Navin Fluorine International Limited (NAVINFLUOR) Q3 FY23 Earnings Concall Transcript

Navin Fluorine International Limited (NSE:NAVINFLUOR) Q3 FY23 Earnings Concall dated Feb. 08, 2023.

Corporate Participants:

Ms. Rasika Sawant — Investor Relations

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Mr. Partha Roychowdhury — Chief Executive Officer – HPP Business and Interim Chief Financial Officer

Analysts:

Sanjesh Jain — ICICI Securities — Analyst

Sudarshan Padmanabhan — JM Financial PMS — Analyst

Abhijit Akella — Kotak Securities — Analyst

Vivek Rajamani — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

Amar Maurya — AlfAccurate Advisors — Analyst

Rohit Nagraj — Centrum Broking — Analyst

Anubhav Sahu — MC Research — Analyst

Ranjit Cirumalla — IIFL Securities — Analyst

Archit Joshi — B&K Securities — Analyst

Siddhart Gadekar — Equirus — Analyst

Nitin Agarwal — DAM Capital — Analyst

Dhwanit — Individual Investor — Analyst

Presentation:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Navin Fluorine International Limited Q3 FY ’23 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I now hand the conference over to Ms. Rasika Sawant from Orient Capital. Thank you, and over to you.

Ms. Rasika Sawant — Investor Relations

Thank you, and welcome to the Q3 and nine months FY ’23 Earnings Conference Call. Today on this call, we have Mr. Radhesh Welling, Managing Director of Navin Fluorine International Limited, along with the senior management team.

This conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on beliefs, opinions and expectations as of today. Actual results may differ materially. The statements are not the guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. A detailed safe harbor statement is given on Page number two of investor presentation of company, which has been uploaded on the stock exchange and company’s website as well.

With this, I now hand over the call to Mr. Radhesh Welling for his opening remarks. Over to you, sir.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Good morning, and a warm welcome to all the participants. On this call today, I’m joined by Mr. Partha Roychowdhury, CEO of our high performance product business, and our Investor Relations partner, Orient Capital. I hope all of you got an opportunity to go through our financial results and investor presentation, which have been uploaded on the stock exchange as well as on the company’s website. Before I start with my comments on the business performance, I would like to brief you on a few developments at Navin Fluorine.

To start with, we wish to inform that based on the recommendations of Nomination and Remuneration Committee, and consideration of the Board of Directors of the company. Mr. Anish Ganatra has been appointed as Chief Financial Officer of the company with effect from February 9, 2023; Mr. Partha Roychowdhury, who has been managing dual responsibilities and has been our interim CFO, will continue as CEO of our HPP business post February 9, 2023. Mr. Ganatra will be joining Navin Fluorine as CFO with effect from February 9, 2023.

He’s a senior finance and business leader and a qualified chartered accountant having almost 30 years of rich international experience with demonstrated track record of creating value through strategy, risk management, planning, performance management, audit, internal controls, transformation and accounting. He has worked in India as well as internationally in senior positions with leading organizations like Reliance Industries, British Petroleum and Castrol India Limited.

We welcome Mr. Ganatra to the Navin Fluorine family and wish him all the success in his new role. Let me now start with key highlights for the quarter and for nine months ending FY ’23 followed by business segment-wise updates, and then we will take you through financial highlights for the period under review. I’m delighted to share that our quarterly performance for Q3 FY ’23 across number of new milestones. Our quarterly consolidated revenue surpassed INR500 crores, and operating PBT has, for the first time, surpassed INR100 crores. EBITDA margin improved significantly due to ramp-up in capacities and product mix.

I’m happy to report that in the first nine months of the year, our revenues were almost same as what we delivered in the full year FY ’22. Commercial production at three of our new plants, HPP, MPP and the Agrochemical Intermediate plant has commenced successfully. This is significant since a lot of this work was done amidst COVID. The capitalization of new plants led to higher depreciation impacting the profit before tax. This demonstrates ability of the Navin Fluorine team to not only identify and develop new projects, but also execute them successfully and on time.

Now I would like to discuss the operating performance of each business unit. As many of our new projects will now being undertaken in our subsidiary, NFASL. Going forward, we request you to evaluate our performance and especially performances of each of the BUs on a consolidated basis. Segment financials for this quarter reported on a consolidated basis, and as such, includes NFASL. All our business units, specialty, HPP and CDMO delivered highest ever quarterly revenue in this quarter.

Our Specialty Chemicals business continues to deliver strong performance, driven by strong partnerships and great technology platforms. We reported revenue growth of 22% on a Y-o-Y basis at INR186 crores for Q3 FY ’23. In this quarter, we successfully completed plant audits done by four multinational customers, MPP and the dedicated plant for Agrochemical Intermediate started in this quarter — started in the quarter under review, and we started supplies of commercial products post successful commissioning and qualification. Our HPP business generated revenue of INR253 crores, growth of 64% in Q3 FY ’23 as compared to the same period last year.

New plant in Dahej achieved close to its design capacity in December, helping us achieve operational efficiencies. The new project in Surat is slated to commence production in the second quarter of FY ’24, marking a significant milestone in our growth and expansion plans. Our CDMO business has reported highest ever quarterly revenue of INR125 crores reflecting a remarkable Y-o-Y growth of 73% as compared to the same period last year. This impressive performance is the mark of confidence, our international partners continue to place upon us. Work on the c-GMP-3 expansion — capacity expansion is on track. Our CDMO business, we believe, is now on strong footing and ready for further capacity expansion, a plan of which is currently under preparation.

Now I would like to share highlights of our financial performance, following which we’ll be happy to respond to your queries. For nine months FY ’23, on a consolidated basis, the company’s reported revenue from the operations of INR1,380 crores as against INR1,044 crores in nine months FY ’22, growth of 32%. Operating EBITDA stood at INR349 crores as against INR271 crores in nine month FY ’22, up by 34%. Operating EBITDA margin stood at 25.3%. Operating PBT was up 25%, stood at INR280 crores for nine months FY ’23, as against INR223 crores last year. Operating PBT margin was at 20.3% in nine months FY ’23.

Profit after tax stood at INR239 crores for nine months FY ’23, and PAT margin was at about 17.3%. Now coming to the quarterly performance for Q3 FY ’23. Company reported growth of 49% in net revenue from operations to INR564 crores against INR379 crores in Q3 FY ’22. Operating EBITDA grew by about 58% to INR156 crore as against INR99 crores in Q3 FY ’22. EBITDA margin stood at 27.6% for Q3 FY ’23, an increase of 159 basis points. Operating PBT stood at INR121 crores, growth of 41% as compared to last year. PAT stood at INR107 crores for Q3 FY ’23 as against INR69 crores in Q2 FY ’22 with a growth of 55%.

So that is from my side. We’ll now open the floor for Q&A. Thank you very much.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you very much [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from the line of Sanjesh from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.

Sanjesh Jain — ICICI Securities — Analyst

Yeah, good morning. Thanks, Radhesh, and I would wish to congratulate Navin Fluorine team for three well-executed projects. I got a few questions. First, on the HFO side, now that we have reached the peak utilization, I wanted to understand more on the underlying product. So what will be the contribution of this particular 1223 series within the HFO family? And can this intermediate be also used for manufacturing the more popular 1234yf?

And between the Honeywell and DuPont, they were to hold the patent in this product, what is the market share of Honeywell? And what is the growth at which this cash is growing as an industry? This will be my first question. I know it’s a bunch of it, but whatever you could help us understand will be great.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Yes, thanks for that question. So if you actually look at this particular molecule which we are manufacturing, this actually has a very wide range of applications. DuPont, which is I think you’re talking about Chemours, they don’t have — they are not in this particular molecule. Also, this molecule is not used for manufacturing of yf. This is an independent molecule. This has independent set of applications. It’s not currently being used as one of the molecules for air conditioning. It has got multiple other applications. And we are currently working on, along with Honeywell as well as independently to identify some opportunities where this can be used as an intermediate.

But this has nothing to do with refrigerant gas, etc. That is a completely different set of opportunities. That’s — there’s R&D work going on at this point in time. As I had indicated earlier, this particular molecule is at a very early stage of its life cycle and a lot of growth basically ahead — like ahead of itself right now. So we see — we feel that in the years to come, this molecule will grow significantly. And this molecule will also, for some of the applications, continue to take market share from other HFCs as well as some other molecules.

Sanjesh Jain — ICICI Securities — Analyst

Fair enough, sir. Thanks. My second question is on the two new plants commenced. You have mentioned that we have reached peak capacity in the HPP segment. What is the utilization rate in this quarter for the dedicated plant and for the MPP plant?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Yes. So MPP, if you remember, it was earlier designed for four to five molecules. Currently, we have commissioned our first line and started the production of the first molecule. In this quarter, which is Q4, we will start two more molecules. And so we will basically start — we will have production of three molecules in Q4. We will ramp up the capacity gradually. As far as the dedicated plant is concerned, we actually commissioned the plant one month prior to the target date.

And hence, we got the month of December to produce this particular product. So initially, obviously, we had to commission the plant, start the production, get some trial quantity out for successful qualification, etc. We completed all the process. And from January onwards, we expect that we will have full production — we would have reached full capacity utilization for this dedicated plant. In the month of December, which is the first full month we got for this particular plant, the plant was run at a slightly below full utilization.

Sanjesh Jain — ICICI Securities — Analyst

Thank you. One last question. It’s more of a bookkeeping, is on the CDMO. The CDMO number looks fabulous INR125 crores. Is it fair to assume that it has some of the spillover coming from the last quarter? Or we should assume that now this will be a more quarterly steady-state run rate? How should we look at this revenue in the CDMO business?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

No. So I think as I have mentioned before as well, two things: a, unfortunately, I mean, that’s not our desire or intent. But this business from quarter-to-quarter, it continues to remain quite lumpy. So what we have said before is that you should look at this business on an annual basis, and then that should become a benchmark for seeing the growth that we are achieving on a Y-on-Y basis rather than looking at it on a quarter-to-quarter basis.

The second point, which we had indicated earlier is that if you look at the calendar year ’22, we had actually said that we are seeing a relatively soft demand whereas calendar year ’23, we are actually seeing relatively stronger demand and which you will actually start seeing from our performance for quarter three, which is what we have actually seen now.

So we expect that the quarter four performance will be in line of what we have done in Q3 or it will be better than what we have done in Q3. But for you to basically — look at the overall CDMO performance, I would continue to request you to look at it on an annualized basis rather than on a quarter-to-quarter basis.

Sanjesh Jain — ICICI Securities — Analyst

Fair enough. Thanks, Radhesh…

Operator

Sanjesh, I’m sorry to interrupt. There are several participants in the question queue. May we request you to return to the question queue, please.

Sanjesh Jain — ICICI Securities — Analyst

Fair enough. Thanks, Radhesh, thanks for answering all the questions.

Operator

Thank you very much. [Operator Instructions] Our next question is from the line of Sudarshan Padmanabhan from JM Financial PMS. Please go ahead.

Sudarshan Padmanabhan — JM Financial PMS — Analyst

Thank you for taking my question. Sir, my question is on the Agrochemical Intermediate plant. I mean we are quite delighted to see the kind of ramp-up that we have seen in the HFO contract which is almost an up to 100% of maximum utilization in December. How do we see the traction here? I mean do we see this traction also being similar to what we have seen in the Honeywell contract or do we see this being a little bit more gradual?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

So in both, Honeywell contract, which is the HFO as well as the Agrochemical piece. These — both these are dedicated clients. So we’ve actually achieved close to full capacity in December. And we expect that this quarter, we should basically be running at almost close to full capacity. And what we have actually tried to do here is that establish, a, that we can run the plant at the designed capacity. So we requested the customer that let us run it to the full capacity, customers are willing to take everything that we manufactured in these three months.

This will also help us to really focus on achieving the norms and the yields that we have targeted. So all the work that is required to be done, we are actually trying to do upfront. And hence, we are trying to see that if we can actually run both these plants, which is both of them are dedicated plants to full capacity, rated capacity and achieve the desired norms and yields. So that’s the plan for this particular quarter for both the plants for HFO as well as the dedicated plant.

Sudarshan Padmanabhan — JM Financial PMS — Analyst

And now that we have more or less achieved the rated capacity and running at almost full capacity in the fourth quarter, what are the chances of expansion of these contracts because I’m sure that as the usage increases, as you mentioned that this HFO is a lot more versatile, they would obviously look at expansion in their volumes, which will basically be a benefit for us.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Yes. So I assume you’re specifically asking about HFO, right?

Sudarshan Padmanabhan — JM Financial PMS — Analyst

Yes, sir, the Honeywell contract.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Yes. So I think our immediate priority, if you remember previously, I had talked about three sets of priorities. Priority number one, to ensure we run the plant at designed capacity, achieve the desired norms, yields, etc. Now if you are able to do that in one quarter, which is the Q4. Our efforts will then be to ensure that we at least do that for a year so that we also gain appropriate confidence, our customer also gains appropriate confidence. While we do that, we already have started working on priority number two, which is the debottlenecking piece, which I had actually talked about before.

That particular piece will give us about 20% additional capacity. It requires very small capex. We are currently in discussion with the customer to complete that particular set of activity. And we believe that in the next quarter or so, we should be able to do that. That will be our priority number two. As we get that done, that the next one would be to engage with the customer for further expansion, which is basically kind of double the capacity for HFO. That would probably take at least about a year or so. Meanwhile, we want to complete this priority number one and priority number two.

Sudarshan Padmanabhan — JM Financial PMS — Analyst

One final question from my side before I rejoin is on the specialty side. I mean, [Indecipherable], the growth — I mean, we’ve seen a very strong growth and demand coming in from the agro side mean we also talked about revival and a lot of inquiries happening on the pharma side. How do we see CY ’23 from that side? Do we see the proportion of pharma increasing? And how does this mix probably change in the next couple of years or so?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

No. So in fact, one of the things I have mentioned previously, and we continue to do that, we have significantly reduced our dependence on pharmaceutical within the specialty business. I’m sure you know that in specialty, we typically deal with the generic business on the pharma side and work mostly with the customers in India, we are actually trying to reduce that dependence.

The comment that you made, where we are talking about improved confidence that we are seeing from the pharma customer, that commentary is primarily meant for the innovator pharma companies where we work on patented molecules, a lot of these opportunities are pre-commercialization and then just immediately after commercialization and all of that is actually exported. So these are two completely different businesses. Generic pharma happens in a specialty BU. Innovator pharma, that’s a business which happens in this — on the CDMO side.

So to your question, today, if you look at the percentage of the sales coming from agro has significantly gone up compared to three years back. And going forward, we — as we had indicated before, we have also started seeing now good traction coming in from the performance materials side. So we are consciously now trying to identify and develop partnerships and projects on the performance materials side.

So going forward, what we want to do is by FY ’25, FY ’26, reduce our dependence from where we are today on the agro side. That will not be by reducing the business on the agro side, but actually increasing the business significantly more on the performance materials side.

Sudarshan Padmanabhan — JM Financial PMS — Analyst

Sure sir, thanks a lot.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Abhijit Akella from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.

Abhijit Akella — Kotak Securities — Analyst

Yeah, good morning and thanks for taking my questions. First, on the expense items, sir, for this quarter. So I believe the employee cost line includes a INR7.5 crore charge for the ESOP expense. Just wanted to get your thoughts on how many more quarters we should expect this to continue? And is this going to be a straight line kind of expense throughout that period? And we’ve seen significant increases in the operating expense lines as well as depreciation and finance cost. I presume it’s because of the new commissioning of the plant. Are we already at peak levels, more or less, at least with relation to these three products. Have they been commissioned or are there further increases which we should expect in the upcoming quarters?

Mr. Partha Roychowdhury — Chief Executive Officer – HPP Business and Interim Chief Financial Officer

So I am Partha Roychowdhury. On your first question, the INR7 crore charge is for this quarter, and this charge will continue and it will keep on reducing as we go forward quarter-by-quarter until the entire vesting happens, yes. And with regard to the questions on the revenue expenditure side, if you’re looking at the consol numbers and given the fact that three plants have been capitalized, and we are getting products out of them, those have come and now resided in the P&L. So on account of the consolidation, there is an increase. Besides that, there has been an increase in the energy costs, as you may be aware of.

Beyond that, there are some increases in the freight, labor and other expenditures. The overall increase on a nine-month basis is approximately INR60 crores. Out of that, the energy itself accounts for INR40 crores, yes. Depreciation, as you said, is, of course, higher because of the capitalization. So it’s mainly on account of our NFSAL, which is the 100% subsidiary. Now with regard to these three products or three plants which have been capitalized. By and large, they are at full revenue expenditure level. When the fourth plant comes up, of course, the expenditure will go up, yes.

Abhijit Akella — Kotak Securities — Analyst

That’s clear and helpful. And the second question I had was on the HPP and MPP as well as Agro Intermediate growth projects. When I — if I’m doing my math right, it appears that the domestic sales of the HPP business units seem to be down sequentially, quite significantly. So just to understand whether that’s seasonality or there is any other reason to that? Also, we had last quarter alluded to the likelihood of some price hikes in the HPP product, the HFO product in the month of January, 15%, 20% perhaps.

So if you could please just update us on that and whether we should see an increase in HFO revenues starting the March quarter because of that? And finally, on the MPP and Agro Intermediate side, there’s a comment in the presentation that we have done four plant audits by MNC customers. Are these for potentially new opportunities within specialty chemicals? And where do we see capacity utilization for the MPP product in fiscal ’24 and ’25?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Yes. So I think there are three questions that you had asked. Let me take the second question because that’s the easiest one to answer. On the pricing front, when we did the agreement at that point in time, we had actually said year one will be a fixed price and then year two onwards, there will be a true-up. So there will be a cost-plus mechanism. Year one was obviously the calendar year 2022. Now what happened was, since we signed the contract, the world has completely changed. The raw material pricing has completely changed, etc., etc.

So we went back to the customers and basically said that, that fixed price that we had agreed to, it will be extremely difficult for us to stick with that. Now on the basis of our fixed pricing, our customer, which is Honeywell had actually gone and done some agreements, etc. Now given the relationship of our partnership, they agreed with what we were talking about, and we actually took a significant increase in the price from the start of the supply itself so that our margins otherwise would have got significantly depressed if we had stuck to the originally agreed pricing.

Now we are actually seeing some softening of the raw material, etc. If you look at — and this pricing actually walks on a calendar year basis, not on a financial year basis, the pricing for FY ’23 — sorry, calendar year ’23 is going to be almost similar to the one that we have agreed to for calendar year ’22. On the third question that you asked in terms of capacity utilization for MPP. Through the calendar year, we will actually start commissioning more lines.

As I said, we have commissioned the first line, the first product manufacturing has started. This quarter, we will start manufacturing of two more products. In the second half of next year, we will actually start production of the fourth molecule, we expect that we will reach optimum capacity utilization towards the end of next financial year. While we are working on achieving optimum capacity for MPP, we have also identified some opportunities to immediately do some debottlenecking within that MPP wherein we can actually map some other new molecules that we are discussing with the customers on.

By doing that, we should be able to get the total revenue out of this MPP significantly higher to what we had earlier committed. But that’s the project that we are currently working on. But as it stands today, we expect that it will actually start reaching its optimal capacity towards end of next financial year, which is FY ’24. Now to — what was your first question, sorry?

Abhijit Akella — Kotak Securities — Analyst

I think the only one that was left probably is with regard to the plant audits by the MNC customers. So are these for new opportunities? Or are these for the same debottlenecking opportunity that you just spoke about?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

No. So out of these four customers, one is the existing customer. So that’s an ongoing audit that happens every year. Three are new customers. Then we have some small business, but they are now looking to significantly ramp up the relationship. So that will actually impact into some of the new business opportunities that we are looking at. And out of these four customers, two are on the performance materials side.

Abhijit Akella — Kotak Securities — Analyst

Got it, well, thank you so much for this very helpful and all the best.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Vivek Rajamani from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Vivek Rajamani — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my questions. Congratulations on a very, very strong set of results. Sir, on the first question on the specialty chemicals side. Obviously, it was a very, very strong quarter. Would it be possible to give some color on what was the biggest driver of this performance? Was it a combination of a better product mix? Was it higher margins? Or were you able to just run the plant better? Some color there would be very helpful. That’s the first question.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

The question that you are asking is specific to specialty, right?

Vivek Rajamani — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

That is correct, sir.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Yes. So it was primarily driven by volumes. As we said, there are two new plants which just got commissioned, and we actually manufactured and sold material out of those two plants in the month of December. So it’s primarily driven by that particular piece. And out of our existing plants in Surat, there was some slight impact of the product mix thing, but it was primarily driven by volumes.

Pricing had no role to play in that. If you look at the margin, there’s a slight impact of the product mix, but it’s primarily driven by the volumes. Volumes as in new products, which we actually did from the two new plants that just started the production. So it’s not higher volume of the existing molecules. It’s the new molecules, which we produced out of MPP and the dedicated plant.

Vivek Rajamani — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

Sure, sir. So if I could understand this correctly, would it be fair to say that as you continue to run these new plants on a more consistent basis over the next couple of quarters, that should also provide you more operational efficiencies going forward. Would that be a fair statement?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

That’s the intent, yes.

Vivek Rajamani — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

Got it, sir. And the second question that I had was, obviously, everything is looking really upbeat. You’ve obviously had new peaks in terms of your earnings for all your segments. And you obviously still have a very strong pipeline. If I could just ask you, are there any particular risks that you’re currently monitoring at the moment that you think could maybe cause a bit of a headwind for any of your segments? Just some color on that thought process would also be really helpful.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

So directionally, as well as on a mid- to mid-term basis, when I talk about mid-term, I’m talking about three to four years. We continue to feel very positive and optimistic about the performance of all the three of our businesses. In the short-term, and by short-term, I’m specifically talking about calendar year 2023, I’m not even talking about financial year ’23, primarily calendar year ’23. I mean I’m not talking about financial year FY ’24, but calendar year ’23.

In the second half of the calendar year, which is basically July to December of the calendar year, we might see some softness because of the recession impact, etc. So that is something that we are trying to understand through our conversations with our customers. Typically, what we have seen is because we play upstream in the value chain, we don’t typically get severely impacted by a deep recession. We get severely impacted by long recession. So there are some markets which have already started seeing impact of recession. You don’t see that in our results for Q3.

And I don’t think you will see that in our results in Q4. But if it continues to remain for a longer period of time, there could be some impact in the second half of the calendar year ’23. So that is something that we are trying to get better understanding on through our conversations with the customer, and that is what we will actually then — that will get reflected in our annual business plan, which we are in the process of finalizing. But overall, directionally, we feel extremely positive, which is driven by the demand for the molecules that we have selected to work on, all these molecules are performing extremely well.

They have currently been used for newer applications, agro products are being used for newer formulations as well. They seem to be performing quite well. Also, given our successful execution on some of these projects, the customers seem to be very delighted and wanting to increase their relationship with us. So overall, we feel quite positive. But in the short-term, specifically with respect to H2 calendar year ’23, there might be some headwinds, but that is something that we are just trying to ascertain at this point in time.

Vivek Rajamani — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

Got it, sir. Just one clarification before I rejoin the queue. This slowdown or this recessionary trend is that focused on agrochemicals or is it some other segment?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

So there are two things. One, it will actually impact our HFO business, possibly if at all. Agro, there are a few molecules which might get impacted, but that is not so much because of the recession. As you know, there was drought last year in Brazil. So for some of the molecules, there is a certain inventory buildup in the pipeline. Currently, we are not really seeing any impact of that on our immediate sales.

But we are trying to understand from our customers, how are they looking at their overall inventory position, which might impact our sales in the H2. So there are two pieces. Recession, which might possibly impact HFO, and that is, again, a short-term phenomenon and possibly a drought impact on the agro. Again, we are not seeing that right now in Q3. We don’t expect that in Q4, but again, it could be for the rest of the calendar year.

Vivek Rajamani — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

Got it sir, very-very helpful and all the best.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Amar Maurya from AlfAccurate Advisors. Please go ahead.

Amar Maurya — AlfAccurate Advisors — Analyst

Sir, thanks a lot for the opportunity. Majority of questions had been answered. One bit of this HPP, I mean if we do the basically consol minus standalone, there has been a significant improvement in your profitability. So does this profitability look sustainable going forward?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Yes.

Amar Maurya — AlfAccurate Advisors — Analyst

Okay. Okay. And secondly, sir, this debottlenecking of HF capacity, which we were likely to commission in Q3 is done?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

We have two plants. We have two lines in HF. One of them is just getting done. The second one, which was supposed to be done by March. We have actually moved that to April because we would have had to take a shutdown of almost two to three weeks. And given the strong demand that we are seeing across the business in Q4, we decided to move that from March to April. While that has been done, we are currently working on a completely new capex right now for setting up a new HF capacity, which we will be taking to the Board of NFSAL very shortly. So that’s for setting up a completely new HF plant.

Amar Maurya — AlfAccurate Advisors — Analyst

Okay, okay. Perfect, sir. Thanks a lot, that’s all from me.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Rohit Nagraj from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead.

Rohit Nagraj — Centrum Broking — Analyst

Yeah, thanks for the opportunity and congrats on a good set of numbers. Sir, post commissioning of the current projects, what will be our peak debt in FY — or rather debt by end of FY ’24.

Mr. Partha Roychowdhury — Chief Executive Officer – HPP Business and Interim Chief Financial Officer

FY ’24 debt should be of the order of about, say, on a console basis, INR1,300-odd crores, yes, which includes working capital and term debt and everything.

Rohit Nagraj — Centrum Broking — Analyst

Right, right. And in terms of commissioning of projects during 2023. So just now, you mentioned about the HF plant then Q2, there will be HPP debottlenecking. And by December, there is one more HPP, which we had indicated. Beyond this, are there any other projects which will get commissioned?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

No. Are you talking about commissioning? Or are you talking about new projects that we will be taking to the board?

Rohit Nagraj — Centrum Broking — Analyst

No. One is in terms of commissioning of the ongoing projects where we have already taken the approvals. And the newer projects, which you had indicated probably we will discuss after the financial year ’23 ends?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

No. So as far as the commissioning is concerned, there are only three projects, one partially and two fully. Partially is basically MPP, we will actually keep commissioning newer lines there, which we have already started, and we will actually ramp that up. The second is the project in HPP, which we had announced last year, which is basically for the capacity that we are setting up in Surat. So that’s the second one.

And third, that’s a completely new plant that we are building in Dahej in specialty. So that one, as we have said, will be ready by end of calendar year ’23. So those are the three projects, which we’ll get — two of them are completely new plants that will get commissioned. And the third is this MPP, which will — which is the commissioning has already started, some newer lines will be commissioned as we go along.

Rohit Nagraj — Centrum Broking — Analyst

Right. And the ones which we will be taking up to the Board is just now you talked about HF and beyond that, whatever new opportunities that come by, right?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Yes. So I think as far as new projects are concerned, it will be very difficult for me to commit to anything because it will all depend on where we are in terms of getting our homework done. But our expectation is that in this calendar year or let’s say, till the end of FY ’24, we hope to take three big projects to the Board for approval. And when I say big, I’m talking about requiring investment of INR200 crore plus. The debottlenecking of HPP doesn’t fall in that category because that’s a relatively smaller project in terms of investment cost.

These three projects will be — one will be HF. Another will be the CDMO, cGMP4. And third will be — another one is specialty. So we expect that there will be three new projects that we’ll be taking to the board. But will that happen or not will completely depend on our readiness in terms of our comfort level in having a strong enough business case to be able to present to the board. But that’s our intent, where we are hoping to take three large investment projects to the board.

Rohit Nagraj — Centrum Broking — Analyst

Right. Just one clarification, INR200 crore plus for each project?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

That’s correct.

Rohit Nagraj — Centrum Broking — Analyst

Yes. Thank you so much and best of luck sir. Thank you

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question is from the line of Anubhav Sahu from MC Research. Please go ahead.

Anubhav Sahu — MC Research — Analyst

Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. A couple of questions — our relative specialty chemicals. One, if I do understand that we’re deliberately trying to reduce our pharma exposure in the specialty domain and trying to inch up on the performance materials. So if — would it be possible to give you a mix of what is our current end market exposure as far as agro versus pharma versus performance materials in this segment?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

So about three to four years, still about three to four years back, it was 40% pharma, 40% agro and 20% industrial. Currently, it’s almost 60% agro, 20% pharma and 20% industrial. Performance Material is very, very small because currently, there’s just products being developed. We are supplying product out of pilot plant, etc., etc. Our expectation is that we will move this back to approximately 1/3 coming from agro, 1/3 coming from performance material and 1/3 between pharma and industrial. That is what we expect to get to by FY ’26. But currently, it 60%, 20%, 20% between agro, pharma and industrial.

Anubhav Sahu — MC Research — Analyst

Okay. Great. So just for clarification. So as far as our engagement with innovator pharma is concerned, that will continue to be mostly through CDMO business, right?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

That’s correct. So that’s all in CDMO because specialty does not have cGMP facility. That facility and those capabilities to engage with the innovators and develop early-stage opportunities or late-stage opportunities, those capabilities which include people capabilities as well as infrastructure, all resides in the CDMO business.

Anubhav Sahu — MC Research — Analyst

Okay. Okay. Got it. And on the capacity expansion front as far as specialty is concerned, I understand that dedicated plant is already optimally utilized and MPP would be utilized by the end of fiscal year ’24. And you also mentioned there is one plant probably by the end of calendar year ’23, you would have for Dahej. Could you elaborate a little more on the investment on this side? And what is the fixed asset turnover we are looking at?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

No, no. But this plan that I’m talking about by end of calendar year ’23, it is not probably. It’s already there in the public domain because we have already gone to the Board, got the approval from the Board. And so if you look at the asset term, you’re asking about asset term for each of these investments, right?

Anubhav Sahu — MC Research — Analyst

Yes, exactly.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Yes. So those are — we have already announced those asset terms when we announced the capex for our MPP — basically for all three of them, it’s going to be in the range of 1.3% to 1.6% of investment, the asset terms.

Anubhav Sahu — MC Research — Analyst

Okay, okay. And what is — particularly for Dahej, what is the investment? Can you, sir, please remind me the investment there? And the…

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

The investment, if you look at the dedicated agro plant, It’s, I think, about INR130 crores, plus/minus. I don’t remember the exact number of that. For this large plant, which we will get ready by December is about INR540 crores. And the MPP, it’s, I think, about INR235 crores, if I’m not mistaken. So that’s — plus/minus.

Anubhav Sahu — MC Research — Analyst

Okay. And this Dahej one is of the niche of MPP or it’s…

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Sorry.

Anubhav Sahu — MC Research — Analyst

The Dahej plant, which would be commissioned by the end of calendar year. This is of the niche of MPP, a multipurpose loan?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

No, no. That’s a dedicated plan for a molecule, which will be supplied to multiple customers.

Anubhav Sahu — MC Research — Analyst

Okay, okay, okay. Okay, got it. Thank you. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Ranjit from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead.

Ranjit Cirumalla — IIFL Securities — Analyst

Yes, I thank you for giving me the opportunity and congratulations from the commissioning of all the full capacities. The first question, a bit of clarification. You highlighted in the earlier call that we faced a little bit of challenges with respect to the raw material for the HPP thing. So just wanted a bit of insight on that has been resolved and that is on track. And one other thing related to that is that you have mentioned that we have got a revised pricing from the calendar year. So I believe this is from January 2023 and those benefits are just to be reflected into the numbers. So this is my first question.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Can you please elaborate on which business unit you are specifically referring to?

Ranjit Cirumalla — IIFL Securities — Analyst

HPP.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

No, no, no. So HPP, I said the price revision happened for calendar year ’22, wherein we earlier had an agreement for a fixed price thing. So when we started the supply in the calendar year ’22, we revised the prices from what was agreed before. And the pricing for calendar year ’23 is almost similar to the price for calendar year ’22. And on the raw material, I mean we always have these issues on the raw material side, but there is no major challenge on the raw material side, neither from the availability perspective, nor on the cost perspective.

Whenever we actually see that there is a significant cost escalation, etc., which we had seen in the last two years. We have been pretty successful in terms of passing on that to our customers even in the middle of a contract. Our customers have been fully — they are very understanding of the situation and have been very supportive of that. So we don’t really see any major challenge on the raw material side.

Ranjit Cirumalla — IIFL Securities — Analyst

On that front. Second, on the HF plant — the HF plant, given that we are seeing a significant ramp-up in the production of HPP and both specialty chemicals. So would we be able to secure this HF in the time we go ahead and set up these capacities, I believe that would take another 12 to 18 months’ time. So — and over the next 12 to 18 months, we do see a significant ramp-up in the production products. So how are we using the raw materials on the HF front?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Yes. So are we given our expansion plans for the immediate future, are we completely secured from the point of view of HF? The answer is yes. After fulfilling our captive requirement, we will have volume available for merchant sales. But given the fact that our requirement is going up significantly and will continue to go up significantly. And we would ideally need a lot more HF for merchant sales. And hence, we have actually put the plan together for a completely new plant for a new capex for HF.

And there, the capacity that we are looking at for the new plant is almost double of what our total capacity currently is. And that basically also is — basically can be a signal of the kind of demand that we are actually seeing over the next few years given the projects in the pipeline. So that gives us the confidence that we will require significantly larger volume of HF than what we consumed today. And that is why we’re actually currently in the process of finalizing the capex plan for increasing the capacity, overall increasing the capacity of HF by 3 times.

Ranjit Cirumalla — IIFL Securities — Analyst

And by merchant sales, you mean it to sell it to the NFASL or also the third party?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

No, no, no. Merchant sale as in external sales. NFASL is also counted as a captive consumption in our internal definition.

Ranjit Cirumalla — IIFL Securities — Analyst

Okay.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Archit Joshi from B&K Securities. Please go ahead.

Archit Joshi — B&K Securities — Analyst

Thank you, sir for the opportunity and congrats on commissioning all the projects and on a good set of numbers. Sir, my question was on CDMO. Sir, it has been our constant endeavor to kind of improve the mix that we have within CDMO towards Phase one and Phase two, we have indicated in the past that, that’s where more inquiries come in and we are able to gather critical mass. Have you been able to successfully do that in the past, which is why the reflection of that can be seen in the current quarter, CDMO sales?

And just an addendum to this one, sir, in the past con calls, you have kind of been looking at a $10 million to $12 million sort of our quarterly sales in CDMO eventually taking it to almost $48 million, $50 million of sales in — on a yearly basis. With the current sales that we have done in CDMO, is it safe to assume that we’ll surpass that milestone that you are looking at? So any clarification on this would be helpful.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

So if you look at — let me take the second question first. If you look at for the calendar year FY ’23, the number that I had indicated, which is a quarterly run rate of $10 million to $12 million, we should be able to get very close to that should be able to achieve that. The only problem is we will be able to achieve that on an annualized basis. I mean you know that Q1 and Q2 were soft. So quarter-to-quarter, though it remains lumpy. But if you take the annualized number for FY ’23, we will be able to achieve the quarterly run rate Q1, Q2, Q3 plus Q4.

On the first question that you’ve had, are we seeing more number of early-stage opportunities, which is Phase one because that is where typically the engagement starts? The answer is clear, yes. We have increased the number of new customers who we do business with. Also, clearly, the number has gone up. Typically, we would prefer to have a 50-50 mix, which is basically Phase one, Phase two, 50%, Phase three and commercial 50%. Currently, we are not there yet, but we believe that in the next two to three years, we should be able to get to that.

Archit Joshi — B&K Securities — Analyst

Understood. Submit. That was my only limited question. Thank you all the best.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Siddhart Gadekar from Equirus. Please go ahead.

Siddhart Gadekar — Equirus — Analyst

Hi, sir. Good morning. Sir, my first question is on the MPP. When we had announced the project, we had highlighted that three products would be for the export market and two would be for the domestic market. So in terms of the four products that we are commercializing in the next 12 months, out of which that three products would be for the export and one would be for the domestic. Is that a fair understanding?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

No. So if you remember, we had basically talked about potentially five molecules, four for agro, one for Pharma. The one for pharma was domestic. Within the four for Agro, all the four were eventually for international markets, but three, we were supposed to export. One, we were supposed to sell it to a local converter who was then going to export. But we really don’t have that control over that fourth, this one because the customer might decide to use Indian converter or might decide to use an international converter. But eventually, all the four are going to get exported.

Siddhart Gadekar — Equirus — Analyst

Okay. Got it. Sir, secondly, on the pharma side, so when do we expect that pharma molecule to start coming in?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Which one, you’re talking about specialty?

Siddhart Gadekar — Equirus — Analyst

Yes, yes. Specialties in the MPP.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

We are not really sure on that. If we want to do that, etc., because for two reasons: a, we are seeing good traction on the other segments. And given our experience on the pharma, I’m primarily talking about generic pharma. Where we sell to the domestic pharma companies, the business just doesn’t tend to be very sticky. We might do a business in a year and then next year, if they get INR2 lower price, they generally go to China, etc. And that’s not a business we generally — that’s not a kind of relationship we like to get into.

So we’re basically consciously now trying to just get out of pharma, where the business tends to be a lot more transactional than strategic. So we are not yet sure about that fifth molecule if we want to do it because, a, doing business at a transactional year-to-year basis just takes too much out of the team. And on the other side, we are actually seeing pretty good opportunities on the agro and performance material side. So we might as well map the assets for those molecules.

Siddhart Gadekar — Equirus — Analyst

Sir, and one final last question. So now how should we look at the quarterly numbers for HFO given that we have finalized our CY ’23 contracts?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

No. So if you actually look at the quarter Q4, you will clearly see ramp-up from quarter three because we’ve just started achieving the full capacity. We actually in the month of January, achieved full capacity, which was slightly higher than December. As I said, for calendar year ’23, they have given us indicative volume in terms of how much they will take.

But that for H2 — I’m talking about calendar year H2, because of the issues with respect to some of these tailwinds, etc., etc., we decided that end of March, we will again have a conversation to relook at the numbers for the rest of the year. But currently, I have full visibility into Q4. Though they have indicated the volume for calendar year ’23. That’s a number for the rest of the year, we will be revisiting by end of March.

Siddhart Gadekar — Equirus — Analyst

Okay, sir. Got it, thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Nitin Agarwal from DAM Capital. Please go ahead.

Nitin Agarwal — DAM Capital — Analyst

Thanks for taking my question. Sir, on the tram CDMO business, we had talked about a $16 million contract. Has that begun to reflect from this quarter onwards…?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Yes.

Nitin Agarwal — DAM Capital — Analyst

And sir, this is what you mentioned, if I remember correctly, it will go on for two, three quarters?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

That’s correct. So it has just started from December, you’ll also see that in this month — sorry, in this quarter.

Nitin Agarwal — DAM Capital — Analyst

So is it fair and a chunk of the bump up which came in the CDMO business came on account of this contract that we were…

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

In Q3, you’re talking about?

Nitin Agarwal — DAM Capital — Analyst

Yes, sir.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

No, no, it just started the supply. I mean it did contribute to it, but that was not the main reason.

Nitin Agarwal — DAM Capital — Analyst

And sir, an earlier comment that you mentioned, so we’ll do about between INR120 crores of revenues in CDMO this quarter, will do a similar to a larger number next quarter. But still — still we can’t take these as a quarterly run rate from an annualized basis, sir, from a going forward basis?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

No. As I said, if you see, we have indicated that our intent would be for FY ’23. Our intent would be to get to $10 billion to $12 billion — $10 million to $12 million quarterly run rate, okay? And ideally, I would have preferred to actually do it quarter-by-quarter. Unfortunately, we have not been able to do that. But if you add all of that up, we will do that in FY ’23. Now you can derive your numbers for FY — Q4 from that.

Nitin Agarwal — DAM Capital — Analyst

Sure, sir. But I was more interested in how we should look at 24% and thereabouts given the visibility that you have in the business right now?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Yes. So I think we are — given the conversations going on, with the customers, etc. And the fact that I mentioned before on today’s call as well as before, that gives us the confidence to even plan for cGMP4, which is going to be a significantly larger investment than the cGMP3 that tells you that we are actually seeing a lot of growth in this particular business in the years to come.

But again, unfortunately, it’s very difficult to put it on a quarter-to-quarter basis. So on FY ’24, we are trying to get — trying to understand exactly what that number is going to look like. Fair to say that FY ’24 is going to be — given the fact that we’ve just completed the debottlenecking also we will have the capacity to supply as well. So it’s definitely going to be a higher number than FY ’23 on an aggregate basis. Quarter-to-quarter, we will have to just look at that.

Nitin Agarwal — DAM Capital — Analyst

That’s helpful. And sir, the last one. Sir, when we look at Q4, based upon the various comments you made across various segments, we will have a reasonably strong sort of quarter for HPP business as well as for the CDMO business. And with the specialty business with the new MPP contracts scaling up reasonably well. Sir, when you look through the whole — the balance of FY ’24 and ’25, the big delta, which is remaining are the scale up of the two other pending contracts. Is that a fair way to look at it? Or is it…

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Which two other contracts you’re talking about?

Nitin Agarwal — DAM Capital — Analyst

So one, the agrochem specialty contract and the one that you will commercialize with the multipurpose contract and the specialty chemical contract that you said — the segment, which will — for which you are spending INR540 crores, for a specialty molecule.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Yes, absolutely. So I think let me go through the order. The first one, obviously, will be the larger contract that we have for that INR540 crore plant, where nothing has come in this year, nothing will come till end of calendar year ’23, we’ll actually start seeing a major bump up from calendar year ’24 onwards. So you’ll actually see in Q4 or FY ’24 and then thereafter. The second would be your — the dedicated agro plant because we will hardly get a quarter this year, whereas next year, we will get a full annualized run rate.

And then on the MPP, that will be a relatively gradual ramp up because, as I said, we have actually started the supply of the first molecule. We will start supply of the other two molecules in this particular quarter. It will not be still full capacity, but we will ramp it up. And we expect that by end of, again, calendar year ’23, we should be able to get to optimum capacity in MPP. So MPP — so the dedicated agrochem, you’ll actually see almost drive the full capacity in FY ’24, but the MPP and the other project, you will actually see running to full capacity from FY ’25 onwards. We will actually ramp it up within this particular year.

And before end of this year, we would have actually reached the peak capacity. But on the annualized basis, you’ll actually see it from FY ’25. If you remember earlier, we had actually indicated when we announced the capex that we should be able to achieve the peak annual revenue in year two to year three. The dedicated agro, we will actually see it in Q2 itself. Similarly, for the larger other client, INR500 crore investment we’re talking about, there also you’ll be able to start seeing it from the year two itself. But for MPP, it will be year three. So year one being FY ’23, year two being FY ’24, year three being FY ’25.

Nitin Agarwal — DAM Capital — Analyst

Very helpful. And sir, during the — those two years — next two years, are there any more newer contracts which can start to contribute or whatever that you will announce now will start to have an impact only FY ’26 onwards?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

No, no. You will see, as I mentioned to you, we’re currently looking at some further debottlenecking of our MPP in Dahej. We also are working on another project where we are actually doing complete asset reassessment for Surat to see if there is investment we can actually do in Surat. So those two definitely will come in, and those will be a relatively quick turnaround. So they are not going to be larger capexes. But if you — the announcement that we made of, let’s say, INR540 crore last year, but the plant is going to be ready by December of this year. That kind of a quantum will probably come into play only from FY ’26 on annualized…

Nitin Agarwal — DAM Capital — Analyst

Thank you very much, very helpful.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Dhwanit [Phonetic], an individual investor. Please go ahead.

Dhwanit — Individual Investor — Analyst

Hi, sir, first of all congratulations. First of all, congratulations on a wonderful set of numbers. I had a couple of questions. First is with regards to — there was a budget announcement on reduction of custom duty and [Indecipherable] prices. Is that going to have any material impact on our business? Or is it going to be under some kind of increment in our profitability? And apart from that, is there anything special from this current budget which is actually good for our business?

And my second question was with regards to our profitability. The current margin run rate, which we have, do you think we will be able to sustain or improve on this current rate in the next couple of years on the 24 months’ time?

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Yes. so let me go on the margin thing first. So I think given all the points that I just talked about on the HPP side, specialty side, on the CDMO side, etc. In Q4, we believe our margins will be similar or better, okay? Then what you will have to look at is — you’ll have to basically look at it on an annualized basis, what we do in FY ’23, okay? That’s the margin we will continue to deliver on and improve on as these newer projects in Dahej start getting reflected on an annualized basis.

As I have mentioned before, our aim is to ensure that the baseline, the base business continues to deliver 25% plus/minus EBITDA and the newer projects could actually help us start getting closer to 30%. So that’s been our continuous goal. And as these newer projects start constituting a larger percentage of our overall sales, you will actually see the overall margin profile of the company getting close to — so from 25% plus/minus, it will get to 30% plus/minus. So directionally, that commentary still remains valid.

On the floor [Indecipherable] duty, you know that most of the floor [Indecipherable] that we use is basically used for converting into molecules, which are exported. So the duty doesn’t really play any role in that. But yes, for whatever gets consumed locally, domestically, there the duty plays a role, but that’s not a significant portion of that. We’ve actually seen the maximum impact on an annualized basis, it’s going to be about INR4 crores to INR5 crores, not much.

Dhwanit — Individual Investor — Analyst

All right. And thank you very much sir, and all the best for the coming quarters.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we take that as the last question. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Radhesh Welling for closing comments.

Mr. Radhesh R. Welling — Managing Director

Thank you. So I would like to thank everyone for taking time out and joining on the call. I hope we have been able to respond to your queries adequately. If you have any further queries, you may reach out to our Investor Relations partner, Orient Capital. Thank you very much, and have a good day.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]