Bharat Forge Ltd (NSE: BHARATFORG) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated May. 08, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Amit B Kalyani — Vice-Chairman & Joint Managing Director
Analysts:
Rajhagopalan S — Vice President, Investor Relations
Gunjan Prithyani — Analyst
Kapil Singh — Analyst
Sameen Irani — Analyst
Arjun Khanna — Analyst
Arvind Sharma — Analyst
Rucheeta Kadge — Analyst
Lakshminarayanan K.G — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q4 and FY ’25 Earnings Conference Call hosted by Bharat Forge Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr Amit Kalyani, the Vice-Chairman and Joint Managing Director of Bharat Forge Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Amit B Kalyani — Vice-Chairman & Joint Managing Director
Thank you. Yeah, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us for our second-quarter — for our year-end conference call. I have with me our Head of Finance, Kedar, Head of Investor Relations, Raja Gopal and our finance team members. As usual, I will have them give you an introduction and then I will take you through the Q&A. Thank you.
Rajhagopalan S — Vice President, Investor Relations
Good afternoon. I’ll take you to the standalone business highlights for the 4th-quarter and for full-year. We had a stable performance in the quarter with revenues of INR2,163 crores.
Operator
I’m sorry to interrupt, sir. Could you please come a little closer to the microphone? Thank you.
Rajhagopalan S — Vice President, Investor Relations
Yeah, we had a stable performance in the quarter with revenues of INR2,163 crores with a Y-o-Y — with a quarter-over-quarter growth of 3%. Our standalone EBITDA in Q4 grew by 6.7% vis-a-vis Q3 at INR629 crore, translating a margin of 29.1%, which is about 100 basis-points higher than last quarter. Also in this quarter, we had exchange loss of INR12 crore and in last quarter, we had an exchange gain of INR20 crores. So if you adjust that, then you will see a 100% margin improvement. Our PBT before exceptional item was INR494 crores, which was up 4% quarter-over-quarter. On a full-year basis, revenue was at INR8,844 crores and EBITDA was at INR2,524 crores with a margin of 28.5%, again a 100 basis-points expansion in margins vis-a-vis last year. Our balance sheet continues to be robust with surplus funds net of long-term loans are at about 1,336 crores. For FY ’25, ROCE net of cash was 18.1%. At a consolidated level, Q4 revenue was at INR3,853 crores, which was 7.5% lower on a Y-o-Y basis. However, EBITDA moved higher, translating into margin expansion of 170 basis-points. This is largely on account of reducing the losses for our — the overseas operations as well as e-mobility and we continue to do that. In FY ’25, consolidated revenue was 3.6% lower at INR15,123 crores.
Operationally, EBITDA margin improved by 180 basis-points on a Y-o-Y basis to reach 18.2%. And during the year, the company secured new business worth INR6,959 crores across all key businesses. Defense was about INR5,000 crores. Our DSM standalone was normal operation was INR1,685 crores and JSA was INR245 crores. The capex for Indian operations was INR750 crores in FY ’25. We have completed the capex for our overseas greenfield projects in US for aluminum forging and we don’t foresee much of investments in overseas entities for next year.
As far as overseas subsidiaries are concerned, operations in EU aluminum have stabilized. However, given the economic situation in Europe, the utilization was between 60% to 65%. US operations have moved in the black for this quarter, recording a positive EBITDA of INR4 crores. And also with the action we have taken in terms of reduction of debt of our overseas entities, we have started seeing the benefit of reduction of interest cost for both European as well as US operations. For — in FY ’25, European operations recorded EBITDA of INR96 crore while US operations narrowed their EBITDA loss to INR47.
But on a quarterly basis, we have — as I mentioned earlier, we are in positive. Our current utilization of aluminum business is about 70% for US. We continue to work on our restructuring of options for European steel operations and we will update on the progress with due course. Now I’ll hand over to.
Amit B Kalyani — Vice-Chairman & Joint Managing Director
Yeah, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On the standalone basis, I think we’ve had reasonable performance in ’25 with 100 basis-points margin improvement and a strong robust balance sheet. Few things will stand-out are the fact that the business is becoming more diversified and resilient. Over the 2019 to 2025 timeframe, industrial exports have been flat at around INR1,600 crores despite oil and gas declining from around INR1,100 crore crores to about INR400 crores. This drop has been compensated by other areas such as high-horsepower and aerospace.
Aerospace is now 15% of industrial exports. It has grown 4 times in the past five years and we expect this to continue growing at a high pace going-forward. We are now setting up a new dedicated forging and machining facility for aerospace backed by both business wins and customer commitments including financial commitments. You will witness one new business adding to the growth of industrial exports in the next three to four years. Overseas, as I mentioned, we continue to evaluate all our options for the European businesses. But our aluminum business in Europe and North-America is now falling in-place.
Already in North-America, we are seeing substantial improvement. And as we see capacity utilization go up in Europe that will also impact positively the European aluminum forging business. In the casting space, I’m very happy to report that our teams at JSA have performed exceedingly well and delivered on the promise that we felt they had during the acquisition. We have now a 15% plus percent EBITDA margin with doubling of profits in ’25. We have added a lot of new customers and we are on a solid growth trajectory to a four-digit number shortly.
In defense, we expect to see a 15% to 20% growth in FY ’26. We have a strong order book. There are lots of opportunities both in India and outside. And as I mentioned, our order book is almost INR9,500 crores. We have many new programs that we are working on, which will convert into orders in the coming years. And a lot of new geographies that we will open up this year. In terms of e-mobility, we are now very hopeful that our products are at maturity and we should start seeing a revenue progression going-forward this year, including moving towards black numbers towards the end of second-half of the year.
In terms of M&A with — we have now received the CCI approval for our American Axles India Assets transaction, we expect to conclude this transaction by the end of June. I think this is going to be another good opportunity for us to grow our market penetration and our presence and content per vehicle going-forward. And you know, the one thing that I want to mention is, due to the US tariff situation, there is a lot of uncertainty. Nobody has an answer right now. I think we all have to wait-and-watch. What I’m convinced of is that as a manufacturer, we have the right products, the right technology, a very good cost structure and extremely strong customer relationships and that we will tide over the situation both as a company and as a country, I think India will be in a, let’s say, neutral position to advantageous position vis-a-vis many other places. And I think this should give a significant opportunity to Indian companies to both manufacture in India and to partner with global companies for mutual, beneficial opportunities. Thank you.
Operator
Okay.
Amit B Kalyani — Vice-Chairman & Joint Managing Director
I think we can now do Q&A.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin with the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press time to. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. We will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles hi. The first question comes from the line of Gunjan from Bank of America. Please go-ahead.
Gunjan Prithyani
Yeah, hi, team. Thanks for taking my questions. My first question is just trying to understand that now you — of course, we don’t know-how the traffic tariff situation sort of eases, but at the moment, what is the sort of conversations that you’re having with the customers? And just also want to be clear, is the tariff already under implementation as far as your exports to US go.
Amit B Kalyani
So currently, as you know, the applies to shipments that have left India after 5th of April. So we have time until the third week of May, number-one. Number two is at this point, there is clarity that the tariffs will be applicable only for the passenger part segment while the automotive tariffs that they are talking about will be applicable for the passenger Car segment or life products. And the third-part of it is that we are engaged with all our customers and all our customers are talking positively in terms of, you know, taking over the tariffs from our side. I mean, we won’t be exposed to tariffs is what we think, but that’s active discussions ongoing with all the customers and considering the situation in the US.
Gunjan Prithyani
Okay. And just going back to the point you mentioned only to the PASCAR segment. On the truck — on the CV segment, is it — is that the implicit message that it’s not applicable to trucks? Or there was also a school of thought that forging comes under steel and aluminum derivatives. So if you can sort of just clarify on that as well, whether it’s applicable on trucks or not?
Amit B Kalyani
So that we know what we know so-far is that it’s applicable for passenger cars. We don’t know anything more than that because no details have come out. So I think we should wait-and-watch. And besides that, please remember that our exports are across many sectors, many geographies and many products. So we just have to wait-and-watch. We don’t have any clarity on this yet.
Gunjan Prithyani
Okay, got it. And beyond the tariffs, I think generally the sense on the Class-8 cycle, I mean, of course, there is a bit of pessimism in the recent truck orders that we’ve seen, but it’s also a function of where the tariff uncertainty is. But if you were to sort of give us a sense on how should we think about the Class-8 cycle, factoring that the EP emissions are also in a little bit of limbo at the moment. So this year, Adeep and next year comes back, how do we think about that?
Amit B Kalyani
Yeah. Again, Gunjan, you know, it’s very difficult to answer this question in the — with the frame of the tariffs uncertainty in-place. You know, know, typically, if you had a euro norm changing or emission norm changing, you have a pre-buy because there is a cost increase. Now if there is no-cost increase coming, you should have two normal years rather than one pre-buy and one low year. So we don’t know. Typically, that’s what you should expect. It’s two normal years,, am I right? Yes. But I think that everybody is right now waiting on the sidelines with the whole tariff issue being such a question mark.So I think that’s where we stand.
Gunjan Prithyani
Okay. And last question, a little bit of your thoughts on this the electronics and servers that we are doing, there were two sort of announcements you had made that we’ll be manufacturing servers. Can you talk a little bit about this? What’s the thought process? Is this a new revenue line-item that we should be thinking for future?
Amit B Kalyani
I think that electronics are going to be a very large part of the overall industrial landscape. If you look at automotives also, you know, the share of electronics in the automobile as a percentage of total vehicle value is dramatically increasing. So if we want to be in electronics, you can’t only be in one or two areas. You need to build scale, you need to build supply-chain capability, you need to build. And I think we’re going to do that in multiple areas. And the Indian government wants to create Indian electronics players in niche areas where imports are not wanted to be used. So I think there is an opportunity and that’s what we are pursuing.
Gunjan Prithyani
Okay, got it. I’ll join back the queue. Thank you.
Amit B Kalyani
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Participants, please restrict yourselves to two questions. If you have any more questions, kindly rejoin the queue. The next question comes from the line of Kapil Singh from Nomura. Please go-ahead.
Kapil Singh
Yeah, good afternoon, sir. Sir, just one clarification on the tariffs. The non-passenger car revenues will — will there be a reciprocal tariffs that will be there on those? And how are the customers reacting to this? Are they going slow and waiting for the tariff situation to settle? Are you seeing some rundown schedules because of that.
Amit B Kalyani
You know, I would say that we’re in a holding pattern, nobody knows anything that is going on right now, okay. We are all waiting for some amount of clarity till the smoke settles. So I don’t think anybody can answer these questions today. I think we just have to wait-and-watch.
Kapil Singh
Sir, for your US operations, you know, there was a tariff on steel and aluminum also that has come in US. So could you just help us understand what is the impact there? Because we see that actually that operation has turned profitable this quarter?
Amit B Kalyani
Yeah. We are producing steel and aluminum components in the US. We buy our steel locally and we also produce our I mean we produce our alloyed aluminum in-house by buying aluminum ingots so I think that in general we don’t have an impact and whatever impact we have will be passed on.
Kapil Singh
Okay. So steel and aluminum prices because
Amit B Kalyani
That is for raw materials, it is on raw materials. Able to all it.
Kapil Singh
So has the cost gone up there and have you been able to pass it on?
Amit B Kalyani
Yes. Yes. Cost has not gone up yet. Raw-material pass-through for us the way our agreement is automatically pass-through.
Kapil Singh
Understood. And sir, just lastly on the defense side, we have — what was the revenue for the full-year on defense? And when we talk of 15% to 20% growth, if you could give some color like what will be driving that and when will the revenue start reflecting
Amit B Kalyani
Okay. INR1,500 crores. Yeah. So the defense sales was about INR1,500 crores, a little about INR1,500 crores on a consolidated basis, 1550 crores
Rajhagopalan S
Does that answer your question, Kapil?
Kapil Singh
No, actually, yeah, partly I had also asked what will drive the 15% to 20% growth this year, which segment?
Amit B Kalyani
We won a lot of new orders, including the order. So that should also start delivering by the end of this year towards the later part of this year. Plus we have many new programs and orders that we have in the fire and we should fructify by that.
Kapil Singh
Thank you, sir. And wishing you all the best.
Amit B Kalyani
Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Sameen Irani from JPMorgan Chase. Please go-ahead.
Sameen Irani
Yes. Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Just on tariffs, if you allow one more question. Last week or I think 10 days back, there was some offset which was allowed to some of the US OEMs who are importing components. So in your opinion, does that offset, you know, reduce the impact of tariffs at least for auto components also in the near-term or that is not something that you think is substantial?
Amit B Kalyani
Yeah, the offset is basically they have given us — they have given a two-year plan that for the OEMs, they have 25% tariff, right? And in the first year, they can get a refund of 15% from the government. The second year they will get a refund of 10% and in the third year, it will be reviewed depending on what happens, but that’s what’s announced as option.
Sameen Irani
Okay. Okay. Okay. And secondly on this server and electronics thing. So this will be utilizing your KTPL investment that you’ve done in the capacity.
Amit B Kalyani
Yes, we’ve set-up electronics SMT lines and electronics manufacturing, which will be used.
Sameen Irani
And any broad timeline by when we could start seeing this
Amit B Kalyani
Second-half
Sameen Irani
Like second-half of this financial?
Amit B Kalyani
Yeah.
Sameen Irani
Okay. Okay. Thank you. I’ll come back-in queue. Thanks.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Arujun Kanna from Kotak Mutual Funds. Please go-ahead.
Arjun Khanna
Sir, thank you for taking my question. Sir, the first question is on US manufacturing operations. Now that the tariffs are in-place, et-cetera, how do you see the further scale-up of this business? You’ve already seen good growth on a Y-on-Y quarter-on-quarter level for US manufacturing operations. What is our outlook for FY ’26
Amit B Kalyani
So one comment is we have been growing in the US from a order book position and spread irrespective of all these tariff. And whatever happens right now, it will only help us in accelerating it. So currently, I mean we can’t give you numbers in that regard, obviously, but we see a very strong order book and we have — we are also ramping-up our existing
Rajhagopalan S
Capacities, both for steel and aluminum. So the outlook is good. So now the focus is for us to make it happen. And obviously, we continue to look for more opportunities.
Arjun Khanna
So if you look at the turnover of roughly 30 to 100 what we did for this quarter, what would be the utilization rates?
Amit B Kalyani
In the US, our utilization rate would be about 60% to 65%
Arjun Khanna
And peak would be around 80%, sir.
Amit B Kalyani
No. So this is of Phase-1 of aluminum plus the steel. Phase-2 is zero right now. Phase-2 is just completing that getting completed. So Phase-2 will allow us to double the output.
Arjun Khanna
Okay. Sure. Sure. Very helpful, sir. And in terms of margins, we had indicated
Operator
— I’m sorry to interrupt. Those were two questions. Could you please?
Arjun Khanna
It was just — this is just one question. Can I go to the second one?
Amit B Kalyani
Okay, go-ahead.
Arjun Khanna
Sure. Sir, just on the aerospace bit, we have mentioned in our press release also in terms of CY27 where our new facilities come in. And this quarter also we did see good growth when compared to on an annualized basis. So if you could just talk about which are these components is — are they impacted by tariffs going into the US or where are we selling this?
Amit B Kalyani
Current aerospace market is largely Europe, okay. And non — non-USA. Okay. But obviously, the US is a big market and eventually the US would also have to be a big market for us. But currently, our growth is coming from Europe and non-US markets.
Sameen Irani
And this quarter growth which we have seen is it sustainable or is there?
Amit B Kalyani
We will continue growing our — our annual numbers will continue growing. Every year, you will see growth. Don’t look at it on a quarter-to-quarter basis.
Arjun Khanna
Okay, sure. Thank you and wishing you all the best.
Amit B Kalyani
Yeah.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Arvind Sharma from Citibank. Please go-ahead.
Arvind Sharma
Yeah, hi. Good afternoon, sir. Thank you for taking my question. This order, the INR3417 crore order, this is the Indian order, I believe. So is that — so okay. So is it the whole order sir or could we see further increase in this number?
Amit B Kalyani
Only a Phase-1 order, which is 307 guns, of which we are 60%. Overall, India needs more than 1,500 — close to 2,000 artillery guns.
Arvind Sharma
Okay. So 307 guns are the INR3,417 crores and there could be further increase there.
Amit B Kalyani
Yes. So when you put different kinds of guns and lots of them.
Arvind Sharma
Okay. And sir, when should we see the revenue for this order in our — in the numbers for the company?
Amit B Kalyani
I would say Q4 onwards.
Arvind Sharma
Q4 this fiscal.
Amit B Kalyani
Yeah.
Arvind Sharma
All right. And if we spread over how many years or quarters, if you could share that?
Amit B Kalyani
Four years. For this order, two years,
Arvind Sharma
Two years beginning 4Q FY ’26. All right, sir. Thank you so much for this. That’s all from my side.
Amit B Kalyani
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Ruchita Gagre from iWealth Management. Please go-ahead.
Rucheeta Kadge
Hello, sir. A very good afternoon. Sir, sir, my question was on the Kalyani Strategic Systems Limited. So in that how much was the domestic revenue and how much came from exports?
Rajhagopalan S
So in Strategy Systems, most of the revenue was exports. And one clarification — one clarification, the INR15 crores INR67 crores numbers what we have mentioned for defense that is only for strategy System. On a consolidated basis, it’s about INR1,700 crores.
Amit B Kalyani
We supply components and other things to other players as well industry, which go from?
Rucheeta Kadge
Understood. And sir, this Kalyani strategic number that we have said and most of this came from exports. So last year, how was this ratio like domestic to export?
Amit B Kalyani
So last year also because exports and this year also it was exports because the domestic orders are yet to supply. Domestic big orders have yet to start.
Rucheeta Kadge
Okay, okay. And in the JS auto, sir, during the quarter, what was the revenue, if you could just tell
Amit B Kalyani
— INR200 crores for the
Rucheeta Kadge
200 crores and margins
Amit B Kalyani
About 15% to 16%.
Rucheeta Kadge
Understood. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Amit B Kalyani
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Lakshmi Narayn from Tunga Investments. Please go-ahead.
Lakshminarayanan K.G
Thank you. Just want to understand what has been the tonnage growth in India, the commercial vehicle and the passenger car because the revenue growth
Amit B Kalyani
Been looking at target now because we’re not only a company. I think you have to look beyond that and look at revenue and we are not breaking it up that way anymore.
Lakshminarayanan K.G
Sorry. And you had mentioned that you have got some new products, you open certain new products or also clients or applications. Can you just talk a bit about that in terms of commercial vehicles and industrial and this for domestic? What — some color on that, that will be helpful there.
Amit B Kalyani
Can’t understand, I’m sorry, you’re very unclear
Lakshminarayanan K.G
So you just mentioned you have actually won certain new orders or you have actually gone deepen some relationships in the domestic market. I just want to understand a bit more about it, if you can share some details.
Amit B Kalyani
No, you know, I don’t know what order — what you want to know more, we have received multi-year orders from several customers, which are coming to roughly about INR6 — almost INR7,000 crores, of which INR5,000 crores are for defense and INR2,000 crores of all are component businesses.
Rajhagopalan S
And then we get a lot of — they have spread over all the sectors in India and we don’t disclose the specifics out of that for confidentiality agreements with customers. And your outlook for India domestic business overall growth because we are expanding in all segments.
Lakshminarayanan K.G
Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir.
Amit B Kalyani
Thank you
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Kapil Singh from Nomura. Please go-ahead.
Kapil Singh
Sir, just one question. On the capex, if you could give an indication for next year for standalone and consol, what kind of numbers to expect?
Amit B Kalyani
I think roughly both put together would be in the region of INR500 crores next year.
Kapil Singh
Okay. All right. Yeah, that’s it from my side.
Amit B Kalyani
Thanks. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr Amit Kalyani to give us his closing remarks.
Amit B Kalyani
So ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time, interest and questions. I’m sorry, we don’t have any more answers than we could answer today because things are in a flux and I think Indian government and Indian manufacturing are cooperating to make sure that we take advantage and are in a good situation even with the United States tariff situation. India is a strong country with very good manufacturing capability and we think that we will you know, see a light at the end of this tunnel thanks to the leadership and you know, let’s say the way the Indian government is handling the situation on tariffs I think there should be a good solution in-place for us sooner than later and we’ll provide clarity on this and allow us to all manage to grow our businesses going-forward. So thank you very much and I wish you all a healthy and a safe end-of-the week and a weekend in these rather difficult times. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Bharat Forge, that concludes this conference. You may now disconnect your lines