1. At a Glance – Smells Good… Until You Read the Fine Print
Market cap sitting at ₹1,661 crore, stock chilling at ₹120 after a brutal -29% return in 3 months, and investors wondering: “Bhai, yeh perfume hai ya portfolio deodorant jo kaam nahi kar raha?”
Welcome to S H Kelkar — India’s fragrance king that somehow smells premium but delivers mid-tier returns.
Latest numbers?
- Quarterly revenue: ₹584 crore
- PAT: ₹10.7 crore (down 39% YoY — yes, that’s not a typo)
- ROE: 7.7% (basically FD-level returns with more drama)
- Debt: ₹889 crore
- P/E: 17.9 (cheap? maybe… justified? we’ll see)
And the biggest plot twist?
This company sells fragrances… but its own financials are struggling to smell like profits.
Throw in a ₹160 crore fire incident, global expansion ambitions, and margin pressure — and you have a Bollywood script where the hero is trying to go global while his house is still under renovation.
So the real question is:
👉 Is this a long-term global fragrance powerhouse in the making… or just a “nice story, poor execution” candidate?
2. Introduction – From Attar to Ambition (and Some Confusion)
S H Kelkar is not some new-age startup with a hoodie-wearing founder pitching AI perfumes.
This is a 100-year-old legacy business, part of the Keva Group, supplying fragrances and flavours to FMCG giants.
Basically:
- Every soap, shampoo, biscuit, deodorant you use
- There’s a decent chance Kelkar is behind the smell or taste
Sounds like a beautiful, sticky, recurring business, right?
Well… yes and no.
Because here’s the catch:
- The business depends heavily on FMCG demand
- And FMCG demand depends on… consumers
- And consumers depend on… the economy
Which right now is behaving like an Indian wedding buffet — looks great, but half the items are cold.
Even management admitted:
- India demand recovery? ❌ Didn’t happen as expected
- Europe? ❌ Orders delayed
- Margins? ❌ Stuck
But wait… the CEO says:
“This is the right time to invest globally.”
Of course it is.
Because nothing screams confidence like expanding globally while your domestic demand is taking a chai break.
Now pause and think:
👉 Is this bold long-term thinking… or classic overconfidence?
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
Let’s simplify this.
Kelkar sells smell and taste.
1. Fragrances (≈88% revenue)
- Soap, shampoo, detergent
- Perfumes, deodorants
- Household cleaners
Basically, if something smells good — they probably helped.
2. Flavours (~12%)
- Biscuits
- Dairy
- Beverages
- Pharma
So yeah, your favorite biscuit might literally be engineered in a lab in Mumbai or Milan.
3. Aroma Chemicals & Patents
- Proprietary molecules
- IP-driven formulations
85% of their products are proprietary (management claim).
Which means:
👉 Pricing power exists
👉
