Birla Corporation Ltd (NSE: BIRLACORPN) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated May. 12, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
Rajesh Kumar Ravi — Senior Vice President
Sandip Ghose — Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
Aditya Saraogi — Group Chief Financial Officer
Kalidas Pramanik — Chief Marketing Officer
Rajat Kumar Prusty — Chief of Manufacturing and Projects
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Shravan Shah — Analyst
Siddhant Hiren Dand — Analyst
Jyoti Gupta — Analyst
Saket Kapoor — Analyst
Siddharth Gupta — Analyst
Vipul Kumar Anupchand Shah — Analyst
Amit Agicha — Analyst
Girija Shankar Ray — Analyst
Moksh Ranka — Analyst
Uttam Kumar Srimal — Analyst
Patanjali Srinivasan — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
SA. Sat. Sat. SA Sat. Foreign. Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to The Birla Corp. Q4FY25 earnings conference call hosted by HDFC Securities. As a reminder, all participant lines will remain 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 the operator by pressing Star then zero on your touch tone telephone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Rajesh Kumar Ravi from HDSE securities. Thank you. And over to you.
Rajesh Kumar Ravi — Senior Vice President
Yeah, thanks Ryan. Good afternoon everyone. On behalf of HDFC Securities, I welcome you all to the earnings call of Birla Corporation limited to discuss the financial results for the quarter and full year ended March 2025. From the management side we have Mr. Sandeep Ghosh, MD, CEO and Mr. Aditya Sarogi Group CFO and other senior senior members of the team. I now hand over the call to the management for their opening remarks which will be followed by the Q and A. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Sandip Ghose — Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
Very good afternoon to all of you. And on this happy occasion of Buddhapur Nima, I welcome all of you to this call. There is a very large, I find participation that’s always encouraging. This morning’s trading in this market has also been cause of, I think, encouragement for us. Thank all of you for your positive response. I think when the numbers do their own talking, there is very little commentary to be added. So on this occasion, unlike in previous times, I will let the you know, leave the floor to our Group CFO, Mr. Adit Sarogi. And along with him we have got our operating team, Mr.
Rajat Prushti, our chief of manufacturing and projects. We have Mr. Kalida Astramanik, our Chief Marketing Officer and some of our other colleagues. They will chip in and I will come back to answer any specific overall queries you may have on the business or the outlook or the plans of the group. So with that I hand it over to Mr. Adit Sarogi and after he finishes then probably we will open up for questioning.
Aditya Saraogi — Group Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, sir. Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. While we have shared most of the financial information in our press release, there are few numbers which I would like to share with you which are not appearing there, which I’m sure you might be interested in. For example, the total incentive that we have accrued in this year is 103 crores of which in this current quarter Q4 we have accrued 41 crores of real questions in this quarter was 1.39 per million calories. And our total capex for the year was 437 crores. So these are some of the key numbers which are not obtained in the press release. And I now open the floor for questions.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin 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 star and two participants are requested to use their handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Shravan Shah from Dalit Capital. Please go ahead.
Shravan Shah
Yeah, thank you and congratulations on very good set of numbers. Sir, my first question is you have as mentioned, the incentive for this quarter was just 41 odd crore. Despite that we have seen a more than 7% kind of a QQ you improvement in realization. So just wanted to understand what led this staff of move in the realization.
Kalidas Pramanik
So this is Kalidas Pranik. I’m talking about that relation improvement how it has happened. If you look at in the quarter four across the country mostly the price in the north region up the east along so Ghana. So our volume also if you look at the region has gone up. So that has resulted in to increase our realization up almost 7% in the quarter four. And also if you look at in the central region, central region more or less remain flat here and there little increase was there. But mostly the realization has come from the north as well as the eastern.
Shravan Shah
Okay, okay, got it. So it means this is a structural realization that the company has achieved. And if you can also help us in terms of currently how are the prices. And this kind of a realization is sustainable. So net net. The important point is that the the profitability that we achieve more than thousand rupees ebitda per ton. If that’s the case then should be a kind of a sustainable number. That’s the only thing wanted to understand.
Kalidas Pramanik
So if you look at the exit
Sandip Ghose
first of all you know on the realization. This is Sandeep Ghosh again one point which we keep saying is the way we are distributed. Our realization is usually a weighted average of our. You know more than others and how the regional prices play out. So when we have to. When we talk about if you were to look at last quarter to this quarter it is not always a like to like thing. Because how the prices move in the different geographies between last quarter and this quarter could be very different. So it is not a very linear. lines. There is a lot of background noise. Please, if they could switch off because there is a lot of disturbance coming from someone’s line. So therefore that is one factor. And secondly, therefore as an extension of that we are not going to hazard any guess in terms of our EBITDA how it is going to happen. Move forward and it will be I think misleading or it could be erroneous to extrapolate the EBITDA in the subsequent quarter basis. What has happened in Q4.
Aditya Saraogi
To answer your question, there are no one off. There are no one off incentive for any other one off. So it’s purely, it is purely operational number that has been reported.
Shravan Shah
That’s great. Yeah. Just a two, three data points. If you can share Mukundan volume, lead distance and and also if you can help us the cash flow there was a 346 crore working capital inflow which is from the other financial asset. If you can help us what was that.
Aditya Saraogi
Volume was for this quarter was 7 lakh 50 thousand 7 tons. Agreed distance was around 450 km. And what is the third one? These are some incentive views. So that probably would answer your questions about the change in current assets.
Shravan Shah
Sir, you said lead distance was 350 or a 450?
Aditya Saraogi
450 overall. 350.
Shravan Shah
Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it sir. Thank you. And all the best, sir.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Siddhant Dunn from Goodwill Warehousing Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Siddhant Hiren Dand
Yeah, hi. I wanted to know our long term strategy for our jute business because for if you go in the last 10 years there’s been very little profitability and it continues to be a drag on our rotation. And would we take any impairment because it takes a very large part of our block?
Sandip Ghose
I wouldn’t say so. In fact I would in a larger context of the entire group we are sitting here. Jute business. I consider to be for Birla Corporation a certain advantage. It gives us a very distinct and unique advantage. When you find a lot of our peer group companies are trying to make forays into adjacencies and new businesses. We have already got with us existing asset competencies of a business which has eminent possibilities of scaling up and increasing profitability. Especially in the current context when geotextiles and eco friendly fabrics are becoming more in vogue. The point I’m trying to say is that let’s say if somebody, if we were to today try and foray into another adjacency new businesses in the allied sectors like some of our peer group people have done.
The amount of time it will take us to scale up to a turnover like what we have in jute as on date. And what is the potential of increasing jute from its current level to a higher level is far higher than what somebody else entering a totally new field would take to generate that kind of a top line as well as an equivalent bottom line. I don’t want to specify numbers. So if there is an X amount of top line people are generating, let’s say in the course of three or four, five years and also a bottom line of why the amount of time they will take, efforts, investment, management, intensity and the rest of it.
We have got a ready made opportunity in our jute business and because particularly jute is now poised for growth is what we believe here. We are the only jute company, if you were to look at it, we are a hundred plus year old jute mill company, one of the original jute companies. Rest of the people who are there, most of them have either come into the business much later taking it over from the foreign jute companies which have moved out and taken them on. And their whole mindset about the business has been very different. And there are only therefore a very few players today who are taking a much more futuristic and enlightened view of the jute business to move up the value chain with value added products, with new R and D and tapping the export opportunities, export market as well as in the domestic markets moving away from the traditional dependence only on government orders which are subsidy led etc. Etc.
So we believe jute has a future and we are therefore, and we have commented on that in our press release, that we are now putting in a different management focus into the jute business. It’s early days for us to speak about it. We have had a revamp in the management and structure of the jute business. We are approaching it in a much more integrated manner, not treating it as an at an arm’s length, as a different business, you know, which is handled differently. We have now integrated it, increasingly integrating it into our main operations so that it gets that kind of management focus from the our E team and the central management.
We are looking aggressively at what are the scope of increasing not only efficiencies in the existing business but how as I mentioned earlier, to move up the value chain. This company, some of you would not know, had in fact pioneered years ago on many jute value added products which we had done but probably we were then ahead of the curve, ahead of times and it did not commercially, it did not succeed. But we are very encouraged to see some of those products like using of jute, say in automobile upholstery or other kind of jute product mixed with other laminates, etc.
Or all of those things are making a huge comeback and internationally there are even more possibilities. So we are looking at jute in a very, very new way and we don’t see that as a drag at all in our business and being part of the Birla corporation structure, we believe we should be able to nurture and grow it further. And because of both our emotional connect which we have, if you really speak Birla cooperation, that is the mother business and not just the Birla cooperation of the entire, you know, larger Birla fraternity, that is where it’s all started.
And we therefore have a very strong both sentimental as well emotional connect. And we know that business and therefore there is for us there is that will we have not just come in subsequently, you know, taking over business from some other company which is leaving the field for other thing and then treat it as a short term opportunity or a trading opportunity. We have long term stakes and we have been around for 100 years and hopefully we would like to be in this business for another 100 years.
Siddhant Hiren Dand
That’s wonderful to hear. But is there some kind of say five, seven years once the business is nurtured the kind of margin expectations that you have and when can we expect double digit rot in the company?
Sandip Ghose
We will mention, as we said it’s early. We have made some indications, we would not like to. If you read this Times press release there itself, we have minted a few things but it’s very early days yet. We are, I repeat myself, we have put a new management team, we are taking a very new a different look at this business. And I’m personally confident that like you have seen a lot of turnaround in the company’s main cement business over the last 10 years. You will see a transformation in the jute business also in the times to come.
Siddhant Hiren Dand
Okay, one last question before I join the queue. We also have a lot of lot of equity investments outside the MP Birla group including the largest cement fleet. So considering the valuation difference in both theirs and ours, would you consider selling those equity investments to do further cement capex?
Aditya Saraogi
See those are non strategic investments for us but currently we don’t have any clients. We feel that we have got enough internal accruals to to cater to our CAPEX requirements. So as of now we don’t have any immediate plans to sell those investments.
Sandip Ghose
Those only financing decisions that are right at a particular point in time. As Adit mentions, it’s a non strategic investment so it is not going to be part of our growth strategy. We’ll take it, take a call on it when we have to as a part of our financing decision and at the right moment we have to see when we’re getting the right value out of it or not. We are under no distress or pressure to sell that to fund our growth.
Siddhant Hiren Dand
Okay, that’s great. Thank you so much.
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time and fairness to others, we request you to restrict to two questions per participant and rejoin the question queue. The next question comes from the line of Jyoti from Nirmal Bang. Please go ahead.
Jyoti Gupta
Greetings sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Great set of questions, great set of numbers. Can you hear me?
Sandip Ghose
Yeah, yeah we can of course hear you. Welcome. The first time I think you’re speaking in any of our con calls. So.
Jyoti Gupta
I mean the entire industry has done very well. We have done almost like if the numbers are correct we should be doing y o y 10 growth. So which means we are in line with industry. Better button also almost everybody would be doing some 250 plus now in FY quarter one also we expect similar numbers. Will this sustain in second, third, second quarter, third quarter and fourth quarter when we’re going to have such massive capacity coming in? So do we expect similar consistency of numbers going ahead? I mean considering I don’t see any major disruptions happening in the economy so far, whatever it was, how do you see things going forward for the industry on the home and on the consolidation part? Do you think going forward prices are going to stabilize because of consolidation?
Sandip Ghose
Jyoti, as you have seen us over the last two, three years, we try to do what we think is right for our business. We are not that large to influence industry trends or basically make those predictions. We have a clear strategy and we try to stay to that and stay close to our promises to our stakeholders as well as our investors without getting carried away by what’s happening around us. Because those are things, you know, for other. There are other larger players who got different sets of priorities for them to look at it. Our job is to manage our existing businesses not only profitably but in the most value adding way.
Create value for our all stakeholders, not just investors and shareholders, for everybody. We have a commitment there because we are here for a long term. And secondly now that we are undertaking. We have committed ourselves for expansion and a new phase of growth. We would like to deliver that in the. In the best possible way. So we do not like to get deflected on day to day basis. Whatever will have to happen in the larger context it will happen and there are bigger people to take care of that. We would like to you know keep our head on our shoulders and try and deliver a reasonable performance quarter on quarter.
Jyoti Gupta
Thank you so much sir and all the best. I wish you only progress and do well going forward.
Sandip Ghose
Thank you very much. We appreciate your wishes.
Jyoti Gupta
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor and company. Please go ahead.
Saket Kapoor
Yeah. Namaskar sir. And congratulations to the entire team for very very very good set of operational and financial set of numbers. Firstly Sandeep sir a question for you. Sir, we are targeting a capacity of 27.6 million ton. So if you could just articulate to us on a three year basis what what would be the likely capacity addition. And also capex is with Varshma.
Sandip Ghose
So Pele, since you got my name wrong Saket, despite living some 3km from where I am sitting I will pass on my question to Sarogi ji whom you got it right.
Aditya Saraogi
On the capacity part.
Rajat Kumar Prusty
Yeah. Good afternoon to all. As you rightly mentioned our capacity will go to 27.6 million ton but by FY29. But if you see in maybe by 12-27-Q3 FY28 we should be reached with Maya line 2 and 2 grinding setups Praj and Gaya phase 1 which will add on our capacity to roughly 25 million ton.
Saket Kapoor
For the coming first final man for the year 2627. What kind of then additional volumes we will be going through. I just missed your Last point
Rajat Kumar Prusty
this. 26:27 you can say that our capacity will remain only addition of 1.4 million ton which is going on presently on time line three that will be commissioned and that will continue to ramp up that volume to 21.4 million. Tonight.
Saket Kapoor
Sir I’ll give you the CAPEX number for the current financial year. And also sir in the cash flow as well as in the non current assets we see we. We have given 100 crore rupees inter corporate loan. Can you please explain to whom and the rationale for the sales.
Aditya Saraogi
So in terms of capex for this year we expect that total capex be around 1100 crore including the project capex. So that is a number. And 100 crore is a inter corporate deposit. We have given to another company at arms.
Saket Kapoor
Another company sir, didn’t get the name. Sorry sir, I. I did not understood sir.
Sandip Ghose
We have given it to another company on an arm’s length basis. It’s an intercorporate loan. We do not want any names etc here.
Saket Kapoor
Okay. Answer for the coal mining part. Sir, if you could just give color in the present in the press release we are also not mentioning about optic from our coal mines. And the target which we have said in terms of the self sufficiency which we will be achieving about the Vikram coal and the other coal mining activities that we have initiated.
Aditya Saraogi
In terms of coal mines. Vikram Coal mine we are expecting to start maybe Q3 of. By Q3 of this year. We are expecting to start that coal mine. But meaningful production will start start from next financial year only. And as the other coal mine which is multi worker that we expect to start only in FY28.
Saket Kapoor
Okay.
Sandip Ghose
You see there is. There is no salvation in just saying what is the self sufficiency coal mine captive versus purchase will all depend always on the cost benefit. You know cost equations. Sometimes you may actually decide to mine less if your cost of mining is more than you know your purchase of coal. So there is no. You know as I said there is no absolute virtue in only mining your own coal. So that is a call we take. Our job is to keep the fuel mix in the most efficient and most economic manner. So to that extent there is no colored add to polema’s pole is always black. It will remain black and white.
Saket Kapoor
Yes, I’ll join the queue for two more follow ups. And sorry for the name Sandeep sir, I’m extremely sorry.
Sandip Ghose
No problem.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Pushkar Jain from Millie Capital. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Congratulations on good set of numbers. I just wanted to know the trend in power cost. We have seen a significant decline in power.
operator
I’m sorry to interrupt you Pushkar. If you could please use your handset and ask your question once again. Thank you.
Unidentified Participant
Hi sir. Congratulations on good set of numbers. My question was regarding power costs. As we have seen a meaningful decline in power costs. I just wanted to know the trend. We see it going forward.
Sandip Ghose
So power and fuel cost combined together you can see the trend already it is in a going trend downward strength of thousand rupees ton. And of course that depends on the coal prices. As rightly said by Aditya sir in the beginning of the conference that our fuel cost is 1.39. And we are working on a different models. That is continuously see that what best fuel mix we can do so that we can optimize our cost and parallel for green power also of course now it is around 25% and it continuously we are working on certain projects both in solar, hybrid and renewal power of like WHRF also.
So we have planned many improvement projects including additional capacity. So going forward you can see that our green power is going to increase in next two years time to around 36 37%. So power obviously it will remain on the if we see only electric power then it will remain almost similar and better than the today’s number.
Aditya Saraogi
You should see a gradual declining trend in terms of power.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Siddharth Gupta, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Siddharth Gupta
Yes, so I wanted to ask about the Chittorgur mining case. There was recently a news article stating that the state government is considering ban on mining within 10 kilometer radius to Chitturgarh port. So I wanted to understand what is the update regarding this?
Sandip Ghose
We have no such information on this. That statement was made but we have not found any veracity and we’d be surprised if such a position is taken because this is contrary to anything which has been stated in the past and the case has been progressing in a particular manner. There has been certain studies which were prescribed by the Supreme Court. The studies have been progress completed and the reports are at the disposal of the court to consider. So we shall wait. We don’t see any material change from whatever the position was earlier.
Siddharth Gupta
Does the company have any alternatives if you know such a situation would arise?
Sandip Ghose
That’s a very hypothetical question. We are not even considering that as a situation just now because there is no reason to think anything like this case as you know has been there for a very long time. All aspects of it has been gone into. So there is really nothing to comment at the moment on that and there is therefore nothing to talk of an alternative. Just now
Siddharth Gupta
and just one last question. So I wanted to know what is the current realization compared to Q4 average? If you can share that
Sandip Ghose
this quarter. You’Re talking the current quarter,
Siddharth Gupta
ongoing quarter. And I’m talking about Q1 FY26 almost.
Kalidas Pramanik
In ongoing almost remains same. There is no much variation.
Siddharth Gupta
Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Vipul Kumar Anupchand Shah from Sumangal Investment. Please go ahead.
Vipul Kumar Anupchand Shah
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations for very good set of numbers. Mr. Soroki, would you repeat the Mukatban volume for quarter and Year. Please, I could not listen it properly.
Aditya Saraogi
7 lakh 50 thousand tons.
Vipul Kumar Anupchand Shah
Sorry.
Sandip Ghose
7 lakh 50 thousand tons for the quarter.
Vipul Kumar Anupchand Shah
And what was the yearly volume? Sir?
Unidentified Speaker
24.5.
Sandip Ghose
24.5.
Aditya Saraogi
22 and a half million approximately.
Vipul Kumar Anupchand Shah
And sir, we have taken another expansion. So what will be the debt trajectory over next two, three years? Our debt at started coming down meaningfully. And again now we are taking a debt funded expansion route. So can you comment on the debt trajectory for for next two, three years?
Aditya Saraogi
Definitely there’ll be some increase in the debt. But as we have always maintained you should look at our debt in terms of debt to Ebitda matrix. And while we have always maintained that as a policy we would always like to remain below three for the current financial year. The debt to EBITDA ratio we are expecting to be well below two.
Vipul Kumar Anupchand Shah
Okay. No, I am talking about next two years.
Aditya Saraogi
I don’t see my debt to EBITDA exceeding much beyond two.
Vipul Kumar Anupchand Shah
Okay sir. Thank you. And all the best.
Sandip Ghose
Thank you.
Aditya Saraogi
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of amit Agija from 8G Hawaiian Company. Please go ahead.
Amit Agicha
Good afternoon sir. Am I audible?
Sandip Ghose
Yes, please.
Amit Agicha
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity sir. And congratulations for the good set of results. So my most of the questions have been answered. Just a request. The investor presentation has not yet been updated on the stock exchange.
Aditya Saraogi
We don’t come out with investor presentation. We always come up with a press release which has been approved.
Amit Agicha
Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Girija Shankar from yes, securities. Please go ahead.
Girija Shankar Ray
Hello sir. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Congratulations for a good set of number. So I have a small bookkeeping questions. Just wanted to understand the total capacity expansion. What we are going to do for Pragrajs, Gaia, Aligarh and Kundangans. So Kundangans is 1.4 and Gaia is 2 million ton. Prayagras and Aligarh number I want.
Sandip Ghose
No. Gaia is 2.8 million ton in two phases and Aligarh is million ton. Prior is 1.4 million ton. 2 million ton.
Girija Shankar Ray
So I’ll just repeat it is Kundangan 1.4. Aligarh 2 million ton. Gaia 2.8 and Pragras is
Sandip Ghose
1.4.
Girija Shankar Ray
Okay. 1.4. So including the. Okay. This is 7.6. So for this 7.6 and including here Clinker the total capex we are estimating 4,003. 4,385 crore. Right?
Sandip Ghose
No, no. 6.2 million ton. Because Kundananganj line 3 already the job is going on. So we are in the process.
Aditya Saraogi
4759 is a number including Kundanjan line fee.
Girija Shankar Ray
Yeah. Okay. And is there any clinker sale we did for this quarter?
Girija Shankar Ray
Very marginal. Something would have been there 2030 000. It’s hardly marginal.
Girija Shankar Ray
And there is no enough in our top line growth. Right?
Sandip Ghose
Oh no.
Aditya Saraogi
No, no, no.
Girija Shankar Ray
Okay. And this prior. These are the three grinding unit which expected to come by third quarter of FY28 and
Aditya Saraogi
third quarter third by FI. Third quarter F. I mean by calendar year 2027 we are expecting Maya 9 to phase one of Gayaj. And of course K N 93 is expected in the second quarter itself.
Girija Shankar Ray
Okay. And Kundan Gans is first quarter of.
Aditya Saraogi
Second quarter of this financial year.
Girija Shankar Ray
Okay. Okay. Thank you sir. Thank you very much.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Moksh Ranka from Aurum Capital. Please go ahead.
Moksh Ranka
Hello. I wanted to know your total clinker capacity and your total limestone reserve in metric.
Sandip Ghose
So total clinker capacity is around 13 million ton as of today. And plan for another 3.7 million ton. That is the Maya Line 2.
Aditya Saraogi
We have a sufficient limestone. We can’t give a specific number.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Uttam Kumar Srimal from Access securities limited. Please go ahead.
Uttam Kumar Srimal
Yes sir. Good afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations on. The good set of. Sir, in your press conference you have. Mentioned about RNC business. So just wanted to know how many RNC plant we are going to set up this year. What kind of capex we will be. Incurring in the RNC business. And what would be the margin in this particular business.
Sandip Ghose
This is earlier for us to talk about it. We are still firming up our strategy. We have made you know a beginning in up. We are finalizing our strategy hopefully next. By next quarter we should be able to give you a clearer picture on this.
Uttam Kumar Srimal
And the last one. If you can give volume guidance for. FYR 26 that will be very helpful.
Aditya Saraogi
We expect to. The industry is expected to grow maybe between 6 to 8%. We should be in line with industry if not better.
Uttam Kumar Srimal
Okay. Okay. That’s all from my side and all the best to you. Thank you very much.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Patanjali Srinivasan from Sundaram Mutual fund. Please go ahead.
Patanjali Srinivasan
Congrats on a good set of numbers, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. I have a couple of questions. Sir. Previous quarter end we were a little bit watchful in terms of a commentary because we said that this whole Prayagraj event was going on and pricing environment was very benign. But when we look at our results and the numbers that have shown things seem to have turned around in a very quick manner. So could you just tell me like one or two key things that came in as a surprise or came in because of our efforts which was different from what you’d expected initially.
Sandip Ghose
First of all, you know we are always conservative but realistic. And if you said that’s something I hope you’ll give us credit for because from every quarter to quarter we have always tried to take a very, you know, realistic view of things. And so therefore it was not that we were exceptionally pessimistic or anything. When we spoke at the end of the previous quarter and Prague, what we talked about that time, the Kumbh Mela, if you’re referring to that, that indeed affected our operations and central India because for a long time eastern UP was inaccessible and because we feed Bihar largely by rail but not largely entirely by rail, our rail movements were also affected.
But what I think happened and which I wouldn’t say it surprised us but what we have done very well is despite these constraints and everywhere else the way our both our manufacturing and the sales team have operated we have operated at a very high level of capacity utilization in not only in every. In our old markets but even in our new markets like Mukutban.
We have I think exceeded our own internal expectations of what we have done out there. So therefore our volumes have been definitely what we would have taken a realistic or a conservative estimate of that that has gone up and wherever we have had uptick of prices which is more than you know, not as Mr. Pramanik was saying had been a very depressed scenario for three quarters and north showed an improvement in the fourth quarter, east showed an improvement there.
So those came in handy for us. There was a slight improvement also in the Maharashtra area which was earlier. For a long time it had remained depressed. But post the elections everything stabilized in Maharashtra and that picked up. So all those were tailwinds which we got which might have given us a little ahead of our. And of course fuel prices, etc. Were benign. Input costs were benign. So that together. So no big surprises per se except as I said that our people exceeded I think our expectation in terms of the operations and that’s been huge.
Because when you have a capacity like ours which is not very large, if you see that if you have to do it on a Sustainable basis maintain dispatches and sales from day one of the month to the last day of the month. That calls for tremendous coordination planning of operation between sales, marketing, logistics and the rest of it. And that’s where I think we did very well.
Patanjali Srinivasan
Sure. And just a related question. So when you say pricing improvements happen in terms of demand also would have played a factor. So if we operate largely in three regions, so if you could tell me which region what were the rough increases in prices that we were able to see at our organization?
Sandip Ghose
I don’t think we’ll get into that specific the overall market prices. You are aware of as we mentioned. That in the north
Patanjali Srinivasan
just directionally where would we have seen the highest increase in price? Something like that. If you could give me a direction.
Sandip Ghose
North and east. East was probably higher but our presence in east is not that high. But we have, you know within that we have done well and not of course was good in the. Especially in the initial months thereafter it plateaued. But initial months not picked up quite a bit from being in a fairly depressed state in the third quarter.
Patanjali Srinivasan
Sure sir. Just last question for Sarogi sir, what would a net debt absolute number for 26 be and CAPEX for 27 also be? If you could help us with it.
Aditya Saraogi
As I said net debt is expected to increase in this financial year because of the CAPEX program. As of now we expect it to be in the vicinity of 3000 crores. But in terms of net debt to EBITDA definitely it will be definitely below 2 for this financial year.
Patanjali Srinivasan
Sure sir. And capex for 27 sir.
Aditya Saraogi
Total capex. I don’t have that number for 27. I don’t have the. Sure.
Patanjali Srinivasan
Thank you so much.
Sandip Ghose
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Vipul Kumar Anupchand Shah from Sumangal Investment. Please go ahead.
Sandip Ghose
We will close after this is the last question.
Vipul Kumar Anupchand Shah
Yeah, thanks for the follow up. Sir, what type of volume we are expecting from Mukudban for this year?
Sandip Ghose
We we are doing a steady ramp up. So we have been operating close to 80% capacity utilization. Next year we would be probably
Aditya Saraogi
super. Was around 78 next year for the years 85. 85. 85. We should exit at 85.
Vipul Kumar Anupchand Shah
Okay sir, thank you.
Sandip Ghose
Thank you very much. Rajeshall, we close the call now because others are our reputation. We have already answered questions for Dalat and Kapoor and Sons.
Rajesh Kumar Ravi
Yeah, I think that’s all Moderator. Sir, if you have any closing comment after that we’ll close the phone.
Sandip Ghose
No, I think we are. Thank you very much. We can only thank you once more. We are, you know, I think, confident. And now we are setting our heart and minds to basically delivering not only on the existing thing but all the expansions we have committed. The new projects we are trying to. We’ll try to get Kundankanj, the new line operational and everything aligned to that, including what we discussed about jute business, RMC and the rest of it. So hard work ahead, but we feel confident after the delivery of last year. Thank you.
operator
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of HDAC Securities. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines.