1. At a Glance
KIC Metaliks Ltd is that small, dusty, old-school pig iron manufacturer from Durgapur that keeps popping up on value screens because it looks cheap, behaves cheap, and occasionally reminds investors why cheap stocks are cheap.
Market cap sits around ₹105 Cr, the stock is chilling near ₹29–30, and it’s trading at 0.61x book value — the kind of number that makes bargain hunters salivate and seasoned investors reach for antacids.
Latest quarterly numbers (Dec 2025) show ₹201.44 Cr revenue, ₹6.98 Cr operating profit, and a modest ₹0.69 Cr PAT. On paper, profits are “back.” In reality, they’re still crawling on crutches.
ROCE is -0.42%, ROE -3.46%, debt about ₹122 Cr, and interest coverage at a miserable 0.32x — meaning banks are paid, but barely, and only after praying to the blast furnace gods.
Three-month returns are flat, one-year returns are down ~30%, and five-year shareholders have learned patience the hard way.
So the big question: is this a turnaround brewing… or just another quarter of “bas thoda aur time do”?
2. Introduction – Welcome to the Pig Iron Gym
KIC Metaliks is not a growth story. It’s not a tech story. It’s not even a steel story in the glamorous Tata–JSW sense.
This is a cyclical, margin-starved, capital-hungry pig iron business, where fortunes swing based on furnace health, coke consumption, coal prices, and how many days the plant is shut for “rectification work” (spoiler: quite a few).
Founded in 1986, KIC Metaliks operates a mini blast furnace at Durgapur, Eastern India. Over the years, it has survived steel cycles, commodity crashes, and its own operational misadventures. That survival instinct alone deserves some respect.
FY22–FY24 were particularly ugly. Furnace productivity dropped, coke consumption shot up, utilization collapsed, and the plant saw multiple shutdowns. Profits evaporated faster than hot metal during a leak.
FY25 and FY26 so far show signs of operational stabilisation, not a miracle turnaround. Margins are low but positive, losses are narrower, and quarterly profits have returned — barely, but returned nonetheless.
This is not a “diamond in the rough.” This is more like a used industrial lathe — valuable only if it runs continuously without breaking down.
3. Business
Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
At its core, KIC Metaliks makes pig iron. That’s it.
Pig iron is an intermediate product used by foundries and steelmakers. It’s a volume game, not a branding game. You don’t differentiate pig iron — you just produce it cheaply and consistently.
KIC’s plant includes:
- Pig iron capacity: 2.35 lakh MTPA (after debottlenecking)
- Sinter plant: 3.60 lakh MTPA
- Waste heat power plant: 4.7 MW for captive use
They also produce Portland Slag Cement, using slag generated from pig iron production — a classic steel plant jugaad to extract some value from waste.
Revenue mix (FY23):
- Pig iron: ~91%
- Coke & coal trading: ~5%
- Others + income: ~4%
So no fancy diversification here. When pig iron margins suffer, the whole P&L catches a cold.
The real challenge? Blast furnace reliability. This company’s history reads like a maintenance logbook — shutdowns, refurbishments, restarts, repeat.
If the furnace runs well, cash flows appear. If it doesn’t, shareholders bleed quietly.
4. Financials Overview – Numbers That Sweat Harder Than Steelworkers
Quarterly Comparison (₹ Cr)
| Metric | Latest Qtr (Dec’25) | YoY Qtr (Dec’24) | Prev Qtr (Sep’25) | YoY % | QoQ % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 201.44 | 125.04 | 182.42 | 61.1% | 10.4% |
| EBITDA | 6.98 | -0.26 | 6.97 | NM | 0.1% |
| PAT | 0.69 | -2.70 | 0.08 | NM | 762% |
| EPS (₹) | 0.19 | -0.76 | 0.02 | NM | 850% |
Yes, YoY growth looks explosive — but only because the base was terrible.
Annualised EPS (Q3 rule):
Average of Q1, Q2, Q3 EPS = (0.24 + 0.05 + 0.19) / 3 = ~0.16
Annualised EPS ≈ ₹0.64
At ₹29.7, that implies a P/E ~46x, which is hilarious for a pig iron
