1. At a Glance
DE Nora India Ltd is that rare breed of Indian midcap which sounds extremely sophisticated at dinner parties (“noble metal-coated electrodes”, “electrochemical technologies”) but behaves like a confused PSU when you open the financials. Market cap sits at ₹353 crore, stock price at ₹664, down ~21% over one year, while Q3 FY26 just delivered a 104% YoY revenue jump and 133% YoY PAT growth. Sounds sexy, right? Then you look at ROCE: 0.88% and suddenly the excitement needs electrolytic resuscitation.
This is a debt-free company, backed by a serious Italian parent with global R&D muscle, operating in chlorine, caustic soda, hydrogen, and water treatment ecosystems. Yet returns today look like the company forgot electricity flows both ways. Revenue momentum is back, order inflows exist (hello Reliance), but capital efficiency has face-planted. The big question: Is this a temporary chemistry imbalance or a structural reaction gone wrong?
2. Introduction
DE Nora India is not a flashy story. No influencer CEO. No EV buzzwords thrown casually on earnings calls. No PowerPoint dreams of 10x TAM expansion. Instead, it sells electrodes. Very expensive, very specialized, very boring electrodes — until you realise without them, chlorine plants, refineries, desalination units, and hydrogen electrolysers literally don’t function.
The irony? Despite sitting at the intersection of chlor-alkali, water disinfection, and green hydrogen, the company’s financial performance over the last few years has been… underwhelming. Sales stagnated, profits fell, margins swung wildly, and ROCE collapsed from 30% in FY23 to sub-1% in FY25–TTM.
Then suddenly FY26 arrives and Q3 numbers explode. Revenues double. Profits triple. Markets still don’t care. Stock keeps falling.
So what’s going on here? Is this a classic cyclical + lumpy order book business confusing retail investors? Or is DE
Nora India just extremely good at technology and extremely bad at sweating capital?
Let’s dissect this like an over-caffeinated forensic auditor.
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
At its core, DE Nora India sells electrochemical hardware and services.
Think of it as the company that supplies the “heart” of electrolysis systems — the anodes, cathodes, membranes, coatings, and refurbishments that enable chemical reactions at scale.
Two big buckets:
- Electrode Technologies (~99% revenue)
Includes noble metal-coated electrodes, recoating services, electrolysers, cathodic protection systems, hydrogen generation electrodes, etc. - Water Technologies (~1% revenue)
Electrochlorination systems, disinfection units, desalination-linked systems.
Revenue is service-heavy:
- Sale of services: ~78%
- Sale of products: ~16%
This explains two things:
- Lumpy quarters (refurbishment orders don’t come evenly).
- Customer concentration risk (top 2 customers = ~64% of revenue in FY23).
When Reliance sneezes, DE Nora’s quarterly numbers catch a cold.
4. Financials Overview
| Metric | Latest Qtr (Dec 2025) | YoY Qtr (Dec 2024) | Prev Qtr (Sep 2025) | YoY % | QoQ % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue (₹ Cr) | 35.84 | 17.56 | 21.84 | 104.1% | 64.1% |
| EBITDA (₹ Cr) | 2.48 | -11.39 | 4.02 | NA | -38.3% |
| PAT (₹ Cr) | 2.57 | -7.81 | 3.87 | 132.9% | -33.6% |
| EPS (₹) | 4.84 | -14.71 | 7.29 | NA | -33.6% |
Annualised EPS (Q3 rule)
Average of Q1, Q2, Q3 EPS × 4
= ((6.12 + 7.29 + 4.84) / 3) × 4 ≈ ₹24.6
Commentary:
- Revenue
