Laxmi Organic Industries Ltd Q3 FY26 – ₹719 Cr Revenue, EBITDA Margin Still Limping at 7%, ₹1,100 Cr Capex Dream vs 8.5% ROCE Reality

1. At a Glance – Blink and You’ll Miss the Profits

₹3,873 crore market cap. Stock down ~35% in one year. Trading at 48.7× P/E while ROCE politely coughs at 8.56%. Welcome to Laxmi Organic in FY26 — a company with global top-5 specialty ambitions but mid-single-digit return delivery.

Q3 FY26 revenue came in at ₹719 crore, down 8.6% YoY, PAT at ₹25.4 crore, down 13.3% YoY. EBITDA margin clocked ~7% — not exactly specialty-chemical swagger. Meanwhile, management is executing a ₹1,100 crore capex plan and promising to double revenue and triple EBITDA by FY28.

The stock? Sitting near lifetime lows.
The valuation? Still expensive.
The narrative? “Trust us bro, FY28 will be glorious.”

So the obvious question: Is this a temporary chemical-cycle hangover, or structural margin indigestion?

2. Introduction – From Acetates to Aspirations

Laxmi Organic started in 1989 making acetyl intermediates — boring, cyclical, volume-heavy stuff. Then came the big pivot: Specialty chemicals via the Clariant Diketene Derivatives acquisition. Since then, management has tried very hard to convince the market that this is no longer a commodity solvents company but a high-margin specialty platform with global relevance.

To be fair, the transformation is real on paper:

• Specialty EBITDA contribution: 68% (9M FY25)
• Presence in 52+ countries
• Customer base expanded to 650+, with top-10 customer concentration reduced from 41% (FY22) to 25% (9M FY25)

But markets don’t clap for PowerPoint slides. They clap for ROCE, margin expansion, and cash generation. And here, Laxmi Organic has been… underwhelming.

So let’s break this down slowly,