1. At a Glance – Blink and You’ll Miss the Volatility
₹684 crore market cap. ₹755 stock price. Down 42% in one year, down 31% in six months, and yet… Q3 FY26 just dropped a 1,056% YoY jump in quarterly PAT.
Yes, you read that right. This stock behaves less like a steering gear and more like a shopping cart with a wonky wheel.
Z F Steering Gear (India) Ltd (ZFSGL) is a commercial vehicle–focused auto ancillary, operating mostly in the unglamorous but critical world of hydraulic and mechanical steering systems. No EV hype, no passenger car razzmatazz, mostly trucks, buses, and tractors doing hard labour.
Latest quarter numbers look spicy:
- Q3 FY26 Revenue: ₹143 crore (+21.8% YoY)
- Q3 FY26 PAT: ₹7.28 crore vs ₹0.63 crore last year quarter
- Q3 FY26 EPS: ₹8.64
And yet, ROE is a sad 3.2%, ROCE a limp 5.6%, and promoter holding has quietly slipped to 62.8%.
So what is this?
A cyclical bottom play?
A capex-heavy transition phase?
Or a classic “one-quarter wonder”?
Let’s turn the steering slowly and look under the bonnet.
2. Introduction – From German JV to Fully Desi Drama
ZFSGL has been around since 1981, supplying steering systems long before “Make in India” became a hashtag. For decades, it operated with a foreign partner — Robert Bosch Automotive Steering GmbH — which exited fully in March 2023, selling its entire 25.79% stake to Indian promoters.
That exit changed the company’s DNA.
No foreign daddy.
No technology crutches.
Full responsibility now sits with the Munot family.
Post-exit, the company went
into backward integration overdrive:
- New subsidiaries
- Joint ventures
- Aluminium machining
- Castings
- Electrical components
Basically, management said: “Why buy parts when we can make everything ourselves and cry only once?”
But transitions cost money.
Debt went up.
Margins wobble.
Returns collapsed.
And the stock market, being the emotional creature it is, punished the stock brutally.
The big question now:
Is Q3 FY26 the first sign that the pain phase is ending — or just a temporary pothole fix?
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
ZFSGL makes steering systems. Period.
Not software-defined steering.
Not AI-powered steering.
Just good old-fashioned steering that ensures trucks don’t meet dividers romantically.
Core Verticals
1. Power Steering Systems (Hydraulic)
- Installed in commercial vehicles, buses, and some tractors
- High-volume, low-glamour, OEM-driven business
2. Mechanical Steering Gears
- Mostly tractor-focused
- Lower margins but stable demand
3. Renewable Energy (Side Hustle)
- 5 MW solar plant + 8.1 MW wind assets
- FY23 generation:
- Solar: 0.89 crore units
- Wind: 1.22 crore units
- Power sold under long-term PPA to GUVNL
Renewables contribute just ~3% of revenue, but
