UFLEX Limited (NSE: UFLEX) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Feb. 16, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Surajit Pal — Vice President and Head of Investor Relations
Sumeet Kumar — Executive Vice President – Finance
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Aman Kumar Sonthalia — Analyst
Chirag Singhal — Analyst
Kaushik Poddar — Analyst
Saket Kapoor — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Uplex Limited Q3N 91 FY26 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participants lines will be in the listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Rana Koswal. Thank you. And over to you.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you. Hello and good afternoon to everyone. On behalf of Aryan Capital Market Ltd.
I thank you all for joining into quarter three and nine month FY26 earning conference call of Cuflux Ltd. Today. From the management we have Mr. Sumit Kumar, Executive Vice President Finance and Mr. Surjit Pan, Vice President Head of Investor Relations. So without any further delay I will hand over call to Mr. Surjit Parv, Vice President Head of Investor Relations for his opening remarks. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Surajit Pal — Vice President and Head of Investor Relations
Thank you. Ashwath. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Q3 and 9 month FY26 earnings conference call of E Flex. Let me draw your attention to the. Fact that on this call our discussion. Will include certain forward looking statements which are predictions, projections or other estimates about future events. These estimates reflect management’s current expectations about the future performance of the company. Please note that these estimates involve several risk and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from what is expressed or implied. I would now request Mr. Sumit Kumar, Executive VP, Finance Uflex Group for his opening remarks following which we will open the forum for question and answer session. Over to you sir.
Sumeet Kumar — Executive Vice President – Finance
Hello. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you so much for joining Euflex Q3 and 9 months FY26 earnings call. I’m Sumit Kumar. I’m Executive Vice President Finance and in fact I’ll take this opportunity for those joining us for the first time to briefly introduce Uflex and our business operations. For those who are joining us for the first time, Uflex Limited is India’s largest multinational flexible packaging and solutions company. Uniquely integrated across the entire packaging value chain from raw materials to finished consumer ready packaging solutions. Our integrated ecosystem begins with the production of Virgin Pet chips and recycled pet chips which form the backbone of our Bopet based films.
Our packaging films portfolio includes bopet, Bopp, cpp, Recycled Pet films and a wide range of value added specialty films which includes Locks, Specialty films, High barrier films, et cetera and these upstream capabilities are complemented by a strong intermediary products portfolio of high performance inks, adhesives, coatings, holography solutions, printing cylinders and engineering equipment enabling a full in house capability, quality control and operational efficiencies. At the downstream end we provide complete packaging solutions including flexible laminates, pouches, tubes and aseptic liquid packaging cartons. We serve leading global brands across smcg, across food and beverages, pharmaceutical, personal care and industrial sectors.
This fully backward integrated model enhances supply chain reliability, drives innovation, strengthens sustainability initiatives and positions UFLEX as a comprehensive one stop packaging partner globally. Now before I come to performance about the quarter, in fact I would like to highlight that this was a challenging quarter in terms of the macro headwinds which were There were two major macroeconomic events which were the drivers under which we have done this quarter, a nine month performance and both coming from domestic as well as internationally. So overall for our international markets we had the impact of the US Tariff related uncertainty as a major driver impacting the performance and at the same time we were in the midst of a GST transition and as a GST rationalization had an impact within India to a great extent and despite such a challenging demand environment in certain segments we remained focused on operational discipline, product mix improvement, cost optimization and long term value creation.
All of that is reflected in the numbers of the quarter which are for the nine months we clogged a revenue of 114,157,000,000 rupees which was on a corresponding period of last year was up 0.8% year on year we had the reported EBITDA at a stable level of 13,571,000,000 which is more or less in line with last year’s EBITDA of nine months. For the same period we had the normalized EBITDA which was at almost 13 billion rupees which are down 9.6% year on year and margin at 11.4%. We had PBT of 136 PBT which was up 136% to rupees 1,863,000,000 which was supported by lower exceptional impact versus last year and we had a major swing in the PAT at 1.21 billion rupees versus loss of 263 million in the nine month period of last year.
Coming to the formula for the quarter three per se, we had revenue at 36,329,000,000 versus 37,775,000,000 rupees which was 3.8% down on the corresponding quarter of last year and that was largely on account of volume softness because of the factors mentioned below and also because of a lot of import related pricing pressure in the market. We had a reported ebitda which rose 9.7% at rupees 4,596,000,000 and there was a margin expansion of 180 basis points on the quarter on quarter at 12.7% during the quarter. We also had foreign exchange derivative yields of rupees 201 million which are adjusted resulting in a flat normalized EBITDA for the quarter and hence the normalized EBITDA was at 4,395,000,000 which was up 12.8% on a sequential quarter basis and margin Overall improved to 12.1% which was a 200 basis point expansion.
On quarter and quarter we had the profit before exceptional Items which increased 56% quarter on quarter to Rs.643 million and PAT stood at 361 million rupees which was up by 34% on a sequential quarter basis and EPS was at rupees 5.01 per share. I’d like to touch upon slightly on the aseptic packaging business. Our aseptic liquid packaging business delivered steady growth during the period with volumes increasing by 2.3% year on year to 1.8 billion packs as against 1.76 million packs in corresponding quarter three of last year and for the nine month period volumes grew 4.4% to 5.9 billion packs as against 5.7 billion packs in the nine months of last year reflecting strong execution and improved product mix.
This reinforces the structural growth potential of the aseptic liquid packaging category as VC and looking ahead. As we know quarter four and quarter one are seasonally the strongest quarter for aseptic packaging business so the current quarter the next quarter are expected to witness much better prospects supported by category tailwinds and also pre season loading. We expect this momentum to strengthen and anticipate a robust season in summer in FY27 assuming trade inventory liquidation and increment weather conditions are now largely behind us and we expect our aspect packaging business to have a total sales volume of close to about 8.5 billion packs in the next fiscal subject to overall FNB beverage industry behind.
Thank you. I now request if you have any questions would love to take that.
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 par N1 on their text on telephone if you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Aman Kumar from AK Securities. Please go ahead.
Aman Kumar Sonthalia
Yeah. Good afternoon sir.
Sumeet Kumar
Good afternoon
Aman Kumar Sonthalia
sir. So far so good. We are doing very well as far as turnover is concerned, sir. But could you please outline the company’s roadmap for data defense and are there any specific leverage target or timeline over the next one three years that the investors should be aware of?
Sumeet Kumar
Yes. So in fact we see at the current leverage level, we see this trend seem to be plateauing at the current level. We must keep in mind at this stage that we are near commissioning stage for three of our large projects which includes our 12 billion expansion, 12 billion tax expansion of aseptic liquid packaging facility in Egypt. We are having almost 40,000 tonnes recycling plant at the near commissioning stage in India. And we have also woven polypropylene bags which is 80 million bags production capacity in Mexico. So we are almost end of this three major project commissioning and given that we largely feel that now on it will be a leverage, it will be a function of improving EBITDA as a result of these things project being operational and significantly it should reduce the leverage.
Overall we are not looking at this debt level in isolation. We look at the impact of the bearing on the leverage. So with the improving EBITDA and largely this capex cycle being at the junction that we are, we expect this leverage should be more or less should be peaked at the current level.
Aman Kumar Sonthalia
Oh sorry, you have told that you will freezing the debt level to this level. But again you have announced a bup project. So every now and then you are announcing projects and keeping the debt level to the money to a very high level. So whenever there is a downturn in the economy all over the world I think the company will be in deep trouble if we don’t look into to control the debt. Because in the past Mr. Bhatia used to say that this is that debt we will not increase anymore. But again we see that there is increase in the next quarter.
So I think you have to assume the investor that this is the debt, the maximum debt that the company will have and then how the management will repay this debt over a period of time.
Sumeet Kumar
Yes, so in fact thank you for this point. And in fact we take this point in the spirit of the guidance that the concern about this leverage is something which is very much, very much top of our parity. Too. And we look at it as an interplay of the debt level, the current debt level and the current capex. But at the same time we see this improving more on account of this EBITDA improvement from here. So what I can say is that we see this leverage ratio which is at the current level more or less being at the peak and so far as no reduction of that, it will be an interplay of overall repayment, which in fact is during the year and at the same time EBITDA improvement will lead to this leverage thing coming more under moderation is what I can say.
Aman Kumar Sonthalia
So which key markets are currently performing well for duplex and where we are facing challenges and what factors are driving the differences in performance across geographies?
Sumeet Kumar
Yes, so in fact, as you see that we have now current revenue mix of close to about 44% coming from within India. We have 56% of revenue now coming from overseas markets. We see that overseas Egypt and Mexico as the 2 largest setup outside India, definitely driving the growth. And while most of the markets, not just in India, but as you know, the tariff related uncertainties have also resulted in our packaging films business, which contributes to almost two thirds of overall revenues also being impacted. Because of the US related headwinds and also tariff related uncertainties, a lot of exports were reoriented to the non US market and that meant that to some extent even the Europe or Middle East North Africa market, which are the other major markets that we operate in, also impacted by this kind of supply gap mismatch and also that resulted in some kind of pricing pressure on realization.
Now we see the good part is that we see in the current quarter, that trend in fact is showing some signs of reversal. As we all know that now this tariff related thing is easing those uncertainties which will mean that this will be stabilizing going back to the normal supply chain operations. That will help us improve our performance in these major markets. And also definitely in India where we have seen already the prices improving. There is a price recovery for pocket film currently at about 100 tonnes. Likewise, we have seen marked improvement in the Bopp films during the quarter.
As we started the quarter. These were the things which were actually weighing on the industry as a whole. But we see by the end of the quarter and more particularly in the current quarter those trends being reversed. So we are confident that overall we feel that this will result in the current quarter and more pronounced basis in the in the next fiscal these things to hold extremely good for us.
Aman Kumar Sonthalia
So this is the domestic scenario. What are all the International scenario as far as BOPET and Bott is concerned, do you think that the margin will improve like India overseas?
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah. So in fact I can talk about the way we see the market improving because if you talk about there’s no US market currently has a major imports of Bopp films. So US itself is not a local producer of Bopp and with the increased demand of BoP, it is being catered by different markets. We definitely see US market as a major prospect for the Bopp films for industry, for us as a whole. Overall, we see that Egypt and largely Mexico brand being benefited by this overall demand, which is showing us a improvement.
Aman Kumar Sonthalia
Sir, could you share the expected commissioning and stabilization timeline for a safety packaging plant in Egypt, the recycling plant in Noida and WPT plant in Mexico?
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah. So largely it seems to be very much on course. I think I can say that between the current and the next quarter we should see these three projects being commissioned, give and take a few months here and there. But I expect that between now and end of the first quarter we should have all these three projects up and running.
Aman Kumar Sonthalia
Thank you. This is from the my side.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Chirag signal from First Water Fund. Please go ahead.
Chirag Singhal
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. My first question is on Asepto. So what are the target volumes for FY26 and if you can also help me with your targets for 27 and 28.
Sumeet Kumar
So in fact we see that in the current nine months, the nine months ended December 25, we had total of 5.9 billion packs as against 5.7 billion packs in the nine months of last fiscal. Largely we see that here we should be having this total aseptic packaging business to be in the range of around 8.5 billion packs. Though we expect that this can be slightly better. But we are keeping our guidance to about 8.5 billion packs. And next year onwards, as we are almost near commissioning stage of the similar capacity in Egypt and now with the full impact of the extra 5 billion pack expansion in India, with increased capacity utilization and particularly as I said quarter four and quarter one being the peak season, we expect that to translate in better utilization of these capacities.
So I can say without putting a number that it should show a significant improvement from the current year numbers of 8.5 billion packs or thereabout.
Chirag Singhal
Is it possible to give a range at least for FY27 because you will have the India as well as Egypt up and running. So just trying to understand what kind of increasing volumes we should expect.
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah, so in fact, we are very, very upbeat about the current quarter. We feel that by end of this quarter we would be in a fairly good position to give a proper sense of the numbers to expect from fiscal 27. I think that will be an appropriate time because now we have to first reach a stage of commissioning of the aseptic liquid packaging facility in Egypt. And once we have that first year of course will be a ramp up and utilization level. We have to calibrate as to what extent. Of course it will be linked to the market demand and everything.
But we feel that both the facilities fading together and also the improved demand should lead to a much more improved number in the next fiscal. At this stage I’d rather wait for another quarter to give a specific number guidance for the next year.
Chirag Singhal
Okay, and this Egypt plant, are you expecting the commissioning to happen in current quarter or in Q1?
Sumeet Kumar
So I think this between current and next quarter we are just around the corner about commissioning of that plant. I think it may be somewhere maybe within 90 days from now. So that can be either either end of this quarter or somewhere in the first quarter. So I’d rather put it as over the next 90 days or so.
Chirag Singhal
Okay, next question is on specific locations capacity utilization. So if I look at Mexico, Hungary, Poland, there was a sharp dip in the capacity utilization during the quarter. So what were the key reasons and what should we expect for the coming fiscal year?
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah, so most of the places I think this is, this is not different from the overall theme which impacted to some extent the packaging, film production volume and Europe, Poland, Hungary as you talked about were also to a great extent impacted by the reorientation of the exports and a little bit of supply glut. And that meant that to some extent the production volumes were curtailed. But at the same time having said that, the trend seems to be reversing many places largely as a fallout of things happening in the us thankfully that should result into restoring of the normal utilization level for these markets as well.
But overall if you ask me to answer your question, it was impacted for the same factor that I mentioned earlier of of US related fallout also impacting the non US markets overseas, including eu.
Chirag Singhal
And what are you guiding for like capacity utilization at these three locations for the current system?
Sumeet Kumar
So yeah, so overall we see it will be at the level where it was earlier which is about 80% plus hydro capacity utilization is what we can expect from this.
Chirag Singhal
So Poland, which is showing at 56.7 in Q3, even that you are saying it should go to 80% or in the coming fiscal because the rest are not as low as Poland. But. But I’m just trying to get a confirmation.
Sumeet Kumar
Yes. So overall, in fact we are saying that now these three locations put together looks like improved capacity utilization. And also for Hungary and this more particularly for Poland. If I request to just. Pichin, he had a point to make. I request him to.
Surajit Pal
Yeah, Chirag, you must be aware that you know this is seasonally pretty diminutive in Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe. So plus holiday season. So every year similar kind of things happens. But this time along with this seasonal, you know, fallacy, we also have the impact of this extra supply from the kind of films which we have received which was actually destined for us. But because of this uncertainty that has actually flooded the European market as well as North Africa and Middle East. That is one of the reasons. Another reason is that when this kind of opportunity is seen by the market players, particularly the warehouse guys or the wholesaler guys, they were also holding less because they were expecting price will come down.
So as a result of it, they are not buying very big quantity, they are not giving big commitment. Now once these various multiple countries are making deals with us and more or less this uncertainty has tapered off and everybody is getting back to normalizing these things. We already are observing in the reflection of price realization both in India and export market. And that’s why Sumit suggested is that you might be seeing much better improved long term in Q4.
Chirag Singhal
Okay, got it. Just one last question. On the pet resins plants, both the plants that we have, what was the capacity utilization in Q3? And again the same. What are you guiding for in FY27?
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah, so Egypt plan operated at about 45, 46% capsule utilization in quarter and for months about 57.8%. In fact this was on back of the commissioning of the resources planned in the quarter four of last year. So in very first year, in nine months of operations we have seen utilization close to about 60% in commissioning last year and India’s plant plant for pet chips in fact had the overall nine month utilization of close to about 79% for the quarter. Again for the same reason it was slightly less compared to previous year at 68%.
Chirag Singhal
And should we is it fair to assume full capacity utilization in the coming year?
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah, so in the coming year in fact we’ll see number one, the substrate utilization is steadily improving and from a nine month utilization of 58%, 60% we should see Egypt plant utilization in the range of close to about 80%. And for Pandipat plant. We expect this to be further improving from the current level of 79% to a point of 85, 90%.
Chirag Singhal
Understood.
Surajit Pal
I can add to what Sumin’s commentary is that we have also technically improved ourselves in Panipat into more into BG grade chips. So what it means is that even if we stay at the similar kind of utilization, our realization will be much better. Our margin profile will be much better in Panipat. So we are not focusing on say 75, 80 for initial two years is pretty good utilization level. So if you cross 80% then you are thinking of or 90% you are thinking of putting up a new plant which is not required actually at this point of time.
Because given that governments, you know, initial phases of implementing, you know, pet chips and recycle pet chips and all these things. So situation what has tumbled out is that we are focusing on more value addition and if government implementation more and more expanding across the industry, there will be more demand for value added BG product or bottle grade chips, product or software. We are focusing more on that. So going forward you can say that we are definitely going to increase our capacity utilization but quality value utilization.
Chirag Singhal
Understood. That would be true. Thank you.
Sumeet Kumar
Thank you.
Surajit Pal
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Kaushik Poda from KB Capital Markets Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Kaushik Poddar
What is the kind of margin you. Are looking at right now you are at ebitda margin of 12%. What is the kind of margin you are looking at for this quarter as well as for the next year?
Sumeet Kumar
So overall if you see in fact we are still not at 12%. We are at 11.5% margin for the nine months. We definitely see that margin. While it has shown on a sequence quarter basis, it has seen expansion of 200 basis points for the previous quarter which is currently at for nine months. It’s about 11.5%. We see it in the range of not about 12% or so for the year as a whole. And moving forward as the product mix improves as we are able to realize price realization is better for our packaging films and for value added films that should show a consistent and steady improvement.
But as for this fiscal, we expect this to be the range of 10% or so.
Kaushik Poddar
Can we expect a better margin next year?
Sumeet Kumar
Yes, that’s exactly what in fact we have. We see it as unfolding because as a result of I said that improved product mix we see a mode of no cost and also so better price realization from our overseas and Indian market. All this translating into a better EBITDA margin improving from 12% further upwards. And this is what we can see as the trend as an expectation in the next fiscal of FY27.
Kaushik Poddar
Yeah. See another thing, these three plants that are coming into operation this quarter and next quarter, I think what the projection given was that these three plants will give an incremental turnover of 32000 clothes with the margin in margin for these three plants at 20%. Are you sticking to that?
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah, so I think I just to place it in the right perspective, the three plants once commissioned, the numbers which are what we are discussing is in context of the full capacity utilization of these three plants.
Kaushik Poddar
Okay.
Sumeet Kumar
And expect, and it’s very, very much expected that this utilization will be a ramp up over a period of time. So say for the next fiscal, if we are having 60, 70% utilization, we can accordingly calibrate the numbers. But we expect on a full capacity utilization. Yes, these numbers do hold good. And we should get an incremental revenue on account of these three projects contribution of close to about 2 crores. With the. With the margin which if not 20% between we can expect the high teens margin. Yes.
Kaushik Poddar
Okay. Okay, thank you, thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor and company. Please go ahead.
Saket Kapoor
Yeah, Namaskar. Hope I’m audible.
Sumeet Kumar
Yes, you are, sir.
Saket Kapoor
As you mentioned that there were external factors that led to lower utilization for the film segment, especially domestically. So in terms of the exit of Q4, what should be the FLIM segment utilization levels that we may expect? Or if as an entity, including aesthetic as well as the film packaging, everything, where should we land for Q4, which is seasonally also a better quarter?
Sumeet Kumar
Yes. So when we talk about quarter four, we’ll have to basically look at it more. I’d like to give a more nuanced response to that coming from different segments. So for packaging films to start with, for packaging films as we see, this was a quarter of software demand, this was a quarter of pricing pressure. Definitely that all translated into a little bit, I’d say resilient but not robust performance for the quarter. And having said that, for quarter four, for packaging films as such, we expect that the worst that the challenge is behind us and which is very much reflected in the current signals that we’re getting from the market.
As you are aware, the prices are firmed up. In fact it has held up and now holding up at the level of 110 or thereabouts for Bob and likewise for the OPP. And if you see in the quarter performance we also had definitely a marked improvement in our flexible packaging business contributing to the overall revenues. So While overall numbers stayed 1. But at the same time within that if you actually little bit analyze, you’ll find the packaging business has already started showing signs of improvement from the successful GST transition. And also we expect that a lot of destocking which is over will result into much better prospects for flexible packaging business and accepting business.
As you rightly said, the quarter four definitely is typically one of the better quarters, quarter one being the best and quarter two also is very good. So all that for the different segments I think looks good, looks promising for us for quarter four overall as the performance and on the back of the this behind us, we expect these numbers to be to be much, much better for quarter four as a whole. And definitely as we talked about the three projects and we are commissioning, I think the full impact of that or at least the substantial impact of that will be also seen in the fiscal 27th.
So here on in fact I am very confident that with the starting quarter four improved trajectory which will be more particular about rather than chasing a number.
Saket Kapoor
Right. So you mentioned about prices for the FLIM holdings and so can you give some color on how the trades are shaping up for the commodity flame for both as well as for the month of February or what what was January and February trends.
Sumeet Kumar
So in fact if you see it had gone on the way low of almost like 90 rupees per kilogram, we are talking about films which with a steady increase and also as part of the consciousness strategy to some extent has resulted in import. The pricing pressure from import of those films now subsided as a combination of these things. The prices have been steady, have held up and now reached a level of growth to about 100 on the bucket side. Likewise on Bopp, if you see the prices are for the different grade, which is TNT and ntt.
So you see the prices of ntt, largely the segment that we operate in is the prices of 120,121per kg now which has again improved significantly from the previous month.
Saket Kapoor
Had the RM also moved in that bracket and putting pressure on margins or these are all demand led and RM being seen the conversion margins are higher.
Sumeet Kumar
So rm it’s actually an interesting aspect that we need to understand that RM was also to a great extent also to do with to some extent as we gather from China and as RM was in fact weighed down by a lot of imports from China and because of Chinese producers more changing the volume than the price but we understand off late there has been a conscious shift or at least direction from Chinese government to rather focus more on holding the price and not changing the volume. And with that we expect that off late the trend has been prices have been more consistent and moving on.
I think it should be more tracking the RM prices rather than being moving in different directions. So largely the prices uptrend and all will also be underscored by the same trend being followed in the raw material prices.
Saket Kapoor
So last point come again, I missed you.
Sumeet Kumar
So I was telling that raw material prices in fact have now shown some kind of steady trend and to some extent it was also to do with what we gathered from the landscape is that there is a direction in China also about focusing not on changing the volume, not on increasing the volume, but focusing more on price realization which has meant that there is no undue pressure on the raw material prices which are also reflected in the firm prices for the packaging film. Largely we feel that this trend which tracks the raw material prices to continue and that’s where we feel that there will be some kind of steady trajectory for both the raw material as well as for the end packaging film.
Saket Kapoor
And now coming to the debt part as our first participant sir had mentioned about the debt being at the higher levels, I think so this is case in point sir, what are our current maturities going ahead for the next financial year? I think so big debt is our gross debt is 8,000 crore net debt. So what is our first year current maturities for the coming year?
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah, so in fact when we talk about the debt profile this is actually important also to understand that number one, the it has to be also seen that we see an improvement in the debt profile in the sense that cost of funds we see. It may be a little premature for me to give specific but we are working on a plan where we see cost of funds is steadily going down and as we are Significantly done with three projects CapEx planned so we feel that combination of three factors which is like the three projects major CapEx cycle being over.
Number two, the translation or result of this into a positive improvement in EBITDA and number three, the cost of funds is expected to come down further based on certain plans that we are working on. We see this debt profile and moving forward it will give you a lot more comfort to all of you.
Saket Kapoor
So can you give me the current maturity part and then small point even with the rationalization of cost from for the the finance cost is going to rise since we will be capitalizing projects in the ensuing two Quarters So the absolute number will go up.
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah but at the same time given the repayment cycle it’s an. It’s. It’s a kind of. No kind of offsets each other as you rightly said with the capitalization with the capex spend part. So that way the debt part will not be showing an increase on that. At the same time very nicely pointed out by you that it will reflect in that being expensed out which will definitely mean slightly higher interest cost per se. But what I was alluding to was the cost of funds. So cost of funds we expect that to come down based on the plans that we have a few months.
Saket Kapoor
What is the current blended cost of funds? Sir, my last two questions.
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah. So current blended cost of funds will be about 7% 6.9 to 7% then it costs a fund.
Saket Kapoor
Okay. And can you give the number for the current maturity for next year?
Sumeet Kumar
It will be close to about 1450 to 1500 crores. The City Ltd the current maturity over next one year.
Saket Kapoor
Right. Thank you sir. I’ll join the.
Sumeet Kumar
Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you. I reminded to all the participants that you may press Star and one to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Krisha from Grow capital. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
So in the last earning call top line growth guidance stood at 5% and EBITDA to be in the range of 1800-1815 crores. So are we confident of achieving the same? Can you provide some guidance for EBITDA margins?
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah. So in fact EBITDA margin I said that for the FY26 fiscal we expect it to be in the range of 12% translating to an EBITDA which largely should hold the guidance given earlier of 1800-1850 crore for the year. So we are confident with this improved performance in quarter four which we expecting and we are witnessing to some extent. We feel that that guidance holds good in terms of EBITDA expected numbers for FY26.
Unidentified Participant
Okay sir, got it.
Sumeet Kumar
Thank you.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants that you may press star N1 to ask a question. The next follow up question comes from the line of Aman Kumar from AK Securities. Please go ahead.
Aman Kumar Sonthalia
My question is that we are setting up a liquid packaging plant in Egypt. We are expanding our capital. We have already expanded our capacity in India since lot of export was happening to the market where Egypt free catal. So do we think that since export market will now take care by Egypt plant So how we will sail from this Indian plant so we can. Fully. Utilize the capacity here?
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah. So largely, if you see right now at 8.5 expected 8.5 billion packs of capsule, the number of packs for the fiscal. It’s largely being catered to by the plant in India, which is at Panam. Of course, you know that 7 billion capacity we expanded by another 5 billion packs to 12 billion packs here. And given the demand, which is, which is from overseas, which is largely expected to be catered from the plant in Egypt. Why we chose Egypt was also because you will realize that Egypt Egypt generally is a geography stable tariff resin. Very stable now the trade relations with most of the major markets including US and eu.
So Egypt for us was a strategic decision to set up this expansion of facility. From there we see that as a gateway catering to many markets which are not to the fullest extent or being catered to from here. So we see that this will be very complementary to either each other rather than being in any kind of conflict in terms of market.
Aman Kumar Sonthalia
Because 40% of our production, the capacity when it was 7 billion pack, the 40% was exported. Now our capacity is 12 billion pack. And the export market will be taken care by Egypt. So do you confident that we will be able to say 12 billion pack in India only?
Sumeet Kumar
Yes. So I think this is where to some extent this is also we are actually relying on two things. Number one, we expect an exponential growth in industry segment per se for liquid packaging. And on top of that in India we are already the market leader and we expect to consolidate further that position from number two to the leader. That will mean that there is a lot of upside in terms of market demand within India, which of course will be catered. And that has been the reason for us to strategically invest in expansion of the capacity.
Had we not been confident of the domestic market demand, we would have first added the overseas facility to more look at the export market. We see this India market and also the largest global market being of great prospect for our liquid packaging business. And hence both the things of the same capacity. Looks like we are confident of that being leveraged in a position to cater to the increasing market share and holding the margins to a great extent. And that’s what we expect from our liquid packaging business on a whole.
Aman Kumar Sonthalia
What is the reason for deepening the chemical business in this quarter?
Sumeet Kumar
So overall, in fact chemical business. Yeah, it was actually a combination of the change in the product mix and also something to do all derivatives and no value added products. Largely reflecting the broader trend in the underlying industry segment which were also impacted. But we feel just like no Other segment this also stabilizing and we expect better performance from the from the chemical segment as well.
Aman Kumar Sonthalia
Sir, one more question that we have. Invested lot of money in this commodity film business whether it is BOET or BOP or cpt. So instead of putting money in commodity film where it requires lot of capex why we are not invested in value added film where the capex is quite low but the margin are quite high.
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah, so actually in fact if you see that’s exactly what I was meaning by improved product mix in the cells that on one hand we have the base layer as the base packaging cell but most of places including Egypt, including Hungary and other places we have also invested and added the capacity of as I talked about Metallite LOX and ultra high barrier films and those are now forming an increasing share of the overall packaging films segment. Because on one hand this does not mean that incremental capex of the same proportion and also it helps in terms of the better realization and most of the evolved markets.
In fact there is a great demand for these high barrier metallized value added specialization and that’s these segments as nothing stabilize in us and other places. We expect that now this investment and strategic focus on this high value added film segment will hold good for us.
Aman Kumar Sonthalia
Okay sir, thanks. This is from my side.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Kaushik order from KB Capital Markets Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Kaushik Poddar
And we are going to start another year in another 15 days and do you see any change on the EPR front as far as your company is concerned?
Sumeet Kumar
EPR in fact is very close to our heart. It is very strategic industry from our side and we feel that this government is also equally committed to this thing translating into what we believe should be something which should be of excellent prospect for us. And if you see the general guidelines about the EPR mix for rigid flexible as well as no multilinhel multi material flexible plastic where there was guideline about 30% to 10% or 5% of this recycling material government has only pushed it out to some extent and largely it has meant that what was expected to happen by this fiscal is only going to pan out play out in the coming years.
There has been the window available for next three years to make up for what was not implemented now. And that also shows in our view that shows the commitment of government of the highest order. And we feel that this will mean that sooner or later as more and more manufacturers adopt will help our strategic investment in this and should hold good for your company.
Kaushik Poddar
I mean do you See as a result your margin also coming up.
Sumeet Kumar
Yes, overall in fact we see as just now actual implementation of this happens that will largely track the increased utilization and we being one of the best entrenched players in the recycling capacity will be the only beneficiary and should be able to get the benefit of our significant strategic investment in that as it start getting implemented with that in the numbers of this renewable mix.
Kaushik Poddar
Okay, thank you.
operator
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor and company. Please go ahead.
Saket Kapoor
Thank you for the opportunity. As you mentioned that the current maturities are of 1450, 1500 crores. That’s your number correct for the next year.
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah.
Saket Kapoor
So we should be. Yes. So for the next years should we expect that debt to decline by that that number itself or on an absolute number? Because net debt to EBITDA would be a misnomer with the contribution from the new projects. Still we are just contemplating and planning for the next year. So on an absolute number basis will this number will be reduced the closing number for December.
Sumeet Kumar
So as I said that in isolation looking at the net debt number will not give the right perspective in the sense that we see EBITDA performance for the nexus to improve bringing making this leverage ratio net debt to EBITDA ratio which in our opinion has peaked at the current level to improve now with the repayment or current portion of the long term debt repayment over next 12 months of 14, 1500 crores and there is a remaining capex of those about 1200 crores largely it should square off. We don’t expect any significant addition in the debt but at the same time improvement in the leverage profile based on the improved EBITDA is what I can say not necessarily reflecting in the reduced debt number but we can see improvement in the leverage ratio.
Saket Kapoor
The 1200 which you mentioned right now will be extended for the next financial year in this figure.
Sumeet Kumar
So some part of this as we talked about these projects which are yet to see the full completion of initially. We have about 36 million. We have about close to about 350 crores of capex spent which will be which is remaining after the quarter three for our Egypt aseptic plant we will have for remaining capex of close to about 110,120 crores. For the recycling plant at Noida we will have the next one will be the DOPP Dharwar plant expenditure. So all put together that is the residual CapEx which based on the current plans of the capex seems to be incurred to a significant level over the course of next one year.
So given the repayment of this and remaining CapEx requirement of so much, I think largely it will kind of offset each other other holding the debt level. I don’t say that it will come down in the immediate year, but this has to be seen in the context of improved EBITDA and resulting in a leverage ratio being better is what we can expect.
Saket Kapoor
That point is well taken. Now just to conclude we are operating in various geographies so in the net debt numbers if you could provide us next time in the presentation with geography wise working capital debt as well as long term debt. So that will suffice some understanding of where the debt is currently being held. That will give us a much more clear picture about the same and hello. Yeah, yeah, that bifurcation is would be would suffice not of a lot of our queries where the debt is holding with geography and then we can contemplate about the currency transition other issues Also the risk part there itself that is different.
But my request is that if one can look forward a presentation of debt geography wise segmentally so that will surprise the issue sir and then we are operating in all across the globe. So what kind of systems IT systems SAP are in place wherein we get real time position of all the all the plants that are operating across the globe or do we need to accumulate data post the quarter ends and how do we reconcile things?
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah, so I think there were two parts to your question. One was related to debt profile and you were specifically looking at the split of long term and working capital in the also to get some sense of India and overseas. So in fact probably kind of having an inkling of this and from our side, if you actually see slide number 24 of the presentation shared there is already profile a split given of long term debt and working capital. So long term debt is about 74% of the total debt and working capital in short term is 20.
Likewise within the long term debt there is a split given of domestic and overseas. So domestic at 40% and overseas at about 60% and largely you will also see this also bringing out a very clear pointer that 60% of the overseas business is in line with our major growth plans which are from overseas. So this debt is aligned to our CAPEX investment major growth plans and and that largely is being reflected in the split between domestic and overseas debt at 40 60%. Coming to the second point which you made about the IT system ERP implementation as a policy.
In fact in all locations we follow the uniform ERP Oracle that is already implemented across all locations, all entities. So there’s nothing like quarter end screen for the numbers and trying to collate those numbers based on a parallel Excel kind of mis. So that is very much part of the ERP implementation which is which is have been done across all the entities across all the.
Saket Kapoor
What should investors read into the always declaration of result on the penultimate day of the secondary requirement every quarter either our results are declared on 10th, 11th or 12th that is the penultimate day remains on 14th so why why is that? In fact since we are on call of Uplex we should discuss only the other in fact the industry itself the entire concept for the flame industry every results for the film packaging film industries are at the fag end either on 10th to 14th is are the number so we will be speaking to other companies on their platform would like to know from the Uplex team that what remains pending that we need to come up with results only on the penultimate day.
Sumeet Kumar
Yeah so number one, first of all let me assure you that this is not because of anything pending as such this is not something to do if it is related to the ERP Oracle system implementation as I told that is something which is already in place. It is not something results in any holdback or delay in terms of getting the data. So we take your point that penultimate day or a day before and all may be something that can be a pointer can be can be a suggestion for us to look at and having said that I think about other industry players.
I should not be commenting on that but maybe to some extent we being the industry leaders do some extra extent. This may also be somewhere closer to there’s no major industry players not seeing the result. But I take your point. I think this is a suggestion which is welcome suggestion and it is not for any kind of constraint or anything. It is largely something that we can talk about. I will refrain from talking about other players in this who have more or less as you rightly said announced around the same time. So that part I will not comment on but I take your as a welcome suggestion to see if we can actually push it a bit ahead.
Saket Kapoor
Yes, just look at the bottlenecks and get them get that sorted out. So this will help your investor community and since we are we set the benchmark so the other people will also follow through. That is what my understanding was. And lastly sir, one more request. If we could also have on our conference call our Vice Chairman P.O. Mr. Anantasi to spare time with the investing community. Since the. Since there is no representation from the promoter. Although sir, this is not to undermine your or Surajida or Pandeji’s significance or credibility but it is just a humble suggestion from minority shareholders that there should be some representation in one form or the other either on a half yearly basis or on an annual basis wherein we hear from, from the promoter who are also partnered with us in this, in this entire profile.
I think all other are professional people including you, Surajita and Pandey who are conducting and answering to us during the course. So that’s again a humble suggestion. If that could be deliberated on the merit of it and look forward.
Sumeet Kumar
I think that is, that is a suggestion which is definitely worth taking home. And as you rightly said that no, I mean end of the day, in our own humble ways we try our best to do justice to this presentation. But I understand there is a difference always now in terms of strategic vision in the roadmap ahead. Hearing it from the promoters does have a different impact at least in terms of vision sharing. So this point is well taken. We will definitely take it to the promoters to hear it.
Saket Kapoor
But only, only to add to that vision. And everything is being informed by them to you and you are deliberating and explaining to us. Am I correct on that front?
Sumeet Kumar
No, that point I will say that is despite now with all humanity. I’ll say that’s something which definitely needs more understanding. It is not something that we hear and we are communicating. This is actually from the management side with all responsibility. It is something which is on behalf of Viewflix. Whether you hear it from Mr. Ananshi or from us, it will be the same.
Saket Kapoor
I got your point. Yes.
Sumeet Kumar
Of course. There can’t be any substitute to the promoters, the founder, that point.
Saket Kapoor
Yes, yes. With all humility I made my submission sir. Not to print on any access and we are to be satisfied with the way the calls are conducted, presentation are given, updates are sent. So no, no questions on that. But we, we would definitely want to have our promoter representation on the call going well. So that. And that’s all for myself. Thank you sir. And all the best to the team for the coming ensuing quarters.
Sumeet Kumar
Thank you. We need your wishes. Thanks a lot.
operator
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, as there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to management for closing remarks.
Surajit Pal
Thank you for joining us today. We appreciate your time, questions and continued support. The transcript of this call will be made available shortly on our website at www.eflexlimited.com. we value this platform as it enables us to engage meaningfully with our investors and stakeholders and look forward to keeping you updated on our progress in the coming quarters. Wish you all those present here, thank you.
Sumeet Kumar
Wonderful experience interacting with you. We welcome your questions, suggestions, lot of insights and look forward to engaging with you again. Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you. On behalf of Orient Capital Markets Ltd. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines.