Interise Trust FY26 Results: ₹3,567 Cr Revenue, 70% OPM, 323% Payout and a ₹8,789 Cr Debt Puzzle
1. At a Glance
Interise Trust is not a normal company pretending to be exciting. It is an infrastructure investment trust that owns road assets, collects tolls and annuities, pays interest, distributes cash, and leaves equity investors staring at a strange financial creature: stable revenue, huge operating profit, heavy debt, low accounting profit, and a dividend yield that looks far more attractive than the profit and loss statement would normally allow.
That is the first twist.
For FY26, Interise reported consolidated sales of ₹3,567 crore, operating profit of ₹2,496 crore, and an operating margin of 70%. On the surface, this looks like a toll-road money machine. Cars pass, trucks pass, FASTag beeps, and the revenue meter keeps ticking. But the detective story begins below operating profit. Interest cost stood at ₹1,373 crore, depreciation at ₹1,118 crore, and after everything was counted, net profit was only ₹42 crore.
So the business earned ₹2,496 crore before interest and depreciation, but only ₹42 crore at the bottom line. That is not a typo. That is the balance sheet entering the room wearing steel-toe boots.
The latest quarter, March 2026, was even more dramatic. Sales were ₹906 crore, operating profit was ₹561 crore, but net profit came in at a loss of ₹53 crore. The same quarter last year had sales of ₹880 crore and net profit of ₹55 crore. So revenue improved, but accounting profit reversed sharply. This is where an ordinary reader might say, “How can a toll-road asset lose money when vehicles are still moving?” The answer sits in finance cost, depreciation, and the nature of infrastructure trusts.
Interise is an InvIT. Its job is not to look like a software company with a clean profit curve. Its job is to own long-life infrastructure assets, collect cash flows, service debt, maintain assets, and distribute available cash to unitholders. That makes accounting profit less useful than cash generation, but not useless. Profit still tells us whether the capital structure is comfortable or whether the trust is running a financial treadmill.
For FY26, cash from operating activity was ₹1,867 crore. Free cash flow was ₹1,821 crore. That is the positive side of the story. The trust declared distributions during FY26, including ₹3.81 per unit in February 2026 and ₹1.25 per unit after approval of FY26 audited results, with record date May 1, 2026. The headline profit is thin, but the cash flow is real.
The market is not ignoring the tension. At a price of ₹110, market cap stands at ₹11,440 crore. The stated stock P/E is 271, while the dividend yield is 5.78%. That combination looks odd only if one reads Interise like a normal company. For an InvIT, distribution yield, cash flow stability, asset life, debt structure, refinancing risk, and concession terms matter as much as reported EPS.
Still, odd is odd.
Debt is ₹8,789 crore. Debt-to-equity is 1.89. Interest coverage is only 1.07 in the screener snapshot. Book value is ₹44.7, while price-to-book is 2.46. ROE is 0.85%. ROCE is 10.8%. This is a trust with high operating margins, decent asset returns, but poor equity accounting return.
That means investors need to ask a sharper question: is Interise a stable distribution vehicle temporarily looking ugly because of depreciation and refinancing cycles, or is it a capital-heavy structure where distributions are doing the marketing while accounting profits whisper caution from the back bench?
The answer is not black and white. It is closer to grey asphalt after a toll plaza rainstorm.
2. Introduction
Interise Trust began life as IndInfravit Trust, established by L&T Infrastructure Development Projects Limited on March 7, 2018, as an irrevocable trust. It was registered as an infrastructure investment trust under SEBI InvIT regulations on March 15, 2018.
The structure matters.
An InvIT is not a regular operating company. It is a pooled vehicle designed to own infrastructure assets and distribute cash flows. Investors are not only buying a business. They are buying a structure, a set of contracts, a portfolio of road assets, debt covenants, toll rights, annuity flows, and a distribution policy.
Interise owns, operates, and maintains a portfolio of road assets. The user-provided company profile mentions 11 toll-road assets across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan, plus 2 annuity assets in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. The rating material in the dump further describes Interise as holding 17 road assets across eight states with an aggregate length of 7,350 lane km, including 14 BOT-toll assets and 3 annuity projects.
That expansion in asset description is important because Interise has grown from the original L&T IDPL-backed platform into a larger road infrastructure trust backed by long-term institutional capital.
The main economic engine is simple: road users pay tolls, annuity assets receive contractual payments, the trust collects cash through project SPVs, pays operating and maintenance costs, services debt, reserves money where required, and distributes the balance to unitholders.
Simple at the toll booth. Complicated in the spreadsheet.
FY26 showed the classic InvIT contradiction. Sales were stable at ₹3,567 crore, growing only 2.61% as per the screener snapshot. Operating margin improved to 70%, up from 64% in FY25 and 60% in FY24. Operating profit moved from ₹2,236 crore in FY25 to ₹2,496 crore in FY26.
But net profit remained tiny at ₹42 crore. The reason is not hidden. Interest and depreciation together absorbed almost the entire operating profit. Interest was ₹1,373 crore and depreciation was ₹1,118 crore in FY26. Combined, that is ₹2,491 crore. Against operating profit of ₹2,496 crore, the accounting margin of safety is thinner than a toll receipt.
That does not automatically make the trust weak. Infrastructure assets are capital-heavy. Depreciation is non-cash. Debt is often part of the design. But a thin profit base means valuation based only on P/E can look absurd.
This is why Interise must be analysed through three lenses: cash flow, debt protection, and distributions.
The rating material provides useful colour. India Ratings assigned IND AAA/Stable to the proposed NCDs and affirmed the long-term issuer rating. It highlighted diversified assets, long operational history, cash-flow pooling, comfortable DSCR expectations, liquidity reserves, and debt protection features. It also flagged risks: traffic volatility, WPI-linked toll escalation, alternate routes, interest-rate sensitivity, operation and maintenance cost, and concession disputes.
So the story is not “good company, bad company.” It is more precise: a mature infrastructure yield vehicle with strong asset backing and high debt dependence, where accounting profits are modest but operating cash flows remain meaningful.
The detective’s job is to separate cash from optics.
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
Interise Trust owns road infrastructure assets through SPVs. These roads generate money mainly in two ways: toll collections and annuity payments.
Toll assets are straightforward. Vehicles use the road, tolls are collected, and revenue depends on traffic volume, toll rates, inflation-linked revisions, route importance, and competition from alternate routes. In plain English, if more trucks and cars use the road, revenue improves. If traffic diverts elsewhere or toll policy changes, revenue gets hurt.
Annuity assets are different. They receive scheduled payments from the authority under contractual terms. These are generally more predictable than toll collections, but they still carry counterparty and timing risks.
Interise’s road portfolio includes assets across Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh as per the rating material. The dump mentions assets such as Beawar Pali Pindwara Tollway, Bhilwara Rajsamand Tollway, Shreenathji Udaipur Tollway, Krishnagiri Thopur Toll Road, Krishnagiri Walajahpet Tollway, Devihalli Hassan Tollway, Bijapur Hungund Tollway, Western Andhra Tollway, Hyderabad Yadgiri Tollway, Dhule Palesner Tollway, Nagpur Seoni Express Way, Simhapuri Expressway, Rayalseema Expressway, Igatpuri Highways, and Kosi Bridge Infrastructure.
This is not a business where someone wakes up and launches a trendy app.
This is a business where the asset is already built, the road is already there, the capital has already been sunk, and the trust tries to harvest long-term cash flow from infrastructure that people must use.
The attractive part is operating leverage. Once a road is operational, incremental toll revenue can flow through at high margins, provided maintenance costs stay controlled. That is why Interise can report 70% operating margin.
The unattractive part is capital intensity. Roads are expensive. Acquisitions are expensive. Debt is large. Maintenance is not optional. Concession rules matter. Regulators matter. NHAI matters. Interest rates matter.
In a consumer business, a bad quarter might mean weak demand. In a toll-road InvIT, a bad quarter can mean finance cost, depreciation, compensation timing, tariff dispute, traffic seasonality, maintenance reserve, or refinancing cycle. The spreadsheet has more lanes than the highway.
The trust structure also means distributions are central. Investors often look at InvITs for yield. Interise’s dividend yield is 5.78% in the snapshot. But distribution yield must be judged alongside leverage, cash flow, asset life, and refinancing risk.
So what does Interise do?
It collects road cash flows, manages debt, maintains assets, handles concession risk, and distributes cash when possible. It is a toll-road landlord with a banker sitting permanently in the passenger seat.
4. Financials Overview
The latest official result section in the dump is “Quarterly Results – Consolidated Figures in Rs. Crores.” Therefore, the EPS treatment is locked as quarterly results. Since the latest quarter is March 2026, which is Q4, full-year EPS is used for valuation rather than annualising the March quarter loss.
For FY26, full-year EPS is ₹0.40. At the current price of ₹110, recalculated P/E is:
Price / FY26 EPS = ₹110 / ₹0.40 = 275x
The screener snapshot shows stock P/E at 271. The small difference is likely due to rounding and price timing. The conclusion is unchanged: P/E looks optically expensive because net profit is extremely low relative to market value.
Quarterly Comparison
Metric
Latest Quarter: Mar 2026
Same Quarter Last Year: Mar 2025
Previous Quarter: Dec 2025
Revenue
₹906 crore
₹880 crore
₹910 crore
EBITDA / Operating Profit
₹561 crore
₹594 crore
₹655 crore
PAT
-₹53 crore
₹55 crore
₹31 crore
EPS
-₹0.51
₹0.53
₹0.30
The top line looks stable. Revenue in March 2026 was ₹906 crore, up from ₹880 crore year-on-year but slightly lower than ₹910 crore in December 2025. So the road portfolio did not collapse. The toll booths did not go on strike.
The trouble is lower down. Operating profit declined from ₹655 crore in December 2025 to ₹561 crore in March 2026. Compared with March 2025, operating profit also declined from ₹594 crore to ₹561 crore. Net profit moved from ₹55 crore in March 2025 to a loss of ₹53 crore in March 2026.
That is a serious reversal.
March 2026 expenses were ₹345 crore, higher than ₹255 crore in December 2025 and ₹287 crore in March 2025. Interest remained heavy at ₹345 crore in March 2026. Depreciation was ₹273 crore. Together, these two line items alone were larger than operating profit. That explains the loss.
Annual numbers look better but still reveal the same structural issue.
FY26 sales were ₹3,567 crore. Operating profit was ₹2,496 crore. Net profit was ₹42 crore. EPS was ₹0.40. Dividend payout was 323%. That payout ratio looks bizarre if read like a normal manufacturing company. For an InvIT, distributions can be linked to cash flows, not only accounting profit, but the contrast still deserves attention.
Question for readers: when a trust earns high operating cash flow but low accounting profit, do you value it like a yield instrument or punish it like an overvalued equity?
5. Valuation Discussion – Fair Value Range Only
Interise is difficult to value using one clean method. P/E is distorted by low accounting profit. EV/EBITDA is more useful because it captures operating cash generation before financing and depreciation. DCF is relevant because infrastructure assets are long-duration cash-flow assets. So we use all three methods and build an educational range, not a single answer.
A normal peer-multiple valuation using 20x to 75x P/E would produce:
Assumed P/E
FY26 EPS
Implied Value
20x
₹0.40
₹8
50x
₹0.40
₹20
75x
₹0.40
₹30
This looks absurdly low compared with the market price because Interise’s accounting EPS is not capturing the distribution-style cash economics properly. Therefore, P/E is a poor primary method here. It is useful as a warning label, not as the final valuation tool.
The screener snapshot shows EV/EBITDA at 6.97, again close enough given rounding and market price differences.
For infrastructure yield vehicles, EV/EBITDA is more meaningful than P/E because it focuses on operating cash generation before debt and depreciation.
Using a broad educational EV/EBITDA range of 6.0x to 8.0x:
EV/EBITDA Multiple
EBITDA
Implied EV
6.0x
₹2,496 crore
₹14,976 crore
7.0x
₹2,496 crore
₹17,472 crore
8.0x
₹2,496 crore
₹19,968 crore
Debt is ₹8,789 crore. Approximate equity value range:
Implied EV
Less Debt
Approx Equity Value
₹14,976 crore
₹8,789 crore
₹6,187 crore
₹17,472 crore
₹8,789 crore
₹8,683 crore
₹19,968 crore
₹8,789 crore
₹11,179 crore
Number of equity shares / units shown = 104 crore. Approx value per unit:
Approx Equity Value
Units
Value Per Unit
₹6,187 crore
104 crore
₹59.5
₹8,683 crore
104 crore
₹83.5
₹11,179 crore
104 crore
₹107.5
EV/EBITDA suggests a broad range of roughly ₹60–108 per unit, depending on the multiple used.
Method 3: DCF Method
DCF is more appropriate for an InvIT, but the dump does not provide enough project-wise cash-flow forecasts, concession lives, maintenance schedules, toll escalation assumptions, or terminal values to build a precise model. So we use a conservative simplified DCF based only on available consolidated free cash flow.
