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1. Opening Hook
Scaffolding revenue was flat. The margin jumped anyway. That gap usually has a story, and this one did: management said a ₹20 crore steel quantity discount landed in the March quarter, except it belonged to earlier quarters too. So the headline margin arrived carrying luggage that wasn’t its own.
Strip that out and management put the scaffolding margin at 16%. The rest of the quarter held its own — FY26 sales reached ₹2,759 crore, net profit ₹293 crore. But the line that lingers came late in the call. Asked about sustained US demand, the CEO said the company was “keeping our figures crossed.” For a year-end call where the word “volatile” did heavy rotation, that summed up the posture nicely. Strong numbers, fingers crossed, and a forex tailwind nobody promises will repeat.
2. At a Glance
- FY26 net profit ₹293 Cr (vs ₹263 Cr) – Growth arrived; depreciation of ₹123 crore arrived faster than that.
- Q4 OPM 20% – Flattered by a ₹20 crore steel discount that was three quarters early to its own party.
- Engineering revenue +45% in the quarter – Profit declined to RSVP at the same scale.
- Mach One volumes –17% for the quarter – The order book is fine; the sites just won’t return management’s calls.
- Scaffolding volumes –6.5% YoY – Two slow US quarters in the prior year, says management, doing the dragging.
- Forex gain ₹20 Cr in Q4, ₹46 Cr for the year – The rupee did roughly a fifth of the quarter’s pre-tax work and asked for no credit.
- Stock P/E 20.6 vs industry 21.9 – The market pays roughly in line with the neighbours.
3. Management’s Key Commentary
The quarter’s profitability rested on one number management volunteered up front:
“There were some one-time benefits pertaining to quantity discounts that we obtained in this quarter for steel. This amounted to almost INR20 crores, which does not represent only the quarter.”
(A discount for three quarters, all collected in one. The margin chart got a guest who arrived for the finale.)
“Steel prices have increased by almost 25% over the last 3 months, but we’ve been able to pass them on. So there is no real pressure on margins.”
(Steel went up a quarter; the customer went up with it. Backward integration as a stress-relief programme.)
On the engineering vertical that grew 45% while profit didn’t keep pace:
“As a result of our investments, there can be some slower growth in the bottom line. And the bottom line may not grow in the same proportion as the top line.”
(The top line sprinted. The bottom line is “investing.” They will reconvene at some unspecified date.)
On the formwork run-rate analysts keep asking about:
“We are not obsessed with how quickly we can increase the volumes.”
(A serene way to describe a 40,000 run-rate that was meant to be heading toward 70,000.)
On the textile business, after years of it being a textile business:
“We are very seriously looking at restructuring the fabric division.”
(“Very seriously” — the adverb companies attach to things they have looked at unseriously for a while.)
On defence, where an analyst recalled a prior guidance of 5% of sales rising to 10%, Group CFO Anil Gadodia offered:
“These are all hopes. So we don’t
