1. At a Glance – The Telecom Tailor Trying to Stitch Profits
HFCL Ltd (Himachal Futuristic Communications Limited) – India’s original telecom tinker – posted Q2 FY26 revenue ₹1,043 Cr (–4.6 % YoY) and PAT ₹71.9 Cr (–8 % QoQ). Margins, thankfully, did not go call-drop: EBITDA ₹203 Cr (19.5 %) vs ₹190 Cr last quarter.
Market cap ₹10,886 Cr; CMP ₹ 75.5; P/E 391× (yes, you read that right); ROE 4.4 %; ROCE 7.6 %; Debt ₹ 1,580 Cr (D/E 0.38). Promoters down to 30 % holding with 56.9 % pledged.
A once-glorious telecom infra player now priced like an early-stage startup. Welcome to Fiber-Fi with family drama.
2. Introduction – The Comeback Kid Who Still Can’t Catch 5G
Remember the 90s telecom boom? HFCL was there — selling dreams, cables, and telecom towers before Jio was even an Ambani PowerPoint. Then came the crash, debt, and jokes about “Himachal Futuristic but Past Profitability.”
Two decades later the company has reinvented itself as a maker of optical fiber cables, Wi-Fi gear, and defence electronics. Yet the stock behaves like it’s still 2002 — volatile, over-hyped, and perpetually “just one order away.”
Every press release starts with “5G,” ends with “capex,” and somewhere in between sneaks a line about delayed utilisation of QIP funds. That’s our HFCL: half engineer, half storyteller.
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
HFCL has two core avatars: Telecom Products (57 %) and Turnkey Contracts (43 %).
