Grasim Industries Limited

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Q1 FY26 earnings conference call hosted by Braxton Industries Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes.

Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded.

And now in the conference, over to Mr. Ankit Panchmatia, Head Investor Relations of Gratham Industries. Thank you and over to you, Ankit sir. Thank you, Neeraj. Good evening and thank you for joining Gratham's first quarter financial year 2026 earnings call. The financial statements, press release and presentation are already uploaded on the website of Stock Exchange and our website for your reference. For safe harbors, kindly referred to cautionary statements highlighted in the last slide of our presentation. We have with us our management team on this call to discuss our results and business performance. We have with us Mr. Himanshu Kampania, Managing Director, Mr. Pawan Jain, Chief Financial Officer and Mr. Hemant Kaddil, Incoming Chief Financial Officer of Graphic Industries. From businesses, We have with us Mr. Jaiyan Dogle, Business Head, CFI Business, Mr. Pratik Dhagawe, CEO of Birla Opus, our Pains Division, and Mr. Sunil Komraveli, CEO, Birla Pivot, our B2B E-Commerce Business, and Mr. Manmohan from Srinodic Fibers Business. Let me now hand over the call to Mr. Himanshu Kampanya for his opening remarks. Over to you, sir. Good evening from India to all the participants across the globe and thank you for joining the call. Over the past one year, the global economic landscape has evolved rapidly, shaped by shifting global trade dynamics and policy responses. Let me highlight key developments across global growth, tariff policies and contrasting paths of advanced and developing economies. Firstly, on global growth. In the past year, the global economy has shown moderate but uneven resilience. Growth has slowed slightly with the global GDP expanding at just under 3%, reflecting the mad effects of tight monetary policy in major economies and geopolitical tensions that have weighed on investment sentiment, in which inflation, while cooling in Most advanced economies remain above central bank targets, keeping interest rates elevated. U.S. Federal Reserve and European Central Bank maintain a cautious stance through much of the past year's vary of premature rate cuts. This is led to tighter global financial conditions and subdued credit growth. New supply chain disruptions such as red keys, shipping tensions and sanctions have added fresh layers of uncertainty. Secondly, tariff and trade policy shifts was one of the most notable changes in the past year. The escalation of trade protectionism has reinforced a trend of fragmentation of global trade into regional rocks. Many countries are now actively restoring critical industries, prioritizing geopolitical alignment over pure cost efficiency. Even within regions, we are seeing trade barriers rise not in the form of just tariffs but also export restrictions on strategic minerals, technology controls and state subsidies linked to domestic production. Thirdly, diverging growth strategies. The divergence in economic momentum between advanced and developing economies has become more pronounced over the past year. The US economy, despite tight monetary policy, has surprised on the upside with higher consumer spending. Our growth is expected to slow below 2% in year 2025. Europe and Japan, in contrast, have seen sluggish recovery with weak industrial output, stagnant wages and fragile business confidence. Meanwhile, the real momentum has shifted to developing Asia. China's GDP growth is projected at around 4.8%, deflecting a continued structural slowdown amid cyclical headwinds, especially in the property and consumer sectors. Export momentum has also weakened due to heightened state restrictions and new tariffs, especially from the US and EU. India, on the other hand, continues to lead global growth amongst major economies, with GDP projected to stand by 6.8%, driven by stable domestic demand, higher infrastructure spending, and sustained exports. Inflation, although sickly early in the year, has moderated to 4.3% by May 2025, allowing the RBI to shift gears from tight monetary stance to a more neutral and growth-oriented policy, enacting deconvective rate cuts totaling 100 basis points in the current calendar year. In summary, the past one year has underscored a few key themes. Moderate global growth with clear divide between advanced economies slowing down and emerging markets accelerating. A series of sweeping trade tariffs, redefinition global trade patterns and supply chain realignment. and the ongoing tensions between economic integration and national security priorities. As we look ahead, the need for adaptive policy framework, regional partnerships, and investment in sustainable, inclusive growth models has never been more urgent. Grassland continues to harness the strength of its diversified business portfolio, seamlessly aligning with India's robust growth trajectory. Backed by legacy of building large-scale future-ready businesses, Grasfin is well positioned to cater to the rising demand of a dynamic Indian economy. Riding this growth pace, we are proud to share that Grasfin has delivered 20 consecutive quarters of year-on-year revenue growth, achieving an impressive 15% CAGR since FY 2021. Our trading 12-month ETM Consolidated Revenue has crossed a record high of nearly 1,50,000 crores, a testimony to our consistent performance and resilience. While the company's CFO, Mr. Pawan Jain, will be covering key financial highlights, happy to share that we have started the current financial year on a high note, reporting 16% worldwide growth in Consolidated Revenue at 40,118 crores. The standard of revenue for the quarter touched a record high of Rs. 9,223 crore, up 34% Y&Y, led by high growth from new businesses, screens and B2B e-commerce, coupled with stable core businesses, cellulose fibers and chemicals. Consolidated EBITDA stood at Rs. 6,430 crore, marking a strong growth of 36% Y&Y, mainly due to higher profitability in cement and chemical businesses. Partly upset by initial investment for building strong consumer-facing paint business, Villa offers in line with board-approved business plans. Starting with the new businesses, partly with paint business, Villa offers devoted double-digit revenue growth on a quarter-on-quarter basis. As per internal estimates, the organized decorative paints industry has grown by over 5% on Y-on-Y basis. As per our estimates, excluding the law office revenues, the organized decorative paints industry has de-grown slightly or remains flattish on year-on-year basis. Our belief is that this subdued growth rate is led by push from incumbent industry players for low-end economy products. Nevertheless, Bill Law offers continues to believe that the industry-market share realignment along capacity lines, consolidation of print players, highest-ever manufacturing capacity additions and increased brand salience will enable the decorative print industry to return to double-digit growth. The industry is bound to capture the opportunities from rising consumers aspirations and exponential development in infrastructure, especially the housing sector. As for internal estimates, Villa Opus on its own is India's number three decorative brand and when combining the revenues of Villa Opus and villa-wide foot tea business, similar to the revenue reporting of all paint majors, Alte Villa Group's presence in decorative paint business has crossed 10% revenue market share. On manufacturing front, the trial production of emulsion and water-based paint at Birla Office's 6th plant in Kharagpur has begun and commercial launch is on track by end of Q2 FY26. To emphasize, post the launch of this 6th plant, the Birla Office's installed capacity will rise to 1332 million litres per annum, estimated to reach 24% of India's organised paint industry capacity. On consumer engagement front, Birla offers painting services offered under Paintcraft brand name is being scaled up through retail networks. Paintcraft has been running a direct painting services by the company in select cities for last two years which is now being extensively expanded to over top 100 towns in Q2-26 through companies dealer operated franchises. Paintcraft is a differentiated service offering that is unlike any existing dealer led painting services model. The key point that makes it distinct is that the service has been built on digital platform which integrates the service for all stakeholders, including companies, their franchise, applicators, painters, and consumers. This allows Pinkara to offer A. Transparent consumer pricing, B. Financing on painting, C. End-to-end company oversight of dealer-led painting services through trained execution networks, and D. A fully tax-compliant service. The company remains committed to upgrade consumer printing experience not only in metros and large towns but also in mid and small towns through Birla offers paint craft services with its vision to offer consistent quality and affordable printing services with the backing of the company. Separately, our research shows that consumer love for Birla offers continues to rise as brand maintains its unique 360 degree integrated, highly salient advertising campaigns. Recently, the company has launched part two of Duniya Kuramzo, bringing back adorable Opus boys in animation form. Opus increased acceptance can be measured through higher uptake of premium and luxury themed products. This quarter, the premium luxury product revenue contribution was maintained at 65% of revenue covering all categories across emulsion, enamel, wood finish and waterproofing, including retail and institutional segments. On distribution front, the focus shifted to improving dealer throughput in terms of revenue by increasing penetration of each category with the onboarded dealers and selling wider range of SKUs per category. The brand has expanded its to over 8,000 towns in a short span of less than 12 months. The total cap expense for paint business stood at 9,555 crores as on 30th June 2025. Grassin is proud of Villalobos team who have executed such large-scale greenfield projects of six state-of-art plants. Such execution of simultaneous commencement without any cost overrun, lighting-based production scale-up and delivering first-hand ride and sufficient quality for the entire range of 179 products is a feat unparellel. This exhibition further demonstrates financial discipline and manufacturing and supply chain prowess capability of this new startup organization. Moving on to the second new business, Build a Pivot, the B2B e-commerce business, let me start with the potential of online platforms in the building and construction space. Indian B2B market presents an untapped opportunity, estimated at $2 trillion today and tries to grow at a fuller shift pace of $4 trillion by 2030, making it one of the largest globally. There are over 73 million SMEs growing at 13% annually who are rapidly adopting digital solutions for core business processes like GST compliance, eBay bills, digital payments and credit access. Since its launch in 2023, Billa Pivot has evolved into a comprehensive and trusted B2B e-commerce platform offering integrated procurement and financial solutions that help businesses grow and become more efficient. Villa Pivot platform today offers wide range of products across 35 categories, 40,000 plus SKUs from 300 plus branches. Villa Pivot team is helping successfully building a large network of buyers and sellers and continuously improving its proposition across three core pillars of B2B e-commerce. That is price, assortment, and experience. There has been a steady rise in customers' engagement on its proprietary tech side, Birla's private suite, which is unique and solves the needs of the ecosystem. The private label across tiles, pathways, and plies has been gaining traction and we are seeing increasing inquiries for these strategies. As far as this quarter performs, the business has delivered Another quarter of superior growth rates despite mounting debt weakness which impacted large parts of the construction material segment. The business has grown at high single digits sequentially led by new customer additions and healthy repeat orders. The business annualized revenue run rate continues to rise and remains on track to achieve Rs 8500 crore i.e. the billion dollar ambition by 2021. Moving on to the cement business, the third revenue stream in Gracian's building materials segment, Antatex. The performance has been robust with revenue growth of 13% YMY. The company added new capacity of 37.4 million tons per annum on YMY basis with a total capacity domestic and overseas now at 192.3 million tons per annum. The large annual capacity addition includes greenfield expansion and acquisition of key assets of Keturam and India Seamless Limited, business domestically and RAK at UAE during last one year. UltraTech continues to stand at the helm of India's infrastructure growth story and contribute to the nation's long-term development goals. The volume growth in the seam industry is estimated at 4-5% and UltraTech continues to outpace industry growth with volume growth of 10% year-on-year. Operating EBITDA per metric turn grew at a healthy level of Rs 1248 per metric turn, a phenomenal rise of 37% on YMY basis led by scale benefits and cost optimization. As regards existing core businesses including cellulose fiber, chemical, renewable and other businesses and overview of company financials, I am now handing over to the CFO, Mr. Pawan to carry on from here.

Thank you Mr. Kapanya and good evening everyone. Cellulose fiber prices continue to remain resilient compared to other competing fibers like cotton and polyester which are exhibiting volatility with a downward bias. In H1 of calendar year 2025, there was demand slowdown globally, including demand in China, resulting into declining utilization levels to 82% and increasing inventory to 20 days. With price increase to partially absorb the high input costs, cellulosic fiber revenue grew by 7% YOY to Rs. 4043 crore, Just to remind, this segment also has an element of our cellulosic fashion yarn business where the volumes grew by 6% YOY. The realizations in cellulosic fashion yarn business continue to remain impacted by lower price imports from China. High input prices, including that of caustic soda, reflected in higher profitability of our chemical segment. partially absorbed by the company, has resulted into decline in EBITDA by 17% YOY. In chemical business, revenue grew by 16% YOY at Rs. 2,391 crore, led by volume growth of 8%, driven by stable domestic demand scenario. Equalization stood sluggish on sequential basis and higher by 10% YOY, led by stable demand and favorable base. Specialty chemical sales volumes to date record high levels, recording a growth of 6% YOY as the utilization rates of expanded capacities are improving. A big job for the chemical business grew by 36% YOY, 8 rupees 422 crore rupees. The financial services business under Aditubila Capital is continuing to focus on embracing customer centricity and driving synergies across verticals. AP's first headgear on strengthening capabilities in data, digital, and technology, enabling enhanced decision-making, improved customer experience, and greater operational efficiency. For Q1 FY26, the business reported revenue growth of 8% YOY, led by housing finance, which was up by 65% YOY, and health insurance, which was up by 31% YOY. Total lending portfolio which includes NBFC and housing finance loan book grew by 30% YOY to over Rs. 1,65,000 crore. Amid declining interest rate movement, the NBFC business witnessed a YOY decline of 59 basis points in the net interest margin. The total assets under management across AMC, life and health insurance grew by 20% YOY to over Rs. 5,53,000 crore. Of this, Life Insurance Avion crossed milestone of Rs. 1,00,000 crore. In renewable business, our total installed peak capacity reached 1.9 GW in 2021-26, up two-fold from 946 MW in June-24. The business has strong anchor clientele with Agitabella Group companies representing 43% of the existing portfolio. On capex front, Grasim has announced capex plan of spending Rs. 2263 crore in FY26, out of which Rs. 480 crore has already been spent in Q1 FY26. Larcel project in cellulosic fibre business remains on track to be completed by mid-27. The long lead items orders have been placed and other orders and contracts are in process. In chemicals, mechanical completion of two projects namely ECH and PPVC plant with Lubrizol would be completed in Q3 FY26. Before we open the floor for Q&A, I would like to share development on my movement. As you would be aware, I am superannuating effective 15th August 25th and my colleague Herman's career would be taking over as CFO. It's a mixed feeling of pride, gratitude and emotion being associated with Grasping for more than 20 years and CFO for over 3 years. It has been a journey of growth, challenge, learning, contribution and most importantly collaboration. I've been fortunate to work and interact with some of the brightest minds and committed individuals. Together we have revisited market cycles celebrated milestones, weather, uncertainties, and above all, upheld the values that define this company. As I step away, I carry with me not just numbers and reports, but memories, relationships, and the satisfaction of having contributed in some way to this institution's journey. I would like to add my interaction with many of you as analysts, investors, and observers has helped shape my knowledge and intellect. I want to thank the board and our leadership team for their constant support and belief in me. To each one of you on this call and friends in the investment world, thank you for the trust, work relations and shared purpose we have built over the years. Thank you for building such an important association. It has been an honor. I am confident that the company is in exciting growth phase, poised for even greater heights. I look forward to watching Grasim's continued success. This time from the sidelines. I now open the floor for Q&A.

Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press the R&1 on their touchscreen telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press the R&2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment. While the questions are assembled, participants, you may press star and 1 to ask a question.

Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and 1 to ask a question. The first question is from the line of Mirza from the Mora. Please go ahead. Hi sir, thank you for taking my question. I hope I am audible.

Perfect, thank you.

The first question is on Pains. Wanted to check on your sales momentum in the recent months. My back of the calculation suggests that you have grown about 20% in this quarter on a QOQ basis. But just in the recent months, I wanted to check the momentum. The context of the question is generally brands in the initial phase of the launch see high demand and then it mortgages down in some time as it consolidates before starting again to gain traction if at all. There are views that Opus is now consolidating and dealers are going back to their old brands. I want you to know your side of the narrative and which phase are you in currently. So that's my first question.

So thank you Mehul, let me answer the first question.

So like we have also declared the total growth is in double digits and the fact is that growth for us continues. So growth as you said comes also from dealers who are being added but more from dealers who are now giving us more business as counter share. On your query that There is feedback that there is dealer attrition and dealers are going back. I am not able to comprehend that easily because firstly let me tell you that apart from the franchisees that we have, majority of our dealers are multi-brand dealers. We are not the first brand in the shop. We are either the second, third or fourth brand. And most of those dealers continue to be with us and continue to expand our portfolio and sell us more. If one or two dealers have gone back, that should not be taken in the other calls where we have heard that we are having dealer attrition. The fact is the larger universe and majority of them continue to grow with us and giving us more competition. On your question, where are we on the phase? We are purely on the growth phase. So while you might say classically there is a growth phase and there is a consolidation phase, We are growing and consolidating both. Because when we say that our throughput per dealer is growing up as a function of deeper penetration, more products and more range, that obviously means consolidation. But the fact that we are still adding some more dealers and improving our range in each dealer states that we are also growing. So that's where we are. Got it, Ashish. Thank you for that. That's quite helpful. Secondly, I wanted to know if you can share how is your traction between the category A, B, C dealers? Where have you seen the most acceptance and what kind of hurdles are you facing to make inroads in the other ones that you have not been able to get through? And a sub-part to it is, earlier even you had highlighted during the launch that you will cross 6,000 towns I see you have crossed already 8000 towns now, even your SKU and product mix has crossed the earlier number that you had shared during the launch. Any updated dealer reach or any of the updated numbers that you would like to share? That's my second question. So, you know, like we said, we have shared the dealer reach. As we said that we had a target of 50,000 dealers in the first year and we were very close to that. And like we said, we are still adding dealers but consolidating more on existing dealers. UIT says we have dropped about 6,000 towns but we are close to 8,000 towns. So for us, growth continues in this way. We are not sharing any other numbers but I think these are fair indicators that business is progressing on all fronts in all the jobs we do.

Got it. Thank you very much. Wishing you all the very best, guys.

Thank you. A request to all the participants, kindly restrict to two questions per participant and join the queue again for a follow-up question.

The next question is from Nanuk Rahul Gupta from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Two questions. So first, just continuing on the previous question, Can you help us understand how competitive landscape has evolved versus last quarter? I remember you mentioned that the economy segment had relatively higher competitive intensity. So just some color on this will be very helpful. That's my first question. Thank you.

Yes. So like we said, the competitive intensity remains. And we see that from competition side, the intensity has been increased on the value of the economy segment. The level of discounting has gone up and you can also see from all the other companies that while volume growth is there, but the value growth is much lesser than that. So obviously the action on discounts on the economy segment has been shaken up by competition. But like we said, we continue to play very strongly in all the three segments as you say, very premium and economy. Himanshu also ratified in his opening speech that the contribution of luxury products if you assume the whole portfolio product is close to 65% which is very very good even for an established player even besides some new player like Birla Okas Got it, so just to follow up on this so how should we look at both volume and value for rest of this year

I also understand that festive season is earlier this year. So any color that you may provide on this?

So if you noted on a QOQ annual basis, the market has grown only at 5%. And if you remove Birla Opus, then the market is actually minus 1 or 0. So obviously, Birla Opus has taken a lion's share of the growth, which has happened on an annualized basis. Now, if you take a look at this year's, Yes, the market is still slow. The advancement of rains does not work well for paint business because the exterior business, you know, gets affected. And this time, if monsoon, even if at a lower intensity, continues for a longer period, which would mean that the slowness because of monsoon would still be there. Now, how would the volume growth move ahead in the following quarters? Difficult to predict. But yes, you are right that this time, Diwali is earlier. And corresponding to that, the so-called high scale season period which has relevance in paint will come before. And that should start happening towards the end of August or September. And as Birla offers, we are fully prepared to tackle that successfully and we see that we should be able to grow well on a continual basis. As far as competition is concerned, it is for them how do they want to play the coming season.

Great. Thank you so much. Just one bookkeeping question. Our math suggests that your reported revenues was around 11 billion versus 9 billion last quarter. Can you help us understand what kind of revenues was in CWIP?

So, we appreciate your, you know, doing your maths on your book. But like we said, we will disclose the math at the right moment as someone had promised in the last call also. Okay.

So, let me flip this question. Is CWIP revenues this quarter materially different versus last quarter?

See, what is CWIP? For factories which have not been capitalized which are manufacturing as per accounting laws, the sales from that has to be put in CWIP. So, yes, there is our factory Mahat which was manufacturing its products which were manufactured before capitalization. So, they would go in CWIP. I would not like to comment on the value, but the fact is that for accounting standards on a time scale, it does impact our reported numbers.

Got it. Thank you and all the very best.

Thank you very much. Participants, you may press star and 1 to ask the question. Next question is from Lion of Needle from Animal Wealth. Please go ahead. Thanks for the opportunity. Two questions on chemicals. Sir, one, let me see our YOY numbers for chemicals. Ripida has gone up by close to around Rs. 112 crores. And based on the EQ realizations, we are higher by around Rs. 3.40. So, which translates to a benefit of close to around Rs. 103 crores. So, just wanted to check here like the benefit from EQ as well as from the renewable share was higher than this 103 crores and there was a degrowth in the profit from the epoxy division, your thoughts? Yes, I am not completely sure I understand your math, but the end question that you have is was there a degrowth in epoxy profits, right? That is the question you are leading to, so I will answer very directly instead of indirectly. So as you know, feedstock for epoxy basically BTA, ECH have been hardening, particularly ECH. You also know that there is an antidumping due to ECH. At the same time, you also know that epoxy comes into India to different countries, particularly Korea to FTA arrangements, which basically puts pressure on the epoxy chain. Our approach has been to find the right balance between maintaining market share and maintaining margin.

We do hope that the process that is now running with the government to review different FTAs and the industry representations around that will be able to come up.

Within the Epoxy chain, the industry is in a margin compression between hardening raw material prices, anti-dumping on one hand and IoT-free imports on the other hand. And we are making the right balanced trade-off between retaining our margin and ensuring that we don't spoil our market position. Correct. So in one of the interactions in the earlier calls, you mentioned that the steady state or the normalized margin for the epoxy business should be anywhere between 15% to 18%. But I think with all the factors what you mentioned about the margins in this business possibly would have come closer to 10% or let's say anywhere between those bands. So, is it okay? Because you know that we also have a large portfolio of specialty products. We make a large number of products. Uniquely tailored for automotive, for wind, for anti-corrosion, etc. So, I would not like to comment on the current state of, you know, margins because it's competitively sensitive. Correct. The second question is on the power requirement. I think based on some back-and-back calculations, based on the calculations, I think our power requirements for the chemical business is close to around 350 megawatts. So if you can just help us understand what is the mix between captive renewables and And also if you can share the capacity utilization for the Turing Derivative business. Thank you so much. The capacity utilization has been slightly above 80% for sort of this. That is the one that you are asking. No, no, sir. I am specifically asking about that. Oh, that is a difficult number to give because it's a very complex portfolio, you know, with more than 20 product lines. So that's a difficult one to do. Maybe I don't want to disclose that one. Isn't that the breakup of 350 MHz or whatever may be the... I'll give it to you in two minutes. I'll give it to you in two minutes.

Thank you so much.

You know, my reviewable has reached about 15% existence.

15, 15, 15. This is, I think, the number that you were looking for. Correct. And what would the captive mean? Captive and grid would be roughly equal.

Got it. Thank you so much, sir. Pradeep Kumar from Jaffray. Can you proceed with your question? Yeah, we can. My first question is on your...

B2B e-commerce segment. The segment has a scale to almost 5,000, over 5,000 store of revenue in this. What is the kind of profitability this segment is doing and or any output if you can share on the same?

Also, this segment was, I mean, if I have to do like around 2,000 store of paychecks when this segment was launched, how is the, I mean, how do you see paychecks in this segment and now on the out-of-commerce segment as well?

Very thanks for the question Mr. Sandeep here. So on your first question, the revenue growth has been pretty good and it continues quarter on quarter. As was remarked in the opening comments, we are seeing high single digit growth sequentially when you compare quarter 4 to quarter 1. You had asked about profitability. We had earlier mentioned it in our previous quarter calls as well. At a scale of 1 billion dollars which is what we are estimating that we will hit in FY27, we are confident that we will break even at that scale and all our indications and our trends right now are going towards that if not sooner. On your second question, which is on CAPEX and how much have we spent out of the 2000 crores that was announced when we launched the business. Look, our business is a technology business. We are fundamentally investing in building a technology platform and making sure that all the parts of value chain are visible to our buyers, our sellers and everyone else who is participating in the ecosystem. So most of our capex so far has largely been in building the technology stack. But yeah, without going into the details of how much has been spent, you know, we are well within track as to what we have budgeted for and, you know, we still remain in that growth phase and we still continue to invest in building the right technology which will solve for the needs of this, you know, D2D universe.

Thank you. My other question is on business. Any one-year target or we had a great start to the financial year. Any one-year target we now have for this business in terms of on revenue or any other metrics which we think is important? You know, we talked about we gave some metrics for the first year and then we have anyway given our intention to be what we want to be in full scale operation after three years so we don't really have specific targets to share with you for one year period but the journey continues and we are on track give or take a few things years or so that's all we want to put so thank you and all the best thank you

Next question is from line of Nishant from the market holding. Please go ahead.

Hi, just one question on the payments business.

What is the credit policy difference that you have versus peers? Do you have a higher indexation to dealers for more credit funded versus short cycle credit?

So, you know, if you take a look at the overall market and if you take a look at the top three or four players, our credit policy will fall somewhere in the center. So, we are with the market. It's not that we are giving less or more. But, you know, the different players have slightly different policies starting from A to B. So, our policy would fall somewhere in the average in terms of 10 days. I understand. And the second one is in terms of just the as you go through the brand evolution, how do you track evolution from a transactional business pull-through to a brand reverse business pull-through? How would you sort of assess that evolution? So, you know, we have taken some initiatives. One of them is also a first time in the paint industry is that we have a variability of RMS data which actually gives us a lot of insight into what is the share that we have across different geographies. Secondly, we also have a good brand tracking mechanism which shows where are we in terms of total awareness, unedited awareness, spontaneous awareness and how are we progressing versus competition. on a quarter to quarter. Very soon we will also get into what you call is the consumption funnel and reason you know from awareness to usage and why are they drop out. So like a classical good consumer brand we are putting these practices into play and access to this kind of data helps us understand how we are moving better. I understand. And any other that you can share on current sort of awareness data that you may be able to share today? Yeah. I'll share with you. If you take a look at total awareness, we are already there with the top three brands.

Okay.

And if you talk about spontaneous awareness, as per my data, I am already number two and equal to the number two player. Okay. Sorry, spontaneous is unaided awareness. Spontaneous is you ask someone which is the one brand that you would want to fix. I understand.

Okay, got it. Okay, cool. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Next question is from Amit Purohit from Illana Capital. Please go ahead. Yes, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Just one on the overall industry demand. You clearly highlighted that the incumbents have not grown much. And how do you see this future? going forward as we enter into purchase season. Any outlook that you think would find it challenging for us to maintain the growth momentum because the industry remains smooth. That was my first question. Second is on paint craft. I just wanted to know this service would be available to all our dealers and normally in a typical dealer, what is the share of painting service I know not for all dealers but at least the top dealers in their sales how do we think about it as an enabler to thrive further growth so let me answer the first question regarding how do we see the demand in the upcoming season so you see the season is slightly advanced

this time as compared to the last few years. So you should see the festive offerings starting towards the end of this month and September should be a big month. Difficult to say how the other players will play out because currently the focus is a lot more on economy segment in this campaign and that is going to get you some volume but that might not get you so much of value. As far as we are concerned, You know, we will play the market as it should be. We have a very exciting luxury premium portfolio also. We would focus on that. We are quite confident that we will be able to reap good benefits and continue our quarter to quarter growth. For the others, I think it's up to them as to how they want to focus on themselves and play. On Paintcraft, see we were offering Paintcraft as a direct service, as a kind of test market in some cities through service partners. We are now going to take it broader. And in the first phase, we will take it to about 100 towns and we are going to operate through our franchise dealers. But obviously, during a certain period of time, we will cover a large number of dealers who work with us. Now, how much contribution does come from painting service? We will have to learn that ourselves. As Dimanshu said, we have created a good tech stack in terms of yield generation, in terms of fulfillment, transparent pricing, tax compliance and we will also promote it that way. We are quite confident that the consumer will be excited because there will be many benefits here and we hope that it contributes a decent volume for the partners who are working with us. But we will have to see how it evolves but good preparations and good plans are going to happen. Thank you. Thank you.

Next question is from Raina Parashy from SITI. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Just two questions. On the pain side, I think I missed the point that you mentioned that excluding Virna Opus, you said that the industry growth was flat, as I was saying.

I think negative.

That's very good. If you take one of the years, if you take Q1 of 2025, And if I remove Birla Opus from both left and right hand side, the market growth is marginally negative.

And with Birla?

With Birla, we said it's about over 5%. Over 5%.

Understand. And what is your general estimate for the industry growth? I mean, I understand that a seasonally strong period is coming up. But on average, for the year, how are you thinking about this?

I think too early. It has been one quarter. There are three more quarters left. He will have to wait and see. He will play a good game. Actually, I think this was the fourth same question I was asking. Let me address the industry players. It's dependent on the industry players. There is volume in the market. Now, whether you want to convert that volume into value is now left to the industry players. That to us is what we are repeatedly saying. Okay. There is enough in the market. The market has huge opportunities. So, consumers want to do painting services. They can take it and discount it and still get volume and not get value or they can keep the value with that. That is where the current industry is. So, that's why we are waiting.

Understood. And any update on the whole CCI investigation?

Yeah. I would like to share CCI's touchy comments. Grassim has filed information with CCI regarding the practices found in the market with respect to abuse of dominance by the dominant player. CCI saw merit in information and evidence shared by Grassim and has ordered DG for investigation on 1st July 2025. The order is available for public on the website of CCI we have to wait to see the results of the investigation. As this is a matter of business and it is a regulator, we will not be able to comment anything further on the investigation.

Okay, understood. Thank you. And the last question for me, you mentioned that the D2B business will break even in FY28. Is that what you said?

Very fast. Then we reach this $1 billion revenue top line. How much is it? He said he will be involved.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next question is from Nama Shreya from Oakland, Canada. Please go ahead.

Thanks for the opportunity. My question is related to the chemical business. So my question is related to our chemicals business. So as you mentioned that the chlorine integration levels for the water was 63%. So could you give some sense or color on what portion of it was to the dedicated customers and what was for the internal consumption?

Ah, the breakup of the floating scales. I think internal consumption is, I will give you a range because I don't want to give you an exact number.

Yeah, any sense or direction.

About 40% internal consumption.

Sorry, your voice is not.

So, about 30 to 40% it is the range which we are giving will be in the internal consumption. Rest goes to the pipeline customers.

Okay, understood. And any sense on, since we will be having our ETH plant and as you mentioned earlier that because of the ETH prices going higher, the epoxy margins were compressed. So, as and when we have our ETH plant, where do you see our epoxy margins going forward?

Yeah, wouldn't that also not depend on the ETH price and that moment in time in that quarter. As you know, you know, ETH is a volatile commodity. We have to make an assumption on either propylene or gracylene or whatever. So, that's a difficult one to predict.

Of course, our property is... Right?

Yes. Thank you so much. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question is from Aniruddha Joshi from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks. So, I guess on paint is indicated premium revenue share of premium paint is correct number or I hope this is breaking.

So, it's not revenue share revenue contribution to the total contribution of premium plus luxury is 65%.

Okay. Understood. And this premium paint is calculated means any price and above like 200 rupees per litre or 250 rupees per litre. How do you define that?

Market defines premium and luxury products in waterproofing segment, in wood finish segment, in immersion segment and enamel segment. And the same is the definition. It varies from each category wise. It is very well defined. We have a brand. We have three broad brands. Tide is a brand for economy. Calista is a brand for premium. And one is a brand for luxury. So primarily when I combine Calista plus one, wherever applicable, otherwise whatever is market defined in a particular category. It is very well defined.

Okay. Sure, sir. And additional details, what would be the geography-wise revenue break-up if you can indicatively share east-west, north-south? Even if you share in FY25, that's enough.

So, you know, we've also told in the past that we are generally performing well across pan-India. And we also said that The range between maybe my best performing region and my so-called slowest performing region is also in 50 to 120. So that continues. So by and large, we have good acceptance. And like we said, we are growing and consolidating across all markets. This is also changing a bit dynamically. And our aspiration is pan-India, not regional aspiration. So we want to grow and lead in every market. So, some other businesses, other competitors who have focused on particular states or have very disproportionate revenue from few states, we want to be all India, all rounder where we are doing well across all geographies.

Okay, sure. So, last question. So, we keep hearing from channel 6 that the 10% export grammar scheme is withdrawn in some markets. Is that understanding correct or it's incorrect?

So, I am very happy that you raised this because if you were not going to raise, I would have anyway given a clarification. We have also heard some other analyst calls that people know more about our business than us ourselves. So, let me put this record on straight that the 10% offer on 20 liters and 10 liters for majority of emulsion factors we are giving fully continues. Okay. So, this puts the record straight.

Okay. Sure. So, thanks for the clarification. Thank you. Thank you.

Next question is from Sukrit Patil from iFight Pinterest. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. My question is specifically to Mr. Jumanshu. Is Mr. Jumanshu online? Yes, this is it. Go ahead. Yes, this is Sukrit Patil. I had a power looking question on your emerging platform. With Zerla Opus entering the decorative paint segment and Zerla Pivot scaling the B2B e-commerce, how is Grafton hitting about cross-platform data monetization, predictive demand mapping, or AI-led SKU optimization across the vertical in the next two to three years? And in your view, could this create a depreciated ecosystem advantage versus standalone tiers? Yes, sir. Please give your view on this.

So to be able to, if I was in an environment which did not have a privacy applicable to me, I would have given a very different answer. But today the privacy laws of the country are very very strong and doing cross sales from different platforms in my mind is not permitted. I am currently a chairman of the Fikki Privacy Board and clearly that's not permitted. We will have to go back to the customer to do cross-sales of a customer available on one platform to the other platform. And that itself is a wanted task. Both the new businesses are in the process of getting their act together and we are not going to cross this bridge. for a certain period of time.

That's our current position. Thank you very much. This was a line for the participant, Rob.

The next question is from Lionel Sashi, N Division, Invercargill.

Please go ahead. Hi. My question is regarding chemical business. How much is the chlorine used for this coffee?

For the quarter that we just reported, clothing was trading at about 6,000-6,500.

So, sir, while calculating ECU, are you considering flash and hydrogen realization?

So, everything that relates to the actual electrolysis process is considered in the eco-realization. That's the industry standard.

Actually, like if you see, some industries are, like while calculating ECU, they are considering flash. and some are like both CH and hydrogen. So, what we are following in Glasson?

So, equal strength for electrochemical unit.

So, every realization I get related to my electrochemical unit is in my equal realization. So, I can only tell you what my definition is.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Perfect. And so, for extension plant, we have to take like ECO 250 and CCUCO 50 KTK. I have heard that we are having 79 KTPA plants for extension. So, may I know what is the difference between 179? Is it like partly commission or what exactly it is?

So, we, as you know, the market conditions are a little bit uncertain right now. So, certain projects, we are on floating derivatives. we have deferred for better market conditions. So, that's the difference between what we indicated last quarter and this quarter. But those are smaller current derivatives. The two main ones are ECH and CPV and those are proceeding as planned. The rest we may accentuate or delay based on the market conditions.

Okay, okay. And what is the plan for expansion of cost to synthesize KTC? Is it same as corporate fee financial aid industry or what exactly is it?

That is again market timing dependent. It's a very small expansion. So, you know, when we believe the conditions are favorable, we will execute it.

Okay. And as we know, sir, like Adani and Reliance is coming into picture, what we are thinking like it will impact our domestic market or

So we have been getting this question a couple of times, right?

And for sure. And their project is related to PVC. There is a lot of changes also that happen in the global context in India. PVC demand adds in one area, it subtracts from another area. So it's a somewhat complicated question to answer. The Indian market is not insulated. from the global market either on PVC or on plastic. So just looking at the picture from an Indian perspective only may not give us a full answer. Just look at the total PVC production capacity in Asia. Then put that in context of whatever Indian capacity is coming in. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, we will take that as a last question.

With this, we conclude today's conference call. On behalf of Grantham Industries Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.