1. At a Glance
Kennametal India Ltd is the kind of company that never trends on Twitter but still quietly pays your dividends on time. Incorporated in 1938, now a 75% subsidiary of Kennametal Inc., this is precision manufacturing in its purest, most unsexy form.
As of the latest close, the stock trades around ₹2,118, giving it a market cap of ~₹4,656 crore. Over the last 3 months, the stock is down ~8%, over 1 year it’s down ~10%, and yet the business itself just clocked ₹3,340 mn revenue in Q2 FY26, growing ~16% YoY.
Margins remain healthy at ~15% operating margin, debt is basically a rounding error, promoters are chilling with 75% ownership, and dividends keep flowing like clockwork.
So why is the market grumpy?
Because at ~48× annualised earnings, Kennametal India is priced like it wants to attend a tech startup demo day — while still selling carbide inserts to factories.
2. Introduction
Kennametal India is not here to impress momentum traders. It is here to outlive them.
This company has seen British rule, socialist planning, liberalisation, globalisation, pandemics, and more GST rule changes than any human should endure. Through it all, it has stuck to one thing: metal cutting, tooling, and machining solutions.
Being a subsidiary of a global giant helps. It gets access to technology, global customers, and processes that don’t involve jugaad spreadsheets. But it also means the company runs like a Swiss engineer, not a Bollywood producer. Growth is steady. Capital allocation is conservative. Surprises are rare.
In FY23, Kennametal India incurred ₹48 crore of
capex, funded entirely through internal accruals. For FY24–FY25, management guided for modest incremental capex, again internally funded. Translation: no leverage drama, no equity dilution, no “strategic transformation” PPTs.
And yet, the stock trades at a valuation that assumes something extraordinary is coming. Is it? Or is this just the market overpaying for predictability?
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
Kennametal India operates in two main segments. Simple. Industrial. Profitable.
Hard Metal Products – 86% of FY23 Revenue
This is the core business. The company manufactures and sells metal cutting tools, carbide inserts, wear-resistant tooling, and related products. These are used in:
- Automotive
- Aerospace
- Defence
- Railways
- Infrastructure
- General engineering
Once a customer qualifies a tool supplier, switching is painful. Production lines don’t like surprises. This creates high switching costs and sticky relationships.
Machining Solutions – 14% of FY23 Revenue
This segment designs and sells customised, capital-intensive special-purpose machines, primarily under the Kennametal and WIDIA brands.
This is end-to-end stuff:
Design → Manufacture → Installation → After-sales service
Think of it as “we don’t just sell you the drill
