Shankara Building Products Ltd (NSE: SHANKARA) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated May. 19, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
Sukumar Srinivas — Managing Director
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Sayam Pokharna — Analyst
Jatin Damania — Analyst
Jatin Damania — Analyst
Naitik — Analyst
Dixit Doshi — Analyst
Nishant Bhut — Analyst
Deepak Poddar — Analyst
Utkarsh Somaiya — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Shankara Building Products Limited Q4 and FY25 earnings call hosted by TIL Advisors. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode and there would 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. Sayam Pokhrana from TI Advisors please. Thank you and over to you sir.
Sayam Pokharna — Analyst
Thank you Avirath Good morning everyone and thank you for taking out the time to join US in this Q4 and FY25 earnings conference call of Shankara Building Products Ltd.
The investor presentation has already been uploaded on the stock exchange and on the company website. If you wish to be added to our mailing list please feel free to write to us to take us through today’s results we have with us from the management team Mr. Sukumar Srinivas, Managing Director Mr. C. Ravi Kumar, Director Mr. Dhananjay Miralesh Srinivas, Vice President and Mr. Alex Varghese, Chief Financial Officer. We will begin with a brief overview of the quarter and the full financial year from Mr. Dhananjay Mirle Srinivas followed by a Q and A session. Please note that any forward looking statement made during this call should be considered in conjunction with the risks and uncertainties that we face.
These risks and uncertainties have been detailed in our annual report. With that I would now like to hand over the call to Mr. Srinivas. Over to you sir.
Sukumar Srinivas — Managing Director
Good morning dear investors. Welcome to the Q4FY25 earnings call of Shankara Building Products. I will start with a comprehensive overview of our performance, highlight key developments and offer some perspective on the macro and business environment shaping our industry. Let me begin by addressing the broader context in which we have operated this year particularly the developments in the steel industry. As many of you are aware, the steel sector has faced significant headwinds throughout the year. Realizations have declined meaningfully which has posed a challenge for our top line growth and and weighed on our margins. Despite these challenges, Shankara has shown its resilience and recorded a strong 30% volume growth in FY25.
Structural steel tubes and pipes in particular has continued to demonstrate healthy demand and we have been able to capture this opportunity and deliver healthy volume growth in our business. In Q4 our steel volume stood at 2 2.58 lakh tonnes representing a 33% year on year growth. For the full year we surpassed our 8 lakh tonne annual volume target, achieving 8.43 lakh tonnes, a notable 29% increase over the last year. This volume growth stands out as one of the key achievements of FY25 and is a result of our marketplace model, distribution network and strong market positioning.
Our expansion into new geographies has also yielded encouraging results. We are seeing strong traction in Western and Central India, particularly in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. At the same time, we have maintained our leadership position in South India both in retail and non retail verticals. The ability to grow in new markets while consolidating our presence in the established ones is a reflection of our operational strength in the business. However, while our volume growth has been impressive, an approximate 11% decline in steel HRC prices over the past year has inevitably weighed down on our revenue growth.
Revenue from our steel division was up 19% year on year in Q4 and and 17% for the full year, with the difference between volume and value growth directly attributable to lower steel prices. This pricing environment has been a headwind, but our ability to drive volumes has helped offset some of the impact. Turning to profitability, our EBITDA margins improved to 3.2% in Q4FY25 up from 2.84% of Q3FY25. Consequently, we posted a 3.02% EBITDA for the full year FY25 as against 2.95 EBITDA in 9 month FY25. While the sequential improvement is encouraging, margins remain slightly lower on a year on year basis both for Q4 and for the full year.
This is primarily due to the inventory losses we incurred up to 9 months FY25 which amounted to approximately rupees 22 crores. I am pleased to report that we did not witness any material inventory loss or gain in Q4 as steel prices stabilized during the quarter. This stability has provided a firmer footing as our operations for our operations as we move forward. Another positive development has been our ongoing focus on working capital efficiency. Despite the growing scale of operations, we have managed to keep the finance cost under control in FY25. Finance cost peaked in Q1 and has been steadily brought under control since.
This disciplined approach has enabled us to support our growth ambitions while maintaining financial prudence. As a result, our net profits improved in Q4 to rupees 28 crores marking a 17% year on year growth. This is an early indication that our strategies are starting to bear fruit even in a challenging environment. Now let me shift focus to our non steel vertical. The macro environment for the building materials industry has remained subdued throughout FY25. As is evident from the larger industry data. The year began with a slowdown related to general elections accompanied with lower government spending, softer retail demand and a heavy monsoon and subdued construction activities.
These factors collectively impacted the pace of growth in our non steel business, especially in the second half of the year. Despite these headwinds, our non steel vertical posted a 20% year on year sales growth in Q4 and a 26% increase for the whole year. Within this segment, categories such as plumbing fittings and sanity wear has emerged as our key growth drivers for the first time. NorthShield contributed more than 10% to our total top line in FY25, standing at 10.6% for the full year. This diversification strategy is priority for us and we are committed to scaling this business further in the years ahead.
We’re also happy to report that our E Commerce initiative taken two years ago is beginning to yield positive results. We are registered on popular platforms like Amazon and Flipkart, apart from our own e Commerce Store www.buildpro.store. sales have grown substantially in FY25 from the previous year from almost rupees 5 crores in FY24 to Rs. 15 crores in FY25. This figure may seem small seem a small percentage in the overall picture. However, we see a huge opportunity in this vertical in the coming years. In light of the current environment and our growth strategies, we would like to reiterate our volumetric guidance for the next year.
We are targeting to surpass the 1 million tonnes in FY26. We are equally focused on devoting our energies to scale the non shield business both in existing categories and through the addition of new product categories and brand partnerships. I would also like to update you on the progress of our demerger implementation in Q4. We achieved a significant milestone with the shareholders approval at the meeting held on 12th February 2025. The next key milestone is the NCLT meeting scheduled for 26th May 2025 which is expected to be the final NCLT hearing subject to regulatory approvals. We anticipate concluding the entire demerger proceeding by the first half of FY26.
This development is pivotal for our long term strategy as it will enable us to unlock greater value for all stakeholders and streamline our operations in both businesses. To sum up, our strategy remains clearly focused on being omnichannel with all efforts directed towards achieving higher volumetric growth across retail and non retail steel and non steel verticals. Our scale has been the cornerstone of success in our industry. And Shankara’s extensive market presence through 124 stores and fulfillment centers positions us strongly to capture future opportunities. This scale coupled with our diversified portfolio and our one stop value proposition is what sets Shankara apart in today’s competitive landscape for the building materials marketplace and distribution industry.
Thank you for your attention. We are now ready to open the floor for any questions you may have.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press char and one on the touchdown telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press char and two Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Viraj Mehta from Enigma. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. Hi Sukumar. Congratulations for good set of numbers. Sukumar, my first question is on the inventory side.
I’m a little surprised when you say that we did not have any inventory gain this quarter. If you look at numbers of some of. I wouldn’t say direct competitors but some of the manufacturers for whose product we supply in the market, they all have seen. All the manufacturers have seen decent inventory gain. So why have we not seen any inventory gain? Especially in March?
Sukumar Srinivas
See actually in March the actual prices of steel started moving up in March itself in that quarter. So the first two months markets were still quite subdued and pipe demand still was. I mean the pipe prices did not really increase. See, a lot of the primary manufacturers had started seeing the increase a little earlier probably from February itself towards month end. So our real steel price started increasing only in the second half of March. I think that sort of negated whatever. I mean that sort of negated the negativity of the first two months. So therefore, I mean even if we have gained, it’s a very insignificant number to really be reporting.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, so then is it fair to assume that a large part for us, whatever inventory gain we have will happen in Q1?
Sukumar Srinivas
Definitely in Q1 we are seeing the price increase in the month of April more or less. The prices are stabilizing in this month, that is in February, I’m sorry May. And we hope that the prices will stabilize going forward.
Unidentified Participant
Right. See the whole reason, it’s not as if one wants to understand the gain part of a quarter but what we as investors wanted to understand is we were part of the value chain while taking the losses of the inventory. I hope we are part of the value chain when the gains in the inventory also come. That’s my only question.
Sukumar Srinivas
Definitely. Definitely.
Unidentified Participant
Right sir. My second question is is on the volume part you did eight and a half. I mean 8.43 lakh this year. You’re guiding only for a million next year. Even larger manufacturers are guiding for 2025 growth. When we are expanding territories, shouldn’t our aspiration be more than at least like some of the very large competitors or manufacturers as such.
Sukumar Srinivas
See Viraj. See if I were to give targets internally obviously my targets are much higher. So we have guided for about 20% volume growth Motamoti definitely we are aspiring for a much better volume growth than that.
Unidentified Participant
Right. And in this you talked about flat being larger portion going forward. What would be flats for this year and what would be your guidance for next year for flats?
Sukumar Srinivas
Just a moment. I will. Flat. During the year we did around 1 lakh 40,000 tons. We did. So we are expecting approximately around 2 lakhs in FY26.
Unidentified Participant
Right. And is it fair to assume Sukumar, that flats are larger or higher margin business? So as proportion of flats increase, the margin in the steel division should improve for us.
Sukumar Srinivas
See the first. I mean when we start this very quick growth in flats it would be marginally better than pipes. But yes, in the big picture maybe going forward over the next year definitely the margins will improve as we focus and go deeper into flats. Currently the bulk of the growth in flats is happening in HRC which is also quite competitive. And I think once we move into a lot of, you know, the value added products in GP etc. I think we will see a better value accretion or a margin accretion.
Unidentified Participant
Right. On non steel sir, we have seen growth for this year in 20. So the non seal growth has kind of significantly reduced obviously because of higher base. But like where do you think we can be in terms of non steel and in how many stores like do you want to increase non steel to over next one year and two years respectively.
Sukumar Srinivas
So we did see a dip as you said in the second half of the year. I think because of the market conditions and how we of construction activity going on for the coming year we are looking at 25% plus growth in non steel. Overall we are looking at increasing store count probably in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana. We are looking at North Karnataka as well and certain pockets in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. So definitely Maybe around four to five stores is what we are looking at as an increase in non steel for the coming year. Which should definitely help us achieve our growth ambitions.
Unidentified Participant
And what will be your margin in Montreal this year?
Sukumar Srinivas
So we did around 10 percentage gross margin. We did in FY25.
Sayam Pokharna
Sorry, I couldn’t. Your voice was a little muffled.
Unidentified Participant
Sir, in FY25 we did around 10% gross margin.
Sukumar Srinivas
And EBITDA for non sales. EBITDA is coming around a six percentage.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay. And answer this. My last question for Sukumar is. Sir, when we cross a million tons in terms of your aspirational margin especially for steel division I understand non steel will probably improve a percentage here and there. But it really can’t move the needle for us. The needle mover has to be steel. Where do you think the steel margins will stabilize over next year? Year and a half. From absolute bottom today of like two and a half, quarter to 3%.
Sukumar Srinivas
We hope to stabilize. We are definitely targeting three plus. So I would say closer to three and a half in the year.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, sir. And just one request, sir. When the demerger happens, I hope we have actually had consultants with whom we are working. Because in some of the cases the unlisted entity doesn’t get listed for six, nine months. Because this is the main business which will get delisted. Like in Most of the cases 10% business gets delisted. So the investor doesn’t really bother too much. But in our case the main business will get delisted. I hope the relisting is quicker and faster and there are no long delays. Regarding the same.
Sukumar Srinivas
Yeah, we have. We’ve got a good consultant on board and it’s one of the big four. And secondly we are also very aware of this fact. So once the NCLT order is passed, I think we’ve done a lot of the background work in keeping it parallel ready. So I mean we are fully aware of this fact that listing of demerged entities is taking some time. So we would be moving very very fast.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you so much sir and best of luck.
Sukumar Srinivas
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jatin Damania from Swine Investments. Please go ahead.
Jatin Damania
Good morning sir. And thank you for the opportunity. So majority of the questions has been answered but just on the bookkeeping. If you can help us in terms of understanding how was the institution and still retail business for FY25?
Sukumar Srinivas
In FY25 total institutional sale was around 1225 crores. Which is contributing to around 22% of the total revenue wherein channel we did around 1528 crores which is contributing around 27% balance 2943 is retail which is around 52 percentage.
Jatin Damania
So if we add probably an institution and the channel then there is hardly any growth in terms of the institution business. So in terms of the margin, when we say that probably we want to aspire a 3% margin, what are the things that probably we will be doing differently that we will probably get a 3% odd margin in the steel business?
Sukumar Srinivas
Okay. I think the first key thing in the steel business for margins is in our retail itself. So what you have seen last year is about 58% of the steel business comes in retail. In the south though overall it looks like 52, 53%. So number one, retail is very, very critical for margins in steel business. Number two is institutional sales. So I think in institutional sales, the flat products that we have talked about a little earlier, that is where one of our key growth drivers would be. That which also finds huge traction with the enterprise business.
So. Or the institutional sales. I think these two would be our key margin drivers. In the coming year.
Jatin Damania
The growth that we are acquiring institution will continue to grow at around 10 odd percent for 26, 27 and the remaining growth will come from the steel business. Is fair to assume that?
Sukumar Srinivas
Yes, yes.
Jatin Damania
And on the margin side, institution gives you gives us a 1 1/2% margin and the retail uses 4% margin.
Sukumar Srinivas
Hello. Sorry, I didn’t get your question.
Jatin Damania
So I’m saying on first on the volume of the revenue front from the institution this year we reported almost 8% growth. So I mean the growth will be lower double digit. Is it fair to assume that?
Sukumar Srinivas
Yes, yes.
Jatin Damania
On the margin front how does the margin differ? Because institution is on the lower end of the margin. So is 1 and a half percent or 2% is a reasonable margin for an assumption. So could be little higher.
Sukumar Srinivas
No, institutional the margins are better than channel. When you are seeing so channel the margins are very, very less. So both together we did a gross margin of approximately around 3 percentage in FY25. So I think if we just take institutional apart, the margins are certainly better than the combined margin. What is reported as the channel business. Sorry, as the enterprise business. Yeah.
Jatin Damania
Okay. So definitely the retail side we can do a assume of 4% EBITDA margin that sets a sustainable numbers. Yes. Right. And so on the working capital side, I mean definitely we are, we have stayed around 30 days but how do we see the moment in the working capital over the next couple of years?
Sukumar Srinivas
So we would like to retain the same around 30 days will be the.
Jatin Damania
Total networking level cycle. And last on the tile segment definitely second half of the last year was not that good. How do you see traction in the month of April? Have you seen any ramp up and going ahead with the non steel revenue likely to grow grow at near about 20, 25%. What will be the overall contribution coming from the tiles?
Sukumar Srinivas
So I think the subdued market conditions are continuing in the tile business as it was in the second half of last year. We are taking reasonable efforts to grow. I think with the current situation, everything going on, we have taken a muted growth in tiles, but we do see that there will be good growth there. We’re looking at adding further product categories in the business as well in maybe overall non steel, we’re hoping that tile could contribute around 30% in the coming year.
Jatin Damania
Awesome. That’s all from my side. Thank you and all the best.
Sukumar Srinivas
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Natic from NV Alpha Fund. Please go ahead.
Naitik
Hi sir, thanks for taking the question. Sir, if I look at our PNL statement, you know, in the last two, three years our finance cost has almost doubled which has, you know, sort of weighed on our pat numbers. Now my two questions here are. One, why is this so? And second, sir, assuming you know, our aspirational targets, we grew by more than 15% on a top line basis for both next year and next to next year, then where do we sort of see this finance cost, you know, stabilizing?
Sukumar Srinivas
Yeah, I think one of the key factors of the interest going up in the last year, of course it did pick up substantially in Q1. We’ve also taken a lot of efforts to sort of bring it down and then hold steady in the subsequent three quarters. I think the primary reason in that was there was a very clear slowdown post the general elections last year and around that period in the first quarter and probably there was an overhang in the second quarter as well as even to some extent in the third quarter where overall there was a tendency for government payments to have slowed down.
So I think that has definitely improved in Q4. And so I think that is one of the primary reasons why I think what happened and what happened in terms of our working capital utilization going up, number one. Number two, the processes to mitigate, of course, I mean apart from the routine factors that we need to do, we are also looking forward to seeing how much of our receivables we can partly, let’s say outsource in the sense if we can take it out, get some of our customers on board with certain NBFCs. We’ve been working on that for the last three to four months.
I hope to see some sort of a concrete fruition happening in the near future. So I think if that happens, it certainly will also help us considerably in sustaining or even lowering the working capital utilization, primarily the interest costs.
Naitik
But sir, assuming this takes time or if it does not happen, then our interest cost will also increase in line with our revenue increase.
Sukumar Srinivas
If you look at it, even last year compared to H1 to H2, there was a substantial increase in the revenue in the H2 part. Still we have managed to hold on to our cycle and the interest costs have actually slightly come down over the quarter on quarter. I think we are trying our level best to sustain that and we are working very hard. So we are quite confident that we can sustain it at the current levels.
Naitik
So my second question is, you know, I wanted to just understand what sort of manufacturing capacity does subsidies altogether have?
Sukumar Srinivas
Manufacturing we are having around 3 lakhs metric ton per annum capacity.
Naitik
Safe to assume out of the 1:1 lakh, you know, 1 million ton guidance has given, majority of it would be trading and you know, very minuscule would be the manufacturing part, right? Correct.
Sukumar Srinivas
Approximately around one and a half likes will come from manufacturing and the balance will be from.
Naitik
Okay, and for my last question, can you also give, you know, what was the margins in the retail steel versus you know, enterprise steel?
Sukumar Srinivas
So retail steel approximately we are having a gross margin of around 7 percentage and non steel we are having around 10 percentage. On an average it is coming around 7 7.2.
Naitik
Yeah. Okay sir. And still for the enterprise Segment would be 1.53 Percentage was the gross margin. Thank you.
operator
The next question is from the line of Apur Bandi from ISJ Securities Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi sir, thanks for the opportunity. So I have few questions. So my first question is on that we have around 92 stores of build Pro, right? So do we have receivables in Build Pro as well? Or all the receivables are on the manufacturing side of business. Because my understanding is that Build Pro being the store format business, there would be very less or zero receivables, is it right?
Sukumar Srinivas
No Build Pro there will be some receivables will be there because most of our customers are influencers like fabricator, plumber and small builders. But where we are giving some credit, we will be giving to those customers. This is the market practice. This is a normal market practice.
Unidentified Participant
So can you Please quantify that. How much receivables on builder coin and on manufacturing business.
Sukumar Srinivas
I can come back to you on that.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, so okay. And sir, when we say retail and non retail, right. So what exactly do we mean? Like does that mean in retail? We mean by the walk in, walk in customers and non retail as in the builders or maybe you can extend that part.
Sukumar Srinivas
So non retail would typically be our channel, our enterprise, large time builders and developers. And the trade business. Retail would classify as influencers like contractors, fabricators, plumbers, walk in customers. That would be the breakup architects. All of that would be a breakup with retail and non detail. And that is why slowly but steadily we are, you know, the defined definition of the business is going more towards the marketplace model. And we are trying to break that up into a steel and a non steel.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay, sir. Okay sir, like do we have any numbers on this plate of the business? How much part is written and how much is non detail in build proof.
Sukumar Srinivas
Retail? Around 29,43 crore. I think 52% overall is retail and the balance is non retail.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, okay. And so my next question is, is on the so how do we mitigate the steel price risk? Because given the margins are thin, around 3% of kind of that. Right. So and the fluctuation can be very much high. So how do we mitigate that part?
Sukumar Srinivas
See, number one, obviously your inventory management is very critical. Number two, there is a section of steel products which are not that sensitive at a marketplace to quick volatility in pricing, which is some of our value added tubes, some of our special categories where of course it’s still a small percentage of the overall business. But that is something which we need to focus on more to mitigate steel valuations. The third thing would be is in our retail business, in fact even last year, whatever we have been able to mitigate largely because the retail business in steel where the any price reductions are not instantly passed on, we do have a lead time or a lag time before it gets passed on to the customer.
So these are broadly the areas which we keep working to keep to mitigate the steel price.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, okay, Anthony, my last question is on the in the FY25, the finance cost was around 52 crore and the deposition was around 17 crores. So can you please split it into how much was from building products and how much was from build pro, how.
Sukumar Srinivas
Much from building products and build pro. So. So that I will come back to you. I don’t have to break up at present with me.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay, thank you. Thank you, sir.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dikshit Doshi from Whitestone Financial Advisors Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Dixit Doshi
Yeah, most of my questions have been answered. Just. Just wanted to understand one thing. So you are saying that in terms of price fluctuation in steel business, the retail business may happen with some lag. And in the institutional and channel partner business, how does it work? Because there the EBITDA margin itself is hardly 1 1/2 2%. So I mean fluctuation in the prices can be more than 5% also monthly basis. So how does that work? Or is it some back to back arrangement with the institutional and channel partner business?
Sukumar Srinivas
Yeah. For institution sells this year onwards you are planning to buy back to back. We are trying to fix up the price with our supplier. And hopefully these things will help us to mitigate this fluctuations. And quite often even with the suppliers when there is. I mean if there is a dramatic fall, I think to some extent we get some. What is called a price fall clause. We do have certain arrangements with some of our key suppliers where we are, you know, we get a sort of a cushion on excessive falls.
Dixit Doshi
Okay. And in terms of receivables, this around. 800 crore of receivable. I assume that you did mention that you do give some credit period to the retail part also. But will it be predominantly institutional and channel business? Yes. Okay. And in terms of inventory, it will be predominantly our retail stores at where we are holding the inventory.
Sukumar Srinivas
Yes, retail and to certain extent for channel.
Dixit Doshi
For channel. Okay. And these 92 stores, all of those are. I mean Coco or there are franchisees as well.
Sukumar Srinivas
No, pk.
Dixit Doshi
All are company owned. Company owned. Okay. Okay. That’s it. From my side. Thank you. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nishant, but from. From Equity Works Ltd. Please go ahead.
Nishant Bhut
Am I audible, sir?
operator
Yes.
Nishant Bhut
Okay. Okay. First of all, thank you for giving me this opportunity. And I would like to congratulate the team for a you know, good set of numbers. Clearly, you know the organization is very resilient at these subdued times. One, you know, point I wanted to ask is regarding the same store sales growth you reported around 14%. Same store sales growth in FY25. I think it’s. In your investor presentation. Could you share how gross profit per store grew in the same cohort? Has the gross margin per square feet improved? And to what extent is that driven by product mix versus pricing? This is the sheet unit.
Sukumar Srinivas
One. Second. Yeah. Overall our. See broadly the gross margin last year in the. The Non steel and the store level was around 10%. So there has been substantial growth in the stores. But I think. So that is broadly it. I mean. What is the second part of your question, please?
Nishant Bhut
No, my mic. Yeah. My question was regarding your same store sales growth. Right. It is somewhere around 14% as of now. The contribution, has it come from the product mix or the pricing? Like, you know, is it, is it driven by the product mix or the pricing as of now? Because that is as I’ve been seeing that your ticket size has been increasing. That is a trend which has been happening since the past three quarters. Right? Yes.
Sukumar Srinivas
There should be a mix of both. There would be increase because of product mix and because of price.
Nishant Bhut
Okay, thank you. That’s from my side. Yeah, thank you.
operator
The next question is from the line of Deepak Podar from Sapphire Capital. Please go ahead.
Deepak Poddar
Yeah, I’m audible, sir.
operator
Yes.
Deepak Poddar
Okay. Yeah. Thank you very much, sir, for this opportunity. So, just wanted to understand, first up, you mentioned that we have seen some increase in steel prices in the month of. So what’s the extent we have increased? We have seen the increase after 11% decline you mentioned. We have seen last year. Right.
Sukumar Srinivas
Increase of steel prices in the last couple of months. Last couple of months. Especially in market March only it went up around 4% up.
Deepak Poddar
And what about April?
Sukumar Srinivas
April, April. As of now, April, it went by around 3%. And May looks flat.
Deepak Poddar
And May looks flat. Okay, okay, that’s great. And sir, is there any kind of matrix or any kind of sensitivity so that we can understand how will steel prices impact your inventory loss and gain? I mean, a 1% steel prices gain increase can impact how much in your inventory gain. Some kind of matrix would be quite helpful. I mean, to help us understand how your inventory loss or gain can behave going forward.
Sayam Pokharna
You can work that out. But as you see, it’s difficult in this industry because it’s varying sizes and varying types of material and it’s very inconsistent. But we can definitely work out something.
Deepak Poddar
No, come again? I didn’t get. Sir. So what’s the sensitivity you’re mentioning?
Sayam Pokharna
We don’t have one yet. We will work on the matrix for you because of the current complications of the industry. I think this would be a first of its kind.
Deepak Poddar
And this year we are looking at 3.5% kind of EBITDA margin at a company level. That’s what you mentioned. Because majority is still only right for us as of now.
Sayam Pokharna
Yes, we are working on that.
Deepak Poddar
Okay. And what would be our ultimate aspiration for this margin? I Mean is four.
Sukumar Srinivas
Four percent inspiration three to three and a half. Three and a half is for sure. And as the mix of the non steel gains space we will definitely maybe in a couple of years look at four.
Deepak Poddar
Couple of years. Four. And this year three and a half closer to three and a half. That’s what. Okay. Okay. That would do it from my side all the way. Best to you. Thank you so much.
Sayam Pokharna
Thank you.
Sukumar Srinivas
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Before we take the next question we would like to remind participants that you can press star N1 to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Utkar Somaya from Eco Quantum Solutions. Please go ahead.
Utkarsh Somaiya
Thank you for the opportunity. Can you please give me a breakup of the interest cost and the depreciation between the two businesses?
Sukumar Srinivas
Interest cost. Now when you’re seeing both the business retail and channel enterprise you are asking for steel and. Nonsense.
Utkarsh Somaiya
Retail or retail and retail and the marketplace business.
Sayam Pokharna
The marketplace business. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So marketplace and manufacturing. Marketplace and manufacturing.
Utkarsh Somaiya
Right. Marketplace and manufacturing. Right. Yeah.
Sayam Pokharna
Just give us a second. So marketplace, the total interest cost for. The. Year was approximately around 42 crores whereas in manufacturing was around 10 crores. That is a breakup of manufacturing and marketplace. Breakup of the finance cost Marketplace is around 8 crores and the manufacturing is around 8.7%, almost 9 crores.
Utkarsh Somaiya
Okay. And also if possible can you share the operating cash flow of the two businesses?
Sayam Pokharna
Yeah, operating cash flow of the two business. I’ll. I will let you know. Overall it’s around 90 crores is the overall operating cash flow. So the breakup. I will give it to you later. I don’t have the figure with me right now.
Utkarsh Somaiya
Okay, possible please share on from this count. And just one last thing that also the breakout of steel and non steel in the marketplace business.
Sayam Pokharna
Okay, we’ll get back to you on these two details through T.
Utkarsh Somaiya
Thank you so much. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask questions may please press Charn 1 at this time. The next question is from the line of Netik from NV Alpha Fund. Please go ahead.
Naitik
Hi sir. Thanks for the follow up opportunity. So my question is you know what percentage of our revenue is still dependent on apl? And second question, the same lines. Is it safe to assume most of the revenue dependent on APL is comes from the channel and enterprise segment?
Sukumar Srinivas
APL will come approximately around 40:42. Percentage is APL and is it on both segments or the bulk of it comes from channel and enterprise and less from retail?
Naitik
Right answer. My second question is if you could give us the figure of business counting for the full year 25.
Sukumar Srinivas
Sorry that wasn’t clear. Could you please repeat
Naitik
the bill discounting done in 25?
Sukumar Srinivas
Yeah. In March we are around 400 crores was the total bill discounting and working capital was around. I mean borrowing was approximately around 72 crores. Around 470 crores is the total borrowing as on end of March.
Naitik
Just one clarification. You mentioned earlier that you’re working with NBFCs on you know, dealer financing. So if you can just explain how would this, you know what it will help us reduce our interest cost on discount or it will give the, you know, give the option for people to borrow directly from the NBCs without us being involved.
Sukumar Srinivas
Yes, yes. So what will happen is this particular limit will go to our dealer where they will be bearing the interest cost so my overall debtors will start reducing it.
operator
Thank you. Thank. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Viraj Mehta from Enigma. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Just one last question. Sorry. We saw APL Group selling significant stake which they held in our firm which they bought through preferential allotment a couple of years back, recently as recently as Friday. In your view does it change any relationship that we have with them because we sell a large proportion of the products as you answered in the last question.
Sukumar Srinivas
Yeah. Now let me just quickly trace back as to why they took this preferential allotment about three years ago. So I think the primary objective of that was to bind ourselves together better. We have industry years. Our offtake from APL itself has grown by more than three times or almost close to four times. And today we are also the largest MoU holder or we have signed the largest MoU holder for the year of 2526. So objective number one was to cement our businesses further so that we have a greater volume understanding with each other and a better participation understanding with each other.
I think the objective has been very clearly fulfilled and demonstrated. Second, I think at that time there was also a need to infuse some working capital into Shankara. This was just the post the COVID period. So I think the 100 odd crores that came from APL at that time of preferential allotment also, you know, was very useful for Shankara. I think as these objectives have been met I think we don’t see any significant change in their divesting of their holding in Chankara.
Unidentified Participant
So that does not change anything in the relationship pricing. Nothing.
Sukumar Srinivas
Nothing at all.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, thank you so much. Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you. We would like to remind participants that you may press Chart and one to ask a question. Participants who wish to ask questions may please press Sharan 1 at this time. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Kumar Srinivas. Thank you. And over to you, sir.
Sukumar Srinivas
My sincere thanks to all the participants who took time off on a Monday morning and a busy working day, and thank you all very much for participating. I hope you have been able to answer your questions satisfactorily. In case you have any further doubts, etc. Please reach us through the TIL and we’ll be happy to clarify any doubts that you have. Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you on behalf of TIL advisors. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your line.