build, the company has been gradually and systematically passing on these increases to the market, and we have been reasonably successful in doing so till now.

We plan to continue following this approach: calibrated product-by-product, market-condition-sensitive price management rather than a one-time blunt increase. We enter FY27 with production running at full capacity and no supply-side constraints.

Our planning assumption is that, for now, demand is holding up and cost increases are being absorbed by the market. The situation in Q1 FY27 looks constructive overall, though we acknowledge that Q2 FY27 and the second half of the year will be largely shaped by monsoon outcomes and global dynamics, particularly in the context of the ongoing geopolitical environment.

Overall, for FY27, we are cautiously optimistic of the upcoming season based on the situations I described above. With that, I hand it over to my colleague Mr.

Kunal Mittal to take us through the next segment.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Dr.

Suresh. Our company's balance sheet remains essentially debt-free.

Our cash and cash equivalents, including liquid investments, as on 31st March 2026, were at approximately ₹2,113, 2,113 crore Indian rupees. Return on capital employed improved to 31% from 29% the year before, and our net worth grew to ₹3,394 crores, a 17% year-on-year increase, funded entirely through retained earnings.

On our capital expenditure program, we want to reconfirm our commitment to invest in infrastructure for expanding our manufacturing portfolio, specially for our parent company's proprietary product portfolio, including some of the newly launched patented products globally. All the capex projects which were announced earlier are progressing well, specially from infrastructure creation point of view.

Subject to receiving regulatory approvals in timely manner from respective exports market, which are being undertaken by our parent company, currently we are on track to meet the expected commercialization timelines of these capex projects. In addition to various capex projects which were already announced earlier and under implementation, our company is at advanced stages for completing techno-commercial feasibility for few additional capex projects, and we will keep you updated as we receive formal approvals from our board and our parent company, SCC, for such additional capex projects.

Our expectation and endeavor is that we can continue sustained pipeline of capex projects and investments over the next decade. We want to also update you on three more new initiatives.

First one is a key development, which is towards early-stage trials and launch of new products in India. India has now been elevated by our parent company, SCC Japan, to the same tier as Japan, Brazil, North America, and Europe for the early-stage testing and early introduction of new molecules from our parent company SCC's global discovery pipeline.

We have already received two such molecules for trials in Indian conditions on various crops and various geographies, and this trials are ahead of their global launch in the global market. This is a very important development and a signal of the confidence that our parent company has in the capabilities: scientific, manufacturing, commercial, and regulatory on SCIL.

What we have built in India over the past 25 years, confidence SCC has in that. We intend to honor that confidence by executing these new product launches, the entire lifecycle of that, with excellence.

The second point we wanted to update about animal nutrition business: As you would recall, during financial year 25-26, we had announced that the company had discontinued distribution of animal nutrition products in India due to global realignment of the distribution strategy. However, recently, some of these products are facing lot of global challenges in terms of supply chain and also servicing to the customers, including the logistic delays.

In this kind of a situation, in discussion with our customers, Indian customers, which were built over last many years, and also some of this third-party distributors which our parent company had appointed, and also in full alignment and discussion with our parent company, our company plans to restart distribution of these products immediately, and we will continue distribution of these products for near future. One more important update about animal nutrition business is these are the products which are commodity in nature, and in the current geopolitical situation, the pricing and supply availability of this product is very, very dynamic and volatile, and also pricing has increased significantly in last few months, what we have observed.

While we don't know how long such kind of a trend will continue, but as on today, it looks like that we will continue distribution of this product for some more time, and the pricing is on a higher side as compared to the historical averages. This may add to some additional revenues for the company in the near future.

However, as you would recall, the profitability of this products is limited due to the limited scope being played by SCIL, and the profitability is approximately 4% to 5% level. While this may add to some sort of a turnover increase, but from the profitability point of view, it is not expected to be a material and significant increase.

Another point which we wanted to update is about a new royalty arrangement which we are discussing with our parent company. As you would recall, based on our past interaction, we have always maintained that we are not paying any kind of royalty to our parent company, and we really thank our parent company for such kind of arrangements.

What is happening today is all our parent company innovated molecules, we get right to exclusively distribute these products in Indian market using the global brand name and trademark of our parent company. In many of the cases, we continue to buy the technical goods from our parent company.

After that, using the technology provided by our parent company, we are doing local formulation of these products, and then we are distributing these products in Indian market using the trademark and brand name provided by our parent company. For these technologies and intellectual properties, including brand, know-how, and this trademarks, for this, no royalty was charged in the past.

As per our request, since it is possible to procure some of these products at a better pricing situation as compared to the supply prices from SCC, our parent company has agreed our request and allowed us to buy these technical products from outside. That means the obligation of buying that technical goods from our parent company is proposed to be waived off for selected two or three products.

In this kind of a situation, what we have committed to our parent company that we may pay a small percentage royalty only specifically for this two or three shortlisted products, wherein SCC, our parent company, will allow us to buy the technical goods from outside, but we will continue to use their technical know-how, their trademarks, and their brand name for distributing and manufacturing these products in Indian local market. We believe that this arrangement, as agreed by our parent company, will overall increase to our margin profile, and they will also help us expand this products business in our domestic Indian market.

In the overall scheme of things, this percentage terms and this amounts is specifically only for two or three shortlisted products, and the total amount of royalties also expected to be very immaterial. In our annual report, we plan to disclose a cap of ₹2 crore, but the actual number of royalties expected to be lower than this.

We just wanted to give you some of these strategic initiatives which we have implemented recently. Now I would like to hand over the call to our CFO, Mr.

Anil Nawal, to please take us through our consolidated financial performance.

Thank you, Kunal. Good afternoon, everyone.

Let me begin with quarter four FY25-26. For quarter four FY26, revenue from operation was ₹684 crore, up 1% year-on-year.

Q4 revenue recorded a reduction in animal nutrition revenue from ₹65.3 crore in Q4 FY25 to ₹37.5 crore in Q4 FY26. Gross profit grew 6% to ₹289 crore at a gross margin of 42.3%, expanding 223 basis points.

EBITDA grew 12% to ₹134 crore at a margin of 19.6%, expanding 202 basis points. PBT before exceptional item grew 11% year-on-year.

PAT, profit after tax, grew 12% to ₹111 crore at a PAT margin of 16.3%, expanding 159 basis points. Now turning to our full year performance for FY25-26: For FY26, revenue from operation was ₹3,238 crore, up 3% year-on-year.

From a product mix perspective, insecticides remained the largest contributor at 41% of total revenue. Herbicides registered strong growth of 19% year-on-year in FY26, supported by healthy traction in our rice herbicide portfolio, particularly Lentigo.

Metal phosphides grew 11% year-on-year, while our overall specialty mix continued to improve, with branded product now representing 81% of domestic revenue and 40% of export revenue. Our FY26 gross margin expanded 42% from 41% in FY25, an improvement of 107 basis points, this reflecting the structural improvement in our business mix, a greater contribution from specialty product, calibrated pricing actions, and disciplined procurement.

On an absolute basis, gross profit grew 6% year-on-year to ₹1,361 crore from ₹1,290 crore in FY25. EBITDA was ₹671 crore, up 6% year-on-year at an EBITDA margin of 20.7% and improvement of 64 basis points.

An exceptional charge of ₹16.1 crore was recorded in FY26 on account of newly notified labor codes. Profit before tax was ₹728 crore, up 7% year-on-year at a PBT margin of ₹22 PBT margin of 22.5%.

Net profit was ₹543 crore, up 7% year-on-year at a net profit margin of 16.8% and improvement of 68 basis points. On working capital, our net working capital days stood at 103 days as at 31st March 2026 versus 89 days a year ago.

The increase reflect our two deliberate factors: a seasonal inventory build-up ahead of kharif to ensure uninterrupted product availability in an environment of global supply chain volatility, and a reduction in payable days, reflecting the tighter credit terms in uncertain times and our strengthening procurement positions. Receivable days improved meaningfully from 91 days to 83 days, and total collection during FY26 were approximately ₹3,726 crore as compared to ₹3,534 crore in FY25, an increase of approximately 5%.

These outcomes in what was a challenging collection environment across the industry reflect the sustained discipline of our credit management practices and quality of our channel relationship. The company continues to follow a rigorous, margin-based, profitability-first approach to working capital management, and we intend to maintain and strengthen our discipline going forward.

I also want to talk about our foreign currency exposure as the depreciation of Indian rupee has been a subject of market-wide discussion. Our export and import are approximately equal in value, running at roughly US$70 to $80 million each on annual basis.

As a result, the net foreign currency exposure of business is largely self-hedging, and the impact of rupee depreciation on our overall profitability has been broadly neutral. We also hedge our foreign currency exposure and do not carry any unhedged currency risk, and this is an structural feature of our business model that we believe is well understood but worth we've said clearly.

We will now take a pause from our side and request moderator to open the floor for questions one by one.

Thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible?

Is it better now?

Yeah. Good afternoon, team.

I was going through your parent's presentation for the full year that ended recently. In the presentation, on a slide on ICT and mobility solutions sector, which is for semiconductor materials, there is specific mention of the parent's planning for commercialization of high-purity semiconductor chemicals in India in their deck.

I just wanted to get your color or your thoughts on how you look at this development and what plans, if at all any, would be for us in this segment.

Yes, you are right. There was a mention by our parent company in various forums about this topic.

We are working very closely with ICTM department of Sumitomo Chemical Japan. Far, all the meetings with the government officials, the customers, or whatever you may call, is all happened jointly with us.

We are, as much as you are, maybe a little more than that, we are also looking forward for this project to fructify. A lot of work and a lot of inputs are being given by us on this project.

Hopefully, very soon you may officially hear from us about the project of purified chemicals for semiconductor business.

Understood. Sir, secondly, on the export piece, right, given the recent tensions in the Middle East, there's been an uptick in prices of certain products, both technicals and correspondingly formulations as well.

How is that expected to feed into both demand and correspondingly the elevated prices helping us in the margins front to some extent on the export side?

See. Yes, overall if you look at it, there has been cost escalation.

I described during the commentary. Which we are trying to pass on as much as possible.

Yes, the price realization has been better, especially from, let's say late of March. It may not translate completely into percentage margin because the cost is going up and the price is going up.

It's probably a long net-neutral or plus or minus a few percentage point. That's about it.

It all depends on how the situation is going to be if the war continues, if all the costs are going to keep going up or remain at this level, the pricing may be able to continue. More than the pricing, the supplies, which supplier is able to make the supplies as per the customer demand will play a crucial role in terms of the business.

Understood, sir. In terms of volumes, is there any movement expected there on the export side?

See,

it's too early to comment for the current financial year. Yes, the indications are there.

It all depends on how the logistics situation is going to pan out, how the cost escalation is going to happen, how those country customers will afford to pay in the current situation of cost. If they are willing to pay, then there would be upside.

It all depends on how the situation is going to unfold in the next couple of months.

Understood, sir. Lastly, if you could please call out the number, the revenue number for sales under the custom synthesis kind of division that we have wherein we sell products to our parent, if you can just call out that number, if possible, which is classified as CRAMS or CSM, how you call it.

It is roughly in the range of ₹100 to ₹150 crore, depending upon the market situation in terms of volumes at this current level. As we have explained, that some of the projects are underway in the implementation side, and once those projects are implemented, from next year, next financial year onwards, we can we are expecting some growth in those numbers.

For the time being, this number is roughly in the range of ₹100 to ₹150 crore.

Perfect. Thanks a lot, sir, for the detailed answer.

Thank you for the opportunity, sir. I hope I am audible.

Yes, you are audible. Yeah.

Sir, a couple of questions. Firstly, the commentary obviously did talk about the kind of monitorables and constraints that may be there in FY27 despite demand being resilient: the kind of monsoon uncertainty as well as the Gulf pricing, the Gulf conflict and all.

Is it fair to therefore look at margins a bit more cautiously for this year? I understand that you did mention that cost increases are being passed on, but, with the kind of momentum one sort of sees in margins being probably constrained by these situations, how should we actually look at the margin trend?

Flattish versus this year or even a possibility of some decline that can be there? Just your thoughts on that, that was my first question.

In

many years, not many, but a few years back, when our profit margin increased, I was asked questions by a lot many people whether this is one-off or this is sustainable. I very confidently, at that time, had said that the margins which we are getting will be the most sustainable margin and they are all achievable every single year.

I am happy to note that because of our groundwork, because of our product mix, because of our flexibility of, giving the right product at the right time and concentrating on our portfolio in a much, much better manner, we are able to give or or ensure the margins on a sustainable basis. We will do the same thing continuously to ensure that margins are sustainable.

I I understand like even when we got our cost increases in the month of March and all that, we were very, uncomfortable as to how this costs are going to be passed on and how the market is going to react. We have had on 15th of March a price increase, on 1st of April a price increase, on 1st of May a price increase, and now we are we will see whether we can increase the prices on 1st June.

It is a very, very, cautious approach. We we control our cost, but certain costs like raw material prices going up, or the, freight charges going up, or solvent prices going up because of the naphtha and oil prices, all that is not in our hands.

We have to be very cautious in ensuring that this cost does not go out of our sustainable margins. It has to be passed on.

We have, as I gave you an example, that we have already increased the price three times within this, 15th March to till now. That is that is what we'll continue to do, but we'll ensure that our margins are sustained.

Understood, sir. Perfectly clear.

My second question was with respect to inventory levels and working capital. Again, coming back to the uncertainties with respect to the supply chains of materials and inputs, has there been any change in the kind of days of inventory that we are holding as of now, particularly for the first quarter?

No.

What has happened is that we have deliberately purchased more and deliberately produced more during the fourth quarter in order to be ready for the new season. While we do that every year, but this year, the focus was more, like we saw the trend of packaging materials going up, instead of 90 days inventory, we went for more number of days of inventory.

Even certain crucial raw materials which was oil- or naphtha-based, we have extra inventory. All those things actually ultimately will benefit us because prices of this packaging material or raw materials are constantly still going up.

In

a matter of fact, it is better for us to have little bit more inventory rather than depending last minute on other raw materials and packing materials. What has really proved to be a boon for us is that currently the freight or the transportation lead time has increased for every shipment from abroad and more so every shipment within the country.

Even if you want say packaging material, the people say, "We are not getting the trucks." Instead of 4 days, it will take 8 days.

Raw materials, same thing. Within India, the lead time has gone up, and we are far better off in having the inventory, that extra inventory to meet out that extra lead time.

Got it, sir. A third question if I may slip one more in, with respect to the new product pipeline, I believe Kunal did mention about the three, four new pipeline molecules that have been under development, of which Excalia Max has already been launched and is showing great results.

Just wanted to understand, for FY27, can we expect any one of these molecules to be commercialized and launched? If you can provide some color on that.

Yeah. As I said, Excalia Max was launched during last kharif, and I also mentioned another molecule which is a group company molecule, Sumitomo Biosational Company, Top Grain, a biostimulant.

We got the registration towards end of last year, which we expect to commercialize in the coming kharif. There are one more product which we are expecting registration.

Obviously, once the registration we get it, our endeavor would be to launch within this financial year.

Got it, sir. Thank you very much.

I'll come back in the queue. All the best.

Hello, thank you for the opportunity. Can you tell me about facing any disruption in procurement of raw material or technicals?

Because we have taken permission from our parent company for importing technicals from third party. It's for the formulation part or new launches?

Or any disruption in the raw material? No,

these are for existing products, not for new products. We are not facing any constraint on our supply chain.

We are getting the materials as we want. Also, we have prudently stocked up the materials as well.

I can say that, and this has been also from our side, we have promised the sales team that no order of the customer will be turned down. We are not going to say, "Sorry, we don't have materials.

We cannot supply." That confidence has been even given to the sales team, and we are very, very confident that there will be no situation that we'll have no materials and we will not be able to supply the goods.

This clarification, this point which you mention that our parent company has allowed, as Shah-san mentioned, this is for the existing product and only for two or three very specific products where this is available. Generally, the terms and everything remains same, except these two, three products, wherein our parent company has allowed us more flexibility.

Okay. My next question on Barrier's portfolio because in last concall, you have announced that we are facing some regulatory challenges.

It's solved or it's still going on?

I think most of the regulatory challenges which were started, I think this is something which the entire industry faced, including our company and our subsidiary, Barrix, specially in the bio kind of a product. Those challenges were faced from middle of June towards end of last financial year.

At this point of time, largely most of the approval have been received to restart the business, and it has been restarted now from the recent past. This year, we are not expecting those regulatory challenges to continue or impact us negatively.

Okay. Thank you.

Hi, sir. Sir, just first on the domestic market, what kind of price hikes do we need to take, assuming the raw material basket stays where it is today, to pass the entire thing to the end customer?

It's very difficult to generalize. Product to product, it varies; formulation to formulation, it varies; active ingredient to active ingredient, it varies.

On a large scale, can we say, maybe, 10%, 15% cost escalation, depending on the product. Some products have even gone up to 20%, 25%.

It's very difficult to generalize. It varies from product to product.

Would it be a fair understanding that the revenue growth would be much higher, given that raw material prices have moved higher in FY27, for FY27, at least for the first half?

It's very difficult to say. The reason I'm making that statement is, there are two issues.

One is we don't know the fertilizer supply. We don't know how the monsoon is going to play out, what the crop shift is going to happen, what the farmer demand is going to be there.

If competition company start reducing the price, then we will also are in the same market, we will have to drop the price. The second thing is the war situation.

If the war stops tomorrow, yeah, it may take a few weeks or a couple of months for the situation to come back to normal. The minute the war stops and the things started improving, then competition or people may not want to hold the price and want to get the volume.

It all is going to be played on all these developments, which we will have to wait to see the situation how it evolves.

Sir, second question on the capex side. We had announced a ₹150 crore capex for Dahej, and we highlighted that we are in advanced stages to announce a second phase.

Can you give some sense of what are we planning to do in that ₹150 crores also, and on the second phase, how large that opportunity could be?

As we mentioned last time, in the last I think quarter deck, we have announced this capex of ₹150 crore to be developed at our Dahej site. This is a first project coming at Dahej, and it is expected to be commercialized in next 2 years or so.

That continues on the track. I think we have started some of the development work, and it seems that it should be on the track currently.

As we had mentioned that next phase is expected. We are doing lot of feasibility studies, as we mentioned and covered earlier, and the quantum of that is expected to be similar for each of these projects with little bit higher up and down, but the quantum is expected to be similar for each of these projects, and we are expecting a pipeline of these projects over next few years.

Lastly--

To be announced one by one. What we're saying, first project we have announced at Dahej for ₹150 crore, and then we are expecting a series of projects over next few years.

In this ₹150 crore capex, what kind of product would we be doing? Because we have only highlighted it would be intermediate for a herbicide.

We will be doing the n-1 or we will be doing a KSM-type intermediate in this?

We will not be able to disclose because this is a business confidential information. To some extent, it is backward integrated, may not be KSM, but a good level of integration.

Sir. Got it.

Thank you so much.

Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity.

First question on the overall growth, volume growth in FY26, if you can help on that, maybe a break up between specialty and how the generic portfolio has been performing.

Okay. I think you have closely observed the last year, the prices of most of the agrochemicals were largely stable, by and large stable.

There was a minimal growth in terms of price. Most of the increase that you see in terms of revenue is primarily from volume.

Also I think, as I think Mr. Shah also explained and Dr.

Suresh and Anil-san also covered in their thing, while the top-line growth is 3%, however, there were some negative sectors of, like say, this animal nutrition business discontinuation, which we mentioned. If you look at our pure agro business, it has grown roughly in the range of 5% to 6%, and almost everything through volumes, as Dr.

Suresh mentioned.

Sure, Kunal. That's helpful.

Just within the portfolio, while herbicide has done good for us, will the growth over here will be largely led by the new products or even the existing ones ramped up? Secondly, specifically on PGR as fungicides.

Fungicide may be seasonal, but PGRs had been growing reasonably well earlier, but they witnessed a sharp decline this year. Anything specific here?

I can explain it to you. See, in terms of herbicides, it's a mix of both generic products as well as specialty products.

As specialty products, our flumioxazin, soybean herbicide, grew significantly. Second, a newly launched rice herbicide, Lentigo, contributed to the overall herbicide growth.

Apart from our key branded molecule Mera 71, a different formulation of glyphosate, recorded a very good growth. The herbicide portfolio growth is on account of mix of both specialty and generic portfolio.

In terms of PGR, mainly gibberellic acid, GA, again a big product for us, declined on account of really bad grape season. If you had observed at that time in the grapes, there was continuous rains, lot of grape area got damaged and the spraying itself did not happen.

That had a direct impact on our PGR, gibberellic acid portfolio. That's the reason you see a decline in the PGR portfolio.

Just to add, there was also this regulatory challenge, what we mentioned about biological. In PGR, there's one particular product which is very important, gibberellic acid, Dr.

Suresh explained the market concerns. For several other products in this portfolio, which are bio in nature, including we and our subsidiary, Barrix, we both faced regulatory challenges.

Many of these products could not be sold from June to say December or January. For 6 months, the sales and the distribution was disrupted for these products.

Sure, Kunal. Yeah.

The third part, what Dr. Suresh explained about the products, the both generic and specialty, there was also a factor of weather.

Because if you see, the Q1 was very good, and till that time, the monsoon rains, everything was well covered in India, and that is why we saw a lot of herbicide. Other portfolios like insecticide, fungicides were more severely impacted by extraordinary rains in the later months like August, September, October.

Herbicide portfolio did not get negatively impacted due to weather, while other portfolios did get impacted because of other factors, the weather factors. Also,

I'm sure you are aware that the industry as a whole had unprecedented return of herbicides from the channel all across the companies. As compared to that, we have not taken even 1 L herbicide back from the market.

Whatever we could sell, it was sustained. There were no returns at all of our herbicides.

Sure, sir. Thanks for the detailed answer.

Second bit on the capex side, just as a follow-up to the earlier question. What number should we take for let's say FY27 and financial year '28?

Because earlier we also highlighted that there were some products at an approval stage from Japan which can be possibly backward integrated in India. Any status update over there?

I think,

Ankur, whatever capex we have mentioned, they continue to be on timelines. Any additional projects which will be announced in future, that will anyway take 2 years plus to be commercialized.

I think and as we have mentioned, I think whatever capex projects we have announced, we are not expecting any incremental revenues in current financial year. Current financial year, our endeavor will be to maintain the sales which we have, it is about, as I mentioned earlier, it is between say ₹110 to ₹130, ₹140 crore level at this point of time.

That we are planning to maintain in current year. From next year onwards, as some of these capex projects get completed, some incremental revenue should be added.

Large part of that increment, because this ₹150 crore of large Dahej capex, that is expected to take from say Q2 financial year '28-'29, the revenue side.

Sure, Kunal. Just last one, if I may squeeze in.

Going back to the Sumitomo Japan's sort of presentation highlighting India to be a hub here from a semiconductor production, et cetera, perspective. Two parts: one, the cash that we have on the books, will large part of that capital allocation will be getting funded here?

Secondly, from a technology point of view, from an R&D point of view, from a capability side, where are we? Do we need a significant investment from Sumitomo Japan to be transferred here, or the existing team on the R&D side, if you can share some thoughts there?

No, it will be existing team only. We are very good at it.

As a matter of fact, even Japan has now developed confidence in our R&D and they are pushing us that even if the technical know-how comes from Japan, we need to, if we can improve it, it would be better. They are giving us all the free hand as far as R&D and R&D is concerned.

It will be all ours. We don't need any capital from Japan or any manpower from Japan.

On your first question, Ankur, about the investment, you are right that we are accumulating lot of cash at this point of time. As our parent company also announced that they want to use India as a manufacturing hub, specially our sector, agro and life sector, as clearly mentioned this in the past in lot of forums, and that is something which we are committed.

As we also mentioned that we are expecting to implement several new capex projects, specially at our Dahej site, for our parent company's global requirement. We are expecting that a lot of our capex can be invested into that through the funds which are accumulated in India.

Sure, Kunal. That's helpful.

Thanks a lot for all the answers, and congratulations, Dr. Suresh, for your new role and responsibilities.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity.

Now we are talking about the RM inflation and the cost passing to the farmer. How are we confident of passing cost to the farmer?

Far, we have done that. If we look at in terms of the overall economics of the farm, fertilizer prices already hiked maybe in last 1, 1.5 months and also if we look at the other agri commodities, prices are already soft.

Even though we pass on our prices, is it possible that the volume can taper because farmers might shift towards the generic product, not the specialty or branded products because of the cost pressure and the inflation?

As I explained, there are a lot of dynamics that is playing on. One is monsoon that can change the cropping pattern, number one.

Number two, fertilizer availability. Even before talking about fertilizer price, fertilizer price anyway mostly it is subsidized and I don't think it's going to significantly increase to the farmer.

In terms of supply, fertilizer supply availability can impact the cropping pattern. If you look at way back '22, '23, all the agrochemical prices have shot up significantly, but still farmers were able to buy and invest in their crop and got good profits, good crop.

Similarly, we will have to wait and see how the competition is going to play, how the monsoon is going to play out, what is the fertilizer supply situation. All these things will play a role in terms of how much the farmers can absorb the cost.

As I mentioned, we are not taking a one-shot decision and trying to see that recover everything. We are taking a calculated decision based on the product, based on the brand, based on the popularity of the brand.

We take that call, and that's how it will be that it's a dynamic situation. The decisions have to be fast, and we are geared up for that, reviewing the situation on a weekly basis, if not on a daily basis, and take those calls and implement the decisions.

Also,

agrochemical is the least of the cost to the farmer in his overall cost. I think farmer will be more worried about at what price he'll get the fertilizers and other inputs.

Agrochemical is not a very big part of farmer's cost. When the time to use the agrochemical comes, farmer only sees to save his crop, and the price to him at that point of time really doesn't matter in his economics.

Understood, sir. Yeah.

Sir, second part is that if I if I look at your herbicide portfolio growth in the Q4, that was very strong. Can we assume that it's partially driven by the price hikes that we have taken over the month, sorry over over in the in the month of the March, and also partially supported by the intermittent rainfall during during during the late late rabi season?

Both have, influenced the growth? See,

primarily it is volume growth. Yes, price increase happened, that was towards the middle of March or third week of March.

The major contribution would have been volume, and probably to some extent, I would say that since the war situation was emerging, channel was a little bit skeptical about the availability of herbicides and probably they've bought a little early compared to what they would have done in a normal year.

Understood. Also, if I look at some of the herbicide prices, maybe one of our most demanded herbicide product, glyphosate, the prices have shot up more than 40% to 50% over last few months.

Was that a kind of a pre-buying in the channel than the actual demand-driven growth that we have seen in the Q4? See,

it's mostly channel. See, glyphosate starts getting used only towards the end of April, early May, okay?

Before that, it's all stocking up, except maybe a little bit of usage would happen in north, okay? I would say the cost of raw materials of not only glyphosate, all the raw material costs have gone up.

Yes, glyphosate has also gone up, we also increased the price, and the entire glyphosate industry increased the price, and there is stocking up of some of the products by the channel also.

Understood. Sir, one last question regarding the capex that right now we are talking about this semicon capex and some other capex.

If we look back our past year guidance about the ₹300 crore capex at the Dahej plant, so far, we have only announced ₹150 crore capex. In terms of how are we confident of announce another capex at the Dahej plant for the agri intermediates in the near term?

In terms of the product that are already in process of getting the approval from the parent company, how are the status for those products?

At this point of time, based on whatever technical feasibility studies we have done and discussed, technically we are very, very confident, and overall, we are cautiously optimistic that some of these capex projects should get approved and we should start the implementation.

Understood. Sir, any kind of a timeline or stage that we are into this process of approval?

As we have mentioned that we are not looking at one particular point of time to announce a very large capex. We announced one project just say 3 or 4 months back, and periodically, like say every year or so, we are expecting, or maybe earlier than that, we are expecting next project to be announced.

Because implementation of say five projects cannot be done together. Like say, just on a every year for next few years, we can keep announcing one-one project.

Understood, sir. Thank you.

Thanks for clarifying all my questions. Thanks.

All the best.

Thanks for the opportunity, sir. Just want to know if you can just give a breakdown between what was the volume growth and the pricing increase in Q4 and full year performance that driven the revenue?

I think this point was already addressed by Dr. Suresh earlier.

If you look at our agro business overall for the full year basis, the growth was approximately 5%, 6%, and which is fully from volumes. Pricing were stable, and that if you look at the full year basis.

Okay. Sure, sir.

That's really helpful. Thank you.

Namaste, everyone. Thank you all for asking some very interesting questions and our colleagues for replying the same.

We hope we could address all your queries. FY26 was a genuinely difficult year for the Indian agrochemical industry: adverse weather, regulatory constraint, global uncertainties, and cautious channel sentiment all converging in the same year.

Yet, in that environment, Sumitomo Chemical India delivered its highest-ever profitability. That outcome speaks to the depth of the franchise we have built.

Looking ahead, our priorities for FY27 are clear: scaling up our recently launched products, continuing to invest in farmers' engagement and demand generation, advancing our manufacturing expansion program at Bhavnagar, Tarapur, and Dahej, and sustaining the financial discipline that has consistently underpinned our profitability. We remain watchful of the monsoon outlook and the broader operating environment, and we are well prepared to navigate whatever conditions the year brings.

I also want to express here my deep gratitude for the privilege of having been part of this organization's journey. The company that Sumitomo Chemical India is totally a ₹3,200 crores business with a strong parentage, strong products and brands, strong people and team, and strong plants.

All these strong Ps helped us generate strong profit for our shareholders, which is one of the highest profitability level in our history. It is collective work of every person in our company who have given their best to this organization.

I am proud to have been one of them. Thank you once again for your time and your continued trust in Sumitomo Chemical India.

We look forward to staying engaged with you throughout the year ahead. Thank you very much.