RHI MAGNESITA INDIA LIMITED analyst Q&A

My first question is that is it all the restructuring done? And what is the impairment of goodwill? And what is the road map going for FY '27 and FY '28?

So, thank you so much for the question. So, you asked 3 questions, so let me try to do this in sequence. So, first thing is our outlook is that we still believe that from a growth perspective, we will outperform the market by 2%. And we say this with a lot of confidence now because our growth area is coming in iron making, DRI and pellet business. I'm happy to report out that we have a strong order book for the next 18 months. We have secured one of the largest coke oven projects with one of the largest industry -- integrated steel players. So, this will ensure that o u r f i x e d c o s t g e t s a b s o r b e d , p l u s w e a r e a b l e t o k i n d o f g r o w i n t h e significant area. So, we are confident about the growth for next year with a firm order book in hand. Second, as you know that we have long-term contracts called 4PRO contracts. This means that most of the organic growth is also secured. Second, on the margin side, at the moment, we are actively seeking price increases because of the recent input cost increases with our customers. We are also happy to report out that we were quite successful in receiving most of the price increases where we were targeting in the particular product and customer segments. So, we should see all these tailwinds coming through in Q1 and also in Q2 as well. So, to summarize this, we will have a better growth percentage that is plus 1 % t o 2 % t h a n w h a t t h e m a r k e t i s s a y i n g i n t e r m s o f s t e e l o r c e m e n t production. Second, our margins will be significantly better than what we have achieved in the last quarter, which is Q4 with the price increases and with the iron making fixed cost absorption that we were mentioning. On the goodwill impairment, we took an assessment of the recent market changes that have happened. We saw that our export volumes were reducing quite significantly. Second, on the FX side, there is quite a bit of a deterioration and unpredictabili ty because of the geopolitical conditions, we have to consider th at, because most of the raw material

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purchases, not only for RHI Magnesita, but globally, the business is done in USD. And as you know that INR and USD have the highest amount of volatility. We consider this factor. And the third factor also is that th e number of new capacities that have been announced by the competition. Now we believe that these 3 factors along with the inflationary pressure, which also will be felt by our customers, we took a very prudent and conservative view. We said how much of this would commoditize the business in some specific areas and some specific segments. With this in mind, we prudently went for the impairment of the goodwill on the Dalmia assets only. Hope we answered the questions.

Okay. My last question is that going forward, any more restructuring is pending, or it is done now?

Yes, it is done. It is all done. No more -- no further restructuring is required.

Yes. Sir, I was asking any more restru cturing is pending or everything is done right now?

It is complete. No further restructuring is required, and we say this with utmost confidence. Hope you are able to hear our answer.

The next question is from the line of Praveen Jayaraman from Avendus Spark Institutional Equities.

Sir, my first question is related to the coke oven project. So, you mentioned that that is one of the main projects which we see an order book for the next 18 months. My que stion comes like whether this is a project capex on client side or it is an operational one where we get order even after those 18 months. It's a continuous operational supply for them or it's a one-time supply where they use it as a project capex?

Coke oven is always a project, but there is not any capex required. This is a normal production process, and we received a 30,000 plus tonne order, it's a huge tonnage. And with the mines now transferred into our name and

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earlier, we were buying from the market at almost double the price of our mining cost. So, with this order in place, mining in our name, we will not only absorb our fixed cost, we will have better margins also because of our own mining. And after 18 months, we believe there are 4 or 5 more coke ovens coming up, and we are very sure we will continue getting those projects, and this will at least continue for the next 3- 4 years' time when it comes to coke oven.

Sir, sorry to -- like, I could not get it. So, if 4 or 5 more projects come, that means like for us to increase our supply, we should have more coke ovens under us or will one coke oven give us continuous supply order?

This order is for 2 coke oven batteries. And 5 more coke oven batteries are coming up in next 2, 3 years' time. So, we believe that we will get at least 2 more out of the 5, very conservative approach. So, after the next 18 months, we will be able to continue at this high level of production with the fixed cost absorption and with our own mining providing better margins.

So, post those 18 months, which you're saying, we can assume the 30,000 tons will be with us, and it can increase with more coke oven coming in?

Absolutely.

Got it, sir. Sir, my second question is on inventory side. So last time, we had a commentary that higher cost inventory has been absorbed by Q3, and this can support going forward in terms of margins. But like, has this been the case in Q4, sir? Did we see some inventory benefit coming in?

It's offset by high-cost inventory, which is coming up for our basic refractory, primarily fused magnesia and DBM. The high-cost alumina inventory has already been consumed, and we are at a market level pricing. But these magnesia-based pr oducts have gone up because of energy cost increase in China, freight increase, etcetera, which impacted Feb and March shipments.

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And I believe it will continue with this inflationary environment. But at the same time, we reached out to our customers, as Azim said, and customers realized that this was necessary. If we want to continue the supply, we need to agree to price increases. And we, in some cases, even got double-digit price increases. So, this will offset our inventory high- cost values. Rather, it will provide a margin advantage as well.

Okay. Sir, my last question comes on growth aspect. So, I heard the commentary right now that we would be doing 2% higher compared to the market. So, this 2% outperformance would be on the volume terms? Or how do we compare this?

We should always consider volume because pricing is dynamic. It keeps on changing depending on raw material pricing, forex, freight, etcetera. So, we should consider only volume. So, if the market is growing by 6%- 7%, we will be growing at 9%.

Sir, with the inventory which we have right now and the order book which you have projected or which we have right now and the price increases which we are taking in the market, what is our outlook on the EBITDA going ahead, sir, margins?

We are projecting for next year 13% EBITDA.

For full year, it's 13%. Our business is cyclical. So, there will be some strong quarters and Q4 is not usually our strongest quarter. You can see this historically as well. So yes, fo r full year, please take the number as 13%.

But Q1, we believe it should be a strong quarter.

Agreed, Parmod ji.

Understood, sir. Understood. Sir, wh en we say that we are going to outgrow the market by 2% so, what do we consider the volume of market in terms of refractory? Would it be like a steel market growth that into consumption plus 2%? Or -- how do we generally say this outperformance? Or how do we benchmark this comparison, sir? Or I can

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a l s o p u t i t i n t h i s w a y . I f y o u t a k e F Y ' 2 6 a s a n e x a m p l e , w h a t w a s t h e growth which the market had and how did we perform against that in terms of volume?

It was almost at par. I believe the ma rket grew by 6%. Our volume growth was about 5%, a little bit below mark et. Why so in Q4? Q3 was okay. Q4, there was some cyclic as Azim said, the cement industry is in a lean period from October to December, even January. So that was the reason volume-wise, we were a bit low. But Q1, we should be back with 1,000+ volumes again.

Sir, where do we refer to 6% industry growth, sir?

It is a combination. I'm not saying only steel, it is steel, cement, nonferrous, glass, put together everything, the average growth is about 6%. Steel maybe grew by 8%, right? And nonferrous is 4%. So, it's the combination of all the pieces where we are supplying various segments.

The next question is from the line of Sahil Sanghvi from Monarch Networth Capital.

My first question is if you can help me understand what is the total revenue that we have achieved in th e Dalmia assets and the margins for FY '26, just to get a broad understanding of how we have grown on that asset? Yes. And the second question would be to understand, as we've mentioned in the presentation that there is huge competition in the cement side also, and we've lost some bit of business. So, what's exactly happening over there? How are we trying to regain some of the business? And what will be our focus points when it comes to the cement side?

So, we grew in Dalmia asset by 14%. Revenue was INR 1,153 crores as against INR 1,013 crores of FY '25, so it is a 14% growth in that particular segment and revenue has gone up to 10.8% against 11.5%. So, in revenue, w e gr e w b y 1 4 % a n d E B IT DA is a lm o s t at t he s am e l e ve l a nd n o t m u ch difference. What about cement you are saying, I would be very specific

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that competition has put up a lot of capacity in the last 1.5 years or so. So, it is under production now. For example, our competition, Calderys, IFGL, smaller players, they try to fill up their plant at any cost. So that put a lot of pressure on us also. And it will continue. I would say the over capacity will definitely put pressure on commodity business. So, we are trying to get out of commodity type of a business to more solution-oriented business where we can add value to the customer. We are talking to our large cement customers, how we can add value to them instead of just supplier-buyer relationship, can we be their solution partner. And the response is very good, and we are trying to de- commoditize this segment also to get back to the desired level.

Our cement as a percentage of revenue from FY '25 to '26 also dropped because of this over competition. So, in FY '25, we had about 13%. Now it's at about 11%, just to give you a full year flavour because we choose to do only the business that makes sense for us.

Got it. Got it. So just to get the margin number right, if you can reiterate what was the margin number in FY '26 at Dalmia?

At 10.8%. Yes.

Sahil, you must appreciate that from last 4 quarters or so, we are consistently delivering double-digit EBITDA. We started with almost 4% when we acquired.

Agreed, sir. Agreed, sir. Great efforts on that side. Sir, we were planning some refurbishment in the Dalmia asse ts. So, what plans on that front? And with respect to the capex number , absolute number for FY '27, how much we'll spend across the complete...

We continue restructuring or modernizing our Dalmia assets, which were earlier in a pathetic situation. At the same time, we are very prudent, very thoughtful about how much we have to spend, how much will be the payback period for that particular asset. We spent about INR 100 crores

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in FY'26 and the capex for FY'27 is around INR 150 crores or so. But it is not limited to only Dalmia plant over all, INR 150 crores. That's what we are assuming. It will also have some capex for Bhiwadi, Jamshedpur also, not only limited to Dalmia plant.

The next question is from the line of Kunal Kothari from Nuvama Wealth Management.

Sir, my first question is in regard to the other expenses that we have seen rise in the quarter 4 of this FY '26. Just wanted to understand much more in detail that is the West Asia conflict has led to any one-off increase in the overall expenses? And do you see to continue for next couple of quarters?

I will say that, yes, West Asia conflict has increased our input cost, but it's mostly reflecting in raw material or material costs. We also saw some elevated increases in our freight, especially whatever we're getting oversight, there was an immediate surge, which we had to take on our books. so, these are cost increases for which we are seeking price increase now. We believe that the price increases we have secured will be effective as of May onwards, okay? So that's the first thing. On top of it, we have some -- one more continuous cost. As you know that we are starting with the 4PRO contracts. As Parmod ji was mentioning that we signed three 4PRO contracts. So, in 4PRO contracts, you always have a start-up cost as well, example, in terms of people deployment, machine deployment and so on and so forth. So, this is something that will happen for which we will get the margins and revenue in the upcoming quarter. So, these are your continuous costs, which you are seeing in the other expenses. On top of it, we had one one-off cost, which was some of the legal costs that we had, which allowe d us to help us to get the mines transferred into our name. And we had some of our transactions with the acquired entity that we had to close. So, these were some of the one-off costs also that were featured in the other expenses.

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Okay, sir. Sir, secondly, about the capex in FY '27, '28, can you give some colour on that and also about the leverage management that you see over the next 2 years?

So, on the capex side, we are looking at INR 150 crores of capex of which, maintenance capex would be around INR 40 crores-50 crores of it. The rest all, we are dividing into 2 parts. One is that with the new 4PRO robotics kind of a machinery, so we 'll have some sales capex, which will have an immediate benefit for us and some structural growth capex that we will be deploying. So that's how we are thinking about our capex for the upcoming year. On the leverage, as you can see that we are absolutely cash positive. So, everything will be funded from our balance sheet. We have some growth plan. So that's where we'll be deploying capex, not on any big transactions at the moment.

T h e n e x t q u e s t i o n i s f r o m t h e l i n e o f R a j e s h M a j u m d a r f r o m 3 6 0 O N E Capital.

I was just wondering, could you explain a little bit on the fixed cost increase because your gross margins seem to be decent, but the employee costs and other expenses have gone up. You did highlight about some legal expenses. But what is the quantum of fixed cost increase we've seen on account of the iron making that you highlighted? That was my first question.

What was -- the question was not clear, but we heard the first part that you are asking about this thing. Can you repeat the question part because that's part was...

The question is what is the -- I want you to quantify the impact of the iron making fixed cost that you highlighted at the beginning of the call. How much was the impact of that on the quarterly numbers?

So, what do I mean by that is that -- okay, so we are not going to give that separate carved out number on our fixed cost absorption. So that I think we'll not do that, Rajesh ji. But the message we want to give on the coke

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oven to be very precise on the projects is that a, as you know that this is project in nature. So, we have a secured order book, which will keep our line continuously running rather than running only for maintenance- related projects. So, this will ensure that our fixed cost is always managed well. As you know, in the refractory industry, wherever we operate kilns, fixed costs tend to be relatively higher. By securing this order for the next 15-18 months, we gain several advantages: A. we will have a revenue upside. B. coke oven projects typically generate better margins compared to our other iron-making businesses. C. we will also get a better fixed cost absorption. D. With the mines now transferred into our name, we expect to realize further cost benefits and margin improvements These were the key highlights we wanted to share regarding the project.

Okay. And you have been talking ab out your margin guidance coming down gradually over the last few quarters. At one point of time, it was 15% to 16%. Now it is -- it was 14% last quarter, now it is 13%. So where do we see the end of this? Is it going to 10% in the industry because it is a fiercely competitive industry. So, are we like looking at a worsening scenario or improving scenario? Because, I mean, we've been gradually coming down on the EBITDA guidance over the last few quarters.

Rajesh ji, the market is so dynamic. The geographical situation is drastically changing. So, we have to adapt to that. So, this 13% to me is a number where we believe we can deliver because of our various initiatives which we have taken. If we could not have worked on this, what you are saying, it might have gone to 11%/10% also. So, we are taking a lot of initiatives to maintain our margins from 13.7% to n o w i t i s 1 2 . 1 % , a n d t h e n w e a r e s a y i n g w e w i l l g o b a c k t o 1 3 % , i t ' s challenging, but we know we have order book. We have mines with us now. It will improve our margin. We have strong order book. We have three

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4PRO contracts we signed in Jan only in this year, which will increase later part of the year, the margins also. So, there are some levers based on that. We are sure we will be able to deliver a 13% or so.

Yes. And also, we are also seeking price increases as well. There is a good amount of understanding from our customers that this is coming because of the input cost increases. So, we believe that this will, improve our margin. I am guessing that because there's a realization on the customer side, you are talking about the broader market also, maybe there is a little bit of a short-term breather there. Again, we can't talk about all the competition because they are operating in specific segments. We have a broad diversity, which means that we are able to absorb the shocks better, which you can see in our cash flow statement and the overall resilience of going in continuously in double digit vis-a-vis some of the niche players who are further deteriorating even though they command a stronger market position in some specific segments.

And this 13% you are talking, does it include any project orders like glass, aluminium? Or is it without that?

Y e s . W e h a v e s o m e - - a p a r t f r o m t h e c o k e o v e n p r o j e c t , a s w e h a d informed earlier, last financial was the worst in the non-cement industrial area. We had not secured any major projects, but now we see some order book on this as well. We have also converted a few of them. So yes, this 13% includes the industrial non-cement projects as well.

Okay. And Parmod sir said that the first quarter could be even better compared to the average of 13% earlier. What is the reason for that? Any project order kind of spillover has happened from fourth quarter into first quarter?

There are some pending price increases, which we believe we will get in May, June, and that is one reason. And second is what Azim was saying, the price increases which we are asking for is starting from May. So, if we get those price increases, it will de finitely help us, plus the cement

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season starts during this time, May, June, July, August, September. This is cement season also.

Is it possible to give some colour on the price increase? Is it 5%, 7%?

So, let's put it like this that vis-a-vi s our cost increases, we are asking for 1% - 3% of price increases depending on the categories or the segments that we are operating. So, let's say that our cost increase is 0, then we are asking 1% - 3%. Again, it depends on the segment.

And if I could sneak in a last question. So, alumina prices have been low, but magnesite has been rising. So, is that a positive cycle for us given the fact that if we mine a large part of the global magnesite in RHIM globally?

Actually, the raw material price increase is good for the industry, then refractory industry will grow much fa ster. Revenue will go up; margin will be improved. For sure, these are good development as long as we pass on these cost increases to our customers. And when it is magnesia, it is mostly steel related or even cement where the bigger kilns are there where they are using hard magnesia bricks. So, this is a good sign for us, I think.

As there are no further questions from the participants, I would now hand the conference over to Mr. Parmod Sagar for closing comments. Over to you, sir.

Thank you very much, dear investors, an alysts for your kind support till now, and we hope you will continue supporting us. We assure you we will do our utmost to increase our revenue, our margins. That is our core, and we are working on that. Various initiatives have been taken by the regional leadership team, how we can absorb cost, reduce our input costs, reduce rejections, increase our circular economy and deliver good results to all of you. Thank you very much. Stay blessed. Have a nice weekend.

Thank you. On behalf of RHI Magnes ita Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.