Prem Kishan Dass Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director; Ishaan Gupta, Joint Managing Director; Samvid Gupta, Joint Managing Director; Sandeep Shaw, Chief Financial Officer; Rajguru Behgal, President – Rail; Manoj Singh, President – CFS.

Key takeaways of the call

Current ICD and CFS capacity is 6.5 lakh TEUs and 5.36 lakh TEUS per annum respectively. The total warehousing capacity currently is about 160000 square meters. The company’s rail fleet comprises of 31 train sets including 21 owned and 10 leased.  The company from next year onwards will be adding 3 rakes per annum and that will be on lease.

For Q2FY23, while the CFS volume was down 13% to 92767 TEUs and the Rail volume was up 10% to 90208 TEUs.  For H1FY23 the CFS volume was down 13% and the rail volume was up 12%. The throughput of both rail and CFS consists of both laden and empty.

On  Oct 31, 2022, GDL has signed a Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) with Kashipur Infrastructure and Freight Terminal Private Limited (KIFTPL) and its majority shareholders namely, Apollo LogiSolutions Limited, India Glycols Limited and Kashipur Holdings Limited  to acquire about 99% stake in KIFTPL. The company expects to close the transaction by end of Q3FY23. 

The terminal operated by KIFTPL at Kashipur is spread across 41 acres and has 3 rail sidings as well as 17000 sft of warehousing apart from rail and container yard.  While KIFTPL operates the terminal the rail operations are provided by 3^rd party CTOs and that revenue was not reflected in the financials of KIFTPL. Post acquisition the company will provide end to end logistics solution at this terminal. It currently handle a volume of about 3000 TEUs a month and the company expects to double it going forward considering the potential of catchment area and limited competition in the vicinity (on ICD Moradabad of competitor is available within 50 km radius).  No revenue was accounted from KIFTPL in H1FY23.

Greenfield ICD projects -  In Sep 2022, the company has completed purchase of land in Dhanakya, near Jaipur at a cost of Rs 30 crore. It has commenced construction of new   rail-linked Inland Container Depot (ICD) with a capacity to handle 125000 TEUs and the total cost of construction is to be about RS 60 crore.   Apart from Jaipur the company is looking at one more location for another Greenfield ICD.

Overall, the capex (including the cost of acquisition of Kashipur terminal and ) will be about Rs 350-400 crore in next 18 months. Of this about Rs 30 crore is already spend on acquisition of land for Jaipur ICD and  will spend another Rs 60 crore for construction of ICD at Jaipur, Rs 150 crore will be spend on acquisition of Kashipur terminal and another Rs 100 crore will be spent on setting up of 3^rd ICD.

Market share of the company in NCR increased to 17% in Q2FY23. 

EBITDA margin of rail and CFS is RS 9500/TEUs and Rs 22000/TEUs respectively.

As more segments of the DFC are commissioned, the transit time will come down significantly  and double stacking will increase.  This will improve the margin.  Margin improved to RS 9500/teus.  Some section of DFC West already completed and commissioned.  The Rewari-Madar, Madar-Palanpur, Palanpur-Mehsana, Mehsana-Sanad is completed  and Sanad to Makarpure segment is expected to be commissioned by Dec 2023. Makarpure to Vadodara-Surat -Vaisana-JNPT will happen over 2023-2024.

With  additions of   two terminals at Kashipur and Jaipur, GDL will have 11 container terminals - 6 ICDs and 5 CFSs.

Jaipur is connected to Pulara junction and it will be a double stacking terminal.  Jaipur volume will kick in only by end of next year.

Revenue and realization of Kashipur will be informed only after closing the transaction.  

Volume growth excluding Punjab Conware CFS which the company surrendered in Jan 2022, is 16% for H1FY23 and the company expects a volume growth of 6-7% not considering that of Kashipur.   Rail volume will be in double digit for this fiscal. Including the volume of Kashipur and Jaipur the volume growth next fiscal will be high double digit.

Market size of Kashipur is about 10000 TEUs.   Imports of waste paper, home furnishings, chemicals etc.