Gateway Distripark hosted a conference call on May 26, 2023. In the conference call the company was represented by Prem Kishan Gupta, CMD and Sandeep Shah, CFO.

Key takeaways of the call

Throughput was down 2% to 182707 TEUs [Rail up 3% to 93509 TEUS; CFS down 7% to 89198 TEUs] for Q4FY23 and down 5% 712778 TEUs [Rail up 4% to 348020 TEUs; CFS down 13% to 364758 TEUs] for FY23.

FY22 financials include the figures of Punjab Conware CFS (Nhava Sheva) for 10 months, which was handed back to Punjab Conware. For a like-to-like comparison, excluding Punjab Conware CFS  numbers, the throughput of the company for FY23 grew by 6.91%, the revenue and EBITDA grew by 10.5% and 1.2% respectively.  The Company was operating CFS Punjab Conware in Nhava Sheva for 10 months in FY22 after which the O&M agreement expired. Punjab Conware FY22 revenue was Rs 87.52 crores and EBTIDA was Rs. 15.84 crores. However, after payment of license fees Rs 16.44 crores to Punjab State Warehousing Corporation, it was a loss making facility for the company.

There has been a slowdown in Export volumes in the past six months, but signs of recovery are now being seen from April 2023 onwards. Import volumes have been growing to a large extent. 

Focus of the company remains on improving efficiencies and expanding its network.

The efficiency was hit in FY23 due to EXIM imbalance. But the company expects efficiency improvement in FY24 with improvement in both EXIM imbalance and share of double stacking.

About 40% of volume of GDL was carried through double stacking and the company target to reach a level of 50% with existing rolling stocks. Once new wagons comes in the share of double staking in total volume will go up further.  In addition to Faridabad, the Virangam & Mundra too become double stack will aid improvement on this front. 

With subdued exports the EXIM mix for the country is imports were 57% and exports were   43%. However in FY24 the company expects exports to bounce back thereby correcting the EXIM imbalance to normal levels which will facilitate improvement in efficiency for the company.   Additional contribution from Kashipur will also facilitate correction of EXIM imbalance.

EBITDA/TEU for Rail business without other income in Q4FY23 is about Rs 9700/TEUs.   In case of CFS it was about Rs 1600-1700/TEUs.  With exports coming back and imbalance is corrected the company target an EBITDA of 10000/TEUs in rail business  and Rs 2000/TEUs in CFS business.

Absolute EBITDA for Rail is Rs 90 crore and CFS is about Rs 14 crore for Q4FY23.

Market growth in Ludhiana is 4-5% but GDL grew by about 6%. NCR market share of GDL is 2%.

GDL at the beginning of FY23, had allocated Rs. 500 crores towards capital expenditure to be utilized by fiscal year 2025 and of it has so far invested/spent Rs 200 crore towards acquisition of ICD KAshipur and procurement of land and initial development of ICD Jaipur.  The company will invest the remaining amount by FY25  and it is actively exploring both greenfield and acquisition options in Northern and Central India to expand its network of ICDs in the next two years.

Jaipur ICD will become operational by end of this fiscal.  The market size of Jaipur terminal is about 10000-12000 TEUs with three players including our company operating in that market.

Kashipur ICD  (KICD)  – Currently, Kashipur ICD handles a volumes of about 3,000 TEUs per month. This will be gradually scaled up in short to medium term – because a big industrial zone in Uttarakhand has not been tapped yet.  GDL’s market share in Uttarakhand is roughly about 25% to 32%.   In March KICD  has done a volume of 3000 TEUs and the company expect to do a volume of about 50000 teus per annum from Kashipur ICD this fiscal. In 2 year the company looks to a monthly volume of 6000 TEUsmonth or 66000 TEUS/annum from Kashipur ICD. Another 7.54 acres of land, which is strategic to the Kashipur ICD, has been acquired for Rs. 9 crore.

The company expects 3 rakes under lease to add to the fleet of the company in FY24. 

The company has spent Rs. 27 crores on land acquisition for Jaipur ICD and will undertake further capex of Rs 50 crores on initial development of ICD.

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