Kalpataru Power Transmission hosted a conference call on Nov 11, 2022. In the conference call the company was represented by Manish Munoth, ED.

Key takeaways of the call

Order Book at an all-time high of Rs 38550 crore. Order booking for YTDFY23 stood at Rs 14388 crore and with this the company has achieved 70% of targeted FY23 Order Inflows. In addition the company is favorably placed L1 for orders worth Rs 6,000 crore.  Large-size order wins in Water, Urban Infra, Railways and T&D. 

Bidding pipeline is over at about 1000 billion in next few quarters.

KPTL JMC Merger update: Received no observation letter from SEBI & Stock Exchanges as well as NOC’s from lenders.  Filed petition in NCLT in May 2022 and final hearing is expected in November 2022.   The merger is expected to be completed by Q4FY23.

 Growth in Q2FY23 was driven by strong execution and robust opening order book in B&F, Water and Urban Infra businesses. T&D business was impacted by lower opening order book.

Cost pressure and high commodity prices leading to an impact on margins; softening of commodity prices & reduction in supply chain cost to aid margin improvement going forward.

For FY23 expect consolidated revenue growth of 15% with stable margin profile. The company expects consolidated order intake of over ~Rs. 21,000 crore (up over 15% y-o-y), driven by opportunities across segments such as T&D, B&F, oil and gas, water, and civil infrastructure.

Expect JMC to clock a revenue growth of 25-30% (up from earlier 15-20% guided earlier). The OPM is expected to be on improving trajectory hereon.  

KPTL now looks a revenue growth in the range of 7.5%-10%. Due to design related issues the execution of T&D orders will start only by Q4 moderating the revenue guidance at KPTL standalone. 

Going forward in current fiscal the standalone EBITDA margin is expected to improve from current 8.1% to 8.5-9% for current fiscal.  The company expects 9% of EBITDA margin by Q4FY23.

However T&D business is gaining strength with order wins of Rs 4360 crores.  T&D order visibility is also robust both in domestic and international. 

Promoter state pledge reduction has already started and some decline will happen in next couple of weeks and will gradually go down. The real estate revenue from various projects for promoters started.

In Railway business the company will be selective as the competition is high across all segment contracts.

Surely there will be margin improvement next fiscal but could not quantify right now as the company have not finalized business plans for next fiscal yet.

Net Debt at Sep-22 end stood at Rs 2905 crore. It was further down by Rs 150 Crores in Oct-22 given improved collections and momentum in project closures. The company would reduce its group debt by Rs. 300 crore-400 crore in FY2023.

Afghan project – Overall exposure is Rs 150 crore and got Rs 120 crore from ECGC and money outstanding is Rs 30 core. 

Chile large project is currently in the stage of design and approval, which is on. And the company has also bagged 2 smaller projects in Chile.

Forayed into Airport, Metro Rail and Data Center.