01 — At a Glance
The Cable Company Making Everyone Rethink Electricity
- 52-Week High / Low₹5,303 / ₹2,424
- TTM Revenue₹11,186 Cr
- TTM PAT₹861 Cr
- Full-Year EPS (TTM)₹90.06
- Q3 EPS₹24.57
- Book Value₹647
- Price to Book7.60x
- Dividend Yield0.09%
- Debt / Equity0.04x
- Stock Return (1Y)52.6%
The Setup: KEI Industries closed Q3 FY26 with ₹2,955 crore quarterly revenue (+19.5% YoY), ₹235 crore PAT (+42.5% YoY), and a P/E ratio that would make most cable companies weep into their copper wire offcuts. Stock price up 52.6% in one year. Market cap ₹47,045 crore. The company is building a ₹2,000 crore mega-factory in Sanand while running existing plants at 85% utilisation. Translation: they’re printing money in real-time and planning to print even more later. Investors are betting they can. Numbers suggest they might be right.
02 — Introduction
Welcome to the Unsexy Business That’s Pulling All the Returns
Let’s talk about KEI Industries. Founded 1968. Makes power transmission cables. Extra-high voltage, high tension, low tension, house wires, stainless steel wires, and the occasional engineering construction project. Not exactly Bollywood material. No flashy CEOs doing Twitter spaces. No crypto pivots. Just cable manufacturers doing their job while the stock rallies 53% annually over the last three years.
The company has manufacturing facilities across six states — Bhiwadi, Rakholi, Chopanki, Pathredi (two plants), and Chinchpada. A new mega-plant is coming to Sanand. The order book is ₹3,928 crore. Capacity utilisation is at 85% for cables and 91% for stainless steel wire. The annual report isn’t trying to be interesting — it’s trying to be useful. And if there’s one thing Indian investors have learned, it’s that useful businesses with execution credibility tend to compound quietly while everyone’s looking at the next FOMO stock.
Q3 FY26 results dropped in late December 2025, and the concall in January 2026 gave management’s full playbook on what’s coming next. Revenue growth is tracking 20%+ for the full year. EBITDA margins are expanding. Exports are booming. The Sanand factory trial production started in December 2025 and is ramping up. But here’s the kicker — despite all this good news, the stock already trades at 54.7x forward earnings. The market has priced in a lot of future growth. Let’s separate what’s real from what’s fantasy.
Concall Reality Check (Jan 2026): “Only the capacity constraint hampering our growth for the last 2 years.” — KEI Management. They’re basically saying: we could grow faster, but our factories are full. Sanand is the fix. If execution matches guidance, this becomes a different company in FY27-FY28.
03 — Business Model: Electrons + Metal = Millionaires
How To Get Rich Selling Something Nobody Thinks About
The business model is deceptively simple. India needs electricity. Electricity needs to move from Point A to Point B. That movement requires cables. Copper or aluminium conductors, insulation layers, armour plating, sometimes shielding. KEI makes them. Sells to power distribution companies, railways, oil refineries, data centres, auto OEMs, and retail electricians who need to rewire their neighbour’s house.
Product portfolio is split into: EHV cables (up to 400kV — national grid stuff), HT cables, LT cables, specialty cables (solar, marine, fire-resistant, EV charging), house wires, winding wires, and stainless steel wires. They also do EPC work — engineering, procurement, construction turnkey projects for substations and transmission lines. That’s the bread-and-butter play. But the margin hero is EHV — the fancy cables that go into major infrastructure.
Revenue breakdown (9M FY26): LT Power 40%, House Wire & Winding Wire 31%, HT Cable 19%, EHV 4%, Stainless Steel Wire 2%, EPC 4%. By customer segment: Retail 53% (electricians, hardware stores, small-scale), Institutional 36% (power companies, factories, grid operators), Exports 11%. The distribution network has 2,343 active dealers as of March 2025, spread across four regions with heavy concentration in North (39%) and West (28%).
Revenue CAGR (5yr)15%TTM: +22%
Profit CAGR (5yr)22%TTM: +35%
Stock CAGR (5yr)58%1Y: +53%
Order Book₹3,928 CrDec 2025
Competition Alert: In FY25, both Adani Group and Aditya Group announced cable business entries. Polycab India (P/E 49.03x) remains the category king. But KEI argues that EHV cables require pre-qualification, government testing, and ~5-7 years to build brand credibility. Translation: moat exists, but it’s being tested.
💬 Would you bet on the cable business growing faster than data centres + EV charging combined? KEI clearly is.
04 — Financials Overview
Q3 FY26: The Numbers That Keep Analysts Awake
Result type: Quarterly Results | Q3 FY26 EPS: ₹24.57 | Annualised EPS (Q3×4): ₹98.28 | TTM EPS: ₹90.06
| Metric (₹ Cr) |
Q3 FY26
Dec 2025 |
Q3 FY25
Dec 2024 |
Q2 FY26
Sep 2025 |
YoY % |
QoQ % |
| Revenue | 2,955 | 2,472 | 2,726 | +19.5% | +8.4% |
| Operating Profit | 320 | 246 | 269 | +30.1% | +18.9% |
| OPM % | 10.8% | 10.0% | 9.9% | +80 bps | +90 bps |
| PAT | 235 | 165 | 204 | +42.5% | +15.2% |
| EPS (₹) | 24.57 | 17.25 | 21.29 | +42.5% | +15.4% |
The Profit Math: Q3 PAT at ₹235 crore, +42.5% YoY. This isn’t just volume growth — it’s margin expansion. Operating margins went from 10.0% (Q3 FY25) to 10.8% (Q3 FY26). Why? Mix shift. Exports surging (+79% YoY in 9M), EHV growing faster than base cable, institutional orders better-margin than retail. The company is actively steering the ship towards higher-value cargo. Forward guidance: expect ₹11,000+ cr revenue for FY26 (on track for 20%+ growth) with EBITDA margins improving structurally as Sanand ramps.
05 — Valuation: Is This Growth Deserving of The Price Tag?
When P/E Ratios Reach Heights That Make Climbers Nervous
Join 10,000+ investors who read this every week.
