1. At a Glance – Blink and You’ll Miss the Turnaround
WPIL Ltd is what happens when a 70-year-old pump manufacturer drinks a Red Bull and decides to become a full-blown water infrastructure execution machine. Market cap hovering around ₹3,885 crore, stock price near ₹398, and a Q3 FY26 PAT jump of ~73% YoY—this is not your sleepy industrial relic anymore. Quarterly revenue came in at ₹539 crore, up 41% YoY, while operating margins bounced back to ~21%, reminding everyone that pumps, when paired with execution discipline, can print respectable cash.
The balance sheet shows ₹576 crore debt with a 0.39 D/E, ROCE at ~15.6%, and ROE at 10% (temporarily dented by exceptional items earlier). The real flex? A combined domestic + international order book north of ₹3,800 crore, spread across irrigation, water supply, O&M, and product businesses. In short: WPIL isn’t selling pipes and pumps anymore—it’s selling patience, execution, and a very long Excel sheet to state governments.
Curious how a pump company quietly became an infrastructure hybrid while everyone was busy chasing EVs and AI? Let’s open the casing.
2. Introduction – From Basement Pumps to Mega Projects
Founded in 1952 by Johnston Pump Company (USA), WPIL began life doing exactly what its name suggests—pumps. Water pumps. Big ones, small ones, customized ones. Then in 2002, promoter Prakash Agarwal took control from the BM Khaitan group, and slowly—very slowly—the company began mutating.
What changed? India’s obsession with water infrastructure. Irrigation schemes, municipal water supply, lift irrigation, inter-basin transfers—basically, projects where money flows slower than groundwater but never really dries up. WPIL noticed that selling a pump is nice, but executing the entire project is where the real billing happens.
So today, WPIL straddles two worlds:
- A product business that designs and manufactures pumps (customized up to 50%)
- A project EPC business that installs, commissions, and maintains massive water infrastructure systems
The result? Projects now contribute ~51% of revenue in Q1 FY25, up from 36% in FY22. Translation: WPIL moved up the value chain and grabbed the stressful part of the contract—execution.
But here’s the fun part: this
shift made revenues lumpy, working capital ugly, and cash flows… emotional. Is it worth it? Keep reading.
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
Explaining WPIL to a lazy investor is easy:
“They move water. At scale. With government money.”
Segment 1: Projects (The Stress Factory)
WPIL executes turnkey water supply and irrigation projects—from pump selection to piping, instrumentation, civil works, commissioning, and sometimes O&M. Clients include:
- State irrigation departments
- Jal Nigams
- Power utilities
- Municipal corporations
- Defence (yes, even Navy pumps)
FY23 saw 108% project revenue growth due to execution catching up post-COVID. FY24 slowed because ductile iron pipes went missing like socks in a washing machine. FY25? Execution momentum returned.
Current projects include:
- West Bengal (Uluberia, Budge Budge – nearing commissioning)
- Eight MP Jal Nigam projects, scheduled for commissioning by Dec 2024
Segment 2: Pumps & Accessories (The OG Business)
This is where WPIL flexes its engineering muscles:
- Conventional pumps: split case, end suction, vertical turbine, multistage
- Engineered large pumps: metallic & concrete volute pumps for irrigation and drainage
They even installed five 30MW pump turbines for the Kaleswaram Lift Irrigation Scheme. That’s not a pump, that’s a water-moving weapon.
Add 12 manufacturing facilities, full backward integration, and testing capabilities—and you get a serious industrial setup.
So, is WPIL a manufacturer pretending to be EPC, or an EPC pretending to be a manufacturer? That identity crisis is exactly where both risk and opportunity
