01 — At a Glance
The Company That Crushed Dreams Faster Than Sugarcane
- 52-Week High / Low₹29.6 / ₹14.8
- Q3 FY26 Revenue₹1,380 Cr
- Q3 FY26 PAT₹14.8 Cr
- TTM PAT-₹44 Cr
- Book Value / Share₹29.8
- Price to Book0.55x
- Total Debt₹3,313 Cr
- Contingent Liabilities (YTM)₹3,585 Cr
- Promoter Holding25% (100% Pledged)
- Credit RatingCARE D
The Setup: Bajaj Hindusthan is a 95-year-old company that makes sugar, ethanol, and power. Except they don’t make money anymore. Q3 PAT came in at ₹14.8 crore (decent), but TTM shows a loss of ₹44 crore. They defaulted on ₹268 crore of debentures on March 31, 2025. Their credit rating was downgraded to CARE D. Promoters have pledged 100% of their shares—which is Wall Street’s fancy way of saying “we’re betting our house on red.” In March 2026, shareholders approved a debt restructuring that includes ₹570 crore of new equity and ₹2,856 crore of convertible preference shares. The stock has returned -22% in one year. You could have made more money leaving it in a savings account.
02 — Introduction
The Bajaj That Nobody Talks About (And There’s A Very Good Reason)
Jamnalal Bajaj founded this company in 1931 under the name “The Hindustan Sugar Mills Limited.” For the first 50 years, it crushed sugarcane, made sugar, collected profits. For the next 40 years, it crushed even more sugarcane, made even more sugar. But somewhere around 2015, the math stopped working. Today, we have a company that crushes 11.32 million metric tonnes of sugarcane annually (FY25), owns 14 sugar mills, operates 6 distilleries, and runs 14 power generation plants—and still can’t figure out how to make consistent money. The stock trades at ₹16.4, down from a 52-week high of ₹29.6. It’s currently trading at 0.55x book value, which means the market values this company at barely half the value of its assets. That’s what happens when investors realize those assets are pledged as collateral and the company is drowning in convertible debentures with yield-to-maturity clauses that read like a debt-restructuring horror movie.
Here’s the timeline of destruction: The company issued Optionally Convertible Debentures (OCDs) with a ₹2.50% coupon rate back in December 2017. Sounds reasonable. But here’s the catch—the YTM (Yield to Maturity) premium accrues as a contingent liability. By December 31, 2024, this YTM reached ₹3,412 crore. Redemption starts March 31, 2025, in 13 equal annual instalments. The first instalment? ₹268 crore plus YTM premium. The company couldn’t pay it. So they defaulted. And then CARE Ratings downgraded them to “D”—not “BB-“, not “B+”, but “D”. The letter that means “default is imminent or has occurred.”
In February 2026, the board got together and decided: “Let’s convert this debt into equity and preference shares.” In March 2026, shareholders approved it. ₹570 crore new equity. ₹2,856 crore of convertible preference shares. Plus, the promoters committed to infusing ₹1,000 crore. Translation: the company is being rebuilt from the inside out, one shareholder meeting at a time.
Credit Rating Update (March 29, 2025): CARE Ratings downgraded Bajaj Hindusthan’s OCDs to CARE D from CARE B+; Negative. Reason? Expected default on OCD instalment and poor liquidity. The rating agency also noted that the company couldn’t secure lender approval for converting OCDs into equity. The word “default” appears 14 times in CARE’s rationale. Spoiler: they eventually got approval in March 2026.
03 — Business Model: The Good Ol’ Days When Sugar Was Profitable
They Make Sugar. They Make Ethanol. They Generate Power. And They Lose Money Doing It.
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