Note: This is a preliminary transcript and may contain inaccuracies. It will be updated with a final, fully-reviewed version soon.
Hester Biosciences Limited (NSE: HESTERBIO) Q4 2026 Earnings Call dated May. 15, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Priya Gandhi — Executive Director
Rajiv Gandhi — Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director
Ashish Desai — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Darshul Jain — Analyst
Ankit Kanodia — Analyst
Madhur Rathi — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to The Hesto Biosciences Q4FY26 earnings conference call hosted by ICICI Securities. 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 this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference has been recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr.
Darshal Jain from ICICI Securities. Thank you. And over to you, sir.
Darshul Jain — Analyst
Thank you. Swapnali. Good afternoon everyone. On behalf of ICICI Security, I welcome you all on Q4 and FY26 earnings conference call of Hester Biosciences Limited and I thank the Hester Biosciences Management team for giving us the opportunity to host this call today. On this call we have with us Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, CEO and Managing Director, Ms. Priya Gandhi, Executive Director and Mr. Ashish Desai, Chief Financial Officer. I will now hand over the call to the Hester Management team for their opening remarks.
Thank you. And over to you.
Priya Gandhi — Executive Director
Good afternoon everyone. This is Priya Gandhi. Thank you for joining us today to Discuss Hester Biosciences Q4 and FY26 results. As always, we appreciate your continued engagement and long term support as we continue building Hester with a clear focus on science, operational discipline and long term value creation. The past year has been an important phase of consolidation, operational strengthening and capacity building for the company. While parts of business continue to face timing, related tender delays and uneven market conditions, FY26 reflects visible improvement in execution, profitability and strategic positioning across several areas of the organization.
On a standalone basis, the revenue for Q4 grew by 22% while PAT increased by 174%. While standalone revenue remained flat for the entire financial year, the profitability improved significantly with a PAT up by 64%. At the consolidated level, revenue grew by 22% in Q4 and 7% in the full year, while PAT increased substantially in Q4 and for the full year almost by 100% in the full year. While profitability during the year also benefited from exceptional financial income, about which I will be mentioning, the overall improvement was supported by stronger execution in the poultry healthcare business, favorable product mix and continued operational discipline.
Coming on to our Poultry Healthcare division, the Poultry Healthcare division delivered a strong performance during the year, growing by 41% in Q4 and 21% for the entire financial year. Growth was supported by deeper market penetration, expanded placement, stronger field execution and sustained demand of our vaccine portfolio. During the quarter, we also received both the marketing and manufacturing licenses for H9N2AV and influenza vaccine. This is an important milestone for Hester and further strengthens our biological portfolio in the poultry segment.
The H9N2 opportunity in India is expected to be largely driven by the private commercial poultry market where biosecurity and disease preparedness continue to remain key priorities. Export opportunities will evolve differently across countries depending on disease management approach and regulatory pathways. In parallel, our technical teams have also developed an integrated avian influenza management approach covering vaccination, farm hygiene, bird immunity and environmental management solutions.
The objective here is to create a major holistic outcome oriented engagement model for farmers rather than viewing disease management through a single specific product approach. We have also introduced complementary health products focused on gut health to improve bird immunity and farm hygiene as a part of a broader disease management approach. This includes probiotics, disinfectant solutions aimed at supporting better post vaccination outcomes and disease control at the farm level. Along with this, we continue to invest our efforts in R and D and portfolio enhancement initiatives across vaccines and health products in line with evolving field requirements and market opportunities Coming on to the Animal Healthcare Division the Animal Healthcare division continued to face delays in the tender led immunization programs in the year.
However, it is important for me to reiterate that these were simply timing related challenges and no issues in the demand during Q4 execution under the national PPR Immunization program did improve and we have supplied 6.3 crore doses in Q4 for PPR. The overall animal healthcare performance for FY26 however continued to reflect the impact of delayed tender program execution during the earlier part of the year. The pet care segment continues to scale gradually across selected therapeutic and supplement products and remains a long term strategic focus area for us coming on to the international operations.
During the year Hester continued to participate in the Galmed led Vital 2 program which stands for Veterinary Innovations Transforming Animal Health and Livelihoods. Focused on vaccine awareness, adoption and livestock health improvement initiatives across the continent of Africa. Our Africa strategy continues to evolve towards a more structured and selective execution with stronger focus on registration, market development as well as R and D. We expanded registration across the key African markets during the year and strengthened our on ground presence through our country level team.
Animal healthcare continues to remain an important area of focus across the African continent given its direct linkage to food security and livelihoods. While parts of the region witness temporary political and election related disturbances during the year, our long term engagement across the continent remains active. The PPR eradication program in Africa continue to remain long term long term initiatives while demand visibility remains strong. Execution timelines continue to depend on country level rollout schedules.
During the year we also undertook a partial divestment of our stake in Texas Life Sciences as a part of our of a broader capital allocation and strategic focus exercise. The exceptional item referred to earlier was related to this particular transaction. Going forward, our priority remains centered on strengthening and scaling our core biological and vaccine business where we believe long term opportunities and synergies are significantly stronger. With respect to Nepal operations, we continue to closely monitor the business environment and remain focused on strengthening operational stability and long term sustainability.
Coming on to capacity expansion and manufacturing plant in India during the year we’ve capitalized our field finish as well as BSLC facilities as a part of our broader manufacturing and infrastructure expansion initiative. The fill finish facility significantly enhances our drug product capacity and provides flexibility for future scale up across domestic and export markets. With respect to BSL3, we are also undertaking optimization initiatives aligned with our current operational and scale up requirements with focus on improving utilization, efficiency and operating cost over the long term.
As we move into financial year 27, our focus remains centered on disciplined growth, operational efficiency and strengthening long term business resilience. Our strategic priorities remain clear Strengthening biological portfolio across poultry and healthcare which is our strength Expanding market penetration across domestic and export markets Improving product mix and capacity utilization Continuing focus on operational discipline and working capital management Expanding scientific engagement and field execution capabilities.
At the same time, we remain mindful of external risks including the volatility in tender business timing and increasing raw material costs linked to the global geopolitical developments and supply chain disruptions happening currently. While these may create periodic cost pressures, we continue to focus on operational efficiency and calibrate price actions wherever required. Overall, FY26 has been an important year of strengthening the foundation of the business. While several of the initiatives that we are working on are long cycle in nature, we believe the operational groundwork, capacity expansion and strategic direction established over the past few quarters position hester more strongly for the years ahead.
Thank you once again for your continued trust and support and we now look forward to taking
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the Question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the Touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star then two participants, you are requested to use handsets while asking a question before we proceed. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management will be able to address all the questions from the participants in the question queue. We request you to kindly limit your questions to two per participant.
If you have a follow up question, please join the queue. Again. We will now wait for a moment while the question assembles. You may press star and one to ask a question. We will take the first question from the line of Ankit Kanodia from Zen Nivesh. Please go ahead.
Ankit Kanodia
Thank you for taking my question and congratulations on good set of numbers. My first question is related to our African business. So I recently read a news article which talks about Tanzania launches major livestock vaccination drive to protect rural livelihoods and it talks about the five year drive which aims to curb zoonotic and trans boundary diseases including anthrax, FMD and drift valley fever. I think it would be great if you could throw more light in terms of how big that opportunity is for us and how is the competition?
How is the competition space in Africa while we prepare for this opportunity. Thank you. That is my first question.
Rajiv Gandhi
Yeah, this is Rajiv Gandhi here. One is that Hester Africa is already participating in the vaccine requirement for the for Tanzania where our plant is. Incidentally, we are in touch with the government department regarding the vaccines which we are already producing. We are aware of their need for some of the vaccines which we may which would be in our pipeline. Some may not be in the pipeline. But yes we are in touch with the government and we are working towards it. Development and commercialization of vaccines does take a little time.
Therefore at the moment we have already launched the focus vaccines have already started supplying to the government those vaccines and all the names that you have mentioned. We are in discussion with them and FMD is something which at the moment we are yet discussing but we have at the moment our priority is all other vaccine.
Ankit Kanodia
Right. Any you didn’t touch upon the competition. Are there other players who are also competing with us for all this which you have just highlighted
Rajiv Gandhi
Three or four private animal vaccine producers in the continent of Africa and we are one of them. Most of the governments do have their small state owned vaccine manufacturing units. Most of the vaccines are imported at the moment.
Ankit Kanodia
That was very helpful. My second question is related to. I hope I am audible.
Operator
Yes, you’re audible.
Ankit Kanodia
Okay, so some of your second question is probably it’s a very nice question. Whatever vaccines we sell in Africa, do we sell in USD or do we sell in the local currency for this
Rajiv Gandhi
USD
Ankit Kanodia
Even to farmer groups and all there
Rajiv Gandhi
Invoicing to the other countries in US dollars and for the local. It is a local currency.
Ankit Kanodia
For local it will be,
Rajiv Gandhi
Yes.
Ankit Kanodia
And what would be the breakup between local and other countries?
Rajiv Gandhi
I think we are getting too deep into these questions. Breakup etc. Etc. We are serving the continent. We have distributors in different countries. We are supplying to many countries besides Tanzania.
Ankit Kanodia
Thank you so much sir and all the best.
Operator
Thank you. A reminder to all, you may press star and one to ask a question. We will take the next question from the line of Mother Rathi from Countercyclical Investments. Please go ahead
Madhur Rathi
Sir. Firstly many congratulations for the. For great numbers and all time high dividend also sir. And it’s very heartening to see that we have I guess done the highest ever poultry quarterly revenue and the EBITDA margin also in at least this segment seems to have reached our previous levels. So now only concern is that whether this is a one off considering high broiler prices in the fourth quarter or. Sir, you see this trend continuing of 65 crore quarterly revenue in the poultry segment with like 30 margins.
Priya Gandhi
I mean it is our endeavor to continue and as mentioned I think this year has been very, you know we’ve been very focused on our bottom line. So yes product mix and division wise poultry has contributed in the bottom line but there are many other factors which we would like to retain and we hope to continue this trend. Yes, there are many external forces which I mean will be very hard for us to really particularly name or really you know sort of predict anything. But the point is that this is a base and we want to sustain this
Madhur Rathi
Also we have some write offs of around six and a half crore on account of bad debts etc. So I mean and last year also we had 4.4 crore. So I mean it’s a significant amount. So any comments on that?
Priya Gandhi
Yeah, see
Ashish Desai
This is Ashish. Now one is mainly there is again the provision of data sets required and there are few old dates which were non recovered which are identified and written off. So it comprises of that.
Madhur Rathi
Understood. So going forward can we expect this to reduce?
Ashish Desai
It is. Yeah, definitely. It may not be so alarming figure but of course it depends. But yeah we our focus will be that to reduce
Madhur Rathi
Sir. And also the balance sheet has delivered to quite a good extent despite the commissioning of the new facility. So firstly that facility that has been commissioned in the last quarter so have we been able to ramp up the utilization of that and also our receivers of 92 crore on revenue of less than 300 crores seems to be quite high. So any plans to reduce the working capital
Priya Gandhi
Can you please repeat the question.
Madhur Rathi
Madam, our receivable seems to be quite high. And secondly the new recently commissioned, I guess BS4 facility or something like that which we got into during COVID that has been commissioned. So have we started ramping it up or is it still not being used.
Ashish Desai
On the receivable front? See we are working on this. However in the last quarter Q the sales was about more than 33% only in the last Q4. So the number is relatively jumped from the earlier Q the quarter number and we are working on that to reduce the receivable overall the number of days.
Madhur Rathi
And also what is the intangible asset under development of 9.3 crore.
Priya Gandhi
Yeah, Mr. Ashish will look that up. And with respect to the BSLC infrastructure, as mentioned earlier in my talk, you know we are undertaking certain optimization initiatives. Initiatives, they have to be in alignment with our current operational needs and our current scale up requirements. But yes, we are mindful of wanting to fully utilize it and we are in process of doing that.
Madhur Rathi
And also what’s the net date as of 31 March?
Operator
We are just referring to numbers. Just give us a minute.
Madhur Rathi
Meanwhile madam, I’ll ask the. Hello.
Operator
Yes, you may proceed.
Madhur Rathi
Yes, so. So madam, our animal health revenue fell year on year by 30%. Of course it is based on tender. So madam, going forward what is the outlook for FY27 on the animal health care side? And also if you could give us an overview about our subsidiaries whether are they expected to break even in FY27?
Ankit Kanodia
Even what? Even one.
Priya Gandhi
Okay. Speaking of the animal healthcare division. Yes, your concern is valid and I had mentioned it in the previous quarters that the tender related delays that were happening, you know the planning that we also had from the tender rollouts to happen from Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 sort of didn’t really go through and there are many various reasons for it. Reasons which are not even in our control. However having said that from Q4 it did start to pick up and you know these things, sometimes they’re not in our hands.
And speaking of the non tender business also we are focusing on you know, more market penetration and improving our, you know, presence in the market. So yes, this year has been a little bit hasn’t gone as per plan with animal health but we are going to recover it from this quarter onwards.
Madhur Rathi
Madam, my last question is that now we have an increasing base of pets in the country so and I understand they are being vaccinated. So what is our share in the pet vaccinations
Priya Gandhi
At the Moment, None. Because we don’t really have any commercialized vaccines in the pet division at the moment.
Madhur Rathi
Okay, madam, that’s all. Madam, from my side, thank you very much and best of luck.
Priya Gandhi
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to all. You may press star N1 to ask a question. We have the next follow up question from the line of Ankit Kanodia from Zen Nevesh. Please go ahead.
Ankit Kanodia
Thank you so much for allowing a follow up, sir and madam, I think what I can see over the long term, the debt has consistently reduced over the last two, three years. And as we are positioned in terms of our capacity, which is quite decent compared to what kind of ramp up we are expecting the next two, three years. So is it fair to assume that we will experience some operating leverage going forward if the demand continues in the similar fashion? Because we have done a lot of, we have taken a lot of cost optimization exercise also in the last year and our debt has also come down and assuming that we don’t need any fresh debt because we don’t need any further capacity expansion.
So is it fair to assume or am I wrong in saying this?
Priya Gandhi
I think, I mean, yes, we have installed a lot of capacity and invested quite a bit. We also have to keep in mind that there are advancing and changing evolving regulatory requirements that keep coming year on year and also new technologies that keep coming which we want to adopt. So keeping those things in mind, there cannot be a definitive answer whether we will be allocating any more capital or this is it. But for the moment, yes, we have installed quite a bit of capex and we aim to optimize the utilization.
Ankit Kanodia
Yeah, Ma’, am, can you just throw a little more light on what kind of regulatory thing which you are talking about? How does it impact our tipping? If you can give some hypothetical example?
Rajiv Gandhi
There cannot. There is no hypothetical example. Regulatory processes are time and again evolved from the drug department and one has to comply. And it is an evolving process all over the world. So it is difficult to hypothesize and tell what could come from the drug department. So as you know, there is progress in economies. You know, everybody tries to aim for perfection. So more and more stringent rules come up more. And the word stringent is because we have to change, otherwise probably it is the path forward.
So it’s even a welcome step. But yes, changes keep on coming and one cannot exactly foresee what will be the investment required to overcome that.
Ankit Kanodia
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Darshul Jain from ICIC Securities. Please go ahead
Darshul Jain
Sir. So our revenue mix for FY26 was 7030 in the favor of poultry healthcare. And now that animal health care. Hello, Am I audible?
Operator
Yes, you’re audible.
Darshul Jain
And now that we expect a pickup in animal health care business going forward. So what can we assume has been steady state revenue mix among the two segments?
Priya Gandhi
There has been a time I think two years ago where both were almost 50, 50%. And that is what we are aiming at where we are not hyper dependent on any one division. Yes, but there are many other external factors that also play in. Speaking of last year, yes, the ratio is sort of skewed a little bit more towards poultry. But moving forward, even if we talk about our R and D pipeline etc. We have more focus on the animal health division and biologicals in animal health. So in the coming times we do see that division also picking up as well.
Darshul Jain
Okay, and just one question regarding net debt. So at what number of. At what ratio of net debt to equity would be comfortable at going forward?
Ashish Desai
The currently the debt is around 70 crores, right? Is reduced from 102 crores. Okay. So I think this is. The debt to Equity is currently 19 from what it has reduced. So I think this is quite comfortable for us at the. At this level.
Ankit Kanodia
Okay, sir, thank you.
Operator
Thank you very much. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference back to the management for the closing comments. Thank you.
Priya Gandhi
Yes, so thank you everyone for joining and hearing us out. I hope that we have answered your questions. If there are any other questions, we would be happy to take it offline. As mentioned, the last year we were working very hard on strengthening the foundation of our business. And that pretty much has sort of reflected in terms of how the bottom line performance is showing. And yes, as mentioned earlier, quite a few of the initiatives that we embarked on are a little bit long term and long cycle in nature and I’m pretty confident that it will show us even better results in the times to come.
And just thankful for all the support and trust from everyone. That’s it. Thank you all.
Operator
Thank you members of the management. On behalf of ICICI securities, we conclude this conference. Thank you all for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.