Lakshmi Engineering & Warehousing FY26: A ₹160 Cr Company at 96x Earnings, Where Warehouse Rent Out-Earns the Machine Shop

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1 — At a Glance

Here is a company that started in 1973 building automatic looms, renamed itself twice, and now earns most of its money as a landlord. Lakshmi Engineering & Warehousing closed FY26 with revenue of ₹14.34 crore and net profit of ₹1.67 crore — a business smaller than many single restaurant chains, carrying a market capitalisation of ₹160 crore. The market pays 96x those earnings against an industry multiple of 32.6x.

Profit nearly doubled year-on-year, from ₹0.84 crore in FY25 to ₹1.67 crore. That headline flatters: FY25 was the trough, and ₹1.34 crore of other income still sits inside FY26’s profit. The operating engine did recover — operating profit rose from ₹1.68 crore to ₹3.86 crore — but return on equity stayed at 7.5%, and return on capital employed at 11.4%.

The warehouse now out-earns the workshop the company was named after. A closer look shows how a textile-machinery maker became a rental business wearing an engineering badge.

2 — Introduction

Incorporated in 1973 as Lakshmi Automatic Loom Works, the company began commercial production of weaving machines in 1977 and circular knitting machines in 1993. Over 12,000 ‘C’-type Lakshmi-Ruti automatic weaving machines and around 500 circular knitting machines it built are still running across India — an installed base that is now more heritage than growth engine.

The name change to Lakshmi Engineering and Warehousing Limited signals where the business actually went. Two units carry it: a warehousing operation at Hosur that leases building space to corporate tenants, and an engineering unit near Coimbatore making spares, accessories, and precision tool holders for textile machinery and machine tools.

The most recent structural move on record: a new 40,700 sq ft warehouse building at the Sipcot Industrial Area, Hosur, at an estimated ₹8 crore. Capital work-in-progress on the balance sheet fell from ₹5.19 crore in FY25 to nil in FY26 — the building came off the ramp and onto the books, where fixed assets jumped from ₹19.53 crore to ₹28.84 crore.

3 — Business Model: WTF Do They Even Do?

Two things, and they pull in opposite directions.

The warehousing unit rents out floor space at Hosur. It is boring in the best accounting sense: a tenant signs, a cheque arrives, margins are high because a warehouse doesn’t need raw materials. For FY26, segment figures put warehousing revenue at ₹10.25 crore against engineering’s ₹4.87 crore — the landlord is roughly two-thirds of the show.

The engineering unit is the one with the founding story and the harder economics. It manufactures VDI standard tool holders, rectangular tool holders, boring bar holders, and collet chuck holders, plus spares for weaving and knitting machines. It serves export-oriented machine-tool users and domestic textile-machinery makers.

So the entity is a low-margin, capital-hungry precision workshop stapled to a high-margin property rental. The workshop keeps the family name and the legacy; the warehouse keeps the lights on. The market, meanwhile, prices the whole thing like a growth company — a valuation the ₹14.34 crore top line does not obviously earn.

Does a company deserve its founder’s name when the founder’s product is now the smaller half?

4 — Financials Overview

Figures are standalone, in ₹ crore. Latest period: quarter ended March 2026.

The March quarter was the strongest in the visible run: operating profit of ₹1.22 crore on ₹3.96 crore of sales is a 30.8% operating margin, up from a negative quarter (Dec 2024’s −₹0.09 crore operating profit) just over a year earlier. The recovery is real; the base was