1. At a Glance
FDC Ltd is that one pharma company your mom trusts more than Google. Electral for dehydration, Zifi for infections, and Cotaryl when cough refuses to leave. Founded in 1936, this is legacy pharma—pre-independence vintage—now trading at ₹363, with a market cap of ₹5,908 Cr.
But before you get nostalgic, let’s talk numbers.
- Q3 FY26 Revenue: ₹465 Cr (flat YoY, barely moved QoQ)
- Q3 FY26 PAT: ₹28 Cr (YoY +17.9%, but context matters)
- OPM: 11% (down sharply from the glory days)
- ROCE: 15.9%
- ROE: 11.8%
- Debt: Practically zero (₹20.7 Cr, pharma pocket change)
- 3-month return: -11.2%
- 1-year return: -20.9%
This is a company with strong brands, clean balance sheet, and loyal customers—but the stock has been quietly punished. The question is simple: Is FDC just temporarily tired, or structurally slow?
Let’s pop the ORS sachet and dig in.
2. Introduction – The Legacy Pharma With a Midlife Crisis
FDC is not flashy. It doesn’t chase biosimilars, doesn’t scream CDMO, and doesn’t throw AI buzzwords in investor decks. Instead, it sells medicines people actually consume—anti-infectives, GI drugs, vitamins, ophthalmic products.
Sounds boring? Maybe. Sounds stable? Absolutely.
Yet the market doesn’t reward boredom anymore. While peers sprint ahead with US launches, specialty pipelines, and margin expansion, FDC seems to be jogging… sometimes walking.
Despite being debt-free, cash-generative, and brand-strong, FDC’s 5-year profit growth is just 2% CAGR. That’s not “defensive”—that’s sleepy.
So why is the P/E still 25.5x?
Because the market is confused too.
Is FDC a steady compounder hiding in plain sight, or a legacy brand living off past glory? Keep
reading.
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
FDC is a formulations-focused pharma company. No complicated APIs, no wild biotech experiments. The business model is simple:
- Manufacture branded generics
- Sell them domestically + export to 50+ countries
- Rely on scale, brand recall, and distribution
Revenue Mix:
- Anti-infectives: 42%
- Gastro-intestinal: 24%
- Vitamins & minerals: 7%
- Cardiac: 7%
- Ophthalmology: 6%
- Dermatology: 4%
- Others: 11%
Electral alone dominates ORS with a 72% market share. Zifi owns 24% share in its category. These aren’t small brands—these are household names.
Internationally, exports have grown from 15% (FY17) to 26% (FY21), with the USA contributing 52% of export sales.
So what’s the catch?
👉 Low R&D spend.
While Indian pharma peers spend 8–13% of revenue on R&D, FDC spends just 2–3%. That keeps costs low—but also caps innovation.
You can’t sell the same medicine forever. Even doctors get bored.
4. Financials Overview – The Cold Hard Table
Quarterly Comparison Table (₹ Cr)
| Metric | Latest Qtr (Dec FY26) | YoY Qtr (Dec FY25) | Prev Qtr (Sep FY26) | YoY % | QoQ % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 465 | 464 | 473 | 0.13% | -1.7% |
| EBITDA | 52 | 47 | 34 | 10.6% | 52.9% |
| PAT | 28 | 24 | 28 | 17.9% | 0% |
| EPS (₹) | 1.74 | 2.28 | 1.74 | -23.7% | 0% |
