Ion Exchange (India) Limited (IONEXCHANG.NS) Q3 FY2026 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Ion Exchange India Limited's Q3 and 9 Months FY '26 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Purvangi Jain from Valorem Advisors. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.

Good afternoon, everyone, and a warm welcome to you all. My name is Purvangi Jain from Valorem Advisors. We represent the Investor Relations of Ion Exchange India Limited. On behalf of the company, I would like to thank you all for participating in the company's earnings conference call for the third quarter and 9 months ended of the financial year 2026. Before we begin, let me mention a short cautionary statement. Some of the statements made in today's earnings call may be forward-looking in nature. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risk and uncertainty, which could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated. Such statements are based on management's belief as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to the management. Audiences are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements in making any investment decision. The purpose of today's earnings call is probably to educate and bring awareness about the company's fundamental business and financial quarter under review. Let me now introduce you to the management participating with us in today's earnings call and hand it over to them for their opening remarks. We have with us Mr. Aankur Patni, Vice Chairman; Mr. Indraneel Dutt, Managing Director and CEO; Mr. Vasant Naik, Group Chief Financial Officer; and Ms. Nikisha Solanki, Company Secretary. Without any delay, I request Mr. Vasant Naik to start with his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thank you, Purvangi. Good afternoon, everybody. It is a pleasure to welcome you all to the earnings conference call for the third quarter and 9 months ended financial year 2026. For the third quarter under review, on a consolidated basis, the company reported an operating income of INR 7,344 million, an increase of 6% year-on-year. The EBITDA stood at INR 593 million, a decline by 21% year-on-year and the EBITDA margin stood at 8.07% and net profit was INR 206 million, while the PAT margin was 2.81%. For the 9 months of financial year 2026, the company reported operating income of INR 20,516 million, an increase of 8% year-on-year. EBITDA stood at INR 1,902 million, down 9% year-on-year. The EBITDA margin stood at 9.27% and net profit at INR 1,189 million, while the PAT margin was 5.8%. I would also like to highlight that the labor codes were notified on November 21, 2025, resulting in an incremental provision of INR 169 million, which is recognized as an exceptional item towards gratuity and leave-related employee benefits arising from past service costs. Now, going through the quarterly segmental performance on a consolidated basis, in the Engineering division, the revenue for the quarter stood at INR 4,297 million, which is flattish on a year-on-year basis. The segment's EBIT was INR 186 million, down 28% year-on-year. The inquiry bank continued to remain steady during the quarter. There was sequential as well as quarter-on-quarter growth in order inflows, primarily driven by medium-sized opportunities. During the quarter, the company secured 2 domestic solar sector contracts aggregating INR 2,050 million, covering ultra-pure water systems, effluent treatment plants and zero liquid discharge solutions. Ultra-pure and high-purity water projects within the solar segment continue to see traction. The planned dispatches of certain high-value engineering contracts for the international market got deferred to the fourth quarter of financial year '25-'26, which impacted the quarterly performance. In addition, execution of the UP Jal Nigam Order remained muted. The current total order book stands at INR 28,330 million with an order inflow of INR 5,160 million during the quarter. Moving to the Chemicals division. The revenue for the quarter was INR 2,307 million, an increase by around 16% year-on-year. The EBIT stood at INR 431 million, reflecting a decline of 18% on a year-on-year. The moderation in profitability was primarily due to the product mix and lower facility costs. The stage-wise commissioning of the Roha facility continues to progress steadily, and the company expects a gradual scale-up in production volumes over the coming months. The facility is being developed to become an industry benchmark in terms of product quality and sustainability, which is expected to support long-term growth and margin improvement. For the Consumer Products division, the revenue for the quarter stood at INR 987 million, an increase by 28% year-on-year. The loss for the quarter was INR 33 million compared to a loss of INR 29 million for the same period in the previous year. This segment continues to witness healthy volume growth. The company continues to invest in the business to build a significantly higher and more scalable revenue platform over the medium to long term. With this, I conclude the opening remarks. And before we open the floor to the question-and-answer session, Mr. Indraneel Dutt will give a brief impact of the budget on the company's operations.

Good afternoon, all. Thank you for joining. And Vasant, thank you for the overall summary on the company performance. Since the budget was announced by the Indian government just yesterday, a lot of you may have questions on the impact of the budget on the company's long-term and medium-term prospects. We thought that we will share with you some bright spots that we see from the budget that got rolled out. I think overall, there is a lot of focus in the budget, expressing the Government of India's long-term commitment to infrastructure, sustainability and the water sector. I think prominent among those has been the strong support to the Jal Jeevan Mission project, which was officially again, reinforced that the project will continue till 2028. And the allocation by the government on the project has been significantly strengthened vis-a-vis the actual versus in last -- or this current financial year. That we hope augurs good because we also have a significant part of the order backlog in projects of the UP Jal Jeevan Mission. In addition to that, the government continues to invest in the sunrise industries, like semiconductor, with INR 40,000 crores additional outlay, which indicates -- essentially means a boost for our high-tech solutions, ultra-pure water and zero liquid discharge, which we believe is where the company is well positioned with the recent wins in the solar space that we want to take forward. Apart from that, there are also green shoots of opportunities coming in the cloud-based data centers that we will set up, which will again require a tremendous amount of water and also will require wastewater management as well as requirement of our chemicals and other portfolio. Over and above, the government also announced the announcement of 5 mega textile parks. While that brings a lot of focus and investment on the textile business segment, it also brings opportunities for your company on water treatment plants, on zero liquid discharge solutions as well as on chemicals. In addition to that, critical mineral processing is an area of focus for the government. And there also, the company's Ion Exchange membranes and resins portfolio will be useful. In addition to that, the -- there has been a revival of about 200 legacy industrial clusters, which is an opportunity for both our services division as well as our institution business, where our products should play well into this investment line. Also, as all of us are aware, the Government of India signed a historic trade agreement with the European Union, which will allow free flow or free flow of goods and services across both these continents. And we also -- by virtue of our presence in Europe through our latest acquisition, we believe that this will augur well for the company as we try to increase our market share in areas like chemicals, resins, membranes as well as our engineered systems and equipment. So overall, a lot to look forward to from a -- directionally from a medium- to long-term perspective, I think most of these measures of the government will -- is right. We are fully aligned in terms of leveraging the growth opportunities and potential in these segments. So with that, I just wanted to summarize our initial thoughts on the budget, as we continue to study the fine print. But with that, I think we'll be happy to take any questions that the participants on the call may have for me and Vasant.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Chetan Vora from Abakkus Asset Manager.

Sir, I would like to understand that during the quarter, the gross margin has declined 200 bps, 260 bps to be very precise. And then, below that, the employee cost has also increased by nearly about 130 bps. Other expenses have also increased. And below EBITDA also, depreciation cost has increased from INR 10 crores to INR 17 crores, and the interest cost has again increased from INR 2 crores to INR 6.6 crores. We would like to understand here, sir, what has been the reason? And are there any one-offs in these expenses? Or how should one look at it? And then, I will come to my next question, sir.

Yes. So thank you for the question. While Vasant will share some specific financial numbers, but broadly, across both our Engineering and Chemical businesses, there has been a little bit of headwind. I think on the -- and I'll talk about each of them separately, and then, Vasant will give you the specific numbers. It's a combination of some one-offs, some that will continue for some time, especially with respect to Roha and also a change, a little bit, in our mix across both the segments. So I think on the Engineering side, clearly, the UP JJM project that we talked about, I think those continue to move slow because of the low allocation of orders. And also, I think in terms of the mix of the project execution, last year, we had a significant amount of execution happening for our international projects, which this year is planned for fourth quarter, as a result of which we have had an adverse mix on the Engineering side. Over and above that, on the Chemical side of the business, it was a combination of depreciation hitting us with the full impact of depreciation and interest hitting us from this particular quarter. Also, because of rupee appreciation, some of our input costs have also gone up and which -- depreciation, input costs have gone up, as a result of which some of those impacts on the operations, we are going to pass on to customers starting from this particular quarter. As a result -- as also some adverse mix in terms of comparatively a little bit lower invoicing from our pharma and our chemical businesses. So that's kind of the broad construct. I will request Vasant to give you some very specific details on the questions that you asked following up on my response.

Yes. Coming to the specifics of the queries, which you have raised, specifically on the interest and depreciation, the depreciation -- the interest cost...

Sir, can we -- Vasant sir, can we -- excuse me, can we start from the gross, and then, we come down one by item below that?

No, I think on the gross margin, I think our MD, Mr. Indraneel, just explained that there were -- there are certain headwinds in the Engineering and the Chemical segment in terms of the adverse product mix and the cost increases on account of the rupee depreciation. And in terms of the Engineering segment, the overall mix of the projects, which we are executing plus the UP project, which is continuing to face funding issues. So I think a combination of all these factors have impacted the gross margin. And coming specifically to the interest and depreciation, this is largely on impact of the Roha facility, which was commissioned in the last week of September. The increase in -- the interest increase is only because of the Roha, while the depreciation, a major portion of that is on account of the Roha depreciation hitting the P&L.

Sir, can you tell me what was the total CapEx done for Roha? And how much it was done through internal accruals? And how much that has been sourced? And what is the capacity which has come on the system? And towards what the CapEx was incurred?

In terms of the Roha, as we have been informing in the earlier calls also, the total CapEx of Roha is estimated to be in the region of INR 450 crores. And we have tied up a loan -- a long-term loan of around INR 345 crores with a banking agency. So that is in terms of the CapEx. In terms of the capitalization in the books, around -- just under INR 285 crores has been capitalized in the books. And in terms of the capacity, which has come on stream by the end of the -- at the end of the third quarter, it is in the region of just under 40% to 45% range.

Sir, when we say just -- the total of the INR 450 crores, we have capitalized INR 285 crores. And anything standing in CWIP, sir?

Yes. Around INR 130 crores is standing in CWIP.

So broadly, we have incurred the CapEx for the Roha. And what capacity will be coming out, sir, for the Roha in terms of quantification? If you can see towards what all resins, membrane, what all the capacity is coming on this?

So this plant that is coming up is fully for our Ion Exchange resins. This is a plant dedicated to Ion Exchange resins and primarily for the exports market. As we have said in the last call also, we are in the process of sequentially commissioning the full production. We have already commissioned the cation stream, and we are in the process of commissioning the rest of the product line. So this is a phased process and which is again as per our expected lines that we are ramping up the production of this facility, which is dedicated to Ion Exchange resins for the export market, sir.

Right. Sir -- and sir, in terms of capacity, in terms of quantity, how much the capacity will be there in terms of tonnage?

So that is something that we would not be able to give you such specific information. As I said, cation is one of the major stream of product lines, which is now fully stabilized, and we are ramping up our production. Like that, the rest of the capacity -- rest of the product lines will also be commissioned, which is on way in a gradual basis. And then, the plant will come up, at least all the product lines will start getting shipped out from the plant. The teams are working on it. We are not seeing any adverse challenges. So things are moving as per plan.

And sir, by when the entire...

Sorry to interrupt. Mr. Chetan Vora, may we request you return to the queue for follow-up questions.

Sir, I would return, but this is in the interest of everyone. I'm asking for on behalf of everyone...

But, sir, there are several other participants waiting for their turn. So I would request you to return to the queue for follow-up questions, please. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Kishore Kumar from Unifi Capital.

Sir, actually, in the Q2 call, happened in November, we were guided for better execution and better profitability in the Engineering segments. However, the actual numbers are actually remained under shelves. Because we already know that the legacy project of Jal Jeevan Mission was lagging again. Could you please help us understand the gap between the guidance and actual numbers?

So we have been fairly consistent, Kishoreji, in our commentary about the 2 legacy projects. One is the UP Jal Jeevan Mission, which is delayed because of lack of funds, which is an industry-wide issue. And also, there are one legacy project that we continue to execute where we have adverse headwinds in terms of profitability. The expectation that we had in terms of a better invoicing performance or profitability performance has been on certain international execution that we are currently underway, part of which we had expected to happen in third quarter, but because of reasons beyond our control, now we expect the invoicing to happen for these international projects in the fourth quarter, which is the current quarter of the financial year. So it's more of a timing issue. And we expect that those invoicing and the accompanying revenue and the profitability will be coming in the fourth quarter of this financial year.

Got it, sir. Sir, for the Chemicals segment, for the Roha facility, I think you mentioned that 40% to 45% of the facility has been commissioned now and remaining will be commissioned gradually. Can you give some quantitative figures for this facility, like revenues are -- EBITDA, gross margin are similar to the existing facilities or it's lower because of the ramp-ups? Can you give some specifics on this?

So we don't share such specifics. I'll give you a little bit of a qualitative answer, and if there's anything more color, then Vasant will add. While Vasant said that 45% of the facility has been commissioned, yet, as I said, there are parts of it, and I want all of you to understand. One is that there are multiple product lines. I called out one product line that we have stabilized and commissioned. Now, we have not taken that product line to the maximum capacity because that's a function of how much business that we are getting for the product line. Otherwise, there's no point in producing more and increasing our inventory. So cation production is stabilized, and we are generating those products, production is happening. The other product lines are under various stages of commissioning and stabilizing. And that will take some time. Right now, in terms of -- and this is exactly going as per our plan. This is a chemical plant. It takes time to stabilize and get the necessary quality and specification of products coming out from this export-oriented unit. Further to that, the products will require -- many of these products actually go into drinking water applications. It will require us to get the necessary approvals from the world quality standards like National Sanitation Federation of USA as part of WQA requirements. And once those are done, only then will our customers be open to accepting these products. So we are trying to commission the plant and all the products, at the same time expediting our approval process for this product, which will help us then sell or they get customer PO. So this entire process is underway. Our original plan has been to kind of get to full capacity utilization in 4 years. We stand by those numbers. We are in the process of slowly, gradually scaling up the plant. And right now, all our actions are going on expected lines. Having said that, I will ask maybe Vasant to give you a little bit any additional color or flavor he wants to provide.

Yes. You asked a specific question, how is the margin profile of this facility? Once the plant is fully commissioned and the stabilization of the product is in place, we expect the margin profile to be similar to what we are presently enjoying with our Ankleshwar facility.

Okay. Sir, just a follow-up on this...

Sorry to interrupt. Mr. Kumar, may we request you return to the queue for follow-up questions. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of [ Rushabh Shah ] from [ BugleRock PMS ].

You have mentioned that the semiconductor opportunity will be a big one for Ion Exchange. And you were -- so you were negotiating some orders on that front. So any update on that? Have we received any orders? And according to your sense, what would be the market size of this opportunity? And how much Ion Exchange will benefit from it?

So the opportunity for semiconductor exists in both ultra-pure water as in -- also in wastewater. Right now, there is only 1 -- 2 plants that have got to the erection stage, which is the Tata -- both are with the Tatas. One is the Dholera project, and the other is the Assam-based OSAT project. We participated in both the projects, but we did not pick up the orders because we felt that the current price levels were not conducive for a profitable execution. There are other projects that we continue to bid. In the interest of confidentiality, I cannot share anything more. But whatever projects are there in the semiconductor space that is currently available, the company is pursuing those. And if the profitability profile of the projects are in line with our expected profitability of the Engineering segment, we will definitely pick up the project. In terms of our capabilities, we have, as a company, been in the semiconductor space for the last 40 years. One of the earliest plants of semiconductor, Mohali -- Semiconductor Limited in Mohali was done by Ion Exchange. To this extent, the plant is working beautifully, which talks about the durability of the products and solutions supplied by the company and also the technological knowhow that the company had. It is a matter of picking up the right project at the right profitability, and we continue to pursue those. And as and when we see or have a success, we will definitely come back and share that with you. In the related space, it's the same solutions offered in the solar side, and we have given you the summary. In the summary, Vasant has talked about the 2 wins we have had in the solar project. We have also given a declaration to the stock exchanges for those wins. We continue to pursue other projects in the same ultra-pure water space in solar, semiconductor, green hydrogen as well as in data centers.

Okay. So sir, my next question is when we get an EPC project, so what are those checkpoints you check so that we don't end up on the -- end up losing money in a bad project or we don't stretch our own balance sheet?

So we have a -- good question. We have a fairly strong -- and we have put in a stronger review mechanism in terms of the appropriate profile of projects to pick up. So clearly, the project profitability is important. Clearly, the creditworthiness of the customers is important. Clearly, the cash flow profile of the project is important. Clearly, the written essential risks that we are taking on to the project is important. The type of industry, the type of effluence is important. Defect liability period is important. So there is a fairly strong credit review -- risk review mechanism that the company pursues for taking projects. As I have said in the previous calls that pursuant to our learning from that legacy experience of execution, where we have -- we continue to face profitability headwinds, we have become very selective in taking up projects with the right profitability profile.

Okay. And this Roha project, which is coming up for our resins, so by when would this be up and running?

So -- as I said, the plant is getting commissioned. We are beginning to get revenues from the facility. We got some initial revenues in the last quarter, very small in the overall context of things. Our revenues in this quarter will increase. But as I said that there is an approval process and certification process of our products, which we are in the process of doing. So we expect the revenues -- the offtake to significantly increase in the subsequent or the next financial year.

Your next question comes from the line of Raghav Maheswari from KamayaKya Wealth Management.

Sir, first of all, my first question would be around the Roha resin plant, sir, if you can tell us what has been the capacity utilization for that plant for the commissioned capacity for this quarter?

So it's a very large plant. And so, as I said, we have just commissioned the plant. So right now, the capacity utilization is very, very less. As I said, this requires us to get the products qualified. We are releasing the product in certain applications in the domestic market, but you can expect the capacity utilization to start ramping up from the next financial year. And our outlook consistently for the next financial year has been 25% of the overall plant. And we believe that is possible for us to achieve based on the phase commissioning and stabilization that we have reached on one product line and the work that the team continues to do on the ground in the plant for the other product lines.

Okay, sir. Understood. And sir, my next question, I might have missed that information when you were talking about the budget. So sir, first of all, how much of the receivables do we have stuck as of now in this Jal Jeevan Mission? And given this budget increase of -- by the government in this union budget, what sort of impact do we see for our order intake in this? And like you mentioned that the Jal Jeevan Mission orders are still -- they have remained muted, so if you can throw some light on this.

Yes. As we have said before also, the funding from the UP government on account of the Jal Jeevan Mission has been very subdued or very negligible in this quarter. So our receivables, there is not much of change compared to what we had in the previous quarter. As was mentioned when we just informed you about the budget announcement, the Jal Jeevan Mission, the outlay has been increased in the current budget. And we do hope with the increased outlay and the mission being extended up to 2028, the fund flow for the project will improve and our overall receivables will get benefited with the disbursement, which should happen in the coming months.

So, sir, are we looking to take up more projects in JJM coming -- going forward?

No. In the current construct, the way the scheme is, we don't anticipate to take up more projects. Our current focus is to execute these projects. As Vasant said, with the renewed commitment from the government, we expect funds to flow in, and that will allow us to, a, recover our pending receivables and also allow us to liquidate the rest of the backlog, which will possibly take us a couple of years, but at least we'll see some progress. Beyond this, this is not an area of focus for us. We are more focusing on water treatment and wastewater treatment in areas like ultra-pure water, high-purity water, critical wastewater, desalination. So that's the focus area of the company. However, we continue to remain firm on execution of the current order backlog for Jal Jeevan Mission.

Your next question comes from the line of Anupam Gupta from HDFC Mutual Funds.

Yes. Sir, a couple of questions, so -- one on each segment. So on the Engineering segment, obviously, the performance in this quarter was weak, and you said that it should revert back in the fourth quarter. But given where your order book is, how do you see the growth and margins for the Engineering segment panning out over FY '27, ideally?

So I would say, first of all, that you are right in your -- in what we said that we expect the fourth quarter to be higher in terms of invoicing and specifically for the international profile or international mix of the orders that we have in the executable backlog, which partly we had expected to happen in the preceding quarter. In terms of our order execution visibility or expectation for the next financial year, I think we've had a decent order inflow in -- for the company in this year. In fact, in the 3 quarters of this year, we have already exceeded the annual order intake of the last financial year. We expect orders to flow into us in this current quarter as well. So the order intake has been positive, even though we have become significantly selective in picking up orders. So we expect those orders to get executed with reasonable profitability. And we want to slowly improve the erosion that we had -- happened, we had seen. We want to improve that execution of the Engineering orders. So overall, we expect a similar, if not slightly better outlook from the execution, both from an invoicing as well as from a profitability standpoint for a segment.

Okay. And in one of your earlier comments, you have mentioned there have been structural changes to margins in the Chemical business. Over the last 4, 5 years, you have done close to 24% sort of average margins in Chemicals. So let's say, as and when Roha ramps up over the next 4 years and your normal existing business continues, what sort of margin levels should one be comfortable with in the Chemicals segment?

So as we have been saying consistently that the 28% or round about margin that we were able to continue in the Chemicals segment, I mentioned that repeatedly, is itself a challenge for us to do. I think over the last few quarters, the company has been successful with all the various variables that are there to maintain that margin levels. In the last quarter, we -- because of the rupee depreciation, we faced some input cost challenges, which we expect to pass on in this current quarter to partly offset that impact. We also had a little bit of mix challenges, which is why our profitability on this segment was down, and we are working to see that we can improve on that through various measures that are taken. None of them are structural measures per se. They are more business operating actions that we are taking, including passing on some of the price increase to the customers. We have been slow and reasonable, but now we believe that we have to pass it on back to certain segments. As Roha ramps up, the Roha profitability should be similar or better over time, but we don't anticipate any significant increase in the current quarter. As I said, in the subsequent year, financial year, you will see the benefits of Roha coming in. But with the price increase being passed on to our customers, we expect the profile to be kind of similar, if not slightly better coming back to the average of the current financial year.

Your next question comes from the line of Deepak from Sundaram Asset Management Company.

Yes. Sir, my first question is on, again, this Roha plant. So just want to double check, of the 43,000 cubic meter capacity, how much of the capacity will be commissioned by end of, let's say, Q4 this fiscal year? And on that capacity, how much utilization are we expecting in FY '27?

So as I said, we would typically not like to give a specific number, but we -- as I said, we will commission -- we have already commissioned one of the major product lines, the cation, but that capacity increase will happen over time based on the orders received. We continue to execute on the rest of the product lines and including anions and mixed base. And so we expect that about -- we will be able to get to 25% capacity utilization by the next financial year. And our commissioning and stabilization process is going very much as per our original plan.

Okay. But sir, when you mentioned this 25% capacity utilization in FY '27, we are talking about full plant commissioning, right, that 43,000 cubic meter capacity?

Yes. We will -- definitely, we are trying earlier, but definitely in the next financial year, the plant will be fully commissioned, all product lines. However, as I said, the capacity utilization will be a function of the demand generated. It's a new plant, and it requires approvals, as I've already mentioned in the -- previously in the call. We are going through all of that process as we speak.

And sir, generally, how much time does it take for us to get product approved from a new plant? Is it like it takes a couple of quarters? Or is it a couple of months? Because I'm not trying -- I'm trying to understand what is the revenue visibility, means are we able to ascertain with some certainty from this Roha plant in FY '27?

So it typically takes a quarter if everything goes right. And then, we have to approach the customers, and then, there is a customer approval process that will follow, which will take typically another quarter. So if everything goes right, this is the minimum time that will be taken. Again, that has been a part of our original plan as well. And that is why we have put a number of 25% utilization by next financial year.

Okay. Sir, I had one question on the Engineering...

Sorry to interrupt, Deepak, sir. May we request you to return to the queue for follow-up questions, please? Our next question comes from the line of Dhaval Pandya from 47 Alpha Capital.

So I have 2 questions, like one is on the loans. Like, as we go to the financials, we can see there is substantial increase in the loans. So can you tell us what amount is of the -- what are the short-term loans? What amount?

The overall increase in loans is primarily on account of the term loan, which we have taken on account for the Roha facility. And out of the total loans, around INR 55 crores will be in the short-term category.

Okay. And as you mentioned that you are venturing out in solar as well, so what's the contribution of solar in overall revenue?

So that varies. Typically, we don't disclose these numbers, but that varies against our current order inflow of about INR 1,100-plus crores. I mean, INR 205 crores is the 2 orders that we announced to the street. Again, it is not consistent every year because it depends on projects when they come up for order placements, and the mix varies. We are present across the segments. But what we can tell you is that we are actively pursuing solar opportunities and semiconductor opportunities. And as and when those come up for closure at the right profit and risk profile, we will pick up those jobs.

Okay. And one last question, like what...

Sorry to interrupt Mr. Pandya. May we request you to return to the question queue for follow-up questions, please? Your next question comes from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor Company.

Hope I'm audible.

Yes, you are audible.

Sir, as per this conversation which we are continuing for the last 30, 35, 40 minutes, is it now safe for investors to assume that the worst is behind in terms of the lower margins, which we are currently exhibiting in the Engineering segment pertaining to the legacy orders and also with the scenario playing out in terms of the chemical and the consumer product losses also on the higher side? What should investors envisage going ahead, firstly, for the next financial year and whether the course correction exercises are over and we could see now growth with improved profitability going ahead? Are these assumptions in terms of what the market conditions are today a fair one or we need to wait for more pain to flow through the P&L?

So I wish I could have said that everything, the worst is behind us, but I will not say that. I think we continue to correct the P&L and improve the situation. As we have said, the legacy project and the UP execution is still pending, much as we would have liked to get them over, but you heard our receivables on account of UP, and we don't want to load our books and add more receivable burden on us. So the legacy project, we continue to execute, and we are working on it. And hopefully, in the next financial year, it will taper off. UP will continue to be there. As we have mentioned, we have significantly tightened on the engineering front our order selection process. And we expect that the learnings we had in the past will not get repeated, which is why we have been very selective. Even though we have crossed our last year's order book, yet, we have been extremely selective in picking up deals. So yes, over the longer term, I would agree with your assessment that the overall profitability and the segment performance on the Engineering side should increase. But that is in the longer term. We still have, I would say, a time period to cover where both UP and the legacy project execution will continue. On the Chemical front, we will be passing on some of the price impact to the customers. And as Roha gets commissioned and the revenue from Roha increases, we will expect some improvement in the chemical profitability. But again, that is too early to call. We have to get Roha commissioned, stabilized, certified, orders to come in, and then, execution will pick up. As we ramp up Roha capacity utilization, at that time, we can expect some improvement, but it is still some time away because we have said that our original estimate, which we stand by, is to have lower capacity utilization of 25% for the next financial year. So longer term, yes, the outlook of both these segments are good. On the Engineering side, we continue to strengthen on our membrane portfolio, which is a part of the Engineering segment, where we see good tailwinds are coming with our product development and production. We are similarly seeing good tailwinds on the services front. So all of this on the longer term augurs well for the company. But in the shorter term, we continue to work through some of the challenges, which have impacted the P&L in the past, and we would want to get over them. The good news is we have not seen any additional adverse impact so far, but we will still go through the grind and get over the current headwinds.

And on the consumer product also, sir?

On the Consumer Product side, we have seen strong tailwinds of growth. I don't know if you have seen our Bharat Ka Paani ad that is there out there in commercials, in newspaper, print media. We continue to invest in advertising and promotion. The business has continued to show a 30% year on -- quarter on -- year-on-year growth, so far YTD. If you watch the IPL or the T20 games, you will see our Bharat Ka Paani ad coming prominently. And all of this require investments. And whatever profits we are making in the division, we are plowing it back into advertising and promotion to sustain this 30% growth that we are seeing. We expect next year to continue on similar trend. Our Services business is growing about 30%. 1/3 of the overall segment revenue is coming from Services, which is again a good positive indicator. We are getting into newer parts. I think still our coverage in India leaves more to be catered to. We are already the leaders in the softener part of the business. So overall, the segment is looking strong, and we believe that next year, we could come close to breaking even in this segment as well.

Right, sir. Lastly, the second question was pertaining to...

Sorry to interrupt. Mr. Kapoor, may we request to return to the queue for follow-up questions, please? Our next question comes from the line of Pratik Kothari from Unique Portfolio Management Services.

Sir, one, I mean, to your point, the order -- this first 9 months has been -- I mean, we have surpassed the last year number also. I mean, in the presentation, you did -- you do talk about solar and few wins in the solar projects. What are we seeing? Is this international markets, domestic? Any particular segment? What's working there?

So as I said, we are actively soliciting business while being selective about it. We are in all the important segments. We continue to actively and very aggressively bid for projects. However, as I said, we continue to be very selective in what we pick up. Similarly, on the international front, also, we have increased our activities. We have picked up recently a project with one of the largest dairy companies in Saudi Arabia. These are some of the wins that we continue to pursue. We continue to engage with companies on the Energy side in the Middle East. And hopefully, we will see some of those fructifying. So our activities on the front end are significantly engaging, and we continue to push on both the domestic and the international front. And as and when we see some of those closing favorably for the company, we will definitely come back with suitable declarations.

Fair enough. And second, this ex of UP, does this legacy project get done in Q4? Or does it extend? And if it does, how long in FY '27, does it go on? And ex of this UP and legacy, sir, I mean, the normalized margin, if that's the word I have to use, is it high single digits? Or are we still doing those upwards of 11%, 12% that we used to do for a couple of years?

So the -- both the legacy project, I'll talk about that first, we continue to execute that. It's a very large project, and hence, it continues to be executed. It will flow into the next financial year. As we said, it will taper off. A lot of the activity right now is on the construction side on the site. It's a large plant. It takes time to be commissioned. Most of the supplies have been completed, but it is still -- a significant portion is left to be executed finally of the overall order value. On the UP side, as I said, we have about INR 400 crores of order backlog on UP that we continue to execute. We believe if the funds flow starts coming in, in the next financial year, in the right flow, it will take us a couple of years to finally come out of those projects, and these projects will move into O&M. We will not leave those projects, but we'll move into the operation and maintenance of those projects. Apart from that, we continue to be selective in pickup of orders. So we believe that this will be in the high single digits. It's very rare that in the project business, you end up with a very attractive profitability considering the competition we see in the market. But our endeavor will always be to ensure that we have a profitable business on the project side.

Our next follow-up question comes from the line of Chetan Vora from Abakkus Asset Manager.

Sir, I would like to understand the Roha CapEx, the asset terms are 2.5x, right, as you had mentioned in the last con call?

Yes, over a period of 4 years.

Sir, how do you see the payback period to be for this plant? Within what timeframe we are expecting a payback, sir?

We are expecting in the region of around 4 to 5 years. Under 5 years, the payback should happen for this facility.

Okay, sir. And sir, in the Engineering...

Sorry to interrupt. Mr. Vora, please, if you can rejoin the queue for any further follow-up?

I'll just qualify the payback comment of Vasant. It is slightly longer than what we wanted, but the reason is that this is a fully sustainable, full circular plant. 1/3 of the CapEx has gone to ensure that every -- not a drop of water is discharged out. It's a zero liquid discharge plant. A lot of CapEx has gone to ensure that in all parameters, all input items, it is almost fully circular plant. Once commissioned, it will be one of the best-in-class plants in the world. So we have tried to ensure that this is a model plant, which is why the CapEx is slightly higher. And accordingly, the payback is taking a little longer. Ideally, we would want to have a payback between 3 and 4 years. I just want to qualify that. There is a reason that the company and the Board made a conscious decision to see that we have the best-in-class plant in the world in terms of sustainability and circularity.

Right, sir. Sir, on the plant only, just these -- the entire capitalization will be happening this year only, right, FY '26?

Yes, we are expecting largely the capitalization to get completed by March end, a major part at least.

The next follow-up question comes from the line of Kishore Kumar from Unifi Capital.

Sir, now that the legacy project will actually will be there in '27 as well, the profitability will be at a lower end in H1, should we assume actually lower profitability in H1 as well of next financial year?

No, I don't think there should be a reason to think that way. The project will taper off. So the impact of the project as we keep on grinding and executing that job will keep on progressively coming down. And as we execute the UP project, provided the fund flow starts, that is at a better profitability mix. And then, our other projects, we are taking up, are healthier. So we would not say that. At the same time, it will take us some time to get behind all those legacy issues. So I don't see a reason to further warrant. At this time, I'll possibly keep it at the level of performance in the earlier part of this financial year.

Got it, sir. My second question is on the Chemicals margin. You actually answered it to a previous participant, but as a follow-up. Now, the Q3 margins are at a lower end because of the ramp-up, and then, the ramp-up in the Roha facility. Should we assume similar margins for the next 2, 3 quarters, and then, the ramp-up actually benefits the margin?

I would say that -- there are parts of it, right? So the price impact due to the rupee depreciation, I think we will try to recover partly in the next quarter. We are also working on the mix, where certain segments I called out earlier in the call, we are trying to see how we can get the improvement. With respect to Roha, we anticipate this current quarter to be similar because we are currently in the process of commissioning and stabilizing the plant and getting the product certified. So for Roha to fully give you the benefits of the impact of the Roha plant coming up, I think it will take us a couple of quarters. But the rest of the -- still -- beyond Roha, there's still a lot of products that we manufacture and invoice for the Chemicals segment. And we expect and our endeavor will be to try and get back to -- at an operating level to the performance that we have shown before Roha got -- the depreciation and interest expenses of Roha started hitting us from this quarter.

Got it, sir. Any change in the Engineering segment guidance for this year and next year? Because we expected H2 to be better. Now, Q3 was actually flat on a year-on-year basis. So Q4 execution will actually compensate that? Or will it be actually lower?

So Q4 should be better than Q3. That's what I think we can say right now. Next year, progressively, the situation should improve from the average of this year. But again, as I said, there are still parts of the legacy project that we need to complete out. There are still structural fixes we are putting in place on the Engineering business. And as our membrane business starts picking up more and more, as our Services business starts picking up more and more, in the longer term, we will definitely see upward performance on the profitability of the Engineering segment. But there's still -- we are -- it's a work in process for us. We know the path. It's just about working on that execution.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as our last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management of Ion Exchange India Limited for closing comments.

Thank you all for participating in this earnings conference call. I hope we have been able to answer your questions satisfactorily. If you have any further questions or would like to know more about the company, please reach out to our Investor Relations Manager at Valorem Advisors. Thank you.

Thank you. On behalf of Ion Exchange India Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.