1. At a Glance – The CV Underbelly Specialist Nobody Notices (Yet)
Kross Ltd is that quiet industrial kid from Jamshedpur who doesn’t talk much but lifts heavy things for a living. Market cap of ~₹1,252 Cr, stock hovering around ₹195, ROCE at a spicy 21.7%, ROE at 16.5%, and debt that looks more like a rounding error (₹60 Cr). Q3 FY26 came in with ₹177 Cr revenue and ₹14 Cr PAT — not explosive, but steady like a truck climbing a ghat road in third gear.
This is not a “tech story”, not a “consumer brand”, not even a “fancy EV play”. This is pure iron, grease, heat treatment, and CNC noise. Trailer axles, suspensions, forged and cast components — the stuff without which India’s logistics economy literally doesn’t move.
And while the market argues about who will win the EV war, Kross is busy supplying the axles on which those vehicles will eventually roll. The real question: is this a boring compounder in disguise or just another cyclical auto ancillary riding a good patch?
2. Introduction – Meet the Blue-Collar Compounder from Jamshedpur
Founded in 1991, Kross Ltd has spent more than three decades doing one thing repeatedly: manufacturing safety-critical auto components and not blowing up. In a country where many auto ancillaries chase every shiny object, Kross stuck to axles, suspensions, forged parts, and machining — and quietly built backward integration across forging, casting, heat treatment, machining, and surface coating.
The company went public in September 2024 via a ₹500 Cr IPO, and suddenly this previously ignored supplier entered the retail investor WhatsApp universe. The listing didn’t magically change the business — but it did give Kross the balance sheet muscle to dream bigger: extrusion lines, seamless tubes, and deeper integration into the trailer ecosystem.
Revenue has grown at ~31% CAGR over five years, profits even faster. Yet Q3 FY26 profit growth was a modest 2.8% YoY — a reminder that this is still a working-capital-heavy, metal-bending business, not SaaS with infinite margins.
So, is Kross building an industrial moat or just adding more machines and
hoping demand stays kind? Let’s open the hood.
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do? (Explained Like You’re Half-Asleep)
Imagine a truck or trailer without an axle. Exactly. It’s just vibes and scrap metal.
Kross makes:
- Trailer axles & suspension assemblies
- Forged and cast components used in trucks, tractors, and off-highway vehicles
- Machined parts that go into transmissions, rear axles, steering systems, and chassis
Their USP is integration. Instead of buying forgings from one vendor, casting from another, and machining elsewhere, Kross does most of it in-house. This matters because:
- Quality consistency improves
- OEMs trust you with safety-critical parts
- Margins don’t leak out to third parties
The product portfolio reads like a mechanical engineering syllabus: axle shafts, bevel gears, king pins, brake drums, spiders, PTO shafts, suspension systems, and now tipping jacks.
This is not a “single-product risk” company. It’s more like a buffet for CV OEMs — once you’re in, you can cross-sell endlessly. That’s why clients like Ashok Leyland, Dana, TAFE, Automotive Axles, and Tata International DLT keep showing up.
Question for you: if an OEM trusts you with axles, would they really risk sourcing smaller components elsewhere?
4. Financials Overview – The Numbers, No Makeup
Quarterly Comparison (₹ Cr)
| Metric | Latest Qtr (Dec-25) | YoY Qtr (Dec-24) | Prev Qtr (Sep-25) | YoY % | QoQ % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 177 | 150 | 131 | 18.3% | 35.1% |
| EBITDA | 23 | 20 | 15 | 15.0% | 53.3% |
| PAT | 14 | 14 | 8 | 2.8% | 75.0% |
| EPS (₹) | 2.17 | 2.11 | 1.25 | 2.8% | 73.6% |
Annualised EPS (Q3 rule):
Average of Q1 (1.66), Q2 (1.25), Q3 (2.17) ×
