CEAT Limited analyst Q&A

Thank you very much. We will now begin the question -and-answer session. The first question is from the line of Mumuksh Mandlesha from Anand Rathi Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.

Yes. Thank you so much for the opportunity, sir, and congrats on a strong margin and revenue performance. Sir, firstly, can you share, how was the CAMSO Q2 performance, sir, in terms of revenue and EBITDA, sir? Also, if you can add, sir, for Q3, how do you see the numbers for CAMSO?

See, first, we have got only one month of experience with CAMSO. So, the turnover and the margins that is coming through is under the sales and supply agreement with Michelin. So, we are not selling directly to the customers , nor are we buying any raw materials directly . We are buying semi -finished goods and we are selling to Michelin , who in turn is selling to the customers. So, the entire value chain that is in our hands is not the entire one; and therefore, our margins are not reflective of the overall business. So, with that disclaimer if I say, whatever we have seen in the first month, you would agree it's a very small sample size. It is more or less in line with what we paid for. So, there are no surprises at all in terms of the sales realization from the market, in terms of the cost structure in the factory, whether it is operating cost or employee cost. But I am sure you would agree that we need a full quarter operation to give you some sense of where the business is and where it is headed. We are positive in terms of the basic characteristics of the business. And all I can say is that we are completely focused now on increasing feet on street and taking up the sales turnover so that we can use the capacity of the plant, which is currently being utilized at 50%.

Got it, sir. And sir, just on the US market, sir, how is the end market responding in terms of price hike due to the increase in duty, sir, which is also bearing across countries. So how is the market playing in terms of price hike? And for CAMSO, sir, how do you see, for in terms of market share, do you see any incremental benefit in the market share due to the different duty rates in the market? And just on the end market US, how is it performing, sir?

So, US, for passenger and truck bus radial, there is partial pass on of the tariff. The incremental tariff is 25% for these categories across countries. So there is no country is at a relative advantage or disadvantage, including India. So we are absorbing somewhat, and we are passing on somewhat to the customer. See, our base is very low. So we are growing. So for us, growing in US is not a problem. We intend to pass on the entire impact in the next two to three, maybe four quarters. But currently, we are partially absorbing. So sales growth is not an issue, but we have to wait and see. 60% of the tyres in US are imported. So gradually, I expect the rates to be passed on over the few quarters by all players. That's the general answer to your question. For CAMSO, CAMSO is experiencing 20% duty from Sri Lanka to US. And again, it's at a no relative advantage or disadvantage compared to any other country, barring the production within US of course. From what we understand, we have just seen one month of operation. From what we understand that the Michelin sales team has also passed on partially the price, which means they have absorbed some price, which is what we are seeing in our accounts, and they have passed on some part of the price. And we expect CAMSO also to pass on the full impact of tariffs in maybe two to three quarters.

Got it, sir. Is it possible to share what could be the impact absorption?

Pardon, can you repeat the question?

Is it possible to share of the 20% duty, how much has been absorbed, sir?

In Sri Lanka, we have to analyze that. It would be some part of the duty. I mean, to be honest, we are not very clear how much has been observed, but it could be around 50:50.

Got it, sir. And lastly, sir, just on the India side on the GST cut, sir. Just I want to understand, post the GST cut, the cost is lowered for the customer and demand has picked up. So how is the market reacting in terms of discount offerings in the end ma rkets? And over the medium term, do you see the possibility of discounts coming down, sir, or any price hike being taken, sir?

No, there is no price hike. We have passed on the en tire benefit of the GST cut to our channel and we have also advised the channel to pass on the commensurate rates to.. on all categories to the customer. We are continuously checking whether they are doing so. From our side, 100% of the benefit has been passed on. There is no question of any price hike right now. The raw material is also trending down. We will hold the pri ce line and the duty cut has been en tirely passed on. There is significant benefit to the customers. It works out to around 7% to 8% on the selling price. The 10% duty cut works out to that much amount. And for, let's say, truck tyre, it could be Rs. 1,500 per tyre, which is significant. So we expect the customer sentiment to improve and we expect demand to get a fillip, especially in the smaller towns and the rural towns.

Got it, sir. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Mitul D. Shah from DAM Capital. Please go ahead.

Thank you for the opportunity, sir, and congratulations for a very strong performance all around. So my question is on replacement demand. As we indicated, it was slightly muted during September, but on overall basis for a quarter, which segment reported healthy growth and which were lagging? And going ahead, as we expect October, then there would be some restocking, which was impacted during September. So for Q3, if you can give more light on segment -wise replacement demand for Q3, Q4?

See, overall market demand, if you are asking about, the truck and bus segment generally is tailing the GDP growth, so it will be around 5%, 6%. Passenger would be soft, zero to low single digit, and two-wheeler would be about maybe 6%, 7% kind of growth going forward. Yes, the trade should be restocking in October, November & December. In October month, we have the festival season, so the market is generally off as far as purchasing is concerned for about a week. Then this quarter is usually a weaker quarter compared to Q2. If you see sequential results over the last few years, then since December, the onset of winter, parts of northern and eastern India witness a slightly lower demand. So top line wise, our top line wise, that is looking at the seasonal trend, we may be equal to or slightly lower than Q2 turnover, as far as top line is concerned.

Sir, second and last question is on the raw material basket . if you can help us with the average price for each element, each key element of this raw material basket during the quarter?

Sir, largely international natural rubber prices remained within $1,700 to $1,750. We did not see much of a movement except here and there, but it remained within this range. So no major change happened on international prices of natural rubber. In the first two months of the last quarter, there were delays in import arrivals. So that had some issues on the local prices of natural rubber, considering the tight situation. So therefore natural rubber prices were higher than the import parity level in July, August. And September month, it came closer to import parity level. So local prices have come down by about a little over Rs. 10 per kg compared to beginning of the quarter and end of the quarter. Crude derivatives, see, crude had moved within that $65 plus or minus 2%. So no major change, but in the last couple of weeks or so, crude was in the lower end of the range rather than the higher end of the range . Okay, synthetic rubber, carbon black and nylon fabric prices, their feedstocks moved in the same direction, but it did not come down exactly in line with the movement in crude oil prices in the last six months or so. So carbon black prices remained at the same level as that of Q1. Synthetic rubber prices came down in the range of about 3 -3.5%, and nylon fabric prices about 2-2.5%. And some of the other steel prices, steel tyre cord, bead wire prices were down about 4 -5%. At aggregate level, based on the mix, we saw raw material cost in Q2 was lower than Q1 by about 5%.

Considering the natural rubber recently just in the last month declining, Q3 should see that benefit and Q3, Q4?

See, only international prices are still hovering around the same level, no change. In fact, with currency depreciation towards later part of August and September, the rupee moving up from 85 to 88.80 has some impact on impact on raw materials imported as well as raw materials locally bought, but on import parity basis. So therefore our view is that in Q3, overall raw material prices, taking into consideration the impact of currency , should be in line with the current Q2 prices. That is our expectation.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Vijay Pandey from Nuvama. Please go ahead.

Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my question s and congratulations for an excellent quarter. Sir, wanted to check in terms of price and bifurcation of realization growth that came at around I think 3% to 4%, so what will be the bifurcation between price and mix, if you can just give a detail?

See, large portion of gross margin improvement is on account of this 5% raw material cost reduction that I had mentioned. Overall, there has been improvement in realization. And considering that we grew strongly in OEMs and international business, and little less in the OEM business, so approximately about a percentage improvement in gross margin in the last quarter considering both price growth and also the category as well as customer mix basis, about a percentage came from realization.

Okay. And sir, is it fair to assume that the channel mix was negative for this quarter because replacement demand was lower than the OE demand?

Is it fair to assume that the channel mix OE versus replacement that was negative kind of --

No, see, overall, at full company level, realization improved, okay. So therefore, it will always happen between quarters, there will be a mix. There was a positive movement in case of international business going strongly in mid double digits, okay. And OEM had also a strong growth but replacement lower. So largely made up. I would say largely made up.

Okay, sir. Thank you, thank you.

Thank you very much. The next question comes from the line of Ankur Poddar from Svan Investments. Please go ahead.

Hi, sir. Congrats on a good set of numbers and thank you for the opportunity. My first question is what is the overall volume growth for the quarter?

Overall volume growth for the quarter is 11% plus.

Thank you. And my next question is regarding, and it's an extension of the earlier participant's question on CAMSO. So currently, we are in a sale agreement with Michelin, but when will this normalize and when will we start selling directly to our customers there? Can you share a rough timeline on that?

See, the en tire value chain will not come in our hands before six quarters , because that much time will be needed to set up the upstream equipments, which is the mixer and the calendar. That's number one. Maybe we won’t take six quarters, the sale side will come in our hands faster than six quarters, but it could take three to four quarters.

Okay. And the capacity utilization is currently 50%. So how do we see this ramping up?

So this will ramp up gradually in the first couple of quarters, but once we start getting to handle our customers directly, I think a steeper gradient is possible.

And my final question is, if you can give me the breakdown of your CAPEX spend till now across segments?

See, total CAPEX in the first six months of the current year is Rs. 415 crores. And in addition to that, as part of our acquisition of this CAMSO business, yes, Rs. 236 crores is what we had paid. This is towards intangible like trademarks, patents and things like that. In that Rs. 415 crores, about Rs. 100 crores is towards our normal R&D, IT -related, plant maintenance, molds is about Rs. 100 crores in that Rs. 415 crores. And truck and bus radial tyres expansion, we spent about Rs. 50 crores. It's an ongoing expansion. Our intention is to take the truck and bus radial tyre capacity to about 2,000 tyres progressively, which we had shared in the past, and about Rs. 50 crores. And Am bernath plant expansion is about Rs. 70 crores. Chennai factory passenger car downstream, okay, and also MCS put together is about Rs. 160 crores. And some debottlenecking is about Rs. 40 crores. That is a broad split.

Thanks, Kumar. Vishal here. I have one question regarding CAMSO. So, you said that CAMSO, getting the full business independently, it will take around six -odd quarters. So is there any possibility from here on as you know utilization improves, you said the margin trajectory would improve on the basis of operating leverage. But as such in terms of mix or any other terms, improvement in efficiency, is there any scope that the trajectory of margins is.. is there any lever for improvement from here on in the margin of CAMSO, which we have seen in this quarter going ahead?

No, see, I think, Arnab had clarified. I think our first impression is that one-month data broadly validates the assumptions that went behind our valuation of the business with respect to cost, with respect to realization. We would request, let us have one full quarter numbers before we give you any view with respect to how the numbers would be going forward. Needless to say, September month was not a full month operation because effective 1st, though it was 1st of September, okay, take few days for the plant to commission and things like that. So, I think next quarter will help us to understand the operations better and share our perspective with respect to margins and other aspects of it.

Fair point, sir. Sir, last question regarding, with this CAMSO acquisition and the CAPEX coming in, our debt levels are going to rise. So, any internal target regarding debt -to-EBITDA you have set for yourself?

See, look, if you look at our stand-alone numbers, in the past, whenever we went in for a large amount of CAPEX, if you recall, we were running four projects simultaneously at a point in time even a larger project book and larger debt commitment and things like that. We always said our peak debt-to-EBITDA, we would not like to go beyond 3 and debt-equity beyond 1. It is more about the peak levels is what we have agreed as a framework. While our financial, whatever we have agreed with respect to banks, there is slightly a higher level of thresholds were agreed, so that there is no breach of any financial covenants with them. As we speak, even after this little over Rs. 1,200 crores of cash outflow relating to this, okay, both the ratios, debt-to-EBITDA and debt-equity continue to remain very strong. So, debt-to-EBITDA as of 30th September is about 1.7x, marginally below 1.7x and debt-equity is about 0.6-0.7x. So, therefore, what is the level? I think our current level, needless to say that we would like our debt levels to come under little lower, because we never have gone beyond Rs. 2,100 crores in terms of absolute debt at any point in time. Now we are closer to Rs. 3,000 crores. It will really help. But there are certain growth related projects that we are undertaking at this point in time, both in India and also in Sri Lanka in terms of adding upstream equipment. We will provide necessary growth capital and we do not expect our debt -to-EBITDA and debt -equity to move significantly higher than the current level. And at a normal stage, I think it should improve at normal level of operations.

Great, sir. Thanks, sir, for answering all my questions and congratulations for a great set of numbers. And happy Diwali, sir, to you and your team. Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

As there are no further questions from the participants, I would now like to hand the conference over to management for closing comments.

Thank you very much, all of you, for attending this pre-Diwali conference call. And wish all of you and your families and close ones a very, very happy Diwali , and see you in a new year. Thank you.

On behalf of Emkay Global Financial Services Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.