HMA Agro Industries Ltd (NSE: HMAAGRO) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated Jun. 04, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Nikhil Sundrani — Company Secretary and Compliance Officer
Gulzeb Ahmed — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Presentation:
Operator
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I am Pelshia, moderator for the conference call. Welcome to HMA Agro Industries Limited Q4F5.25 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants 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 and then zero on your touch tone telephone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand over the floor to Mr. Nikolai. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Nikhil Sundrani — Company Secretary and Compliance Officer
Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. It gives me a great pleasure to welcome you all to the earnings call of HNI Agro Industries Limited for the quarter and financial year ended 31st of March 2025. I am Nikhiles Nrani, the company secretary and I will be moderating today’s session. I would like to begin by expressing our sincere appreciation to all our valued investors, analysts and stakeholders who have given time to join us today. We truly value this opportunity to engage with you and share our company journey over the past quarter and years. Before we delve into the proceedings, a gentle reminder, certain statements made during the today’s discussions may be forward looking in nature.
These are based on management’s current outlook, assumptions and market dynamics. As always, we advise you to refer to our official filings and disclosures available on our website for a comprehensive understanding of the associated risks and factors that could influence actual results. We are joined today by key members of our leadership team including Mr. Gurdrev Ahmed, our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Aman Kaushik, Senior Associate Finance along with other members of our senior management. Today’s session is of particular importance as we present our performance and key developments for both the fourth quarter and full financial year.
This year has been a mix of growth, transformation and strategic progress underscoring our commitment to long term value creation. Despite the global headwinds and cost pressures, our company has demonstrated resilience through operational strength, strategic capacity enhancement and consistent efforts towards the market diversification. The numbers we are about to present are a reflection of a dedication, agility and collaborative spirit of our teams. With that I will now invite Mr. Gurdev Ambat, our CFO to walk through the dedicated detailed financial performance and share insights into our growth strategy and key achievements. Over to you Mr. Gurudev ji.
Gulzeb Ahmed — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you Nithal. A very good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and all our esteemed investors. It is my pleasure to welcome you all to the Investor call of HMA Agro Industries Limited for Quarter 4 and the year ended 31 March 2021. I deeply appreciate your continued trust and engagement with our company. I would like to give you a brief about what happened in last financial year. The year 202425 was a wonderful year which we have opportunities and challenges. The opportunities we are able to achieve as we have planned and the challenges what we face in achieving our goals.
As we all know the global economy was not so stable and purchase power of the people were not so conformed. It is also changing with time to time and there are many factors which impact the in supply chain and also the costing of the product. But all of these challenges were not able to stop what we bring, what we plan and what we perform. We have achieved a very good growth and we have achieved a very good trust from all our existing clients and also from the new client. I would like to give you a brief about the milestone what we have achieved in this year.
Company has been awarded with the five star export house recognization by the Government of India which is one of the largest recognition for any export house. And also I would like to inform all our investors and people who are in this conference call Today HMA has made one that is the agreement and joint venture with a company called PKPS from Malaysia. And in the presence of the Chief Minister of State State of Malaysia. This mu has been signed by both the companies where HME will be able to make a strategic planning for the Malaysian demand and requirement for the protein. And this will not only give us a good business, also a good reputation to all existing client and the future client. This will give a very good impact for a company like HME who is making partnership with the one of biggest government company in Malaysia.
And Malaysia as we all know is one of the largest buyer for our final product in the globe. Also now we will move towards the financial performance what we have achieved. If we talk about our standalone performance, we have performed very well and we have achieved rs49,411 million within the total income. And if we talk about the consolidated performance, we have achieved 52,143 which is 7.25% of growth from last year. And I would be very glad to inform by all of our investors that the target what we have built to achieve is US$1 billion. We are very close to our target and we hope very soon we will touch this.
I would also like to inform you about the business development what we have did in last year. We have made a production agreement with several production facilities like ALM Force, ALM Industries. This will increase our production capacity and this will also let us achieve the target and the effective demand whatever we receive any time of the year. I would also like to give you about a brief technological advancement. What we have been we have installed world renowned and best machinery from Cravex. This machine will give us a vacuum packed packing which will also help us to make our product to sell for the premium market like five star forecast industry and also to the state houses and I would also like to inform you about our global reach.
In this year company has secured the approval from Philippines to supply our products. Adding this new country will give us a more strong sales and our more stronger presence in the global market. And with this he will be able to touch almost 50 country export globally. These were just some highlight where we have tried to give you brief about what we have performed and we have achieved. We have attained World food expo in 2025 February. This has bring us new clients, new hope, new new requirements and new trust. And we hope this will bring us a big business chance for our upcoming I would like to close my speech. I’m not going to take much time for your valuable time. So 202425 financial year we see as an opportunity because we have achieved our revenue what we have planned.
We have performed very well. We have achieved overall almost 5% growth in our revenue if we talk about standalone and we have achieved 7.25 almost for our consolidated. We are strongly working to our production department, Marketing department, Procurement department. There are several factors that need to be taken care of for upcoming year. So we hope with our teamwork we will be able to achieve and perform more better more work. With this I would like to close my
Nikhil Sundrani — Company Secretary and Compliance Officer
Thank you for your remarkable work regarding the financial history. Now we can conclude and we can proceed to the portion and answer sessions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press Star and one on your telephone keypad and wait for your turn to ask the question. If you would like to withdraw your request, you may do so by pressing Star and one again. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any question please press Star and one on your telephone keypad. First question comes from Sanket Shah from AAD AI. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Good afternoon sir and thank you for the opportunity. So my first question is the company has increased its revenue but the EBITDA margins and the pat margins have shrank. And since we’re already a very low margin business, a shrink in the margins is tough to overcome with high revenue. So, you know, so basically there was that degrowth due to the margin shrinking. So I just wanted to know what was the reason for the margins to shrink.
Gulzeb Ahmed
Thank you. Thank you very much and a very wonderful question and we will be happy to give you replies that will make you think clear about our company. As we all know that our company is making export for the natural product. And if you do a little bit, you will be able to see that price for live cattle has been increased overall globally. And this impact has been seen due to the global warming. The further price has been increasing. The milk price, what is which is the byproduct for the life that is coming has been increasing. So farmer are resisting to increase the price for their cattle because whatever cattle we are, we are getting it once it was dry for the me. So once they are going for buying new cattle for milking, they have to pay extra.
So those money burden has came to our industry. But the good thing is that we are able to get the raw material and we are able to supply the same to the market. And once we are able to supply the same quantity slowly, slowly we have a chance to increase the prices. So the buyer, the end consumer will be able to adjust their purchase power. As the global economy is, we see in the Southeast Asia, the GP nation and another countries, once we see that economy is not performing so well, so they are not ready to pay more. But once we increase slowly, that will help us to increase the margin and we don’t think there will be any problem. Once you get your face for your product, you have a strong clientele so you will be able to increase the.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, so as per my understanding, we don’t work on like a cost plus basis model, right? So like let’s say the cost per cattle increases for us, we’re not able to pass on the additional cost to the end purchaser, your client?
Gulzeb Ahmed
Because actually this is a basic necessity. Comes in basic necessity. If you want to increase the prices, you have to first retain the customer. Once it is become habit to use your product, then we can charge the price.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. All right. And so my next question is that, you know, receivables have fallen drastically. So is this like a sign of faster collection or are we, is there like any slowdown in business? What is exactly the result?
Gulzeb Ahmed
It’s not slowed down. Previously due to the transit time of Red Sea destruction. It is taking almost 60 to 65 days. But now we are able to make shipment in 40 days, 42 days. So that day that become the time shrinking is from the transit fund.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay. So now, now we’re back to the normal receivable days.
Gulzeb Ahmed
Correct.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay. So you’re saying the Red Sea crisis is completely over. Like it’s not affecting the business anymore at all?
Gulzeb Ahmed
It’s not over. There are almost 12 or 14 shipping lines which was not allowed to be crossed the Red Sea before. But now luckily there are four or five shipping lines which can cross some of the part of Red Sea. So we will be able to save some transit time. Previously all the vessel has to be go from South Africa Golden Hope. Then we will be able to enter in West Africa region and the GCC one. But now there are some shipping lines which are able to go in Red Sea. So we are using maximum bank and still we have to use other because it depends on the availability of empty container version schedule. So hope in this year it will be able to cut off completely.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. And is there some sort of guidance on what we could probably achieve in terms of revenue in the next 12 months and how would the margins look like? Are they going to increase? Do you see them increasing anytime soon?
Gulzeb Ahmed
As we have our target for 1 billion to be charged in 2027 and we hope we will be able to touch it very soon. And we have seen a good sign that not only India, actually once we are supplying to global market, we have to see another factor also what our competitor has New Zealand. So in retail one we have fewer. The Brazil is also increasing its prices. So once our competitor are increasing prices, so we have a very huge move to play. We accept it is easily going to be accepted. So we have a very strong hope that in coming quarters any will be able to achieve a good month.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, so you mean one billion rupees.
Gulzeb Ahmed
Yes. No, one billion. Almost one billion.
Unidentified Participant
Did you say billion or million?
Gulzeb Ahmed
Million? Billion. Billion. One billion revenue.
Unidentified Participant
Okay.
Gulzeb Ahmed
8,000.
Unidentified Participant
By 2027. Okay, got it. Okay. And I didn’t get about the margins. If you could just give a little guidance. Do you think that we could come back to the normalized margins which we were previously on? I think it was around 4%.
Gulzeb Ahmed
Yes. What I’m trying to say is when we have competitor in global market, so if competitor are increasing their prices, so Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, they also have that sports budget. They already start increasing their price. So once the competitor is offering extensive product, we will be having a good chance to increase our offer price. So once our offer price has been increasing, definitely the margin will increase.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay, got it. Understood. And why is it that our company is following their pricing strategy? And why don’t we have that sort of leverage that we could increase our prices? First.
Gulzeb Ahmed
We have our own strategy to sell our product. But once if you put your prices expensive in the market, people have choice because they need nutrition from protein from red meat. So if we charge them extra, they will not buy from us. So we have to see the competition also. Otherwise we will be not able to sell our product. It seems like mineral water, bottled water, cold. You will see Coke, texting, everything have same price. If anyone has charge 1 rupees more people will not drop.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay. Understood. All right. I’ll. I’ll get back in the queue if I have more questions. Thank you.
Gulzeb Ahmed
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any question please press star and one on the telephone keypad. I repeat, ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions please press star and one on the telephone keypad. Follow up question from Sankit Saad from Art aif. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Sir, I wanted to ask, are there any sort of tailwinds in the sector which could help us get to our target which you had mentioned $1 billion in 2027.
Gulzeb Ahmed
I didn’t get your name. Are there any.
Unidentified Participant
Yes, my name is. So I’m asking are there any sort of tailwinds or like reasons for us to believe that we could achieve such ambitious target?
Gulzeb Ahmed
As I have. As I have informed you in my speech that we have recently got approval from Philippine which was a new market for us that we were not supplying from last three, four years because the approval for our client was pending. It got great. We have already achieved this approval. So we will be going to supply from now onwards. Also we are working on new customers from the existing market which are our like Southeast Asia and also from GPT. We are increasing our existing client base also as we are selling our product. Once the availability of product in market, another customer attracts automatically. Once they see okay this brand is available in shop, why don’t. I will bring. So this will also bring us good push from our work to mouth marketing. And also we are new new approval for all our plans. This will definitely bring us.
Unidentified Participant
Perfect. Perfect. That’s. That’s great. And again congratulations on that win. So my follow up question to this is how much revenue do we think we can bring from the. From the Philippines geography in FY26?
Gulzeb Ahmed
We are also working on another Southeast Asian company. Like this year, we are more aggressive with the Indonesia. We are more aggressive with Malaysia. So we hope we will be able to achieve almost 20, 25% from our share what we are supplying to these markets.
Unidentified Participant
25% more. Okay. All right. Okay. Are there any challenges we see in the next 12 months?
Gulzeb Ahmed
We don’t feel challenges. We all love to get the challenges. Because businesses always bring you more money, you have more challenges. If it is easy, everybody can do business and they will become easy competition for you. So we have already settled in the market. We have a very strong brand name, very strong company represent very strong clientele. So it is very hard for any challenges to hit us. But we don’t know the nature of challenges, how strongly it comes. But we are ready with all our things to face any challenges and to achieve a growth level what we are doing now and better than.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, all right. And what are the Capex plans? I mean I, of course I acknowledge that there was a new machinery which you have installed for vacuum packaging. But apart from that, is there anything else which you are planning in the next 12 months?
Gulzeb Ahmed
In this upcoming 12 months, we don’t hope there will be a very big capex requirement to. But if there is a need for any upgradation in any kind of technology, any kind of certification, the company is ready to take the option. But we are fully geared with all our production facilities. So no major thing is there until we have any upgradation or urgency to have any updated technology as per the rules and regulation of importing countries or India.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay, perfect. And I was going through our RHP when we had drafted for the ipo. So in that I think at the time you had around 10% market share of exporters from India. Do you have any figure of what that number is right now?
Gulzeb Ahmed
Somewhere around 10 to 11. I don’t have the current share because the data is still not ready. But we are performing on better than what we have written in our red book. So I think it is more than that, more than 10 or somewhere around. But I don’t have the exit figure with me.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay, got it. All right. All right, sir, that will be from. That will be all from my end. Thank you.
Gulzeb Ahmed
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any question please press star and one on your telephone keypad. We will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any question please press star and one on the telephone keypad we have a follow up question from Sanket Khad from Artaif Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yes, sir so as I was going through your presentation I can see that our team is fairly involved in some marketing activities and exhibitions so what are the plans for further marketing activities and exhibitions coming this year? And what are some other marketing strategies that our company has to gain further clients?
Gulzeb Ahmed
Regarding the marketing activity, firstly, we have already attained the world food business it is one of the biggest exhibition of the food industry and hopefully next year we are also going to participate in this exhibition this exhibition we have received client from almost 70 to 90 countries and for another marketing thing as we know we are in the food industry here that continue supply chain and the trust of your importer is one of the tool for a marketing SO one we are able to maintain and continuity in our supply so the so whoever else is importing that same country they will take the data from market the availability and sources of the products more in the market so who is easily available in the market?
Because this is a continued change because this is food product so you must be maintain continuing so this also help us to bring new clients and of course there are the exhibition and all where we also participate we have participated in Vietnam we have participated in Shanghai this year and next year also we are going to participate in most of the biggest food exhibition.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. And from all the countries that we’re supplying to which countries are the fastest growing in our segment and which countries are having some slowdown if you could give some light, some color to this.
Gulzeb Ahmed
I think it depends on seasonal also because once you have very hot summer. So people shift to their eating habits only. Or if there is any geopolitical situation, then only we feel slow down. Otherwise there are very less chances to have slowdown in food business, general food business.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, so you’re saying that for meats and poultry people tend not to eat as much in hot summers. Okay, no, but you mentioned during hot summers there is a slowdown. I couldn’t understand which segment faces a slowdown.
Gulzeb Ahmed
So people try to change their eating habits, but it doesn’t impact on me. Sometime in T4, sometime in 23. This is what I’m trying to. If there is any imbalance in another option available for food, that will sometimes make a small impact. But otherwise there is a constant demand in market that has to be cater or that has to be supplied.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, okay, understood. Understood. So how many facilities do we have currently for our food processing?
Gulzeb Ahmed
For food processing we have currently company direct facilities is six. Then we have taken on contract, it’s almost four. And then we have our contract. Right. And also company has its own cp.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. The seafood is under contract with somebody else. Right. With some other partnership you have. Okay, okay. And the company had also gotten into the rice business as well a few years ago. How is that doing right now?
Gulzeb Ahmed
We are getting good response from our client. We are getting regular and continue order from existing clients. But it is very initial stage for us in green markets. So it is taking more time, more effort to build to increase actually the market. So whatever we achieve every day, we are adding two, three consumers every month. Actually we are getting increase in our.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, and are there any sort of internal costs which would be increasing? Like let’s say cold storage or like logistics or anything like that?
Gulzeb Ahmed
Logistic and all which is always third party cost which is not in our control. If government has increased any charges. If shipping line has increased any charges for the transportation then only it impact. But it’s not impact for us only it will impact the whole industry. And I think whole market your shipping line globally and transportation charges. I think almost same for India. If there is any increase in transportation charges, Indian level, national level.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Right. But in our industry we also have a higher cost of logistics and storage. Right. Because we require cold storage even in the logistics. Right. So how much, how much of our to total costs is cold storage and logistics? If you could answer that.
Gulzeb Ahmed
Total cost for cold storage and logistics is depend where we are sending the product. For logistics the cost depend on the destination and cold storage facility. We have our own in house facility. Once we produce the material, we keep it in our plant only. But there is a small cost. I am not having the correct data here. My team will be able to check it for you.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. Got.
Gulzeb Ahmed
It’s not much. And the transportation cost is always similar for national.
Unidentified Participant
Okay.
Gulzeb Ahmed
International it depend on destination and it depends on shipping line.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay. Great. Sir, that’s all from my end. Thank you for your time.
Gulzeb Ahmed
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any question please press star N1 on the telephone keypad. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any question please press star and one on the telephone keypad. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any question please press star and one on your telephone keypad.
Nikhil Sundrani
Hello. Yeah, we will wait for around minute more. Now we will be concluding the call. Okay.
Gulzeb Ahmed
Can we conclude the call now?
Nikhil Sundrani
Yeah. So we can conclude the call.
Operator
Sure. Sir. There are no further questions. Now I hand over the floor to Mr. Nikol Sundrani for closing comments.
Nikhil Sundrani
Okay, thank you. Thank you for your all satisfactory answers. And thanks all the investors for joining the call. Thank you.
Gulzeb Ahmed
Okay, thank you.
Nikhil Sundrani
Okay. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. Thank you for your participation and for using Door Sabha’s conference call service. You may disconnect your lines now. Thank you and have a good day. Your conference is no longer being recorded.