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.

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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.