General information and education, not investment advice. The author is not a SEBI-registered adviser or research analyst. No recommendation, no promised returns. Markets carry risk including loss of capital. Figures may not be current. Always consult a SEBI-registered adviser.
1. At a Glance
Revenue for the June 2026 quarter came in at ₹229.18 crore against ₹227.39 crore a year earlier — a move of 0.79%, which is the kind of growth rate that arrives, nods politely, and leaves without touching the snacks. Operating profit was ₹15.59 crore against ₹19.63 crore, with OPM at 6.80% versus 8.63%. Net profit was ₹7.30 crore against ₹10.06 crore, down 27.4%. EPS: ₹0.73.
Sequentially the picture rearranges itself. Against the March 2026 quarter — revenue ₹226.23 crore, operating profit ₹10.83 crore, PAT ₹2.88 crore — the June quarter is larger on all three lines. A company can simultaneously be down a quarter and up a quarter, which is less a paradox than a reminder that the school-supplies calendar does not care about the fiscal one.
Behind the quarter sits a company with 2,000+ SKUs, three plants, 3 lakh retail outlets, and a statutory auditor who has now written the same qualified opinion twice. The FY26 qualification relates to comparability arising from inventory shortages of ₹23.57 crore identified in FY25, which management did not restate on the grounds that the impact could not be precisely quantified. Crisil reaffirmed Crisil A+/Stable and Crisil A1 in May 2026 on ₹167.65 crore of bank facilities.
Full-year FY26 revenue was ₹805.96 crore and net profit ₹24.79 crore, against ₹762.53 crore and ₹5.83 crore in FY25.
2. Introduction
The origin story begins in 1931, when Digambar and Govind Dandekar set up Dandekar & Company. Per Crisil, the firm was reconstituted as a public limited company in 1946 and listed in 1988 — a 57-year gap between incorporation and listing that makes most modern IPO timelines look like impulse purchases.
The Camel and Camlin brands have, per Crisil, more than 77 years of recall. If you sat in an Indian classroom, you have held this company’s product and almost certainly chewed one end of it. Today the parent is Kokuyo & Co Ltd, Japan, holding 74.44% — a leading player in Japanese office stationery, notebooks and furniture. Crisil notes the parent contributed a rights issue of ₹103 crore in fiscal 2014 and provides technical collaboration on new products.
The last two years have been eventful in a way stationery companies generally try to avoid. In FY25 the company identified inventory discrepancies at its Tarapur plant. A forensic audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers quantified the financial impact at ₹21.44 crore. The company fully provided for the loss in Q2 FY25, initiated disciplinary action, strengthened internal controls, and states it expects no further financial impact. The FY25 audited results carried an inventory loss of ₹2,356.81 lakh and a qualified opinion; the FY26 statutory audit reiterated the qualification for the reason noted above.
FY26 also brought tax correspondence at scale. An income tax assessment order for AY2018-19 dated 20 March 2026 raised a demand of ₹162.97 crore; a rectification disclosed on 2 April 2026 reduced it to ₹34.05 crore. The FY26 BRSR, filed 10 July 2026, disclosed that ₹34.05 crore demand alongside a GST penalty of ₹8.13 crore. Separately, a 22 August 2025 order disallowed GST credit of ₹4,35,36,142 with a penalty of ₹3,77,66,487, which the company said it will appeal. On the Jammu excise remission dispute, CESTAT set aside the demand in July 2025 and remanded the matter; per the company, no enforceable demand exists as on date.
The 79th AGM was held on 6 August 2026, approving audited accounts, a ₹0.30 dividend, and director appointments. The proceedings were filed a day late, with a condonation request citing a one-hour technical lapse — a disclosure filed to explain a delay measured in minutes, which is corporate India taking punctuality more seriously than any school this company supplies.
US
Now live
US Stocks terminal is live
13,000+ US tickers · EDGAR fundamentals · screener and filings feed — the same terminal, for American markets.
Explore →
3. Business Model: WTF Do They Even Do?
They make the things that make marks on other things. Two brands do the work: Camlin for stationery — pencils and accessories, geometry instruments, adhesives, markers and pens, notebooks, office supplies, early learning products — and Camel for art materials, covering artist colours, drawing materials, canvases, brushes, painting kits, hobby products, mediums, sketchbooks, markers and photo colours. That is 2,000+ SKUs, which means somewhere in Mumbai a person’s entire job is knowing the difference between forty shades of blue and defending each one in a meeting.
Manufacturing runs across three plants. Patalganga is the largest at 56,000+ sq. m and 364 SKUs, with 1,081 kWp of solar, Zero Liquid Discharge and IoT-enabled operations. Tarapur is the legacy unit, producing 1,150+ SKUs with a dedicated R&D centre, 500 kWp solar and ZLD. Samba in Jammu makes 372 SKUs of colour and art materials with BIS and IMS certifications and around 390 employees. A single site producing 1,150 different items is less a factory than a very organised argument with itself.
The FY26 revenue split: Office and Scholastic ~43% (unchanged from FY25), Fine Art and Hobby ~17% vs 18%, Writing Instruments ~15% vs 14%, Paper Stationery ~13% vs 14%, Technical Instrument ~6% vs 7%, Ink and Adhesives ~5% vs 6%. Geographic mix moved to ~97% domestic and ~3% export in FY26, from ~94% and ~6%.
Distribution reaches 3 lakh retail outlets. In FY26, 84% of revenue came through 2,951 dealers and distributors, with the top 10 dealers accounting for 9.78% of dealer sales. On the buy side, purchases from trading houses were 34% of total purchases, sourced from 42 trading houses,
