Jubilant Ingrevia Limited (JUBLINGREA) Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Jubilant and Gravia's Q4 and F526 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 touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now have the conference with Amstapavdin Taneja, Head of Investor Relations at Jubilant and Gravia Ltd. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thank you, Anira. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining the fourth quarter financial year, the 26th earnings conference call of Jubilant and Gravia Ltd. I would like to remind you that some of the states made on the call today could be forward-looking in nature. And a detailed disclaimer in this regard has been included in the press release and results presentation that have been shared on our website. On the call today, we have Mr. Shyam Bhartia, Chairman, Mr. Deepak Jayan, CEO and Managing Director, and Mr. Varun Gupta, CFO, Jubilant Ingravia Ltd. I now invite Mr. Shyam Bhartia to share his comments.

Thank you, Pavlin. A very good evening to all of you. We are pleased to report a healthy performance in Q4 and FY26. We had the highest quarterly revenue and EBITDA in Q4 FY26 when compared with last 14 quarters with healthy double digit growth in both top line and bottom line, reflecting our strong execution. Speciality Chemicals had the best quarterly revenue at Rs. 516 crores. A key highlight for the quarter was our effective handling of the Middle East crisis with no force majeure and zero production loss. The other highlights include successful dispatch of our newly constructed AgroCDMO facility, And the acquisition of Remedix to accelerate the growth of our human nutrition business.

The board has recommended a final dividend

of rupees 2.5 per share, 150%, and taking a total of 0.26 dividend to rupees 5 per share, 500%, with a total cash outflow of 79.8 crores. Now, let me take you through... An update on the markets we operate in. Overall, chemical industry's demand remains resilient despite Middle East disruptions. To continue to grow while the pricing has warmed up due to higher crude link costs. Let's continue to anchor. Details on our future outlook. our pinnacle journey are clearly visible in our performance with strong EBITDA growth, an improving portfolio mix, enhanced customer relationship, and a robust opportunity pipeline, more efficient cost structure, and balance sheet. With improving volume demand and escalated pricing, we are confident of sustained growth going forward across our segments. For FY27, we expect growth to be led by specialty chemicals and nutrition, along with recovery in acetyls. We are expecting a sequential growth in revenue and EBITDA in coming quarters, starting from Q1 FY27 itself. We continue to invest future in our business. Invest further in our business. The construction of the Jirola MPP plant is progressing well. This will further strengthen our CDMO growth roadmap. With this, I hand over to Deepak. Thank you.

Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, everyone, for joining. We appreciate your participation in the Q4 FY26 investor call. Over the past year, we have made a strong progress across all strategic pillars, building long-term growth while managing global challenges effectively. Despite Middle East disruptions impacting supply and prices or diversified sourcing and agility ensure minimal disruption with effective cost pass-throughs. Strong customer engagement and timely renegotiations have strengthened resilience reflected in improved performance in Q4. Let me first share the overall business update for Q4 and F526. Q4 recorded highest revenue in 14 quarters at 1179 crores, up 12% year-on-year, driven by 10% volume growth. EBITDA stood at 172 crores, up 11% year-on-year and 26% quarter-on-quarter. PAT was 86 crores, up 17% year-on-year and 84% quarter-on-quarter. Net debt by EBITDA improved to 0.99x. Our net debt have reduced by 11% in 2026. In specialty chemicals, revenue stood at 516 crores, rose 6% year-on-year and 13% quarter-on-quarter. EBITDA stood at 139 crores with margins at 27%, which we have maintained for last six quarters. FY26 revenue stood at 1937 crores, up 7% EBITDA stood at 510 crores, up 21%. During the quarter, specialty chemicals showed strong momentum driven by volume recovery despite stable pricing with margins rising above 27%, reflecting robust fundamentals and resilience. Our pyridine and derivatives showed strong volume growth. Our fine chemicals and degrading derivatives recorded steady quarter-on-quarter and strong year-on-year growth. Our CDMO business progressed well with higher realizations and commencement of a large agro-contract, reflecting a shift towards value-added products. In nutrition business, segments revenue stood at Rs. 230 crore, up 21% year-on-year and 15% quarter-on-quarter. Segment EBITDA stood at 32 crore, up by 42% quarter-on-quarter, and margin stood at 14%. FY26 revenue stood at 790 crore, and EBITDA at 100 crore. In our nutrition and health solutions business, we witnessed a strong recovery during the quarter, with growth driven predominantly by volume across segments. Growth was led by niacinamide, supported by cosmetics demand. Collin health also improved with surge in exports in Europe. We completed acquisition of Remedix Pharma, expanding presence in human nutrition and pre-mix solutions. In chemical intermediate business, revenue stood at 433 crore, up 15% year-on-year and 10% quarter-on-quarter. Segment EBITDA improvement supported by cost passed through. In our chemical intermediate business, domestic volumes improved on the back of strong agrochemical and paracetamol demand. We remain optimistic about recovery supported by European post-major events and plant closures. While Middle East disruptions formed up input costs, rising acetic-acid prices have set the stage for a favorable pricing outlook for the segment going forward. Let me just give a quick update on Pinnacle journey as well. We launched our Pernacle journey almost two years back. I am glad to share that we have made significant progress across all pillars of the journey, leading to the creation of a strong foundation for future growth. A few highlights. 1. Across businesses, we delivered strong volume growth. Nutrition saw highest B3 volumes in 8 quarters and steady cooling growth. Acetyls improved volumes and pricing with market share gains in Europe. Speciality continued momentum in pyridine, fine chemicals, and stelium or shipments. 2. Driven by our customer-centric approach, we now have 100-plus opportunities with almost 3,500 crore potential. With 20-plus confirmed molecules and additional pipeline of 10-plus advanced-stage molecules, which have peak potential of 1,100 crores. From an operations and ESG perspective, we achieved 120 crore lean savings and glad to share that we achieved 97th percentile in SMP global CSA ranking. We also successfully commissioned Bharuch CDMO plant in record 14 months, reflecting strong execution. ICO's award and successful USFD audit of our Bharud site, a testament to the world-class infrastructure we are creating at our plants. From a people and organization perspective, we strengthen leadership with key senior hires in almost every department of our organization, such as supply chain, manufacturing, HR, businesses, design and technology, and so on. And we transitioned to a vertical structure to drive focus growth across nutrition, pharma, agro, cosmetics, industrial, and semi-con segments. We invested heavily in our R&D and technical teams in the last two years. From an awards and recognition perspective, we were certified as a great place to work and ranked among the top 50 companies in the country in manufacturing sector. We were also recognized with the Golden Peacock Award and a British safety distinction. On the M&A front, we completed the acquisition of Pramedics Pharma to strengthen our human nutrition. The early results from these initiatives have already started to show in our financial results in the last two years. For instance, our EBITDA has grown by almost 33% in the last two years, despite tough market demand and declining prices. Our Q4FY26 run rate EBITDA is 70% plus higher than Q4FY24 EBITDA, signaling the pace of improvement we could showcase in the last two years. Portfolio mix moving in favor of specialty and nutrition, contributing almost 85% plus of overall EBITDA. Specialty EBITDA almost doubling in last two years. Improved net working capital at 59 days, leading to a more efficient balance sheet and a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.99. This strong foundation and early results give us the confidence that our Pinnacle strategy is working well. FY27 is the pivotal year in this journey where we are hoping to accelerate our growth starting with Q1 FY27 itself. We will now be happy to address any question that you may have.

Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on their touch-tone 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. Father 7, you may press star and 1 to ask the question. First question is from the line of Sezad Gadekar from Equator Securities. Please, go ahead.

Hi, sir. First question is on the chemical intermediates business. So how should one think about the spreads in 1Q, given that we have, you know, very sharp improvement in both ethyl acetate and aerobic nitrate spreads is overly easy. And beyond 1Q also, how should we think, given that now prices have started into, we have entered into a falling environment, should we expect any inventory losses beyond 1Q?

Yeah, that's a good question, Siddharth, and as I think most of us have seen different cycles in the acetyl business, particularly in acetic anhydride, so you're absolutely right. When the war began in late February, we saw a sudden escalation in the raw material prices, but given our typical approach of having raw material inventory and locking in the raw material at the right price at the right time in an agile way, We started to see some benefits of that coming in last quarter itself as reflected in the ethical business results for Q4 FY26. And we are hopeful that those benefits will continue in Q1 as well in a strong way. So besides that, a lot depends on what happens to pricing in coming months. As you rightly said, we are already seeing acetic asset prices coming down. We have been very thoughtful in the way we have purchased inventory and the kind of stocks we maintained when the prices were at their peak.

So we are hopeful that

whatever inventory impact has to come, we'll be able to nullify within this quarter or at best in the early part of next quarter and hence minimize any negative impact coming from that in Q2.

Okay, so that is very helpful. Secondly, on the CDMO business, so what was our revenue in CDMO for FY26, and the entire was classified into a specialty chemical, or there was some part of it in the nutrition business, or?

No, so our CDMO business, currently, all the revenues are recognized within the specialty business itself. And as I have mentioned in the past also, our business, we never disclosed the exact number or exact size of the CDMO business, but it has been growing very healthy, at a very healthy rate, almost 30 to 40% every year. Even last year, we have seen that kind of growth. So, and with the advent of some of the big contracts and other opportunities that we have won, we are hoping it will start to accelerate its growth in February 27th further.

And given that we have highlighted the number of projects that we are in discussion with, are any projects in the late or early stage or late stages, and can we expect any closures in FY27?

Yes, so I think if you saw our announcement in the investor presentation also, even in the last quarter, we added eight new molecules to the 50-odd molecules that I had announced in the last quarter. So, every quarter we are securing new molecules. Of course, not every molecule is a scaled molecule or commercialized molecules to start with, and there is a ramp-up period to the scale-up, and the impacts of these opportunities will start to reflect in the P&L in coming quarters. But to your precise question, yes, we do have a couple of late-stage opportunities in the hopper which we are hoping to convert, and particularly one of them is reasonably sized. As and when that gets secured, we will, of course, come back and announce to the market.

So, this last question on the nutrition acquisition, can you just speak about what benefits could we have from that, and what is our strategy going right with that acquisition?

So, I think as we announced even in our presentation last year in Investor Day, Human nutrition is a vertical which we are trying to create within our broader nutrition vertical. We already have a couple of products in our portfolio which go into human nutrition segment, such as vitamin B3 and vitamin B4, which is choline salts. So we already have access to all the customers. Our customers have been asking us if we can also start to do premixes and specialty products for them. So the idea of acquiring these businesses to forward integrate into that segment and leverage both our strengths in the straight molecules and the customer relationships that we already have and provide them an integrated solution. And the traction that we are getting with the customers is actually quite strong. Of course, we didn't have the capacity, and with this acquisition, we have the capacity as well as some existing customer relationships, but that topped up with the strengths we already have in our nutrition business with all those customer relationships and the molecules. We are hoping we'll be able to scale up that business pretty rapidly.

Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.

Okay.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Abhiji Takila. From Kothak, please go ahead.

Good evening. Thank you so much for taking my questions. First, with regard to the outlook for the sequential growth in EBITDA every quarter going forward, you know, coming year, would it be possible to offer some any form of quantification regarding what sort of growth we should expect, you know, for the quarter ahead and for the full year ahead?

Yeah, so I think we have been pretty consistent in saying that if we take our EBITDA, we aspire to get at least 20% year-on-year growth in EBITDA on the full-year basis. I think the challenge in giving quarterly growth rates is because one contract moving up and down by a few weeks can make things look very staggered. So that's why we don't give that guidance. But we will stick to our overall guidance of achieving at least 20% growth in EBITDA through the year. And if you just take a linear trajectory to that, hopefully we'll be able to get that on a quarterly basis as well.

Got it. Thank you. And of the CDMO order book we have assembled now, how much of a contribution should we expect from the $300 million contract in the upcoming year? And then also the remaining part of the $1,500 crore order book, how should we expect these to contribute during the upcoming year?

Yes, so I think, see the big contract and a quick update on that, I think I've been giving it to in every investor call. The project actually started in March, as we had promised to all of you, and we started shipping the material also in March, and currently we are shipping the material to the customer. We are discussing with them about various volume scenarios for the rest of the year, and once we have that form plan with them, we'll be able to give any guidance on that, but that does form a main pillar of the overall growth projections for this year, as we have communicated in the past. So, on your broader vision, on the pipeline of opportunities, these are opportunities which are in different stages. Some of them are, let's say, if I take some of the pharma sector opportunities, these are phase two, phase three opportunities, and hence, in the beginning, they will be relatively small, but as they scale up, as the customers move forward in their overall development journey, we should be able to scale up those products, while some others are To start with, there will be, let's say, 10, 20, 30 crore kind of opportunities. There's a mixed bag there, but as I mentioned, I think in the last investor call also, generally the trend at the overall portfolio level for these new opportunities, what we expect is in the first year, they give at least 20-25% of their peak revenue. By second year, they give 50-60%, and by third year, they give 80% plus revenue. So, while each opportunity will have its own life cycle, but at a portfolio level also, I think we should be able to mirror that trend to gain incremental growth in our portfolio.

Thank you. That's helpful. And just one last one from my side. The capital work in progress on the balance sheet seems to have come down to about 150 crores. In light of that, what is the CapEx number we should work with for fiscal 2017?

Hi, Abhisheed, Varun here. See, the work in progress, it came down because we have capitalized the CDMO plant now in March. To your question, in 2027, as we have indicated earlier, we will continue with the range of 400 to 500 CR of our yearly capex to continue to invest behind our growth. The big capex is coming into the Zola MPCA, which we have announced earlier, which will be finished this year, and will go to commence production in quarter four.

Got it. Thank you so much. I'll come back in the queue for any more.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Harsha from Rare Enterprises. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. So my question is, from here on, we have to achieve the same objectives of that is three times revenue and four times EBITDA, but now in the next four years. So what specific growth levers, business drivers or strategic initiatives gives the management confidence that such aggressive targets are still achievable?

Yeah, so that is a good question. So, like I said, if I just talk in terms of EBITDA, if we are able to achieve our, let's say, between 20 to 25% growth every year, we'll be largely on track. There was some growth we had assumed coming in organically in that growth journey, financial growth journey, as we announced even in our investor day. So we still feel confident that by FY30, we should be able to take our EBITDA organically to the ranges that we announced in the investor day. And obviously, one big assumption which I keep calling out is the pricing, which has surprised all of us now with the recent disruptions. We have seen pricing coming back in some segments. And we are hopeful that at least part of that will stay. If that happens, then we feel confident that we should be able to back back on the journey that we have to find and the vision that we have to find.

So my next question is, the company had signed the 300 million contract during October 2024, while the commercial deliveries have begun just now from March onwards. At the time of signing, the US dollar to INR exchange was at around 84 per dollar, whereas the repeat has now depreciated significantly, and it is around 96 per dollar. Could the management elaborate on whether the company stands to benefit through higher rupee revenues?

See, that if you see on a standalone basis, that I don't think is the right way of looking at it. First of all, you have to appreciate that at an overall company level, we have a huge amount of imports which come in. So, in fact, our dollar-based import bill is as big as our exports in the last fiscal year. So, we are naturally hatched at a company level. Number two, in the context of the specific contract you talked about, we have a bunch of raw materials we'll be sourcing from different geographies, which will also come on dollar. So, and obviously, as we were constructing the plant, some equipment were also imported. So if you take all of those into account, we still feel there will be some positive impact, But it will not be just as linear as you said that 84 becoming 95 and what is the benefit coming into the P&L.

All right, sir. So on the semiconductor side, when can we expect the revenues coming to us, sir?

So, we already have some revenues coming in, but very, very small, and as I have been very explicit about it, Semiconductor Chemicals, we are focusing from a long-term growth journey perspective. We do have almost a dozen different projects, which teams are working on, and we have also supplied commercial volumes in small quantities to the customers. We are getting good traction from the customers, but at the same time, customers in this segment, as you will appreciate, They like to move slowly, and they want to get absolute level of comfort that they can start using materials supplied by any supplier, including ourselves, to their customer and without creating any disruption because even an iota of division can create, can have huge implications. So we expect a slow ramp-up in that segment, but our number of opportunities are definitely increasing. The traction, I just came back about two weeks back from Japan, the number of new opportunities we could add has only increased. And there are more number of international semiconductor chemical companies which are looking for partners in India, and we are in touch with a couple of them and having some healthy discussions. Of course, these things are taking longer than what normally any other sector in chemicals world will take because it's a very sensitive segment which moves.

All right, so one final question from my side. The company has been highlighting CDMO as a key long-term growth driver, particularly in the agrochemical segment. Could the management provide an update on where the company currently stands in terms of securing CDMO contracts from global agrochemical majors, apart from the two that we have already secured?

Yes, so we have given the update on that in every investor call. So agro is a key segment for us. Almost 20% of our business comes from agro segment at an overall company level also. The two molecules we won, and we have executed both of them successfully, first time, right, and in record time, that has been. Hugely acknowledged and appreciated, not just by those two customers, but also by the broader agrochemical industry, including some of our peers. And on the back of that, the traction we are getting with all five or six top innovators is actually at the highest level that we ever had. And as we speak, there are at least more than half a dozen molecules that we are in various stages of discussions with the customers. The challenge in agrochemical industry, as I think most of you already know, has been that it has been moving very slowly and there are massive cost pressures coming from China as well. So as a result, while things are moving in the right direction, they have been slower than what, let's say, in normal times they would have been. But having said that, we are getting traction with the customer. Even now, like I said, there are at least actually more than six to eight different opportunities that are in various stages of discussions with the agro customer. But I think just stepping back, our CDMO opportunity is broader than that, as our pipeline also shows. While aggro is one part of it, the... On the pharma side, we have made a meaningful progress with our pipeline becoming almost 3x of what it was one and a half, two years back. On the personal care side, also, we are getting some exciting opportunities, and we are working on them. We have won a couple of them, and we are in the process of advanced stage of discussions with a few of them. So, that CDMO story is broader than just agro, but we do have a good number of opportunities in agro as well that we are discussing with the customers.

All right. Thank you for answering all my questions. Thank you and wish you all the best.

Thank you very much. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from the line of Archad Joshi from Nuama. Please go ahead.

Hi, sir. Thanks a lot for taking my question. And congrats on a good set of numbers. So first one, trying a bit on the previous issue discussed by an earlier participant, what would be the building blocks for growth, not looking at it from a quarterly perspective, but on a yearly basis, since there have been deliberations regarding the innovator contract with regards to their position in the global market. What is it that we fetch from them? Do we really have a clear path of recouping volumes if there's been a loss or a delay that we have seen in the beginning of the quarter, maybe because it started towards the end of March? Do we see that we might be able to execute the $60 million yearly trade with them in terms of revenues? That would be the first one. And second one, I'll just club it up. So we've written that our pipeline, the pharma piece within the CDMO segment has gone up by three times in two years. And this is with innovator and tier one CDMOs. So is there a scope of, you know, entrenching into some pharma majors also? And if there are any opportunities or other tangible opportunities that you might want to highlight to us? So that we can, you know, pencil in that kind of growth for F27 within CDMO. That would be it. Thank you.

Yeah, no, thank you, Archie. All good questions. Let me just take them one by one. I think your first question was, what are... The multi-year growth drivers, I think they remain the same as what we announced in the investor day. There's no change in our strategy. So, bulk of the incremental growth in our business is supposed to come, number one, from our fine chemicals business, where we have pyridine derivatives, dicotin derivatives, and we are launching several other new molecules, including some of the cosmetic-grade molecules. Number two, the CDMO opportunities, which as I was just explaining as a response to the previous question, across agro, pharma, semiconductor, and increasingly now in personal care space as well. Number three, our nutrition portfolio, where both on animal nutrition and human nutrition, we are taking both organic and inorganic moves. So these three will be the fundamental drivers of both growth and profitability going forward. And on top of that, as we saw recently, and I explained as a response to one of the questions, if acetyls come back and stay where it is right now, that will also give us some flip. So these four building blocks essentially should help us accelerate our growth journey, and FY27 being the middle year of our, or let's say the third year of our clinical journey, We see this as a pivotal year in which if these four things come together, we should be able to show the acceleration that you are talking about. Now, so that's part one. The part two of your question was about the big agro contract. Of course, the customer is going through some tough times, and we are in constant touch with them. We have an excellent relationship with them. They have been very supportive of us, and so are we, very supportive of whatever is happening there. So far, they gave us the visibility for first quarter of volumes, which is what we are serving in this quarter, as per the plan and agreement with them. Of course, future volume visibility, they are building their scenarios, and the market has been very dynamic as well. So it is taking a little bit of time, but we do have an understanding as well as commitment from them that just in case there is any shortfall in volumes, They will make us whole as per the contextual agreement, which is where we are fully covered, and we will go as per the projections that we have committed to the markets in terms of bottom line. The part three of your question was about pharma. Sorry, just repeat the question. What was the third question on pharma?

Yeah, so I was just wanting to know the pipeline that we've built over the last two years. You mentioned the PPT that it's gone up by three times, 3x. And with innovators and tier one CDMOs, uh, just wanted a better elaboration of that, uh, whether this, uh, uh, is something that is newly growing up as a, um, growth opportunity for us, uh, pharma CDMO particularly, because, uh, we have seen a few, uh, you know, peers who are doing extremely well, uh, in, in the, um, uh, in the pharma intermediate side making, you know, Uh, disproportionate margin. So are we, uh, are we taking up that track over there or is it the same, uh, piece of building business that we used to cater to, uh, to some of the large pharma guys? So how do we think about this? If you can help us understand.

No, that's, again, a good question. So, on the pharma one, obviously, if you track pharma CDMO, particularly on the intermediate side, you would appreciate that if you are focusing on phase two, phase three opportunities, it takes at least four, five, six years before the opportunity gets to a commercial scale. So, point number one, most of the intermediate opportunities we are focusing on currently are in phase two, phase three. The scale-up will happen gradually, big-time, as the customer also scales up those molecules. Number two, to your question on whether these are just pyridine-based or more broad-based, these are broad-based opportunities, more linked to the kind of chemistries we have strength in. So only 25 to 30 percent of this pipeline we have created in pharma is pyridine-based. 70 percent is non-pyridine. So, customers are recognizing our broad-based capabilities beyond just pyridine as a molecule in the broader chemistries, and we have 30-plus chemistries where we operate, and in our discussions, we have educated the customers, and we are still doing it every time we go and meet them, and on the back of it, we are getting good traction with them. Thirdly, obviously, given that we were not promoting our pharma CDMO as actively until a few years back, and we have started this journey only a couple of years back, so customers are internalizing that, and hence, even the quality of the portfolio in this lease is also improving, and that's why we have mentioned explicitly now, we have opportunities coming from innovators as well, which is a good point for us, Because of the pipeline we have, I think almost one-third or close to 40% will be coming from innovators now, which augurs well for future years. Because on the back of it, we will not only start working with them on these phase two, phase three opportunities, but as we gain their credibility, we are hopeful we'll be able to get into some already commercialized opportunities which can give us step change kind of scale and growth in coming years. So, by and large, if I just look at even, you mentioned some of the players in industry are doing well. We have to track the history and see that they took a few years before they established themselves as a credible CDMO player and then only they started to scale up. So we are in the second or third year of that journey, but we are getting good traction and we'll start scaling up, hopefully starting this year itself, and then some of our opportunities that we are currently tracking can give us nonlinear growth in the outer years of this pinnacle journey.

Right, sir, of course. As you rightly mentioned, it takes some bit of time to develop that pipeline. The only understanding that I wanted was since you mentioned phase two, phase three, and we've seen a lot of lumpiness in those kind of revenues with other companies because sometimes you kind of hit the wall when it comes to synthesizing a particular molecule and then you have to go back to Pevely and to rework things and try to find new revenue. opportunities. Are we also, you know, I just wanted to know or rather understand if you are embarking upon that journey, wherein we are paid to certain innovator API is which are in the development phase and Once in the light of the day, we hopefully get in their supply chain. So, would that be a correct understanding, let's say?

No, no, that is the correct understanding. That is the correct understanding. All the molecules which we have currently or recently received from the innovators, they feed into some APIs which the innovators are developing. Now, to your point, it can play either ways, right? If the molecule is successful, goes through the whole journey, it can scale up in a big way, and because we'll be one of the early ones to enter that value chain, hopefully we'll scale up with them. But at the same time, there will be some natural mortality raised to these molecules. At this stage, it is difficult to predict. The only thing we can do from our side is just keep the funnel wide enough so that even if we adjust it for the probability of any kind of mortality, the rest of the portfolio still has a good number of opportunities. for us to scale up the pharma CDMO, which I think we have announced and we have presented even in yesterday's presentation that the pharma CDMO business, we want to take it to at least 3 to 4x of its current size. So the pipeline that we are working on and the pace at which we are adding new molecules, which now we have started to announce in the last two quarters, gives you a sense at which we want to scale up so that the funnel is wide to take care of any kind of mortality which Any way happens in this business in a natural way.

Sure, sir. That's it. Thanks for the answer. Just one last, the CapEx that we should build in for F27, if you could help us with that. Thanks and all the best.

Thank you, Archit Varun. On the CapEx, I mentioned to Abhijit also just on the call. We are looking into range of 500 CR of the CapEx next year, and it is in line with what we have given the indication to the market during our investor day that we will continue to invest behind our growth.

Sure, sir.

Thanks and all the rest. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question is from Liano Shrifty, Jain. From Munat, please, go ahead.

Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, can you just share your thoughts on the demand supply scenario in the pyridine side and, you know, the possible reasons for muted pricing there?

Yeah. First of all, I'm happy that the question on pyridine is coming 45 minutes into the call, given the change in focus of our portfolio. So thank you for asking that question. But pyridine is an old molecule, and we are global leaders in that. We are world's biggest in terms of sales. We have capacity of about 50,000 terms for pyridine and picoleans, and we run our plants at 90% plus utilization levels. The rest of the capacity in Pyridine is in China, which is, to the best of our understanding, about 2.5 lakhs to 3 lakhs tons. The plants in China typically run at 30-40% utilization levels, while obviously our plant, as I just mentioned, is running at 90% plus utilization. There are two factors which help us in Pyridine business. One is, given our long history and extreme focus on that business, we have been able to optimize our cost structure to have a level of competitiveness, which is better than even the Chinese. Okay. Number two is, obviously, the world is seeing China plus one trend very strongly, and hence, Anybody who wants to buy Faridane, Picolin, or any of their derivatives, they do want to have at least one more partner or supplier outside of China. And since we are the only ones, they partner with us for their requirements. I hope I answered your question, but let me know if you were.

Yeah, so there's 30 to 40% utilization of the Chinese facilities, right? Is there any change in that? Or the question was that, is there a reason for the muted pricing, or do you expect any changes in the pricing scenario?

See, the bidding and pickling pricing, if you track back last 10, 15, 20 years, you'll always see some volatility in that. And particularly the two main products, they are pyridine and beta-peculine. They go hand and glove together. If one goes up, second comes down. If second goes up, first comes down. If you look at the average pricing, it is, it hovers between two and a half dollars to three and a half, four dollars. If you just take a multi-year, sorry, multi-month average and then plot it on the curve. Right now, as we speak, for periodont prices, they are very low. In fact, at the rock bottom right now. And while the beta-pickering prices are at the highest level. So, it's very hard to predict when one goes up, other comes down, but we kind of balance things out and that is how at least we have been able to manage the volatility in that business and still take margins on that product because it's very core for us and it impacts not just the building block, but also all the downstream products which we do in our fine chemicals.

Yes, sir. So that's perfect. And sir, one, you know, on our revenues in the rest of the world has seen strong growth. Are there any new geographies that, you know, we are focusing on? And, you know, do you want to probably show some light there?

Yeah, because we have Japan, we have Southeast Asia, and particularly in our nutrition and personal care businesses, we are getting good traction from Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asian markets. That is one factor which is showing the sudden rise of rest of the world.

And sir, you know, in this inflationary environment, our specialty chem EBITDA margins are at about 26, 26.5%. What do you think is the sustainable margin here?

So, we've been pretty consistent in seeing for last six quarters now that the sustainable margin for our specialty chemical portfolio as a whole Should be between 23 to 25 percent post-adjustment of the corporate overheads. So this 27 percent, when you adjust for that, lands at around 25 percent, which is what we have been maintaining for last, I think, five or six quarters now. So we are confident of maintaining the EBITDA margin in specialty chemicals at that level going forward as well. And obviously, there will be some positive courses, some negative courses. Positive is the fast growth of CDMO business within that. While on the negative side, of course, there could be some pressure on printing costs and some other derivatives that we do. These courses kind of balance out each other. We keep focusing on the cost optimization as well to ensure that that business remains 25% plus EBITDA margin.

Perfect, sir. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take the last question from the line of Nilesh Tooth from Aranwati. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Hi, team. Good evening. Congratulations on a decent set of numbers. So, a few clarifications. First, on the smaller agri contract that we executed last year. Do we have any sense, you know, on the scale of proportionality there? I mean, how much can the execution be in FY27 from that molecule? You had earlier indicated on a larger, you know, order versus last year, you know, that's coming up in H2, FY27.

Yes, so we, of course, are having those conversations with the customer. The three to four year outlook they had given us was showing us a path to take it to four to five X of what we did last year. For this year, we are still discussing with them various scenarios. And given the volatility in the agro world, All this disruption, they haven't confirmed the final volumes yet, but we do hope that we'll get at least as much as we got last year, but hopefully we should be able to top it up with something more.

All right. So second, on the human-grade B2E plant, so if you could just, you know, I mean, give out the utilization numbers currently and the customer qualification status, you know, for the expanded portfolio there, and what would be the time to full utilization there?

So that we had planned to use that plant. For two different products, one was personal care grade, PC grade niacinamide, and second was niacin, which goes into food and feed both applications, roughly 50-50 each. On the PC grade niacinamide, which we launched first last year, the scale-up has very, very fast, and I think we are already doing almost 50% of what we had estimated in terms of volume. On the niacin side, because we started it late, the ramp-up is gradual. At this stage, I would say we are probably projecting for this year getting to at least 30-40% of, in fact, more probably, 40-50% of the volume that we have assumed to come from that plant at the peak level.

Right, and just one last. Your presentation mentions, you know, some European force-major events and plant closures, so which competitors or, you know, what capacity has come out of the market, and is it like, you know, permanent or temporary, if you could just help us with something like that?

Yeah, in the assetize business, there were some announcements from European competitors for force measure for a few weeks because of, at least the official reason quoted was mechanical failures. I think that is still going on, so we will know how long it would be in coming days or weeks. But if you do a quick search, you will find which competitor has announced force measure. What is more important, just on the last point, is that on the back of that, we are able to, and especially with all the hard work our team has done, to get our product qualified with almost every customer in Europe, we are hopeful that this year we will gain volumes in Europe, showing a very healthy growth, and we will gain market share as well in the European market.

All right, that's good to know. Thank you. Thank you so much, sir, and we wish you all the best for coming for us. Thank you.

Thank you very much. With this, I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.

Thank you all for joining this call today.

We hope we have been able to address your queries. For further clarification, I would request you to get in touch with me. Thank you once again for your interest.

Thank you very much. On behalf of Jubilant and Gravia Ltd that concludes this conference, thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.