SIS Limited (NSE: SIS) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated May. 01, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
Vineet Toshniwal — President, M&A and Investor Relations
Rituraj Kishore Sinha — Group Managing Director
Brajesh Kumar — Chief Financial Officer
R. S. Murali Krishna — President, SIS International
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Heet Vora — Analyst
Gopinath — Analyst
Chirag Maroo — Analyst
Subir Sen — Analyst
Amit Kumar — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to SIS Limited Q4NFY25 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing the star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vineet Toshniwal, President MNA and Investor Relations from SIS Ltd. Thank you and over to you sir.
Vineet Toshniwal — President, M&A and Investor Relations
Hello everyone, my name is Vineet and good evening everyone and welcome to Q4.25 earnings. I hope you had a chance to look at our results and the earning note which has been uploaded on the stock Exchange and the company website. By now we would like to take a moment for our fellow citizens which have been impacted by the recent unfortunate events in Palga. This has led to a higher threat perception across the country and it has heightened the significance of security Also as you all know. Now Talking about our Q4 and FY25 results, we are very happy to report that we have witnessed growth across all three segments on a consolidated basis.
SIS Group reported its highest ever revenue of 3428 crores which is an increase of 9.3% on a year on year basis. India securities reported its highest ever revenue of 1,435 crores in this quarter which is a 9.6% growth on a year on year basis. FM also reported its highest ever quarterly revenue of 587 crores which is 12.9% growth on a year on year basis. And International Security reported its highest ever quarterly revenue at 1424 crores for Q4.25 which is a growth of 7.7% year on year. Talking about our earnings, it’s been a constant endeavor to improve the margin profile across all segments.
Our focus has been on margin improvement initiative and it is now showing in terms of gradual improvement. We focused on margins both in terms of customer contracts as well as rationalization of SGMA costs. On a consolidated level, EBITDA grew by 10.1% year on year to 165 crores which is highest ever reported by SIS and it translates to an EBITDA margin of 4.8%. India Security reported an EBITDA margin of 5.6% up from 5.5% in quarter 4. FY24FM has reported an EBITDA margin of 4.7% which is 80 basis points higher on a year on year basis. Additionally, the segment also reported its highest ever quarterly EBITDA of 27.4 crores which is 34% growth on a year on year basis.
For the international security business, the EBITDA margin for Q4FY25 was 4% compared to 3.8% in Q3FY25. This is driven by new wins of AUD $180 million in FY25. EBITDA continues on a path to recovery. For Q4FY25 the EBITDA is 57.6 crores which is 8.6% growth on a quarterly basis. QOQ basis. Talking about PAT now our operating PAT for this quarter is 83 crores resulting in an operating PAT margin of 2.4% which is 52.9%, almost 53% growth on a year on year basis. However, as you have all seen, our reported PAT is -223 crores. This is because of non cash goodwill impairment charge of 306 crores which we have taken during this quarter for the investments that we had made in Henderson, SLV and Unique and adis.
The details of this impairment is available in our earnings note now. As a result after this impairment our ROCE has now improved to 14.3% which was 12% in the last quarter. Now talking about operational efficiency which is net debt and DSO overall. Very happy to report that net debt is now at 429 crores which is down by 460 crores from March 24 which was 889 crores a year back. So 889 is now down to 429. This brings the net debt to EBITDA ratio to 0.7 which was 1.5 a year back. This is the lowest level seen since June 21st.
Now OCF to EBITDA is also now at 175%. DSOs have improved by 5 days to 65 days from March 24th driven by an improvement in collections update on CAS GV. As you are all aware we have filed a DRHP with SEBI in quarter 4 25. Now today on the call I have Uttaraj Sinha Group Managing Director Mr. Rajesh Kumar, Chief Financial Officer of SIS India and Mr. R.S. murali Krishna, President, SIS International. We will now turn over for Q and A. Thank you very much.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star n1 on your touchstone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue you may press star and two participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants who wish to ask a question to the management may place star and one. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star N1. The first question is from the line of Heath Vora from Guardian Capital Partners.
Please go ahead. Yes sir.
Heet Vora
Just one question that I have is with the order wins that we got in Australia, is this the recurring number or is it some one off win which we’ve received for the quarter?
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
No, this is recurring permanent and casual revenue. So just to give you context, our international business, particularly mss, which is the flagship company of the international business, generally has new wins anywhere in the range of 40 to $50 million recurring revenue, new wins per annum. Over the last year they have booked $150 million, $150 million of permanent revenue which will obviously impact not just FY26 but also the subsequent years.
Heet Vora
Just one more on the low margin contract which we’ve been shedding. So we are seeing the margin improvement. So is it safe to assume that most of our low margin contracts are now behind us?
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
I think, you know, let me take it part by part. I think in security business in India, I think the contract churning exercise is pretty much done. Therefore we are reporting 5.5, 5.6% and I think gradually as we gain more operating leverage that will go back to 6% levels which is the pre Covid normal level. In FM it has taken more time than before but even FM now is inching towards 5% EBITDA margin. And I think hopefully in the coming first quarter you will see that even the FM business is out of the woods as far as the margins is concerned.
As far as international is concerned. On the international side, the pre Covid EBITDA margin level was roughly four and a half. International is back at close to 4% already and you can expect it to operate at that 4 4.5% band, you know, going forward as well. So I hope that explains.
Heet Vora
Just one last question with regards to these, the labor laws. Are we hearing anything new on the labor laws or any wage hike?
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
Well, you know India enacted its four labor codes in 2020, 2021 and 2022, the model rules. Because this is a central. This labor is a subject under the concurrent list of the Constitution. So the federal government, central government can pass an act but it has to be adopted by all the states which then took the last two, three years we were informally advised by the department functionaries on a casual chat basis that one can expect that this would be implemented somewhere around this month or month or two here and there. But I think the whole country’s focus now is on different and more pressing national security matters.
So it’s very hard to say when the labor laws will get implemented. And the labor laws effectively are the trigger for minimum wage reset for security workers. So as much as we would like this to happen as soon as possible, I believe that the timing is not within our control. But having said that, as and when labor laws get impacted, security of businesses like us might be the few that stand to directly gain as a result of higher wages.
Heet Vora
And just the last question is, would you like to give any guidance for the upcoming year? How do you expect the growth?
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
I don’t think we give any guidance, but your last seven years of listed performance will tell you that our quarterly CAGR for revenue is close to 15%. And our quarterly CAGR for EBITDA also is close to 15, 16%. So I think you will have to take reliance on that.
Heet Vora
That’s it from my. Sir, thank you.
operator
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press star N1 to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Gopinath from PNR Investments [Phonetic]. Please go ahead.
Gopinath
Hello, sir. Congratulations on a good set of results this time and good order from Australia. My only question is why this that we we have taken right off what you call goodwill. Write off this particular quarter. Any specific reason or is this normal procedure? I don’t understand why it has been taken now itself.
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
Well, our auditors, as per the mandate, as per the regulation, as well as good practice, our auditors do an impairment testing of the goodwill annually with the final results. It’s also done every quarter. But I think this time we had a consensus on the matter that transactions that were acquired just a year before COVID 2019 and their actual business performance has not been in sync with what was initially projected at the time of acquisition. As a result of which, against a higher Goodwill taken in 2019, we ended up paying lesser for the acquisition because the businesses didn’t perform in sync with their plans due to Covid.
It eventually resulted in a mismatch. And if you remember, last year also we had taken a provision a part impairment for Henderson. And now what we’ve decided is that we have taken the pending impairment requirements with regards to Henderson and also the two other major acquisitions that happened in 2019, which are SLV and Unique. So we have taken all those impairments and that’s the reason why you see this 306 crore impairment entry. But I would like to underline for, I mean everybody would be appreciating that. I just wanted to underline two, three important aspects. Number one, please note that we have not paid extra for these businesses as these were staggered acquisitions and poor performance meant that we’ve actually paid lesser than initially envisaged for these transactions.
Number two, as far as accounting is concerned this is a non cash entry. So operating profit after tax remains at 318 crores. 318 for the year and free cash for the year stands at 602 crores. A detailed note on this particular aspect is on page four of the earnings note. You might have to, might like to run through it for greater clarity.
Gopinath
Yes, I understood it sir. My, my doubt was like last year we have taken the goodwill write off. So I thought that was it and again it came. So I wanted to know why particularly this quarter is there any slowdown in those business which we have taken in this particular again here again that kind of a doubt. It is not on the total overall situation we have taken last year. We are taking it.
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
So if you go back and you look at our transcripts and reports of the previous years you will see that even last year we had clearly stated that we are taking part of the Henderson impairment this year and the remaining will happen next year. So we had announced it one year in advance. So basically impairment was taken in steps. But now that all is done and behind us so you can rest assured that this is not an annual fixture.
Gopinath
Okay. Are there any other businesses or acquisitions where we need to take further or everything is done. Is it a clean slate now?
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
Well auditors are better place to comment on that. But as far as my understanding is that even as goodwill is tested every quarter, having gone through that entire exercise just now, I don’t see any residual impairment requirement that we have not taken. So Henderson impairment is complete. SLV impairment is complete almost. So basically I don’t think that there is any significant, you know, concern on this scout.
Gopinath
That’s assuring. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. That’s it from my side.
operator
Thank you. A reminder to all participants that you may press Star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Chidagi from Keynote Capitals. Please go ahead.
Chirag Maroo
Yes, thank you for the opportunity. I just have a follow up question on the earlier part of you said that majority of Impairment as per you has been done for now and for foreseeable time. You are not saying I’m able to see that there is 700 crores. Could you. Could you just elaborate this, Daniel, is for which particular entity and is there a possibility for an impairment for any other entity to come into question in future?
Brajesh Kumar
This is Vijay. The remaining 700 goodwill which is appearing in the books is mainly related to the past acquisition like mss, dths, rspl. And during the process of account violation, the auditor has done the SS impairment testing or testing of all the entity. And in other than these three entities for which we have taken the impairment, there is no indication there’s enough headroom available as per the impermanent model. So Voita has a confidence that we don’t need to take any further impairment on account of any of these entities going forward as of now. As for the result till now.
Chirag Maroo
Thank you.
operator
The next question is from the line of Subgeer Sen from Aditya Villa San Life. Please go ahead.
Subir Sen
Thank you for the opportunity. Just two points I have. What would be the management priorities in this financial year and any comments on atjj, Whether that will continue or any views on that.
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
For now I don’t see any change in the budget announcements as well with regard to atjj. So I think ATJJ provision continues as is with no change as regards to the management priorities. I think management priorities always are on four metrics for us like any other business. Revenue growth margin improvement, better free cash generation, which is OCF to ebitda and higher return ratios. So we continue to work on all four metrics. We are growing at roughly 8, 10%. We want to grow faster. Our EBITDA margin has improved but we are keen that it should improve further in the coming year.
Our DSOs are fixed in the security business. But I think there is headroom for improvement in the international side and the FM side. And as far as return ratios is concerned, Vineet already explained that our return ratios are back to 15%. And I think with a little bit faster growth and margin improvement, you know, we’d like to see this moving upwards from 15. So I think that’s the key four metrics that we track our business on and also set KPI’s basis.
Subir Sen
Would there be equity dilution in the company?
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
We don’t need equity dilution at this point in time. To the best of my understanding, we are operating at 0.7 times net debt to EBITDA. There is enough headroom for debt and there is no pressure on Us in fact, even the debt that we have, the gross debt that we have, the average cost of that debt is barely 7%, 7.5%. And we are negotiating our interest rates down with banks already. So I don’t think that at this point in time equity fundraising is a priority per se.
Subir Sen
And would you be also looking at any new or adjacent line of business in this financial year?
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
We are a security, cash, logistics and facility management company. That’s how we define ourselves. And that’s the niche in which we intend to operate and strengthen our market share and service content.
Subir Sen
Just one point of reputation. I think that goodwill of 700. You mentioned that mostly the impairment testing has been done and there would not be any further requirement of any impairment. Now that is the right understanding based on the performance of the companies which were acquired.
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
That is correct.
Subir Sen
Thank you so much. Thank you, sir.
operator
Thank you. The next question is a follow up question. It’s from the line of Gopinath from PNR Investments. Please go ahead.
Gopinath
In Australia we got a big leap in order. Is there any change that we have done or my question is in terms of will this kind of, this level of orders will keep coming every year or is there a possibility of improvement or how is it we got this time and how is it. Sir, can you please elaborate on that?
R. S. Murali Krishna
Thanks for the question, Mr. Gopinatha. This is Murali Krishna. So this is. We have been investing on our business development efforts ever since COVID recovery time. What you are seeing this year is a result of two to three years of investment that we have done and we have landed on some of meaty contracts, one being defense and another being Sydney trains locally. So these kinds of events don’t happen every year. It’s a mature market. But we are happy that we have been able to gain market share in this business in such a significant manner. So while we are very happy about the wins and we would like to continue to keep winning in the market, this is certainly a great year that might not repeat as much going forward.
Gopinath
EBITDA margins there were compressed because of their labor charges increase by the government there. That pressure is not there on these orders. Right. It’s all at our comfort levels.
R. S. Murali Krishna
Okay. So primarily in the Australian market there is what is called a fair work wages which is pretty much similar to the minimum wages out here in India. And these keep changing every year after year. And these are different in different states and different awards and enterprise agreements as well. So this is. While what we do is in our business there is a pressure in the labor Cost largely not because of these minimum wage increases, but it’s because of non availability of labor in the market in that situation. As and when it eases, we are seeing early signs of that easing.
But as and when it eases will reduce our pressure on the cost of labor as we move forward. So it has got nothing to do with the minimum wage type. It is more the availability of manpower.
Gopinath
Okay, last question. Sir, we were looking into a few acquisition opportunities. Are there anything to be and you have anything to tell?
Vineet Toshniwal
So this is Vineet. See, we are constantly on the lookout but we won’t be making any forward looking statements for acquisition as in when we tie up something, definitely you’ll get to know. But we are looking out in all security, fm, Cash, logistics, all three segments.
Gopinath
Okay. The thing is there was a pressure in the market and there were many people direly looking for somebody to acquire. Is the situation the same or is there an improvement in competitive situation also? You can tell in those terms also it’s okay, you don’t need to name any companies.
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
There is always a dearth of good assets for sale and even more so at the right price. So I think one can only comment about acquisitions when a definitive agreement is signed. What I want you to note is two things. First, that SIS has acquired more than 15 companies in the past. Since listing, we would have acquired close to at least five or seven companies. So we have wide experience of M and A successful ma. The second point, that SIS growth is not MA dependent. We are primarily an organic growth entity and we are very comfortable, you know, not doing any M and A.
We don’t do M and A for the sake of growth at all. So both those things are facts. As and when we have something tied up, we will let you know. As of now, there is no definitive agreement signed with anybody.
Gopinath
Thank you, sir. That’s it from my side.
operator
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and 1. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and 1. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Rituraj Sinha for closing comments.
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
It seems there’s a question from Amit, so I’ll take that question and then I will proceed with my concluding remarks.
operator
Yes, sir. The next question is from the line of Amit Kumar from Retirement Investments. Please go ahead.
Amit Kumar
Yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity. This is a bookkeeping question. Really. Could we just talk about during FY25? I mean the progress that you have made in Terms of the solutions business with respect to India Security and fms, what is the share of solutions presently versus last year?
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
Well, the improvement is not as much as we would like. In security business it is still subject 10% and in FM business it is closer to 30%. When I say solution you must understand there is man and machine. Now that could be machine learning or it could be equipment of different types from cleaning equipment to various other. So when we use more than manpower and we work on outcome basis, not on input basis. So outcome basis means when we sign up contracts towards outcomes and not just a headcount, we bundle all of that under solutions.
So in FM that stacks up to close to 30% and security is still under 10%. In fact it’s closer to 5, 6% single digit.
Amit Kumar
Understood. On the SMS side, I mean given the fact you’ve discussed this in the previous conference calls and we are sort of relatively new to the company. The. Solutions are supposed to have relatively higher margin vis a vis services. And as you’re saying that In SMS almost 30% of share of revenue is coming from solutions, but margins are on the lower side. So could you just sort of explain that dichotomy a little bit? Is it because of lower scale in some sense? And at what sort of level of scale will this solutions please start to contribute more robustly to margins?
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
So I think this operates at multiple levels. At a gross margin line, what you’re saying is correct. Higher solutioning means higher gross margin. That is a correct statement. However, when you talk in terms of ebitda, you know there is operating leverage that has to play through. So if you’re growing single digit, if you’re growing 9%, 10% and the wage cost of your non billing staff is growing higher, your unit operating costs are growing higher, it doesn’t sort of percolate down to EBITDA level as apparently as one would assume. So in summary, what I’m saying is that yes, higher solutions means higher margins, but higher solutions with higher growth percentage will yield higher operating leverage, higher ebitda.
So that is something we need to get right. The FM business in the past, as you have seen, when it was growing, when it was maintaining 6% EBITDA margin, the FM business in those years was growing more than 20%, 25%, even 30% in certain years. So that has really tapered down because we have been far more conscious about taking on contracts. We are refusing low margin contracts, we are foregoing existing contracts if the margins are not reasonable enough. So for all those reasons, in FM you see, you know, the EBITDA still below 5%.
Amit Kumar
I understand that part, but my question was more structural. Right, but given that you have a significantly higher share of business coming from solutions within the FMS sort of segment, structurally margins there should be higher. Right, but we don’t sort of see that and one is the trajectory of margins. I understand that. I just wanted to get a little bit of center.
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
The pricing points for FM and the unit unit margin on FM is lower than security.
Amit Kumar
Sorry, I’m sorry, I missed the last one. Can you please repeat that price point then?
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
The price point for an FM manpower for example, per unit is lower for cleaning services or FM services than it is for security. That’s the way the industry is structured.
Amit Kumar
Because at the end of the day anyways, you know, you’re not pricing on a manpower, you know, basis. It is on outcome basis, you know, essentially. So that should not matter. I mean from an absolute EBITDA per person or per manpower perspective it might matter, but not from a margin data perspective should.
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
Does. The gross margin of my FM businesses are lower than the gross margin on my security business. And when a lower gross margin business grows lower than the percentage SGNA compared to percentage of revenue, SGNA goes up, you lose operating leverage and that shows up on your ebitda.
Amit Kumar
All right. All right, thank you. That is the M.
operator
Thank you.
Rituraj Kishore Sinha
Okay gentlemen, thank you so much. I know it’s a holiday today but for all of you who have been kind enough to take time to join this call, I am very grateful. Q4FY25 is a good quarter for SIS. I think for the last two quarters our numbers are more in line. 165 crore FITA run rate, quarterly EBITDA run rate. This is the first time we have gotten to that level. We are bullish about the growth prospects in the first quarter organically and with our return ratios improving as a result of recent actions, I think the business is in better shape.
With our DSOs reducing and our net debt being the best it has been in the last five years, I think we are in better shape to support that growth. I think what also is very interesting is that the international business is sitting on a large bag of contracts to execute which should give them good tailwinds. The cash business drhp. We received first comments or first feedback from Sebi just yesterday. So I think that project is coming along well. You know that listing exercise also aims to bring back capital into SIS to further reduce our net debt situation.
So overall I think the company is poised for strong numbers. And we hope that we will continue to execute and try our best to meet your expectations. Thank you very much. Once again, I wish you all the best. And I would once again request everybody to kindly look at the earnings note. Take note of page number four for the goodwill impairment aspect. Which is a big development this quarter. Just to have clarity as to what is happening. Thank you very much.
operator
Thank you. On behalf of SIS Ltd. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.