Note: This is a preliminary transcript and may contain inaccuracies. It will be updated with a final, fully-reviewed version soon.
India Glycols Ltd (NSE: INDIAGLYCO) Q4 2026 Earnings Call dated May. 18, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Rupark Sarswat — Chief Executive Officer
Anand Singhal — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Nitin Abashi — Analyst
Saket Kapoor — Analyst
Unidentified Participant
Bala Subramaniam — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to India Glycol Limited’s Q4FY26 earnings conference call hosted by Incred Equities. This conference call may contain forward looking statements about the company which are based on the beliefs, opinions and expectations of the company as on the date of this call. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. 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. Nitin Avas from Incred Equities. Thank you. And over to you Mr. Navas.
Nitin Abashi — Analyst
Thank you. Firstly, I would like to thank the management for giving us this opportunity to host their conference call today. From India Glycol’s management We have their CEO Mr. Rupa Saraswat. Their CFO Mr. Anand Singhal. Their head of liquor business Mr. S.K. Shukla and their head legal and company secretary Mr. Uncle Jain. I would now like to invite Mr. Rupak to initiate the proceedings with his opening remarks post which we shall open the floor for a Q and A session. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Rupark Sarswat — Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, good afternoon Nitin. And thank you for hosting this call. Also my apologies for us starting a little late. And I’m also joined with one of our other colleagues who is Akshay Bansal who heads the MHI Biopharma business and UNCO duties. Some expense fees is not here so nevertheless I think I have a good year to report because we are talking about the annual performance. So as you have probably seen the numbers, we have had Gross revenues of 9,827 crores, which is up 8.7%. Net revenues of 4,211 crores, which is up to 11.8%.
Now the revenue growth has been led to a large extent by the growth in portable spirits and biofuels. And we will talk about these segments a little bit subsequently. EBITDA growth from EBITDA has been 654 crores which is up 24.5% over last year. And the EBITDA margin itself is up 15.5% of 162 billion basis points. And we have seen EBITDA growth more or less across the business. The significant segments of potable spirits, biofuels as well as chemicals have driven the margin improvement. Particularly led by chemicals and biofuels.
At a pat level we are posting 296 crores which is up 26.8% and the PAT margin at 6.9% is also 84 basis points. So all in all a strong operating performance and therefore also resulting in a good increase in profitability. If you look at the quarter we have a net revenue of 976crores which is up 13.1% for the same quarter prior year. And in this quarter all segments have delivered strong growth and that is resulted in the 13.1% growth for the quarter. In EBITDA terms it is 167 crores which is up 13.3% and the EBITDA margin at 17.1% is up 5 basis points.
Now if you add other income, actually our EBITDA margin is close to 20 to 20.8%. And. And the reason I mention this is that the most significant part of our other income is actually income from the JV and why it is not the kind of a once off income. It is an income which is very much interrelated and integrated with the chemical business. And in a way we sell EO to them and the way idealizes the profitability is through this steady other income. So in that sense when you look at the chemicals business or the business or the quality of the business, it might be good to look at both.
And as you would expect our finance costs have been lower and all segments talking about the segments you know, India reached 20% blending as far as biofuels is concerned which drove quite a lot of growth both in terms of profits as well as sales. And as we will talk later, there is talk about how and whether the government of India can increase the blending to 21 to 22%. Or even looking at flexi vehicles in the portable spirit space, we have maintained our market leadership in the markets that we are present.
And broadly as far as IMFL is concerned, we successfully look at implementing the strategy for premiumization and multi bubbly continues to be the largest selling brand within the country in chemicals we’ve seen a bit of a dip in sales but having said that, I think we saw significant uptick in terms of the margin percentages as well as growth in overall margin. Now that’s based on some readjustments in the business and, you know, letting go of some low margin businesses. But we continue to focus on higher value added chemicals.
In short, our performance chemicals portfolio has started to do well, though it’s a smaller part of the overall chemicals business. But our pipeline is strong and we expect that it will continue to drive good growth in chemicals in nature Biopharma. You will hear later as well. But the top line by and large has been stable despite relatively challenging global and macroeconomic environment as well as cost pressures. But the silver lining is that we’ve been acquiring new customers and the progress that has been made in terms of launching or brand new testicles, getting more standards and certificates, etc.
Is good and we expect that the business will recover and do well in the times to come. Now, as I report this year, I may like to point out that we’ve had an interesting journey over the last few years. So I talk about some ratios. For example, our EBITDA ratio In the year FY22 was 11%. In 23 it became 13%, in 24 it became 14.2%, in 25 it became 13.9% and in FY26 it became 16.4%. So while if you remember when we started doing these calls, we spoke about certain challenges that the business had and a strategy to overcome those challenges, both in terms of actions in the marketplace, diversifying our portfolio, taking some cost action, of course we always depend on some headwinds and tailwinds, but by that it is the result of a strategic trust to improve the quality of the business.
Similarly, if you look at some of our ratios, our debt to equity ratio has gone down from 0.9 to 0.6 this year. Our interest coverage ratio has gone up from 3.17 to 4.13. And if you look at ROCE over the last three years, it has gone from 7.7 to 11.9% and Rona has gone up from 7.7% to 11.7%. So I am optimistic and I think I’m happy to report that we’ve made progress and we’ve made progress over the years. We made steady progress and we’ve made good progress. And you know, the other thing which is talked about and I must brief you, is whether the war has had any impact on us.
Well, the short answer for everybody is yes, but it has had a mixed impact on us. Now, the reason it has had a mixed impact probably overall a little further is that what it has led to, it has led to sharp increases in the crude price and also some availability constraints as far as MEG or ethanol is concerned. Which means that our relative competitiveness for products which are based on ethanol is somewhat better or significantly better in some cases and which has helped us improve margins a little bit, get market a little bit more.
And I will talk about food price a little bit more subsequently. And as far as exports is concerned, it has impacted us adversely because for big customers like New park where we send our oil chemicals largely to the Middle east, that business is largely on hold. I think fundamentally the business is strong. We continue to work on new products and new application areas. But this has caused some problems. As you also know, as a result of the war, many john till feedstocks, e.g. Propylene oxide prices have gone up.
Availability is a challenge. So it has affected some areas and as you would imagine, given a sustained situation of what the demand itself has softened in some areas. So all in all a mixed impact but overall maybe slightly positive given the fact that in the external based materials it has improved our competitiveness. Now talking about business performance from an SBU or segment perspective. So in the chemicals business we’ve had a net revenue of 1,203 crores which is down 10%. But our EBIT at 141 crore is up 12.5% and our EBIT margins are up to 11.7%.
So I spoke about the reasons for the weak sales, but it is a good improvement both in EBITDA margin as well as overall ebitda. Now if you look at EBITDA without adjusting the other income and probably some streamlining that is required in house, we will start to see that the quality of the chemicals business is probably going to be better than this going forward. As far as the portable spirit business is concerned. We posted a top line of 1,331 crores up 14.2% and an EBIT of 285 crores which is up 11.1%.
For the biofuels business, an excellent year with 40.9% growth, delivering a top line of 1470 crores and an EBITDA of 115 crores which is nearly double, which is up 103% and an EBIT margin of 7.8%. In native biopharma, as I mentioned, top line has more or less been similar to last year. But margins have been under pressure and we’ll talk about the actions which we are taking and making good progress on which we see this business becoming stronger in this year as well as three years going forward.
For the quarter, the net revenue for chemicals is up 18.8% at 301 crores. The EBIT at 37 crores is up 37.4% and EBIT margins are 12.2%. And this is given some of the factors that I spoke about. The business in my opinion will start to look better going forward. In portable spirit, we posted a top line of 306 crores for the quarter, up 7.9%. Whereas margins for the quarter were somewhat under pressure. But that was a bit of an odd quarter in the last year at 68 crores. Overall EBIT margins were very good at 2.1% for biofuels for the quarter, 11.6% growth, posting a top line of 305 crores and an EBIT of 30 crores which is up 90% with an EBIT margin of 9.9%.
EndNature BioPharma saw a turnaround as far as the top line is concerned with a 24% growth in the last quarter, but an EBIT of 3 crores. As I said, the margins have continued to be under pressure. Talking about a few other things, I spoke about one of the things that we often talk about, which is the EO price and its noll price and the relative price of EO2 reliance on Zeoprice because it impacts several of our businesses. So we saw a period and for the last couple of months we have been competitive as far as reliance on Zeo price is concerned.
And that is because of rising food prices and also ample availability of ethanol within India. And we talk about the ethanol capacity and the fact that we have now a little more than the capacity that biofuels consume in India. Now the reason I mention about this is that I do feel however, that while the petroleum prices or the crude prices may soften, but the crude prices may. And that’s my opinion, it’s anybody’s guess as to what’s going to happen. Are expected to stay a bit firm. And the reason I say this is first of all, the war, different people have different expectations, had lasted a little longer than what most people expected.
There has been a significant amount of damage and the damage has been to a number of friends of the US and people who control oil. And I would imagine that one of the ways to some extent recover is to keep oil prices somewhat higher. The second reason in my opinion, is that America also wants to sell oil. You know, you remember Mr. Trump saying drill baby, drill in his election campaign, which means that there’s a possibility of America wanting The prices to be a little more firmer than they have been.
We’ve seen a period of low crude prices for a period and they also control Venezuela to some extent Iran. So I would imagine that, you know, it’s not suddenly the competitiveness that is kind of. Stay for some more time. I also imagine that some customers would like some diversification in terms of sources. Even if it is a smaller percentage of share, we should be able to benefit in some cases. Now the reason I say this is that we have seen a period of lower crude prices and if you go back before 2021, for a period of 15 years, we were equal or less than in Lanci Zeopra.
So I do not know which period to call abnormal, but we did see significantly lower crude prices for a period of time. Relating to this is also the ethno price trend that we monitor which is important to several of our businesses. Chemicals, potable spirits, biofuels. Because of a number of factors including freight and other, the imported ethanol prices in India went up quite significantly whereas the domestic prices have more or less been stable or maybe even saw a bit of a dip. Now given the fact that we have food external capacities in house, we talked about the cycle and the fact that we have grain molasses based as well as the option to import it allowed us or it allows us to also use in house ethanol for our chemicals as an intermediate without worrying too much about extra ethanol capacity.
So I think that strategy which allowed us to kind of tide over some of the difficult times also is helping us right now because we’ve toned down our imports quite significantly and we’ve been able to support our chemicals business to a large extent by it’s not produced in house. So talking about the segment which is in higher spirits these days, which is essentially portable spirit to start with, continue to have a very good year with 14.4% top line growth as I mentioned, 11.1% EBIT growth and improvement in EBIT margin as well.
So we made a strong entry in the PFP business As we spoke about. Bunty and Bubbly continue to remain the highest selling brand in India. We’ve maintained our market leadership position as far as Indian made Indian liquor is concerned in UP and Uttarakhand and we launched several new brands and we’ll talk about a little bit in Uttarakhand Indian made Indian liquor we saw a growth of 21%. In up we saw a growth of 11%. You know, and despite being in only these pairings as far as Indian made liquor is concerned and you know, we have done several things to continue to strengthen this exciting business.
We’ve expanded coverage in Western UP with new brands. As far as IMIL is concerned, IGL has maintained the leadership position in up. So our leadership position has been amongst the top two and very close for a long period of time. We have increased our coverage in the state with almost 10 new stations. We’ve introduced seven new brands in the market to the new station and as for the government policy, also added the 100ml SKU in the market and we’re getting a good response. We’ve also opened 42 company operated warehouses in UP which will continue to drive this business for IMF and in UP, we’ve successfully introduced Amrud Prestige Whiskey in deluxe segment and sold 61,000 cases so far.
We’ve introduced Bunty Vodka, Jeera and Cranberry flavor. In the middle of this year we received a 66% growth in Amroit’s Macintosh whiskey overall a 30% growth in Ironfield volumes for the year. Successfully launched Amazing Vodka Jamun Vodka Jamun Flavor which is Bunty Vodka in Q1 as well. We’ve also successfully launched Durandar Whiskey in the regular category. Similarly talking about our initiatives in Uttarakhand Amazing vodka achieved a 21% market share against an 18% market share last year.
Amazing Whiskey in Uttarakhand secured a 76% growth and we also introduced Amrud Prestige Whiskey. In the middle of this year in Panti Vodka we saw 122% growth and we have continued to maintain our leadership position in the regular whiskey category with Solmat Black we’ve successfully introduced Amazing Jamun, Banti Jamun and Twain Deli. And these I think will continue to drive growth in these segments both in UP and Uttarakhand. And other than that of course as you know our growth is also coming from new areas like CSG and Paramilitary which you’ll hear more about a little later.
So Rajvi, would you like to add about right now? Thank you. I have already spoken about biofuels so I will not come to the numbers once again except that in general the government’s policy of 20% lending was finished ahead of schedule which was initially scheduled for 2030. Now we have somewhat excess capacity in ISNOL which we all know and there are discussions with increasing talk about securing India’s energy, reducing product outflows of probably increasing it beyond 20%. So you can increase a few percentage points beyond 20 depending upon the government’s policy decision.
The other thing that is being talked about is in A selected manner going to flexi vehicles which operate at 85 to 10 plus. Now, as some of you may know, or most of you may know, there is an operating range for ifnon, you can’t linearly go from 20 to 85. There is a wide range broadly between 1385 which is a no operating range for various reasons. So both these may help further pull up demand for biofuels. But having said that, I think if India continues to remain a high volume, cost effective producer of ethanol, there are a number of other outlets for ethanol, including ethanol based chemicals.
And similarly, we saw good sales growth in our ENA business which is extra neutral alcohol. Now, dual flexibility, as you know, that we can produce ethanol from grain and molasses has helped us with optimizing the cost as well as offering people different feedstock based ENEs. Our domestic volumes are stable and we also see steady demand from iron fell pharma, perfumery as well as the packaging that we do for Bacardi. Now, we keep a track of our margins and a few factors which affect our margins for the biofuels business include the price of course, which has more or less been steady.
The good thing has been that the grain prices have been somewhat stable, in fact a little lower than what we saw earlier last year. And there is increasing acceptability of DDGs, which is a protein by product, which means that the profitability in the biofuels business, as you see, has also improved. Now these are questions which many of you over the years continue to ask, which was about growth in biofuels as well as how would we sustain the profitability in biofuels? And we continue to at least have an opinion that the policy by and large is not a short term policy, it is a long term policy.
And there is enough thought that the government has given to make sure that the industry is sustained with reasonable margins at the least. So while from time to time the profitability varies, but remember, it never became red. And by and large there were adjustments in the market either due to a natural adjustment or because of price adjustment that the government did. And the profitability of the industry has remained healthy. Now, talking about chemicals, we have spoken about the numbers. In short, the story in chemicals is that we continue to see very good growth in performance chemicals, although it is a relatively smaller segment as of now, and we are quite confident that that growth is going to stay for the years to come and drive growth as far as chemicals is concerned.
So we’ve spoken to you in the past about carbon smart materials. We continue to build that business. We continue to build a business in oilfield chemicals working with several global majors like BSF New park and now even some others. We continue to work with big majors like Dow l’. Oreal. We spoke about bio based mimes. We had a slow start but we did mention to you that IVL became the first manufacturer of a green biobased amine for certain applications. And our first customer, we are proud to say is l’, Oreal with whom we also did some co development over the last two or three years and we started commercial supplies for them.
There are a number of new products that we are working on which includes diabetic esters for foundries, vitamin D products for the personal care space and the flavors and fragrances space. Our glycols did well. We saw some growth in the glycol space and we’ve maintained our market in Southeast Asia despite the challenges. I don’t even think that I should talk about those separate challenges right now because the Reliance Meg you don’t compete with. I think the point here is that niche customers have continued to buy glycol from us and have continued to grow.
Then coming to Mnature Biopharma we spoke about the numbers in terms of growth being steady. In terms of top line, a nominal degrowth is what we saw. However margins being under pressure. So the Q4 revenue performance saw a strong comeback as I mentioned, driven by sustained increase in thiopholticoside prices, recovery of the nicotine business and strong nutraceutical numbers. We strengthened our branded nutraceuticals portfolio to global certifications clinically packed in variant launches. And we expect that the business will come back given the actions that we are doing in the times to come both in terms of volume as well as profitability.
And my colleague Akshay would be here to answer or talk about this business a little more. Now allow me to take a pause as I request my colleague Mr. Singhal to take you through the financials. Good afternoon.
Anand Singhal — Chief Financial Officer
Since most of the financials has already been covered, I will only Give our cover three points. One point is that the company has prepaid almost about 804 crore in this quarter which had been funded by 467 crores through equity which we did in November 25. Rest of the funds has been put in through the cash flow. So this 804 crores include the long term debt, the working capital and the short term loans causing us or other resulting 20 crores saving in the interest cost which is already there in the results.
Number two, there are so many queries relating to the dividend showing in the consolidated results. Just to update that the accounting standard 28 do not allow us to show the dividend as income. The amount of 38.38 crore which we have received from our JV Clariat has been adjusted against the investment which is there. Third point that there was a plant shutdown for the change of the catalyst from 17th March till 2nd April. So this has also resulted the reduction in the production as well as some sales.
Apart from this, most of the results has already been covered by Mr. Rupak and that’s all. I don’t want to rather take more time and I would like you to raise your questions. Thank you.
Operator
So should we start the Q and A session now?
Anand Singhal — Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, you can.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask questions may please press Star and one on their touchstone phone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Please press Star and one to ask questions. The first question is from the line of Pragyam Laddha from Omni Securities.
Please go ahead.
Saket Kapoor
Good evening, sir. Am I audible?
Operator
Yes, you’re audible. Please proceed.
Saket Kapoor
Sir, my question was firstly on the plant shutdown which you talked about. However, how was our business disturbed due to this? Can you throw some more light on it?
Rupark Sarswat
Yeah. So you know we take shutdowns for two reasons. One is generally for catalyst changeovers which takes some time which is required roughly in one and a half years. Now the way the business gets impacted by that is that we are a continuous plant. So we also make ethylene oxide which we sell to for example the Clarion joint venture. So which means that business to some extent extent gets affected to the extent that they cannot build up stock. And obviously sometimes there are new orders for which you’ve not planned.
And this. The other thing is that it also impacts. It has not impacted our MEG business but it impacts some other businesses like lipolytas or specialty which you can’t stock up too much in advance. So that’s how it impacts us.
Saket Kapoor
Okay? Okay, sir. Secondly sir, on the portable spirit segment. Now that bit is down. Q we say we are continuously moving towards premiumization. So sir, first question is what is the split between Country Liquor and imfl and how do you see it going forward? Also what Would be the epic margins for say FY27 are going forward for this segment.
Anand Singhal
Okay, thank you for the question. Approximately 25% of the pie is towards IMFL and this is approximately 75 India made liquor. But we are making definite we have different focus to improve the IMFL part of it without losing focus of the IML part. With the result that you know we are. Now I will like to tell you what are the steps we are taking for increasing the IMFL segment, particularly premium segment. First of all, we take satisfaction in mentioning that two of our key brands, that is Solmait Whiskey which is a millionaire case brand.
Also our Zumba Limon which is very popular in the market have been introduced in the CSB and we have already started supplies in the entire country for the benefit of those who are not very much familiar with CSC details. This is a lifetime registration and which is obtained after a lot of screenings by the armed forces because it is meant for the consumption of the Indian military. So this is one. And also a third brand of ours that is Zumba Black which is the mainstay business rumors platform of the military also has cleared the preliminary screening committee, GSC we call it which consists of the entire board of the administration of csc.
You know, the merge in principle they’ve accepted our third brand also. Of course final board approval will be awaited. It will take little time. But this is also very positive news. Now our approach, as our CEO rightly said has been very strong in the IMF in the IMFL particularly premium segments. And we expect to continue to grow rapidly in the IMFL premium segment. Now how this is possible is in two ways. The first point is that we are taking more geographical coverage. We started with Kerala market.
We are very cautious about giving credit. So our first focus is on the corporation led markets in particular where the money is secure and we can because the working capital required for IMFL is very high. So we want to go steadily but with very firm, firm grounding. So Kerala has given us very good response. We introduced our new Kerala brandy. Brandy in Kerala and we used a French blend which took us a lot of time. Lot of research was done. We don’t introduce brands off the cuff. We do a lot of research and then we do it both internally and so the brand is well accepted in the market.
Then we have started business in other states and very soon we will be doing in Andhra and other markets like Rajasthan. So one is geographical coverage and second is with new brands. As you rightly said, we have introduced brands like Jamun and Cranberry which are in demand or if I may use the word, which are in vogue. So because of we being a tropical country and Jamun and Cranberry are well accepted. We have two more brands in the offering but for obvious reasons we cannot disclose at this stage.
But very soon they will see the light of the day. So both geographically as well as new brands will stem the growth to high double digit. And we expect to consolidate our position in the markets like Delhi, up, Uttarakhand, Kerala and other markets very soon. Most important is that we have inbuilt capacity, see as opposed to competition if I may say we have an inherent advantage where we do not use even one liter of ENA for our brands and we have enough inbuilt capacity to use our ENA for the benefit of who may not be aware.
Our ENA goes to top companies like top multinational companies including Radico and Silak, Nadar and the Eduperno. So there is no reason why we our brand and Bacardi which is our partner since over 15 years. So there is no reason why we should not be able to make our brand as good or better than competition. So our ingredients are good, our we have laid the foundation of our new brands and I’m sure in times to come we will have a very strong group double digit growth. So any other questions? Can I just add to this?
Yeah, why not? So
Rupark Sarswat
Just to you know, share some data with you, UP is one of the largest feature markets where for IMFL if I’m not wrong, Manish, correct me. Our top line growth last year was 25%. That’s it. So a lot of our growth is coming from ifl which is relatively premium part of portable spirits. Now the broad, you know, number that I have for up, for example while Indian made Indian liquor is 50 to 65% of the value but it is 52% or sorry in terms of volume, but 52% of volume. IMFL on the other hand is about 16% of the volume but about 34% of the valuable.
So if you see in value terms it starts to approach right now slightly more than one third but half of the market share. And my understanding is that while the medium and economy brands over there have grown close to between 4 to 7% but the premium brands of IMFL have grown in higher double digit number percentages. Now I have a number, I don’t know what the exact one so I’m refraining from quoting it now if you see and why we think we should be successful in these markets that we are focusing on, for example Delhi up ut, which are the first market that we’re focusing on is as Rajuvi said, we are very strong in terms of high quality ethanol manufacturing.
As you know, we are also the first company ever to start doing third party bottling for the Guardian Casino. In addition to that, I think the fact that we’ve got a strong base in terms of Indian made Indian liquor is a good way for us to make our presence felt and graduate some of our customers. In addition, I think our approvals in CST as well as paramilitary we think would be growth drivers and the traction that we are seeing with the inorganic growth in terms of acquisition of Amrut brand is also good, which allows us to state with some confidence that we will continue to drive premiumization in our portfolio which will not only drive growth but also make the business richer in terms of margins.
Anand Singhal
Yeah. If I may just add and supplement to what CEO said. See now we are in a. We are poised for growth because now we have got the entire range of brands. Our Soulmate Whiskey which is our traditional brand is a millionaire brand. We have bought our vodka which is amazing vodka with various flavors including cranberry and jamun which are doing very well, which are challenger brand to the leader brand. We have got our Zumba Limon which is again number two brand in that segment. And now we have also now to public domain.
So I can clearly say that we’ve got in a few states of the north we have got the distribution rights of our Amrut luxury malts which are world famous and loved all over the world. There was unmet demand for these brands so it is slightly more than distribution but for obvious reasons I cannot disclose but we have got the entire range now. So when our sales guy goes he has a regular rain brand up to the single malls, the few. The future is in premiumization so we are in a good position to attend to the needs of all sectors.
Saket Kapoor
Okay, thank you. Thank you sir for such a detailed answer. Like since the IMFL portfolio is growing, do you see see the margin to be north of 22% if I’m not wrong,
Anand Singhal
22% is unit.
Saket Kapoor
Sorry, can you repeat your question? For the portable spirit segment do you see the EBIT margins to be in north of 22% for the IMFL segment? Also the portable spirit segment.
Rupark Sarswat
For the portable spirit segment I think I’ve already shared the number which for Q4 was 22% the EBIT margin. Now I think the point that we’ve made is we made Certain assumptions in terms of ethanol, the growing market premiumization as well as sense of ideal. So I would imagine that there is no reason for us to believe that we should be able to maintain these margins and see for the effort that we put in mix, we will try and improve it.
Saket Kapoor
Okay. Okay, sir, thank you. Thank you so much.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor company Please go ahead.
Saket Kapoor
Yeah, thank you. First we got the opportunity and congratulations firstly to the team sir, for posting a good set of tidy set of numbers. I hope I’m audible. Hello.
Operator
Yes.
Saket Kapoor
Firstly, if, if we, if we look at our number in the segment part the, the BHPC segment performance. So if you could just give us some understanding on the factors that has led to the revenue going down and how should this segment shape up in the coming year? What are our preparations for some color on the thing?
Rupark Sarswat
Saket, thank you and thank you for your nice kind words. Just give me a second Saket, I wanted some. So first of all, it will be slightly incorrect to say that the performance has been muted. I think top line growth has been muted.
Saket Kapoor
Yes sir.
Rupark Sarswat
Right. Whereas we’ve seen growth in absolute EBITDA as well as EBITDA margin. EBIT margin since we do not discuss EBITDA separately, rfe EBITDA performance is much better now there is some need for streamlining of certain costs etc. Which will also result in that. Yes, we lost some top line essentially because of loss of some markets like lipo Lisa and also some top line loss in gas. Now the reason why we saw some drop in sales of businesses like glycol ether is that we had much lower cost material available from China for example and some of the other variants which are like propylene or based glycolithor which gather some of our market.
Now some of our DE growth actually also came from the EO offtake by the joint venture. And one of the challenges here was a large delta between reliance and IEO price. Now to some extent, not to some extent right now, to a large extent that has been adjusted and we believe that the huge delta that we saw for a period of one and a half, two years, hopefully in my opinion maybe a thing of the past and we should see much better competitiveness on that front as well. We’ve seen good growth in terms of glycol, we’ve seen excellent growth in terms of performance chemicals which in terms of, you know, value itself is up 40% in contribution is up 40 plus percent.
And we are hoping that I’M not projecting but we are hoping for in excess of doubling this business this year and maybe continue to, if we continue to do our projects well, continue to maintain that momentum for years to come. In gases, the reason we saw a top line decline was that in the year before we saw extremely high argon prices. And argon is something which is very volatile. There was a shortage in India partly because of steel plants, partly because of increased consumption and putting up of electronic plants, etc.
And while so that also led to some top line decline in gases and some of our smaller business which we were selling as PO to some of our customers here, which wasn’t particularly high margin, again for the reasons of competitiveness with Reliance we could not do last year. So going forward is what we see based on the action that we are taking, not in terms of maybe a little here and there in terms of timeline, our quality of business will continue to improve, our width of portfolio will continue to improve.
The people that we are engaging with are good end customers that will continue to improve. And for a year at least we see that we should have improved profitability. Profitability and also top line growth. And beyond that we are working on quite a number of projects. I think some of them which you are aware of and I will take them as we start materializing which have a huge upside potential as well. And I will leave it at saying that it is potential because we need to make them happen. But since you asked me as to what the future of the chemicals business is, I am cautiously, or I’m kind of cautiously optimistic for the immediate term or rather optimistic, but I’m bullish based on the actions that we are taking that this business will continue to and build.
And as we get in a little more focus on the business, you’ll find that this business actually shows up better than what it may be getting seen right now.
Saket Kapoor
Into then the NSU segment I think. So that will add to your growth because some capex was done and we were doing some commercial pilot plants also and some sales had also happened earlier last quarter maybe apnea, but where are we in terms of that? And secondly sir, currently are all our plants running at optimum level? Because generally we also see that a revenue decline is attributable to maintenance or a shutdown. So I think at our optimum level.
Unidentified Participant
No, see
Rupark Sarswat
As I said there are, you know, I have the numbers in front of me. We saw the value decline in glycol ether, we saw value decline in gases and we saw value decline in terms of the ethyn oxide that we sell to the jc. Now the shutdown does directly impact the ethylene oxide that we sell to the JC because of 1520 days there is no your supply to this. Right. On most of the sales that we book under, you know Romtail sales to the JV is actually which is completely stopped during during the shutdown. So yes, that’s a contributing factor as well.
Saket Kapoor
Okay. And. But still then with the shutdown our JV’s contribution to the profitability was significantly higher on on a Q1Q basis. So do we have any one off or what? What has led to this? The jump to 13 crore. However on the annual basis numbers flat 46.42 versus 46.40 crore. How should the performance of then the JV shaping up? And as per I think of the JV we have 51:49 ratio there. So going ahead how. How are we going to monetize as per the terms? If you could just give some more
Rupark Sarswat
Saket. You always come up with difficult questions for me but I will try and answer. So it’s like this. The JV performance is not only reflected by how many yields they buy from us. And direct yield supply in a particular month is not a reflection on the total turnover of the debut from the es. Neither is their profitability. Now the JV if you look at the JV performance and by and large JV has improved by improvement in mix and also improvement in certain imported traded materials that they get from Clarion.
And when we get back or when we plough back the profit from the joint venture, it is a sum total of all of that. Yes. Going forward, if the phosphate based volumes also pick up from the JV and we don’t have a shutdown, we expect that the EO based volumes will also contribute to growth. And they will contribute to the growth in my opinion. So JVK profitability.
Saket Kapoor
Profitability.
Anand Singhal
The fourth quarter, the JB 49 which we have taken into consolidated results that will continue. So this year when you are seeing that 46.42 was the was the income from the JV or share net profit from the JV, I think that will improve drastically. And as I have already told that in 2829 we are going to to sell out 24% more equity as per the agreement. So depending upon the agreement and whatever, that will give us a very handsome amount which will again be utilized for the for the payment to of the term loan and making this company as a debt free.
So in 2829 I am hopeful that the chemical will be totally debt free.
Saket Kapoor
Right, Very good to hear that enterprise. Firstly the finance cost number is one of I think the lowest number posted by the company. So the finance team headed by you have done considerable very good job. And I think. Numbers 26, 27 and going ahead what should be pensioning in in terms of finance cost going ahead?
Anand Singhal
Because again I have covered in the beginning itself that we have prepaid 800 crores and the promoter funding was only 467. So 333 crores has been funded from the internal approval. So whatever you are saying that run rate will continue and will continue to to reduce our interest cost in the years to come. Although there is the normal repayment of the term loan also but we will continue to prepay some of the high cost tax. So you will see those numbers in first quarter and onwards in the 26, 27.
Saket Kapoor
These are consistent number. And what is the current maturity.
Anand Singhal
This year we have a liability, normal liability of say about 268 crores which is say in leaker it is 168 and 100 crores in chemical.
Saket Kapoor
Right,
Anand Singhal
Sorry. And apart from this we will try to make some of these prepayments also.
Saket Kapoor
Two points on the RN part sir. How was currently the the grain prices for our bioethanol segment shaping up at the availability of the same? And if I remember correctly sir, earlier when we had this shutdown and all we had also realized some sale of some silver also because of some catalyst change. If I remember twice or thrice we have done that. How has that benefited us in terms of our reportable number for this quarter?
Anand Singhal
I will cover the silver and green will be covered by the CEO sir. So silver sale during the year, during the shutdown was 98 crores. We got out of the silver sale while the purchase price of the silver was 51. And since we have not provided the consumption of the catalyst which we are doing every month. So basically there is no profit on the silver. So that is why that has not been flown in the before.
Rupark Sarswat
Yeah. So Saket, as I mentioned earlier there is adequate stock of grain and the grain prices have been stable. And if I may just state to you, in the middle of last year grain prices were running close to 24 rupees a kilo. And then in the last quarter of last year they were running close to between 21 and 22 or you know 21 plus minus. And the good thing was that the DDJS started to fetch a better price. My opinion is it is because there is greater acceptability of this protein source in the world.
And also, you know, you see a distinct shift in terms of the feedstocks which are being used to produce ethanol. If you go back to say 2019, 2020 out of 173, you know, in terms of ethanol, C heavy molasses and B heavy molasses were contributing to 43 and 39% respectively. And sugarcane 9% and damage to gain only 9%. So grain was contributing only about 9% of the total 100% of ethanol production. Now come to 2526. Grain is contributing 5 plus 27 plus 46, which is close to 70 plus percent of 73% of ethanol production is coming from grain.
There also very interesting shift has happened. So what was initially largely being serviced by damaged food gain and FCI rice and it was 0 in 29, 20, 46% is being covered by maize. So I think there is a part of the policy initiative by the government realizing that we need to diversify in terms of the feedstocks for ethanol production. There is also increasingly maize being used. We believe that there will be several things being done on this front. First of all, it’s a hardier crop which can be grown in many parts of the country, even in somewhat drier climatic zones.
And also there is ample scope for improving the productivity of grain. I do not know if it will be speculative, but one of the things which could cause a significant jump in maize productivity, for example, which makes the US fight an efficient producer of ethanol is introduction of genetically modified males specifically for ethanol. Now I am not making this as a projection. These are some of the things which may in going forward significantly improve the productivity and efficiency of biofuel production in India.
Saket Kapoor
Right? If I may just add one more point and join the queue is about the in nature biopharma I think so that segment also the profitability has improved. So and also in your presentation, sir, the outlook is mentioned that the segment is expected to perform well in future on account of good customer addition, volume growth and price realization. So if you could just throw some more color. And when will this segment achieve earlier zone ebitda higher profitability post Karthi I think the environment has changed significantly.
Product profile how is this segment going to perform?
Unidentified Participant
Satya, this is Akshay here. So basically the segment was originally the division was originally dependent on one of the products which has the highs and downs of the price in terms of the total contribution, contribution to the net margin and as well as the top line. But as a company, what we have done in last three years we have diversified the business. So the more focus has come to the highly growing product growing market in nutraceutical which is basically the branded nutraceutical segment.
And we have invested very significantly on some of the clinicals. Four of the highly growing indications of women cells and some other some other indications. Already we have completed some of these studies in last one year and there are a couple of more studies which are ongoing and that is likely to be completed by this financial year. And then we have a. We have a target focus on multi geography presence. In terms of. Right now we already have a strong presence in Asia Pacific. But we are also trying to get hold of US market which is one of the biggest market.
And then we also have opened our office very very recently for us to have that trajectory and momentum in us. So this is broadly in terms of NHL biopharma we are on the right trajectory. We are investing in high growth component in terms of both in terms of our manufacturing capability and also the customer acquisition in various market market. And so we’ll continue to remain in that. So I hope that answers your question.
Saket Kapoor
Only on the profitability front. Can you give more color how was the profitability shape? I think the last last time because of some products and some new plants were also commissioned because of which the realizations were down and so were the profits. So our key products and unable to sell it Cairo some product of nicotine and all wherein one of your competitor also came up with a new unit and that has put pressure on the realization. So how will that product profile shape up
Unidentified Participant
For us? The nicotine business is. We are diversifying into more of a value added customer. We are trying to add couple of customers which are long term short. So broadly if you look at where we are started this business we had some of the customers which are from the commodity side. But again they are volume based driven customer and that has given a good top line. But strategically we have taken a very strategic shift in last three years for us to shift to more value added customer to sustain for the long term growth and to contribute on the profitability.
So this is broadly in terms of nicotine. I mean I would say the business right now is in the focus. But in terms of the EBITDA improvement. We may not see the significant improvement in this financial year, but definitely the investment and the growth and the customer acquisition. What we are doing right now is going to contribute towards more of EBITDA and the profitability of the particular manager biopharma segment.
Saket Kapoor
Yeah, thank you for all the answer and thanks to the board also for the interim given that has already been paid to the investors and that that too on the higher side. So thank you for looking after. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen. In order to ensure that the management will be able to address questions from all the participants in the conference Kindly limit your questions to only two per participant. Should you have a follow up question, please rejoin the queue. We’ll take the next question from the line of Bala Subramanian from Arihant Capital. Please go ahead.
Bala Subramaniam
Good evening sir. Thank you so much for the opportunity. My first question on the debt side. Any further debt reduction plan is there in the coming year? Mr.
Operator
Bala Subramanian, your audio is not clear. There is a background noise.
Bala Subramaniam
Now it’s fine.
Operator
Please repeat the question. Sir.
Bala Subramaniam
Yeah. Yes. Sir. On the debt profile side is there any plan to further reduction in the coming year? And right now it’s around 2526 crore kind of per quarter under interest cost side. Whether this rate will continue in that coming quarter. And what is the average borrowing cost right now? Sir, if it could possible share that debt breakup. All these all three segments.
Anand Singhal
I have already given this answer that we are rather in the process of reducing the debt. There is a liability of 268 crores for the year 2627 which we will pay apart from this. Yes. As per the cash flow we will target the prepayment as such. There is no nothing has been written in the paper that much of how much we will pay. But yes. And the second thing what you are saying that 202526 crore per quarter that we will reduce. Okay. And if you want the debt profile I will give you the debt profile of all these three units which is in process.
And I will share with you.
Bala Subramaniam
Okay, sir. Second question is on the scheme of arrangement is admitted by NCLT. I think the hearing is expected 21st of May. Is there any expected timeline for the completion of demerger
Anand Singhal
21 May. We are hopeful that we will get the order for the demerger of the divisions. And another hope is that in first 10 days of the June we will get the order. Once we get the order we will start working for filing that in ROC and the other matters which is related to N.
Bala Subramaniam
Okay, Got it sir. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We’ll take the next question from the line of Varun Mehta from Wealth Link Investment. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Good evening, sir. Am I audible?
Anand Singhal
Yes.
Operator
Yes
Unidentified Participant
Sir. I just have question on the balance sheet side. Basically this year we have done around about 830 crore of capital expenditure. And that also in last six months it has gone from about 600 crore in last six months. Can you just throw some light on sir, where have we invested this money?
Anand Singhal
Actually there are two distilleries largely which are the main capital expenditure. One is the grain distillery in Gorakhpur. One is the grain distillery in Kashipur. So basically out of whatever amount you are saying say about 400 crore is out of these two distilleries capitalization. And apart from this we have some more capexes which is not a major amount and that has been completed. This is what is the amount which we have spent on the capital.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. And so secondly on the debt side we have repaid around 800 crore. But net debt from last year is only down by 220 crores. So will our interest cost remain at 45 or will go slightly higher?
Anand Singhal
No, our interest cost will be remaining about 25 range. Actually you are not able to see the reduction because we have reduced our cash credit limits.
Unidentified Participant
Okay,
Anand Singhal
So some of the amount which has been repaid against the long term loan that is visible. But the amount which we have paid out of the cash credit limit that is not visible.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. All right sir. Thank you so much.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Akash Gupta and individual investor. Please go ahead.
Saket Kapoor
Good evening sir. I hope I’m audible. First question I have on portable spirit segment. So I think you answered this in the beginning of the call as some other participant asked. I missed that. If you could just repeat what percentage of our total revenue of portable spirit comes from imfl? And within this what percentage
Anand Singhal
IMFL revenue? Can you repeat the second question please? Akash.
Operator
Akash, please unmute yourself and speak.
Saket Kapoor
Am I audible now?
Operator
Yes.
Saket Kapoor
So what I’m asking is out of total portable spirit revenue what percentage comes from imfl and within that what percentage come from Amrup?
Unidentified Participant
Okay, so Akash, the total like revenue percentage, whatever we have declared it is around 31% from the total of the total portable section. And AMROM share likely to be around 5 to 6% out of it. Not much.
Saket Kapoor
Okay, 41% you said, right?
Unidentified Participant
Yeah.
Saket Kapoor
If I remember correctly last year it was around mid teens 16 17%. So are we saying that our IM has doubled?
Unidentified Participant
So. So this. I think this has been already answered by our CEO that we are now shifting from our regular segment to the premium segment. So the revenue percentage is increasing in the RFL. And we are aspiring to shift more percentage by introducing more premium brands in Future.
Saket Kapoor
Okay, my second question is a Bacardi that you do. I think that directly. I’m sorry to interrupt
Operator
You. Your voice is breaking. Can you come in the network area please?
Saket Kapoor
Okay, I am upset. How is it now?
Operator
Please continue.
Saket Kapoor
Yes, what I’m asking is sir, the bottling that we do for Bacardi. I. I think that directly flows into our margin. Right. For portable segment. So excluding that what is our margin on portable spirit? Ebitda margin.
Unidentified Participant
So just the cardi business, you know it is for the like. They are low proof and the high proof brands. The major portion belongs to the low proof brands like Breezer and all. So there the we are. We are only charging you know the filling cost from them. And this both. This directly gives the revenue to us in liquid segment. But it comes under the miscellaneous income segment not in the sales revenue.
Saket Kapoor
Right. So excluding that what will be our margin for portable segment? Portable.
Unidentified Participant
This would be a very greater percentage in this. This could be hardly 2 or 3% of the total. Portable.
Rupark Sarswat
My. My suggestion is Akash, if you can send an email and we can revert with more precise detail in terms of breakup etc. If required have a separate discussion. We will speak separately.
Saket Kapoor
Sure sir, sure that I’ll do that.
Operator
Thank you ladies and gentlemen. That was the last question for today. I now have the conference over to Rupak sir for closing comments. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Rupark Sarswat
Yeah. Let me thank you all on behalf of my colleagues here for turning up for this conference and also giving us your time and a lot of interest in our business. A big thank you to Saket for all the interest that he gave. Good suggestions and he was still waiting to come back in the queue. Saket, I’m sure we can have a discussion on your question but. And on that note all of you have a good evening, good day and we look forward to seeing you again. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Operator
Thank you. Thank you members of the management on behalf of NCER Equities. That concludes this conference. We thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.