AWL Agri Business (NSE:AWL) Q1 2027 Earnings Call

0:00 Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to AWL Agri Business Limited Q one FY twenty seven Earnings Conference Call hosted by ICICI Securities Limited. 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 0 on your touch tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to mister Ashutosh from ICICI Securities Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Yeah. Thank you, Palak. Hello, and good evening, everyone present on the call.

0:51 I, on behalf of ICICI Securities, welcome you on Agri Business Limited's q one FY twenty seven earnings call. I would like to thank the management, for giving this opportunity of hosting the call to us. From the management, we have mister Srikant Kanhari, CEO and MD, mister Somin Seth, executive director and chief operating officer, and mister Pankaj Gupta, interim CFO. I will now hand the call over to the management for any opening remarks. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, and good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us. On behalf of AWL, I extend a warm welcome to all of you for our q one FY twenty seven earnings conference call.

1:41 Joining me today are the members of our leadership team who will take you through the financial performance in greater detail before we open the floor for questions. We have made a strong start for FY 'twenty seven delivering another quarter of broad based growth with a meaningful step up in the profitability. Revenue grew by 18% year on year to INR 20,000 plus crores and our quality of our earnings continues to improve alongside this growth. More importantly, this performance reflects the continued execution of our long term strategy. Over last few years, we have consciously transformed AWL from being predominantly an edible oil company into a diversified food and FMCG company.

2:28 Today, while edible oil continues to remain our foundation, our growth is increasingly being driven by packaged food, future ready channels and wider portfolio of value added businesses. Let me begin with our Food and FMCG business, which remains at the heart of our transition journey. Food and FMCG segment grew by 22% year on year during the quarter with revenue of INR1726 crore. The encouraging part of this growth continues to be broad based across the portfolio. Rice once again delivered an outstanding performance growing by over 40% year on year, while categories such as wheat flour, pulses, besan, poha and other packaged food continued to witness healthy consumer demand.

3:22 Our tops range of sauces, pickles and convenience food grew by a healthy 23% year on year and where we are pleased to welcome Madhur into our AWL family, strengthening our presence in the packaged sugar category alongside Fortune Sugar. Together, these additions reinforce a portfolio that's now span everyday staples, convenience format and healthy focused innovation. What gives us confidence is not just growth in one category, but increasing scale of our overall food portfolio. Multiple categories are now approaching meaningful annual revenue milestones, creating several independent growth engines.

4:09 This diversification will continue to improve the resilience and the quality of our food portfolio and remain central to how we think about AWL's future. On edible oil, the business delivered low single digit volume growth of 2% year on year. The industry witnessed temporary channel destocking following sharp volatility in global edible oil prices. However, underlying consumer demand remained resilient. Our integrated sourcing capabilities, pricing discipline and premiumization initiative enabled us to effectively navigate this environment while sustaining our market leadership. On Industry Essential, we delivered another healthy quarter with the segment reporting 13% volume growth and 28% revenue growth.

5:04 Within this portfolio, our Oleo Chemical and Specialty Chemical business, which now contributes over 40% of the segment revenue continues to perform well. We continue to see this as an important strategic business and are expanding capacity at our Southern manufacturing facility to progressively increase the contribution of higher value added specialty products. On channel performance, our alternate channel modern trade, e com, QuickCom grew 27% year on year during the quarter. QuickCommerce continues to be particularly exciting for us, recording a growth of 56% year on year. We increasingly see Quick Commerce not merely as another sales channel, but a structural shift in consumer buying behavior.

5:58 It enables faster product discovery, higher purchase frequency and quicker scale up for innovations. We have, therefore, continued to invest in technology, digital capabilities, assortment planning and channel specific execution to strengthen our partnership across leading quick commerce platforms. Alongside this, Horeca and Branded Exports also delivered another strong quarter, reflecting the increasing diversification of our route to market strategy. On distribution front, our distribution strategy is also evolving. Our direct reach now is close to 970,000 outlets this quarter, while our total reach as per the means and remains at 2,600,000 outlets.

6:50 With this expansion now substantially in place, our focus is increasingly shifting towards improving throughput and distribution productivity rather than simply adding more outlets. We continue to maintain strong rural presence across more than 63,000 towns. Overall, I would say we believe the fundamentals of the business remain strong. Our integrated sourcing and manufacturing capabilities, trusted brands, extensive distribution network and growing presence across future ready channels provide us a strong platform for a sustainable growth. As we move ahead, our priorities remain clear, strengthening our food portfolio, improving execution across channels, enhancing profitability and continuing our journey towards building one of India's most trusted and largest food FMCG company.

7:50 With that, I would now request our CFO, Pankaj, to take you through the financial performance in more detail. Over to you, Pankaj. So thank you, Shekhar, and good evening, everyone. Let me take you through the financial performance for the quarter. We have started FY 'twenty seven on a strong note with broad based growth translating into a meaningful step up in profitability and earning quality. Consolidated revenue grew 18% year on year to INR 20,048 crores, supported by 7% underlying volume growth across the portfolio. Operating EBITDA grew 34% year on year to INR $6.93 crore, while profit before tax and profit after tax grew 4848%, respectively.

8:41 This improvement in profitability was broad based, reflecting better execution across businesses, a favorable and increasingly food led product mix, disciplined pricing and continued operating efficiencies. Every business segment contributed positively this quarter, a reflection of the strength of our diversified model. Food and FMCG remains the clearest expression of that strategy. Revenue grew 32% year on year to $17.26 crore, and we continue to invest behind brands, distribution expansion and new category additions, including the recent addition of Madhu to our sugar portfolio and continued strong momentum in our top range of sauces and convenience food, which grew 23% year on year.

9:36 Segment EBITDA came in at 104 crores with margin at 6%. We see this as the right trade off as these categories mature, we expect the quality and durability of these earnings to keep strengthening and food and accessories remains our single biggest priority for capital and management attention going forward. Edible Oilt delivered resilient performance in a volatile commodity environment with revenue up 15% and EBITDA per metric ton up 33% year on year, while Industry Essentials supported by continued strength in audio chemicals and specialty chemicals delivered another strong quarter with revenue up 28% and EBITDA up 47% year on year.

10:28 Looking ahead, our operating outlook across three segments remains unchanged. In Food and FMCG, we continue to target mid teen revenue growth while maintaining EBITDA margin in the 3% to 4% range as we continue to invest behind brands, distributions and category expansion. In edible oils, we expect volume growth of around 5% to 6% with EBITDA expected to remain in the range of $4,000 to $4,500 per metric ton. For industry essentials, we continue to expect volume growth of around 8% to 9%, while sustaining EBITDA in the range of 3,000 to 3,500 per metric ton. We believe these operating parameters provide a balanced framework for delivering profitable and sustainable growth across our portfolio.

11:20 Beginning this quarter, we have also refined how we present segment performance. For Food and FMCG, as the business scales and diversifies, we believe revenue, underlying volume growth and EBITDA margin are now the more meaningful lens than absolute volume, and our disclosures will evolve accordingly. Article oils and industry essentials will continue to be presented on a per ton basis given throughput remains a key driver there. We will continue to disclose segment wise EBITDA on a consolidated basis and segment wise return on capital employed on stand alone basis to give investors a clearer view of margin and capital efficiency across our diversified portfolio.

12:10 Taken together, we believe this gives a more meaningful framework for evaluating an increasingly diversified core FMCG portfolio and reflects where we are taking the company. With that, let's open the floor for questions. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may please press star and one on their touch tone telephone. If you 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, The first question is from the line of Dheeraj Mistry from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

13:06 Yes. Hi, sir. Congrats on a good set of number. Sorry if I missed out anything, but what would be the revenue? So given that your FMCG business is back to the growth and you have done 6% margin, what would be the guidance going ahead? What kind of growth you are expecting and what kind of EBITDA you would like to maintain in this year? So this question is particularly for the food segment? Foods and FMCG. Foods and FMCG. Okay. I think this quarter, we delivered a revenue of 1,700 plus, which is, again, a double digit growth. I think the guidance which we can give for the rest of the year, I think we should continue with this double digit growth in the food, both volume as well as revenue.

13:56 And EBITDA margins, I would rather say we should not be looking at a 6% EBITDA margin for this quarter. What we should be looking at is the average of last four quarters, given that food for us still remains in a growth phase or investment phase, and we will still remain aggressive on the top line rather than actually looking at a bottom line. So 6% may not be the guidance, of course. The average of last four quarters or five quarters should be something which we should be consistently delivering. So in double digit revenue growth, when you said double digit, so 2210%, what would be the guided range for that business?

14:43 Guided range in a sense for volume or revenue you are asking? No. No. Revenue. Revenue. Revenue guidance, I think guidance would be in and around, I think, between 18% to 20% is something we should continue to deliver. Got it. Got it. And sir, on Madur brand, can you throw some light what kind of revenue this Madur brand generates? What kind of margins? And what kind of terms and agreement you have with Sri Ve Nuka Sugars? And what are your targets going ahead for this brand? See, the Madur brand integration has got a one basic fundamental objective is Madhu is one of the strongest brand or rather, I would say, the number one brand in the country.

15:36 But Sri Renuka on its... Their own, we're finding it difficult to scale the brand given the... In spite of the fact that brand is very strong. So the fundamental objective is to leverage AWL distribution and grow this brand as much as possible. That's the objective number one. On the revenue, I think Madur today sells close to 15,000 tonnes a month. Of course, our target is to scale it up further and make it close to 20,000 tons a month by end of the year. And therefore, revenue that this brand today is generating or will continue to generate will be in the range of close to maybe for the full year I'm giving.

16:27 Full year it can be close to INR700 crores, INR800 crores kind of number. Got it. And in terms of margins, what would be the margin profile? And is there any royalty payment that you would be doing to see Renuka Sugars? Yes. So there is a... Because it's a brand which has been licensed to us by Renuka brand remains with Renuka. So it is a license to us kind of marketing agreement which has been done. So we would be paying a royalty of 0.5% on the sales that we will do for the for this Madhu brand. And on the margin guidance, see, as I said, the primary objective is to make the brand big, and therefore, we would certainly focus more on the top line and volume. And therefore, the margin guidance would more or less remain same as what we would be delivering in our overall food segment.

17:33 Got it. Got it. Sir, lastly on vegetable oil business, you have done 2% volume growth. How the scenario right now in the market, let's say, the destocking which you have witnessed in Q1, it's largely over and the palm oil remains volatile in a way. What kind of, let's say, volume growth you would be, I mean, three to four... Three to 5% volume would be over the medium term basis? And you have done this quarter. So your full year it will be in a range of let's say 4,000 to 4,500 or it can be a bit higher in that terms? See, this quarter was a little bit we had challenge on both. One is, of course, the one one hand, you had a volatility. On other hand, you have supply chain disruptions also.

18:27 And the third, of course, because of the volatility, the sluggishness in the market, the trade was hand to mouth and the primary pipeline was more of a dried up. So that everything happened in this quarter and that therefore it impacted our volume for the edible oil and we grew only by 2%. But as we go forward, I think we now we are looking like we are already done with July. As the things are coming back, whatever issues that we had in Q1, I don't think we will continue to face. Volatility has now become a new normal. So I don't think that would anyway we need to be discussed. But I think as we know from second quarter onward, India gets into a festive mode and lot of demands and after rains, particularly for edible oil demand starts coming in.

19:25 So I am hopeful that the rest of the nine months, of course, we will not... I'm not giving a guidance of 2%. But I think rest of the nine months, I think we should go grow in a moderate single digit, which can be anywhere between five to 6% kind of number on volume. Got it. Thank you very much. I will call back in the queue. Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and 1 now. Participants who wish to ask questions may please press star and 1 at this time. The next question is from the line of Ashutosh from ICICI Securities Limited. Please go ahead.

20:13 Yeah. Hi. Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. So my first question is slightly on the longer term vision, the 2030 vision which the company has. So just want to understand, like, what kind of CapEx and what kind of market share opportunity or the gain opportunity the company has budgeted in for the Edible Oils and the food and vegetables business? See, of course, our 2030 guidance we have recently given that we want to cross INR100000 of revenue, want to cross INR4000 of EBITDA and all. Of course, there would be a CapEx that will be there.

21:00 I think not a specific, I can't give you a specific CapEx that we would be doing in next four years. But as and when the capacities would need to be added, I think we will do today our edible oil refining capacities are running at close to 60, 61%. I think next next couple of years, it will get exhausted, and we may have to put up CapEx. Similarly, we will have to put lot of CapEx in the food also because still today 50% of our food business is coming from the contractual or tolling operation, which we want to convert into our own operations. So steady state for a modeling purpose, if you really want, I think you can continue to take, assume a CapEx of anywhere between 700 crore kind of number for every year.

21:50 Okay. Understood. And my... So next question is that with this Walmart ownership going up, like, what kind of efficiencies the company can expect, like, the global sourcing thing or any other export opportunity or anything that you want to highlight in this regard? The sourcing efficiency was even before also. So, like, sourcing is one of the core strength that we have, and that's also because the Vilmar is something which is to our side. And therefore, the kind of market info that we get from Wilmar is like nobody else get in this country.

22:42 So that sourcing efficiency was earlier also will continue, I think. The biggest, I think, leverage that we will try to make out of new setup or a new structure is we will try and leverage more of a r and d of Walmart, which is there. They are they are quite big and the kind of R and D they have done in extracting value out of every chain where we are into, we will try and leverage that as much as possible. Besides that, of course, technical expertise, which they have, we will continue to take benefit of that as well. Okay. Okay. Understood, sir. And the next question on this, so we have seen, like, the edible oil typically is very volatile, and there has been initiative by the company and even other companies also to basically improve the domestic sourcing of the oil fields. So any any ballpark number, like, with this kind of strategy of domestic sourcing, what could be the reduction in the overall reliance from the imports of these particular ones that will happen, maybe, like, in next three, four years, five years?

24:10 Any any particular number or any sense on that? It's very hard to put up any particular number, to be very frank with you. I think India's dependence on edible oil will continue for some time. Not some time, but I think for a longer time because given the fact that still we import close to 70% of our requirement. But I think there is a good amount of work which is happening on domestic oil, particularly on the oilseed. One is the mustard and, of course, other is government is trying to push various initiatives so that we can have more and more oilseed. So I think we are focusing more on this mustard segment, and we are growing very fast on that. So that itself will have some kind of impact on reducing the import dependence. But of course, the import dependence will remain, and you will have to bear with the volatility that which we see in this oil.

25:12 Understood. And sir, one last question. Again, like, slightly medium term question. So this cross selling opportunity, so currently, you see, like, if my assumption is correct, I think around 35, 40% of the distribution outlets, like, of the overall editorial that is being used for selling tool and FMCG. So any particular target if the company has to like in the next one or two years, how that percentage will change? Or did that cross selling opportunity for post business? Cross selling opportunities, of course, there. So all our oil distribution, which is there, I think we are leveraging that quite efficiently.

25:58 And what we are basically offering is a basket to our trade, which includes not only edible oil, but also the food part also. So we keep keep leveraging between or we keep cross selling between the food and oil. That will certainly continue. And that's also evident from the fact that the kind of growth that we have been able to achieve in the food only because of this cross selling. We will continue with that. I can't give you a number to that, but only will say that this, yes, this process will continue. Yeah. Yeah. So I just wanted to understand, like, you know, there isn't much friction in keeping the FMCG brand. Right?

26:47 Of course, the oil brand definitely has a stronger brand equity compared to the course products. So that way, was asking, like, there is not any friction within the distributors in keeping these products. Right? No. No. Of course not. There is no friction at that. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, sir. The next question is from the line of from Tunga Investments. Please proceed. Yeah. Thank you for this. So I have a couple of questions. I just want to understand what percentage of our raw material is imported and especially in the oil. And within that, what percentage comes from our from Wilmer?

27:36 That is my first question. And second question is that, if I look at the last ten years, your volume growth has been around 7% on a CAGR basis. So do you anticipate this kind of a volume growth over the next decade also? Because from where we are now, we have kind of penetrated, I think, but just want to understand whether the market is available for you to grow at that. That's my second question. The third question is that what's the mix of your food business by b two c and b two b? There are three questions. Okay. I'll take one by one. So first question was on how much of raw material is import? I think for AWL Agri, it's close to 70% is... We import.

28:25 And a little more than 70%, in fact, is imports. And of that 70%, close to one third is Wilmar. So because our palm portfolio is close to 30% of our entire oil oil volumes. So this is answer to your question number one. Second, you said that the company has been able to register a CAGR of 7% on a volume growth over last ten years. I think it will be a little bit more than that because food got into our scheme of the things only last five years, and food is growing double digit. Edible oil, we are saying that will continue to grow at five, 6% kind of number, and and the industry essential again close to 89%.

29:15 So if you and food, as we said, we may we will strive to grow it in double digits. So if you average it out, this is the kind of proportion all these three segments have. I think eight, 9% is something which we are saying, and this is the guidance also we are giving it for quite some time. So we wish... We should continue to deliver that. And on a food, b two c and b two b, I think 80% for the food, 80% is actually b two c. In in fact, more than 80% is b two c, hardly 15% is b two b. But this portfolio, having said that, we are mindful of that. Is also B2B is also very lucrative portfolio given the fact that we are quite big in institution when it comes to edible oil. And most of the our institutional clients who buy edible oil also requires food, which is wheat flour, rice and all. So we are building this slowly. So right now, at this point of time, it is only 20% in food and B2C is 80%. But slowly, I think it will continue to grow.

30:27 Sir, on the first thing that you talked about sourcing from Wilma. So what kind of credit period we get? Is it like we get some kind of an advantage and especially in terms of hedging, how do you handle it because your counterpart on the other side will also be thinking of protecting their own margins, and you will also be doing the same. So how does that work in terms of payables to Willmar? Is it in line with the payables you have with the rest of the imported portfolio or imported raw material? See, Bilmar being a related party and we've been listed and, of course, you are subject to audit and related party transaction, transfer pricing audits, all that. I think for us, Bilmar is preferred supplier.

31:19 Everything is at arm's length, whether it is a pricing or whether it is a credit period or any aspect of the transaction. Everything is in line with what otherwise we would have got from any outside supplier. So that's the answer to your question. Got it. Just coming to another thing, which is I just want to understand how often do you do mark to market of raw materials, especially the oils? And typically, how many raw material stock based you carry in your most dominant category of oils? And also third question is that if you look at the regional mix of your sales by oil, can you just help me understand which region is growing faster and what is the saliency?

32:05 See, mark to market is a dynamic process. I think it's something which, as per the accounting standard, you have to do a mark to market at the close of the accounting period and that we do whether it is mark to market sitting in your inventory or whether it is sitting in your hedges or whether it is sitting on your firm contracts. So that we do basically whatever is being required as per the Indian accounting standard. So quarter, you do you you do it per quarter or per thirty days? Or how does... What is the cycle of mark to market? No. It's quarter only because the quarter is the number which you declare. Got it. So that's how it happens. And second, your second question was what? The typical raw material stock based you carry on your most dominant category of oils. How many stock based of RM you carry?

32:59 Stock days are anywhere between thirty to thirty five days given the fact given the fact that most of our raw material is imported, and there is a voyage period of thirty five, forty days. So since voyage period is thirty, thirty five, or forty days, you have no option but to keep that much of stock so that you are going... You are not out of stock at any point of time. So this is... So we keep thirty, thirty five days of stock at any point of time for whether it's a palm or soya or sunflower. And and the last question on the oil is what is your sir., sir, can... May we request you to return to the question queue for follow-up? No. The question the question is already asked in terms of the regional mix of oil. So if she... If you can give that split, it will be great. Otherwise, I'll come in queue.

33:44 The business mix of oil is, like, in overall scheme of the things, we have 30% weightage coming in from palm, another 30, 35% coming in from soya, 20% comes from sunflower, and rest of the 15% predominantly comes from all your local oils like mustard, groundnuts, cotton and rice bran. Thank you. Thank you, sir. The next question is from the line of Ashok Shah from A. Clovia Invesco Family office. Please proceed. Thanks for allowing me to ask question. Sir, we as a as a... Any plan or the program for the guiding the farmers to grow farm fee or any other food related item? Are we doing anything something like that?

34:44 No. So we are not into any farm plantation or any contractual farming for the plant farm. But what we normally do is we try to... We have started one program where we are trying to to procure directly from farmers. So there's... In the caster seed, we try to procure directly from farmers. So close to 18%, 19% of our procurement directly comes from the farmer. So do we run any simultaneous program to increase the acreage of the product from the farmer? Yeah. We are doing one program on a mustard farming with one NGO called Solidarity in association with SEA, where we have adopted some 3,500 model mustard farms where we are spending and and trying to improve the efficiency of this farm, and we have got some good results. So we are we will continue with this kind of initiative, particularly for the market, given the fact that government is also pushing up for improvement or increase in the oilseed production of India to become less dependent on import oil.

36:02 Thank you, sir. The next question is from the line of Gaurav Nigam from Tunga Investment. Please proceed. Yes. Thank you for taking my question. First question on when we I think you had declared the hedging gains, and I believe, as you've mentioned, there is mark to market gains on the open. Wanted to understand from your raw material perspective, what proportion you keep as hedges and what proportion you keep it open? That's my first question. And the relate... These will be variable thing which will be happening every quarter to quarter. What is the metric that you use to unit or any metric that you use to judge profitability? I think as far as this hedge is concerned, we we important.

36:49 We are we don't usually speculate or we don't take any big calls given the fact that the brand is in front of us. I think brand itself is our biggest hedge. So usually, most of our buying is keeping in mind what is the demand on the ground and how much of time we have to sell the product. And our brand actually itself becomes hedged. Besides that, we do come some hedging by doing forward sales, which is also one of... One way of hedging. So that's not something which we have, in a in a sense, anything which we have to... We can put a number to it. But given the fact that our brand itself is strong, that itself acts as a privilege for us.

37:45 Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to management for closing comments. Yeah. Thanks, everyone, for attending the call, and, do keep tracking us. And in in case you still have any question, you can reach out to our investor relation team or email, and we will certainly get back to you with answers. Thank you. Thank you, sir. On behalf of ICICI Securities Limited, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.