EFC (I) Limited (EFCIL) Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the EFC India Limited Q4FY26 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 this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Nikunj Seth from MUFG. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thank you, Aldrich. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Q4 and FY26 earnings conference call of EFC India Limited. To discuss this quarter performance, we have from the management, Mr. Rumesh Sahai, Chairman and Managing Director, Mr. Nikhil Bhuta, Whole Time Director, Mr. Uday Vora, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Raman Gupta, Company Secretary. Before we proceed with this call, I would like to mention that some of the statements made in today's call may be forward-looking in nature and may involve risk and uncertainty. For more details, kindly refer to the investor presentation and other filings that can be found on the company's website and stock exchanges. With that, I would now like to hand over the call to Mr. Ramesh Sahar for his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, all. On behalf of EFC India Limited, I warmly welcome all of you to our earthing conference call for the fourth quarter and full year ended March 31st, 2026. At the outset, I would like to thank all of our shareholders, investors, analysts, bankers, clients, partners, and every member of the EFC family for their continued trust, encouragement, and support. Your confidence in our journey has been a very important source of strength for us. Financial year 2026 has been a year of strong progress, discipline, execution, and deeper strategy clarity for EFC. During the year, we continue to strengthen our position as a differentiated real estate as a service company built around one integrated platform across space design and furnishing. Our leasing business continues to provide a strong and utility-led foundation. Our design and build vertical is gaining momentum through trunky and multi-city execution. Our furniture business is strengthening backward integration and helping us improve control over cost, quality, and delivery timelines. Together, these three verticals create a platform that is much stronger than each business on a standalone basis. Leasing gives us recurring revenue and clients. Stickness, design and build gives us execution capability and growth momentum. Furniture gives us supply chain control and margin resilience. This combination is what makes EFC differentiated. We also continue to focus on the quality of growth, enterprise centering revenue, long-line tenure, improving portfolio diversification, and a disciplined approach to expansion are important pillars of our strategy. We are not pursuing growth for the sake of growth. We are building a company that can scale sustainably long-term value creation at its core. The opportunity has remained very strong. India continues to benefit from the expansion of GCC, Global Capability Center, technology companies, financial services, consumer business, and new age enterprise. Across sector, companies are increasingly looking for managed, flexible, and integrated workspace solutions that reduce upfront capital expenditure and improve speed to market. We believe ESC is very well positioned to benefit from these structural trends. Our platform has the reach, execution, depth, client relationship, and integrated capabilities required to serve this demand across India. As we enter FY27, our focus will remain clear. We will continue to expand with discipline, improve asset efficiency, strengthen enterprise relationship, scale our design and build capability, enhance our furniture manufacturing advantage, and create long-term value for all stakeholders. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our board, leadership team, employees, client, partner, and shareholder. The progress we have made is the result of collective effort, resilience, and belief in a shared vision. We remain humble about what we have achieved, but very confident about the road ahead. EFC today is stronger, more integrated, and better prepared for the next phase of growth. With that, I now hand over the call to Mr. Nikhil Bhuta, whole-time director, who will take you through the business performance and strategic progress, our vertical. Nikhil, sir.

Thank you very much, Omishaz. Good morning, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a pleasure to welcome all of you and share about the business performance of EFC India Limited for F526. This has been an important year and a milestone year for the company because the strength of our integrated real estate as a service platform has become more visible across all our operating verticals. At EFC, our business is built around three specialized but deeply connected verticals as we understand, which is leasing, design, and build, and furniture. Together, this vertical allows us to cross the complete workspace lifecycle from identifying and managing spaces to designing and building it to manufacturing and supplying furniture. This is the essence of EFT's model, one platform, multiple engines, and unified value creation. Our aim is to become a trusted partner for enterprises that want to outsource their workplace infrastructure to a professional, scalable, and accountable platform like ours. We are not only offering office spaces. We are offering speed, convenience, cost efficiency, execution certainty, and long-term operating support. Let me begin with the leasing vertical, which continues to remain the foundation of our business. Our leasing vertical has delivered strong performance and continues to demonstrate a sticky enterprise demand at scale. We now have presence across 25 cities and serve more than 750 clients across multiple sectors. Our average enterprise client tenure is about 51 months. It reflects the strength, trust, and stickiness of our client relationship. The leasing business provides customized, scalable, and fully furnished office solutions. These include enterprise offices, managed offices, and customized offices. Our solutions are designed for companies that want privacy, control, flexibility, operational efficiency, and the speed of deployment without taking on the burden of Building and managing real estate infrastructure themselves. During the year, the quality of our leasing portfolio continued to improve. Enterprise-centric revenue contributed a majority share of the business, and the contribution from the top 10 clients has reduced to around 24%, reflecting lower concentration risk and hence better diversification. This gives platform great resilience and revenue visibility. Operationally, the leasing business has also scaled well. The build-seed base has increased meaningfully and we continue to have additional capacity in the development. This gives us confidence in our ability to support future growth. The business also continues to demonstrate attractive unit economics with a payback period around 18 to 20 months and a healthy revenue to rent dynamics. Geographically, our business is well-diversified. While the West remains our largest region, we have a meaningful presence across North, South, and East India. This nationwide presence is important because many of our enterprise clients are expanding across multiple cities and want a partner who can support them consistently across locations across the country. The demand environment for managed office remains structurally strong. Enterprises today are increasingly moving from ownership-heavy, capex-led real estate models to flexible, professionally-monaged, and opex-led models. Global Capability Centers, GCCs, technology companies, BFSI clients, consumer platforms, and other and large enterprises are all looking for faster market entry, better employee experience, and lower setup risk and greater flexibility. EFC is well positioned to serve this demand because we provide not only space, but a complete workplace infrastructure solution. Let me now move to our design and build vertical, which is also slowly but steadily has become a very strong foundation for our company's growth. This business has become a very important growth engine for EFC. In FY26, design and build revenues stood at approximately $4,000. 437 crore, growing 66% year-on-year. This performance reflects stronger execution, increasing turnkey mandates, and growing acceptance of our capabilities among enterprises and institutional clients. Our Designing Build Vertical provides end-to-end workplace development solutions. We work across concept planning, workplace design, fit-outs, MEP services, project management, execution, and delivery. The business has over 80 designers and engineers, more than 45 reputed clients, presence across more than 15 locations, and a design footprint of approximately 5.5 million square feet. The order book also remains very healthy and really strong. This vertical is strategically important because it extends in the entire EFC platforms. It enables faster fit-outs for our leasing businesses, better customization for clients, quicker go-live timelines, and stronger execution control. It also allows us to take up large, complex, and multi-locational projects with confidence. Another important advantage is our execution model. We execute a large part of the work through in-house capabilities. Supported by bulk procurement, strong vendor relationship, and disciplined project management. This helps us control cost, quality, and timeliness. In a market where clients increasingly demand transparency, speed, and reliability, this is a major differentiator. The designable vertical also creates significant cross-selling opportunities. A client may begin with a designable mandate and a large... Later, become a managed office client. Similarly, a leasing client may use us for expansion, fit-outs, refurbishment, or multi-city workplace development. This interconnection increases client lifetime value and strengthens our platform economics. Now, let me speak about the furniture manufacturing verticals also. Our furniture business is still in a relatively early stage compared to the leasing and design built verticals, but it is strategically very, very important. In FY26, furniture revenue stood at more than 63 crore, growing 200% YOI. This strong growth demonstrates the potential of this vertical and its role in our integrated model. Through our furniture capabilities, we design and manufacture workstations, execution desk, Lounge seatings, storage solutions, modular furniture, and other products for commercial and allied spaces. Our Pune manufacturing facility spans across 1.2 lakhs square feet and gives us better control over quality, cost, customization, and delivery. The furniture business has more than 1,500 SKUs, has delivered more than 60,000 units, and has manufactured capacity of approximately anything around 200 crore plus to... 275 crore in value terms. The business serves sectors such as real estate, co-living, hospitality, ITITS, education, and allied services. For EFC, furniture is not just a manufacturing business. It's a margin-accretive backward integration engine. It supports our internal leasing and design and build requirements, reduces vendor dependency, improves turnaround time, and allows us to capture additional value across the workplace lifecycle. This is where the synergy of EFC platforms becomes very powerful. When we take up a workplace opportunity, our leasing team understands the client's requirements, our design and build team converts the requirement into a functional and efficient workplace, and our furniture team supports execution through in-house manufacturing and supply chain control and provides furnitures which are really making a difference to their daily work life. This reduces external dependency, improves execution speed, enhances quality control, and supports margin resilience. This integrated model also improves value unlocking for investors over time, as each vertical scales, the benefits do not remain limited to those verticals alone. The leasing and business creates recurring revenue and long-term client relationship. The design and build business increases executional depth and cross-selling opportunities, and the furniture business improves cost control, captures additional margin. Together. They create a platform with multiple revenue streams, better operating leverage, and a stronger client stickiness. This is the core of our value creation strategy at EFC. We believe that the market will increasingly reward platforms that are integrated, scalable, asset efficient, and execution focused. EFC is building exactly such a platform. And has really come a long way in building this with the result that we have delivered for FI26. Our business is no longer dependent on only one revenue stream. We are creating a broader ecosystem that can serve clients across the full workplace journey and capture value at multiple points. Operationally, FI26 has been a year of strong progress across all fronts. We scale capacity, deepen enterprise relationships, reduce concentration risk, strengthen design and build execution, expanded furniture capabilities, and improve integration across all verticals. This result is a business that is more diversified, more efficient, and better prepared for sustainable growth. As we look ahead, our priorities are very clear. We will continue to deepen enterprise relationships, expand capacity in a disciplined manner, improve asset efficiency, and strengthen project execution, scale our design and build business, and build furniture and manufacturing into a meaningful but a strategic advantage. We are optimistic about the future because the structural opportunity is large, the demand environment is favorable, and our integrated platform is becoming stronger with every passing year. At the same time, we remain grounded and focused on execution. Our objective is to build EFC with discipline, professionalism, governance, and long-term thinking. We want to create a company that delivers value not only through growth, but through quality of growth. In summary, FY26 has validated our business model. Leasing gives us stability, design and build gives us growth and execution strength, while furniture gives us integration and merging opportunities. Together, these verticals create a strong, scalable, and differentiated real estate as a service platform. We believe this platform can unlock significant value for stakeholders in the years ahead. With that, I will hand over the call to our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Uday Voda, who will take you through the financial performance. Thank you all. Thank you all for being with us today.

And thank you for joining us on the call. I will now take you through the financial performance of EFC India Limited for the fourth quarter and full year ended March 31, 2026. FY26 has been a strong year of financial delivery for the company. We have delivered broad-based growth across revenue, profitability, return ratios, and segmental performance. The year also reflects the operating strength of our integrated platform and the benefits of scale across our leasing, design and build, and furniture business. For the full year FY26, consolidated revenue from operations stood at 10,367 million, compared with 6,567 million in FY25, representing year-on-year growth of 58%. EBITDA for FY26 stood at 4,683 million compared with 3,277 million in FY25, reflecting a strong growth of 43%. 3,347 million compared with 1,408 million in FY25, registering a strong growth of 67%. Our tax margin improved from 21.4% in FY25 to 22.6% in FY26. This improvement reflects the benefits of operating leverage, stronger execution, better integration across verticals, and disciplined cost control. Our return profile also remains strong. The return on capital employed stood at 33% in FY26 compared with 30% in FY25. This is an important metric for us because it shows that the company is not only growing but growing with capital efficiency. Coming to the fourth quarter performance. Revenue from operations in quarter four FY26 stood at 2,929 million. Ebitda for the quarter stood at 1,436 million compared with 1,093 million in quarter 4 F525, registering a growth of 32%. After tax for Q4F526 stood at 689 million compared with 480 million in Q4F525, reflecting growth of 45%. The pad margin for the quarter improved to 23.5% from 22.7% in Q4F525. This shows that even as the business scales, we are continuing to maintain healthy profitability. Let me now briefly cover the segmental performance. The leasing business remained the largest contributor to revenue. Full-year rental revenue stood at approximately 5,356 million, compared with 3,722 million in FY25, representing growth of around 44%. This vertical continues to provide a stable, recurring revenue base and strong operating visibility. Design and built business delivered revenue of approximately 4,378 million in FY26 compared with 2,636 million in FY25, reflecting growth of around 66%. This has been driven by stronger execution, increasing turnkey mandates, and cross-selling opportunities across the ERC platform. The furniture business delivered revenue of approximately 632 million in F526 compared with 209 million in F525, registering growth of around 202%. While this vertical is still scaling, it is strategically important because it supports backward integration, improves execution speed, and strengthens margin potential across the ecosystem. From a segment profitability perspective also. All three business contributed meaningfully. The rental segment delivered profit before tax and interest of approximately 2,127 million. The interior segment delivered approximately 1,197 million. And the furniture segment delivered approximately 156 million. This reflects a healthy and broad-based contribution from the platform. Moving to the balance sheet. Total equity increased to approximately 26,751 million as of March 31st, 2026 compared with 16,992 million as of March 31st, 2025. Total equity increased to approximately 8,137 million compared with 5,811 million in the previous year. This strengthening of the balance sheet reflects retained earnings and the continued growth of the company. During the year, non-current assets increased, driven by property, plant and equipment, right-of-use assets, and other financial assets. This reflects our continued investment in building long-term capacity and operating infrastructure. On the liability side, lease liabilities and borrowings have increased in line with the expansion of our operating footprint and business scale. We remain conscious of capital discipline and will continue to focus on efficient capital deployment and prudent leverage. Profit before tax for FY26 stood at approximately 3089 million. As the business scaled across verticals, working capital requirements increased, particularly in trade receivables, inventories, and other financial assets. Improving working capital efficiency and collections will remain an important priority for us in FY27. Finance costs for the year stood at approximately 562 million. And depreciation and amortization stood at approximately 1202 million. These are aligned with the scale of our asset base and right-of-use assets. Basic and diluted earnings per share for FY26 stood at 16.87 compared to 10.35 in FY25. Overall, FY26 has been a year of strong financial performance. Revenue growth has been robust, EBITDA has grown meaningfully, pad growth has been strong, margins have improved, return ratios remain healthy, and all three business verticals have contributed to the company's performance. What is important is that this performance has not come from a single lever. It has come from broad-based execution across the platform. Leasing has provided stability, design and build has provided growth momentum. Furniture has added integration and margin potential. Together, these businesses are creating a stronger and more resilient financial model for EFC. As we move into FY27, our financial priorities will remain very clear. We will continue to focus on profitable growth and disciplined capital allocation, efficient working capital management, prudent leverage, stronger cash generation, and sustainable value creation. I believe the company is well-placed to continue its growth journey while maintaining financial discipline and creating long-term value for shareholders. Thank all our investor, analyst, and stakeholders for their continued support and confidence in EFC. We can now open the floor for questions. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets 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 Bharat with Compact Capital. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Thank you, ESU team, and congratulations for the wonderful result for FR26. Sir, I wanted to understand, as we understand, there are three verticals at ESU, leasing, design and build, and furniture. So, if any of the verticals underperform, how this will impact the overall consolidated margin? Especially when, you know, you have explicitly mentioned in DLS, like underperforming of any vertical can impact the overall profitability. So would love to understand what is the management view.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Bharat. And specifically to your question, you know, yes, the beauty of this model is that, as we understand, that they are all contributing to the overall profitability, overall revenue stream that the company has, you know, really accruing. But what is important is that the dependency, as you understand from your own question, dependency is very limited because, number one, the likelihood of underperforming my annuity business, which is my leasing business, is very low because my annuity business is very certain. I have very clear long-term contracts, and as you see in my presentations, we have said that my managed office client tenures are 51 months, which means that that kind of stickiness is there, and that kind of certainty is there in the revenue. So, leasing vertical is providing me that strong backbone. So, hence, underperformance at leasing vertical is almost ruled out. When it comes to the design and build vertical, the design and build vertical, again, now we have come into a situation where today, as a company, when we are bidding for projects, we are only those among top three, top five kind of contractors who are eligible to bid for contracts more than 50 to 100 crore, 200 crore kind of size. And hence, again, we are among those limited competition. And our ability to win those contracts becomes much, much better. And hence, again, there is a larger certainty there in that business, and hence, uncertainty is almost ruled out. And when it comes to furniture, which is primarily, you know, kind of supporting both this vertical, number one, which is one of its key. And secondly, the way the furniture business in our country growing, considering the new regulations that the government has put in in form of BIS registration, And also, you know, how the government is looking at reducing the import dependency because, you know, obviously it is impacting the foreign exchange for us. So all these measures are really, really working well for even furniture verticals. And hence, first of all, what I want to address is that the uncertainties around any of these three verticals is reduced drastically, number one. Number two, yes, if there is, let's say, if there is a little bit downgrade in any of the business, then whether there will be an impact on the overall margin profile? In absolute term, yes. But if you look at it in relative terms, as I have explained, more than around 45% of my revenue, my top line comes from the leasing business, which gives me, you know, kind of a situation that 50% is assured anyway choice. It is a question of about, you know, those 10 to 20 percent. If there is, you know, if we look at hypothetically and get into a situation that if there is a little bad year from an overall economical situation point of view, then to the. Performance is unlikely to get really affected overall. So, we believe that, you know, any underperformance from one particular vertical, which is likely only to be with the design and build and furniture, because it is more project-based and contract-based, but which is, because of the reason which I explained earlier, is fairly mitigated, we believe that that situation is unlikely. First of all, the substitutions are unlikely to come, and otherwise also we are strongly balanced in achieving the overall margin through these three verticals as we speak.

Okay. Thank you, sir. I have another question. Can I please ask?

Yeah, please. Please, can you?

Yeah.

So, I believe furniture business has grown pretty well, 200%, but the growth is on the low base. So, I would like to understand what is the sustainable margin, especially when furniture business is used for the internal consumption, captive business also, and third party. So, I would love to understand, you know, what is the split between the captive consumption and the, you know, third-party business and how margin split works at overall level as well.

So, I mean, independent of whether it is an internal purpose or for external, obviously, the margin profile remains the same because, you know, every transaction has to be carried out at arm's length, number one. Number two, in terms of scalability, yes, this vertical obviously has grown at a low base naturally because it's just a two-year-old business. So, yes, it is likely to keep growing at such a large pace, and we are expecting this business to deliver, you know, substantially to our overall revenue streams. In terms of margin profile, we have always clarified that we are very categorically clear that this... Business should generate to us anything around 25% EBITDA, and that is what we are expecting from this business because, you know, this is a value-accretive, you know, highly, you know, intensive, capital-intensive business, and hence we are very hopeful that we should be able to continue achieving those margins, even if at a scale that we are expecting to operate in the coming years.

Okay. Understood. Thank you.

The next question comes from the line of Mohan Kumar with Aetna Investments. Please go ahead.

Congratulations, EFCT. I have a question around the AI, which we see. We all know AI can reduce headcount intensity in the sectors which you are surveying, primarily IT, ITS, BFSI, and odd support function, which is primarily your client. Why should AI be net positive for steep demand rather than a structural threat to occupancy? And what evidence do you have from your client renewals or new mandates or from any other information source?

Thank you so much. AI certainly is a new buzzword. I mean, I don't know if we can see it around, but yes, we can definitely feel it around. It is really disrupting the market, and yet it is here for good. It is here for business process improvements, and we are really happy that such improvements, such radical changes really help businesses in general. But, you know, I mean, we haven't really rather seen any negative impact of that. I mean, the way if you really look at it, and I'm sure you would appreciate the kind of AI is rather generating a new breed of employments, new category of employments. And we are very categorically clear that, you know, with AI-led businesses, your businesses would get a little more structured. And hence, when you are looking at more structured businesses, the platforms like ours, which offer those structured solutions, will become more relevant and more important for those businesses. And so what we are trying to say is that, yes, there is going to be an impact on the overall, you know, the way the employment market functions, overall industries, whether it is IT, IT-led industries. But this is all going to really add to the overall growth, because it is an evolution, and, you know, I mean, you know, Umesh, sir, who is our MD, has also been very vocal about this, and I'd also request him to contribute here a bit.

So, hello. Thank you. So, you have seen the other side of the call. So, when you look at the manufacturing, there's automation, the other place has come. But if you look at the IT, it's improved. Definitely, people will have to skill your skills. But at the same time, you can see, we're talking about AI. It's an automated tool that helps your business's performance. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the call. At the same time, you can see that time-by-time, if I enable a module tomorrow, I have to bring improvement to it. If you have the same set of learning, you will have a full life span. Even if you have the same company, they will regularly take version 2, version 3, version 4. It means back-end improvement. AI will give you growth, but definitely you will have to do your new generation. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the call. Time-by-time hiring are people who are studying their skills. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the call. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the call.

Thank you, Mejjit. I have one more question. Now, you have told me about GCC expansion. How much of your revenue in the last financial year, in the 26th? And then, what do you say about your pipeline? How much of GCC and MLC setups are already in terms of GCC and MLC? Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the call.

So, GCC contributes, I mean, because these are all those large enterprises who are committed to us for a long tenures. So that business has always been a strong pillar for our leasing vertical growth, and it is about 50% of our revenue comes from this large enterprise customers that we're talking about or referring to. And in terms of, you know, across the city spread, if you look at it, we are looking at growing around 18,000 to 20,000 seats year on year. And that is what we've been achieving for the last two financial years as well. If you look at the same scale, we are expecting that, you know, between geography, rather than getting city-wise, I'm just giving you zone-wise. Let's say West and NCR is going to become very prominent for us, along with the southern belt, which is your Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Chennai. So we believe that all the three zones are going to contribute substantially, primarily in the ratio of, let's say, around, you know, equally around 30 percent each. And there is about expected growth now from even the eastern belt with the change in the political dynamics there, etc. We are expecting the growth also coming in soon there. Obviously, it will take some time structurally, but yes, we are expecting hence substantial growth in the eastern side also relatively. Yes, I hope that answers your question in terms of the divisions across.

Hi, good morning. Good morning, sir. Firstly, congratulations on the results and congratulations on the right issue. So successfully getting completed. So my question, sir, basically is that I've been tracking the stock and your growth has been significant. We have shown substantial profitability. Then why did we raise the capital for working capital? So what was the reason for the working capital? And having said that, how will this working capital turn into real cash flow generation and not just revenue or receivable or lease obligation in the balance sheet?

No, thank you so much for tracking us, following us. And, you know, I mean, as we've always explained that all three of our businesses, while they are not. You know, heavy capital intensive in a sense that they're not fixed capital intensive, but they are certainly working capital intensive, not the leasing, but certainly the design and build and the furniture business. And hence, the requirement for vertical with the growth that we are achieving. You can see, you know, we last year in the design and build vertical, we've grown at about. 66% YOY, and in the furniture, we have grown at about 200% YOY. Now, even if I have to maintain half of this growth, the kind of working capital that we require is humongous. And yes, the business is throwing good cash for us because of the kind of profitability that we have achieved. But certainly, these profits are not kind of available to you as in it is a cyclical fund that is available to you. And to keep growing, you need to have those backup funds with you. In the current economic situations, in the current market situations, and it is required that, you know, if we have those watches available, then we will be able to achieve the targets that we have really set high for ourselves. So, the working capital is certainly to really, you know, fuel the growth that we have targeted for ourselves. And we are going to be very, as even our CFO very categorically explained in his speech, that we are going to be very judicious in use of this capital. We are going to be very specific and disciplined in use of this capital. And primarily, this capital, as Mr. Asanam explained, is primarily for growth purposes only, since all these verticals are fairly working capital intensive.

Thank you, sir. Thank you.

I think, can I ask one more question, please? Yeah, please go ahead.

So, sir, again, related to the fundraisers only, so we did a right issue. So, I really want to understand, since ESE, to my understanding is currently undervalued, I would say not correctly valued, there can be good potential. Then why did we choose a right issue instead of doing a QID or a data?

You know, first of all, you know, it was important for us that, you know, we've got a very, really committed and a loyal set of existing shareholders, and it becomes our, you know, kind of, kind of a moral responsibility that first we obviously go and approach them and seek their participation in the business. As long as they're, you know, also kind of committed with us, we will be more, you know, we need to kind of reciprocate accordingly. So first, we thought that, you know, this is a good option accordingly. The second, naturally also, if you look at, you know, our overall plan, that yes, we do have a plan to do a lot of capex going forward down the line, and we'll certainly use the QIB route, which is necessary for us to bring in a lot of institutional business. But right now, since the capital requirement was very limited, we thought that going to our existing set of loyal shareholders would really take care of the requirement, and that was specifically the reason why we just adopted the right issue route over the other available options.

Okay. Sure, sir. But why don't let them?

The debt is also there. I mean, if you see on the balance sheet, debt is also there. I mean, this capital obviously will be used as a margin for raising more capital. Capital will be used as a base. Now, today, let's say if my working capital cycles are large, if my working capital commitments are large, then there will be certain capital which you will require as a seed from the company, and that seed will come through this. So that is what we are planning. It is not that the debt is not considered. Obviously, an optimal debt-equity ratio is necessary for us to maintain the profitable margins, and it will continue to be part of the overall capital deployment strategy for the company.

Sure, sir. No good. Thanks for your clarification, sir.

Right. Thank you.

The next question comes from the line of Fenel Brambhat with Choice Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.

Hello, and good morning, everyone. I hope I am audible. Congratulations for the good set of numbers. I have a couple of questions if you allow me. So first, let's start with this guidance on the consolidated revenue growth for FY27-28 with the segment-wise expectation for leasing, design, and furniture. So, like for design, order inflow, and for furniture, any specific guidance if company has or management has, and from where we are getting this growth, what we are expecting, and the segment-wise, the beta margin as well is possible.

Yes, Penel. In terms of, you know, looking at all the three verticals, as we maintain that on the leasing vertical, we are expecting that we will continue to grow at least by adding about 18,000 to 20,000 seeds year on year. And this year also, we are expecting to add... You know, about 18,000 to 20,000 seats, which is already, you know, most of it is visible to us as we have already stepped into this new financial year. In terms of, you know, in terms of design and build vertical is concerned, we are expecting to keep growing very well, and we are expecting that about, you know, around 40% growth rate is fairly achievable, considering the kind of orders businesses which are already in hand or already under pipeline. You know, from various institutional businesses, various sectors across, I mean, whether it is office infrastructure to, you know, any heavy infrastructure in terms of building factory premises to. You know, healthcare centers to any other such infrastructure. And on the furniture vertical, yes, as I explained earlier, that the vertical is right now, you know, kind of positioned very aptly when, you know, the government policies. The furniture industry will really, you know, kind of succeed and boom in the coming years, and we will be part of that wave, you know, kind of considering the model that we have created. So we are very hopeful there also that we will be able to grow over, you know, 50% growth rate under the furniture vertical as well. So we are very clear that with... Coming year is also going to be a significant year because it's going to, you know, kind of stabilize and reaffirm our business model in terms of its, you know, the kind of stability, growth, and continuity that it offers overall.

Okay, okay. And you mentioned this edition guidance of 18,000 to 20,000. So, I think it's revised from earlier guidance of 20,000 to 25,000 per 26, right? So, and we achieved around 18,000 per 26. I just want to understand like your view on the shortfall and plus also if we have the handy number or if you have number of average rent per square feet for this leasing business by F526.

So, Penel, there is no shortfall. What we mentioned is 18,000 to 20,000 is the built seat that we are talking about, and 25,000 seats are the overall capacity that we are talking about. So, we continue to achieve that irrespective, and we have achieved that also. 18,000 to 20,000 is those built seats which are revenue-generating seats. 25,000 seats are those seats which have really added up to our overall capacity. So that ratio will continue to be achieved. And in the same ratio, we are talking for the current financial year also, that 18,000 to 20,000 seats would be the built operating seats, and 25,000 seats would be roughly around the target in terms of adding to the capacities. So there is no change in the kind of estimation, So there is no change in the, you know, kind of what we expect to achieve or have achieved in the last financial year, number one. So that is a clarification that you, you know, there are different kind of ways people are explaining what is matured centers and, you know, what is, you know, what is an occupancy level. For us, everything is a matured center because, you know, at the end of the day, when a center has come, I have to, it starts. Kind of coming with an operating expense, and I need to ensure that I kind of recoup that at the quickest. So what we achieve is my 18 to 20,000 seats are those seats which are generating revenue. 25,000 seats have added capacities and which will start generating revenue immediately. So, that's on the seat position side. And in terms of margins, as you asked, margins are continuing to remain in the similar line. We are really clear that at the central level, we will be able to achieve 30% plus EBITDA, and that we continue to achieve even for this financial year and going forward as well.

Sir, on the average rent per square foot, if we have...

Yes, average rent per spare fit, fortunately, and with the market situations is continuously increasing. So if you see last quarter, it was in the range of around 7,000 to 7,250. This financial year, we have on an average, we have already achieved 7,250 to 7,500. And we are hopeful that this is likely to go upwards only. And we are very, you know, kind of the kind of infrastructure facility, the locations, and the requirements of customers are considering those customizations, the prices are going to remain on an upper scale only. And overall, average revenue per seat is likely to increase only going forward.

Got it, got it. Thanks for the clarification. And one more question on this CAPEX. So, can you throw some lights on the CAPEX expectation for FI27-28? Any major business development or any business acquisitions or new plan for furniture business we are expecting in FI27? And also, do we have any plan to acquire a new land parcel? If any, then just mention on that.

No, right now what we are trying to do is we are trying to kind of capitalize and improve the existing capacities with the kind of capital flow available and with the kind of infrastructure that is available. So in terms of new capex per se, immediately as we speak, we don't have any plans to kind of increase heavily on any capex side. Obviously, improvements are needed, but not in a scale where, you know, kind of, you know, that we do any substantial CapEx. But yes, the growth is likely to be achieved with the existing capacities with more efficiencies to be built in there. In terms of CapEx, as we know that for the leasing, you know, we are fairly asset light. You know, there is hardly about overall seats, more than not more than 10 percent of the seats are added to our own capital, which is, you know, if you look at it from a... From a capital deployment point of view, it is just about, let's say, 2,000 seats, 2,000 seats at about, you know, 50,000 rupee seat kind of a capex. It's not that substantial that we are looking at from an annual outlay point of view. And from design and build anyway, it is a contractual business, so there is no capex requirement. And on the furniture manufacturing, we do have a fairly established, you know, manufacturing facility with a lot of infrastructure available there. Yes, there'll be, like I said, there'll be improvements in those infrastructures, there'll be improvements in some capacity in terms of some new machineries being added with the changes in the technology or the requirement in the specific type of products. But we are not looking at any land acquisition per se and increasing the, you know, CapEx to, you know, from that point of view, at this point of time, as we speak. Thank you.

Okay. Okay. And our average interest rate by end of FI 26 and any major date expiry in FI 27-28, we are expecting and how we can take care of those expiry by refinance or something else.

So, all of our debt are primarily asset-backed debts right now, and which is, you know, is an LRD or a kind of, you know, property-backed transactions, which are not even, it is all around 7.5 to 7.75 kind of range interest rates that we are talking about. And there is no any immediate repayment situations coming in for this financial aid because these are long-term debts, and they are available on the balance sheet for a longer paid tenure. So there is no pressure on the balance sheet in terms of immediate repayment on the loan liability is concerned.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we would take that as the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for their closing remarks.

So, thank you so much for joining this call, and we are really grateful to all our investors, all research, you know, organizations and participants who have really been covering us and adding value to the overall, you know.

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of EFC India Limited, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.