AIA Engineering Limited

Kunal Shah

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Kunal Shah

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Kunal Shah

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Kunal Shah

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Kunal Shah

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Kunal Shah

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Bhoomika

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Kunal Shah

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Kunal Shah

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Kunal Shah

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The change in mindset comes from 5 years of facing volatile and -- volatile freight environment where freight rates have gone up as high as 5x, corrected back and then went up again.

— Kunal Shah

And there are volatile regions in the world.

— Kunal Shah

But this year, we've seen a very steep decline when we're talking about 250,000, 260,000.

— Bhoomika

I mean, it will be difficult to go reconcile with each customer or each event.

— Kunal Shah

But for now, it looks like that for certain markets where there is exposure to high freight rates or volatile freight rates, there the plant in China can help us with that.

— Kunal Shah

That's -- this is the strategy, the nuts and bolts of strategy, it will be difficult for us to explain on a call this way.

— Kunal Shah

So these are all -- which is where modular and being cautious about it, right?

— Kunal Shah

And to that extent, at least that headwind is softening.

— Kunal Shah

Q

Yes. Hello. A very warm good evening to everyone, and thank you for joining the call. I have Sanjay bhai. This is Kunal. And we have Sanjay bhai also here with me on the call. As usual, we'll start with a quick update on the highlights of this quarter, and we will get into Q&A thereafter. Headline numbers, our sales tonnages are at 65,780, approximately 66,000 tons, up from 60,000 tons in the sequential second quarter and down from about 74,000 tons in third quarter last year. So for the 9 months to date, our total tonnage stands at about 187,000 tons. The revenue for the quarter is at INR1,05

Management

Q

Yes, sir. Sir, in terms of, you mentioned that shipping freight rates are starting to come down. So while obviously, the China and Ghana plant will come in, but it will take some time for those plants to be operational. I don't know what the time lines are, if you can elaborate on that? And in the meanwhile, with the shipping freight rates coming down, does that really help us in terms of scaling back the volumes? And by when do you expect that we come back to our 300 plus and you spoke about the incremental 30,000, 40,000 tons?

Kunal Shah

So Bhoomika, I think like I said, the environment is improving. We have a few other challenges as we've been explaining in the whole conversion journey that we are undertaking. From -- we are still not ready for sharing a guidance on volume. But over next 2, 3 quarters, it looks like that we should be back on a 25,000, 30,000 ton annual addition on a rolling basis. So I think not yet ready to give -- I mean, at a place where we're ready to give a guidance. And as soon as we see some green shoots, we'll be in a better place to give a better guidance. But from where it appears now in a few quart

Q

So sir, my first question is, if I recall from your statements in the previous quarter, there were some destocking-related impact at certain large customers that you had highlighted. So what's the status on that? And when can we see those volumes coming back? So that's the first question.

Kunal Shah

I think at least for one customer, we expect that to come back from the June quarter. Some in March, but mostly in June quarter. So should it be fair to say that from June quarter and let's say, the freight disruptions being largely behind. So we should be back to earlier normal quarterly run rate... Yes. So that is what we explained to the previous -- on the previous question by Bhoomika that consider the current year, let's say, 250,000 to 260,000, whatever we close as a starting point. There are a few several things that have happened over the last 3, 4 years. I mean, it will be difficult t

Q

So the first question that I had was, so what made you go global, like in terms of the plants in China and Ghana? So do your customers see this as positive as you've been closer to the mine? And is your global competitor making similar moves to tackle the freight issue and higher lead times?

Kunal Shah

I don't want to comment as much on what the competitor is thinking about it. For us, all we are saying right now is that our model was Make in India and then ship to the world. Now a large part of the world still will operate under that model, but we do recognize that there are merits in having plants where you -- there are some benefits linked to that. And whether we do 2 plants, we do 2 full plants, whether we do 10 plants, these are works in progress because we also have to have the learnings from that in terms of what works, what doesn't work. So today, what we have announced are plants wh

Q

Sir, a few questions. Firstly, the U.S. tariffs came into being in the third quarter. Any impact we have seen of that so far?

Kunal Shah

Not really, not really, no. No impact. Okay. Okay. Understand. And the second question is on the volume commentary, which you said that, let say, 2, 3 quarters down the line, possibly you'll come back to that run rate of adding 30,000 incrementally every year. But just to dwell there, what is -- so let's say, if it was a problem of destocking of certain customers, which you said will come back in, let's say, March and June sort of quarters, what is stopping us from recovering the volume which we lost versus last year? So we were at 290,000 last year. Has there been a customer loss, which has r

Q

Some clarification that now we are -- we will not be expanding grinding media expansion of 36,000 ton in India, right?

Kunal Shah

Yes, right. And rubber and composite liner capacity of 20,000 tons that we commissioned in Jan, that included in our total 460,000 tons capacity, right? That's right. Okay. And what will be your capex guidance for FY '26 and '27? So this year -- the next coming year, we'll do about -- up to INR50 crores in renewable power. And I think we'll be done with most of the strategy as far as optimizing power cost is concerned, up to INR50 crores in maintenance capex per year. So once you remove that, not more than INR35 crores to INR50 crores of maintenance capex, plus our investment in the 2 plants t

Q

Operator, I think there are no more questions, we can wrap up.

Management

Q

Thank you so much. And as always, Sanjay bhai and I remain available to taking off-line questions. Have a great evening, and we'll connect at the end of the fourth quarter. Thank you.

Management