1. At a Glance – Plantation Business with Startup Valuation Energy
Goodricke Group Ltd is currently trading at ₹161, valuing a 48-year-old tea plantation company at ₹348 crore market cap, which is… impressive, confusing, and mildly offensive to common sense—all at once.
This is a company that grows tea across 10,311 hectares, runs 22 factories, produces nearly 19 million kg of tea annually, and still manages to post single-digit ROCE (3.22%) and ROE (2.86%).
The latest quarter (Q3 FY26) delivered ₹306 crore revenue and ₹8.04 crore PAT, a sharp recovery compared to last year’s chaos. But before anyone pops champagne, the stock is trading at 119x P/E, with negative operating margins for the full year, and profits that depend heavily on other income.
Returns?
• –36% in 1 year
• –9% CAGR over 5 years
So the market has punished it, yet still refuses to price it cheaply. Curious, right?
Is this a turnaround story… or just premium Darjeeling tea being sold at Red Bull valuation?
Let’s brew this slowly.
2. Introduction – When a Colonial-Era Tea Estate Meets Modern Market Madness
Goodricke Group Ltd is not new. Not trendy. Not scalable. And definitely not tech-enabled.
It is a Camellia Plc (UK) subsidiary with 74% promoter ownership, making it one of those classic MNC-controlled Indian plantation companies where strategy meetings probably involve British accents and long discussions about rainfall.
The company’s core business is simple:
Grow tea → process tea → sell tea.
And yet, despite decades of experience, the financials look like they were brewed in a broken kettle.
Revenue has stayed broadly flat for 10 years, profits swing wildly with weather and wage cycles, and capital efficiency has steadily declined. ROCE that once touched 25% in 2013 has now collapsed to 3%.
Yet the stock market is pricing Goodricke at:
• 1.08x book
value
• 119x trailing earnings
• EV/EBITDA of 23x
For a plantation business.
Let that sink in.
Is this because of asset value?
Brand value?
Land monetisation hope?
Or is the market simply drunk on Darjeeling first flush optimism?
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
Goodricke does everything tea-related, except making shareholders rich.
Plantation & Manufacturing
• 18 tea gardens
• 22 factories (including blending & instant tea plant)
• Presence in Dooars, Darjeeling, Assam
Production mix:
• CTC tea – 93%
• Orthodox tea – 7%
Despite all the romance around Darjeeling tea, most of Goodricke’s output is mass-market CTC, where pricing power is weak and costs are brutal.
Sales Channels
• Auction sales
• Private sales
• Exports (~19% of revenue)
Average realisation in H1 FY24: ₹257/kg, which is decent—but wages, power, fertiliser, and compliance costs eat most of it.
Value-Added Hopes
• Instant tea (HWS & CWS)
• Tea lounges under “Tea Pot / Tea Chest” branding
These are nice PowerPoint ideas, but financially immaterial at the group level.
So the real business model is still:
High fixed costs + volatile output + regulated labour + weather dependency
Timeless. And terrifying.
4. Financials Overview – Quarterly Comeback, Annual Reality Check
Quarterly Performance Table (₹
