Emami Paper Mills Ltd Q2FY26 – Paper thin profits, thick debt, and packaging dreams that refuse to fold
1. At a Glance
Emami Paper Mills Ltd (EPML), part of the Emami Group — the same empire that sells fairness creams and nostalgia — continues to wrestle with the ugly side of the pulp world. At a market cap of just ₹601 crore and a current price of ₹98.8, this 1981-born veteran of the paper scene looks more like a tired novel than a growth thriller. Revenue for Q2FY26 stood at ₹451 crore, down nearly 9% QoQ, while PAT fell 13.3% to ₹6.58 crore. The EPS came in at ₹1.09, bringing the annualized figure to around ₹4.36.
For a company that claims to be “India’s largest newsprint manufacturer,” the numbers read more like an obituary for the print era. A stock P/E of 32.4 in a commodity business? That’s like paying ₹500 for a newspaper when half the pages are ads. Debt stands at ₹806 crore, 1.39x equity, and the interest coverage ratio is a barely breathing 1.38x. Yet the firm pays a dividend yield of 1.62%, perhaps as a consolation for patient shareholders who’ve waited through pulp, sweat, and tears.
So yes — Emami Paper is technically profitable, but the margins are thinner than A4 sheets left out in Kolkata humidity.
2. Introduction
The paper industry has one universal truth: every company claims to be “recycling,” yet all of them keep recycling excuses for weak margins. Emami Paper Mills is no different. Born in 1981 and raised in the smoky bylanes of Balasore and Dakshineswar, this company makes everything from writing and printing paper to newsprint and high-end multilayer coated boards. It proudly calls itself “Eastern India’s only paper board manufacturer,” which sounds fancy until you realize that the competition left the East decades ago for cheaper logistics.
The last decade has been a rollercoaster of pulp prices, import bans, and debt detox sessions. EPML has managed to reduce debt from ₹858 crore in FY23 to ₹606 crore in FY24, which deserves some applause. Unfortunately, the applause fades quickly when you notice profit growth has collapsed by 78.7%.
If you’ve ever wondered what happens when FMCG families play in commodities — this is it. You get a paper company that dreams of being a luxury packaging giant but operates like a printing press stuck in a 90s news cycle.
And yet, Emami Paper refuses to die. It prints, coats, and exports its way through cycles, surviving on subsidies, operational discipline, and pure Eastern stubbornness.
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
Let’s simplify it. Emami Paper Mills takes waste paper, pulp, and chemicals, converts them into something people can write on, wrap around soaps, or ignore in their Sunday newspaper. It’s like reincarnating old newspapers into FMCG packaging — karma, but for cellulose.
They operate through three main verticals:
Newsprint: Once the cash cow, now more of a retired bull. With digital news eating its lunch, this segment struggles, though Emami still calls itself “India’s largest newsprint producer.” Translation: we’re the last man standing.
Writing and Printing Paper: Serves schools, colleges, and office printers that still make circulars nobody reads.
Multilayer Coated Boards: The shiny, premium packaging used in FMCG, cosmetics, and e-commerce boxes. This is the “cool kid” segment with actual demand, driven by D2C and retail growth.
Their plants are located in Balasore (Odisha) and Dakshineswar (West Bengal), with total production capacity hovering around 3.5 lakh tons per annum. In FY23, the company produced nearly 2,96,594 tons — proving that not everything in India runs at 100% utilization.
To sound modern, Emami Paper has developed “Oil and Grease Resistant” paper (for burger wrappers) and “Bulky Paper” (for books that look intellectual). Export markets include Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Middle East — places that, ironically, might be reading more print than India.
So yes, they make paper. But the real story? They’re trying to pivot from printing words to printing money on fancy packaging.
4. Financials Overview
Source table
Metric
Latest Qtr (Sep’25)
YoY Qtr (Sep’24)
Prev Qtr (Jun’25)
YoY %
QoQ %
Revenue
₹450.6 Cr
₹495.1 Cr
₹459.8 Cr
-8.98%
-2.00%
EBITDA
₹36.3 Cr
₹37.4 Cr
₹37.7 Cr
-2.9%
-3.7%
PAT
₹6.58 Cr
₹7.59 Cr
₹6.31 Cr
-13.3%
+4.3%
EPS (₹)
1.09
1.25
1.04
-13.3%
+4.8%
Annualized EPS: ₹4.36 → P/E = 98.8 / 4.36 = ~22.7x (Not 32.4x, Screener math is drunk again.)
Commentary: Revenue slid 9% YoY as newsprint and paper demand weakened post-election euphoria. EBITDA margins stayed in the single digits — just enough to pay staff and keep the boilers hot. PAT margin stands at 1.46%, which in paper world means, “we survived another quarter.”
