IONEXCHANGNSEQ1 FY 2025-26August 8, 2025

ION Exchange (India) Limited

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16analyst exchanges

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Key numbers — 40 extracted

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he Investor Relations of Ion Exchange (India) Limited. On behalf of the company and Valorem Advisors, I would like to thank you all for participating in the Company's Earnings Conference Call for the

INR 5832 million

the 1st Quarter under review on a consolidated basis, the company reported an operating income of INR 5832 million, an increase of around 3% year-on-year. The EBITDA stood at INR 627 million, a decline of 2% year

idated basis, the company reported an operating income of INR 5832 million, an increase of around 3% year-on-year. The EBITDA stood at INR 627 million, a decline of 2% year-on-year. EBITDA margin

INR 627 million

perating income of INR 5832 million, an increase of around 3% year-on-year. The EBITDA stood at INR 627 million, a decline of 2% year-on-year. EBITDA margin stood at 10.75% and the net profit was INR 484 milli

million, an increase of around 3% year-on-year. The EBITDA stood at INR 627 million, a decline of 2% year-on-year. EBITDA margin stood at 10.75% and the net profit was INR 484 million, an increase o

10.75%

year. The EBITDA stood at INR 627 million, a decline of 2% year-on-year. EBITDA margin stood at 10.75% and the net profit was INR 484 million, an increase of 8% year-on-year, while the PAT margin was

INR 484 million

R 627 million, a decline of 2% year-on-year. EBITDA margin stood at 10.75% and the net profit was INR 484 million, an increase of 8% year-on-year, while the PAT margin was around 8.3%. During the quarter the c

r-on-year. EBITDA margin stood at 10.75% and the net profit was INR 484 million, an increase of 8% year-on-year, while the PAT margin was around 8.3%. During the quarter the company migrated to th

8.3%

e net profit was INR 484 million, an increase of 8% year-on-year, while the PAT margin was around 8.3%. During the quarter the company migrated to the SAP environment, which led to certain transitio

INR 3180 million

rformance on a consolidated basis. In the engineering division, the revenue for the quarter was INR 3180 million, reduction of 2% year-on-year. The EBIT for this segment was INR 278 million, an increase of 48%

INR 278 million

r the quarter was INR 3180 million, reduction of 2% year-on-year. The EBIT for this segment was INR 278 million, an increase of 48% year-on-year. The inquiry pipeline remains steady for the engineering divisio

48%

lion, reduction of 2% year-on-year. The EBIT for this segment was INR 278 million, an increase of 48% year-on-year. The inquiry pipeline remains steady for the engineering division during the quart

Guidance — 20 items

Vasant Naik

opening

“The company is on track to commission the greenfield manufacturing plant at Roha for manufacturing of resin in the current quarter that is Q2.”

Sabil

“We wanted to understand what's our policy to recognize any loss or any account receivable issue that we may face on the UP project or on the onerous project which are we executing.”

Management

“So depending on how the project is progressing, how the payments are coming, the company has a provisioning policy for each of the contracts which are under execution.”

Sabil

“Can you please call out which geographies are we targeting and will be facing any tariff impact?”

Sabil

“And we will be let's say, from effective today the 25% tariffs will be effective if we make any sales over there?”

Management

“which we hope to recover in the next two, three months of this quarter and the first month of the next quarter.”

Chetan Vora

“And the legacy projects will be getting over by Quarter 2 yes, that's what we had mentioned last quarter?”

Management

“For that particular the few weeks, but we are now on the recovery part, the chemical business platform has stabilized, and we expect us to be back on usual terms of business for this 2nd Quarter.”

Chetan Vora

“And by when this new plant will be getting commissioned?”

Management

“So we are hopeful that we should be able to give you good news by the time we come back for the next quarter update.”

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Risks & concerns — 9 flagged

The EBITDA stood at INR 627 million, a decline of 2% year-on-year.

— Vasant Naik

So we are confident with that, we don't feel any sort of stress that happened in FY’25 and Year’26 on this issue, right?

— Sabil

As I said in the earlier question, we are still studying the impact of the tariffs increase, the previous tariffs that was there, there was no impact on our product line.

— Management

So overall, we don't see this yet to be a cause of concern that we would like to highlight.

— Management

So the legacy project and the UP slowdown will continue for this year right, it will only say go away from the next year onwards?

— Nirmam

It's difficult to give such a number, it varies the semiconductor projects are at a particular level depending on the nature of those plants there also there is variation.

— Management

The solarmodule manufacturing plants also vary based on capacity and we have done projects across the size spectrum for large domestic and international solar players also, so difficult to give you a number but our team continues to engage in a very, very focused fashion on these segments and very selectively the pursuing opportunities that we want to close in our favor.

— Management

There is a significant pressure on pricing and which is where we continue to remain selective in the nature and kind of projects that we pick up from the domestic market.

— Management

Some part of the projects also are getting done outside India, where the impact of the Indian monsoon would not be relevant.

— Management

Q&A — 16 exchanges

We had taken about 2 crore provision of doubtful debts in FY’24, we got payments from Sri Lankan projects, that is good news for us. We wanted to understand what's our policy to recognize any loss or any account receivable issue that we may face on the UP project or on the onerous project which are we executing. Basically, want to understand what's a policy to recognize loss or impairment for the projects we face issues in?

Management

The provisioning is based on a party-to-party level assessment of the outstanding and situation on the ground. So depending on how the project is progressing, how the payments are coming, the company has a provisioning policy for each of the contracts which are under execution. In addition to that, we also have a expected credit loss policy matrix ,based on which we are recognizing certain provisions based on the overall aging of the accounts receivable in the books. So we are confident with that, we don't feel any sort of stress that happened in FY’25 and Year’26 on this issue, right? Yes, we

Sir, wanted to understand what was the impact on the sales because of this transitioning of towards SAP?

Management

We had some impact because of transition to the new SAP platform. The biggest impact was in the month of April for our chemicals business, because it is largely consumable driven. We have had some revenue loss, which we could not recover. For our engineering business it is more of a timing issue. which we hope to recover in the next two, three months of this quarter and the first month of the next quarter. Would it be possible to you to quantify on the same? So we don't give specific numbers, but I would say that this is contained within a single digit percentage impact. Okay. And so adjusting

Sir first question is regarding this tariff things which is panning out. Now India at 25% and European region at 15% and as you know that some of the plants of Ecolab and Lantis, which are our competitors in this chemical space, they have factories in Europe as well, which places them at a relatively better position versus us. So do we see that there could be some volume lifting problem for us let's say in the US market, as Europe is now relatively better position in terms of let's say export because of lower tariff, how are you looking at the situation?

Management

From our perspective, it's a vast market, and we continue to expand our presence and our coverage. There are various players supplying to the US market from all across the world, including US itself. As I said in the earlier question, we are still studying the impact of the tariffs increase, the previous tariffs that was there, there was no impact on our product line. We are still studying the same but we feel that, we should be able to continue to hold on and continue our business with our set of customers that we cater to, and we also are confident that we will gain share in some specific ar

Sir my question is on the chemical segment. So one clarification first, so the de-growth that we saw this quarter was largely due to the SAP implementation, and not because we were seeing any margin challenges, and we wanted to protect our margins, right?

Management

That is a correct assumption. Okay. And sir secondly, so we have a lot of capacity in our existing plant as well, and we will also be commissioning the Roha plant. So, could you just give your plans for the new plant as well as the chemical division in whole how do you ramp up, or how do you go forward? We feel confident that we will be able to use up the progressive increased capacity available due to the commissioning of the Roha plant. Sir, what would be the existing plants utilization then? Current year since the volumes are a bit subdued because of the SAP related challenges, the capacity

I had some questions around the sunrise industry. So do we have, have we developed the in-house tech for the semiconductor solar and the data center vertical. And is this an extension of the INDION Swift 5Gx tech that we had developed for the pharma and the biotech world in terms of controlling the particulate particles in water?

Management

Thank you for the question. So we have continued as a company to actively engage in the market potential for the segments that you mentioned, across all these segments the company has been successful in getting business over the past many years. We continue to pursue opportunities in pharma, in solar and in specific semiconductor pursuits that come up, this is almost now become a part of our regular business especially the solar and the pharma segment pursuits. Just for further clarification, did we so there are a few companies in India which have gone for the –27:05. So have we bid for the pr

A question on the UP project, we had called out last quarter that the O&M portion will be executed over the next 10 years. Could you please help bifurcate how much of the Rs.366 crore outstanding would constitute of the O&M portion?

Management

The UP Project which is presently disclosed as part of the order back log does not include the O&M portion, it is purely the EPC part. Okay, and could you help quantify that number? It will not be possible to quantify, because the Project is a conglomeration of smaller individual contracts and it really depends on how much value of the contract gets finally commissioned. So maybe end of the current Financial Year, as the project moves towards the completion phase, we will be in a better position to disclose the O&M aspect. Sure, sir. And in the previous call, as the proportion of the UP projec

Sir just to come back on that consumer product division, but I am still not clear that what led to that 37% Y-o-Y growth, you said it's market reach and you are building infrastructure. Could you just elaborate, is it that in the B2C segment did we introduce new product which is seeing traction so where is the traction coming from, is it which region, what product, is it that institution segment is also doing well, could you just break down the growth profile of this 36% in Q1. And how likely is it that this Rs.90 crore run rate will continue for the next nine months as well?

Management

So, with due respect Deepak, a lot of this possibly will consider as business confidential. We are in a very, very competitive space that you would appreciate and agree, our teams are out there in the market, helped by launch of newer products we play across the water spectrum, be it in residential B2C, in commercial as well as an institution and the rural segment, we have been introducing our water purification technologies across the B2C spectrum we have launched, health products like alkaline water, hydrogen water. We continue to expand our presence in neighboring geographies, like Nepal. S

I am new to the company, can you please help me understand what is status on UP Jal Nigam project in terms of receivables?

Management

As we have mentioned in the concall, the fund inflow from the UP government for this contract has been very slow, which has resulted in the execution getting affected. And as a result, the account receivable on this project continues to be at elevated levels. But since we don't call out on specifics of individual contracts on the call, I will not be able to add any further other than saying, the levels of the receivables are on the higher side. Sir, any color on how it is like by when can we expect it to reduce or has it started reducing? As of now the flow has not yet improved, but we are get

In the chemical segment we had faced RM cost inflation in 4th Quarter, is the cost inflation now behind us, or are we able to pass on the increased cost completely to our clients?

Management

So as you will see, in that segment performance we have been able to improve from the temporary dip that we had and we have able to get back to the average profitability levels of this segment in the last Financial Year. So we feel good about how we have handled the past quarter. However, this is a very dynamic situation as you will agree. We continue to monitor our input costs, and we also look at the rupee depreciation impact that we may have going forward. So 1st Quarter was good, but this is an area where we continue to need to keep track of all these various input variables and ensure tha

Just the closing point on this UP project, this was we got one of the few packages for a large project. So can you give some color whether only our packages are pertaining to some set of execution has been interrupted because of the cash flow issue or the entire setup has to be awaited now because of this cash crunch issue, and what is the feedback from the Uttar Pradesh government on them not being able to clear the dues of companies like us?

Management

So at the onset, it will be inappropriate for us to comment on contracts received by other organizations. We can only talk about the contract that we are executing for this particular customer, as we said that we have receivables from this project which we are following up and pursuing with the customer in question here to help collect and because of these slowness of fund availability, we were forced to slow down the execution of this project. As we also said that because of the slowness over the past couple of quarters at least, we have taken a conservative call on this particular project an

So my question is related to Roha greenfield. We have done a CAPEX of Rs.400 crores, and we have an asset turnover of 2.5 times. So is it a fair understanding that by FY’28 we will be able to reach Rs.1000 crores in terms of revenue and also adding another one, just wanted to understand that how this Roha Greenfield facility will be used to cater the export business for chemicals?

Management

The asset turnover as you have mentioned will be 2.5 times, as and when we reach the full capacity which we are expecting to reach over the period of around just under four years. But out of the total CAPEX of Rs.400 crores, Rs.125 crores are towards the cost optimization measure what we are introducing in the new facility. Our manufacturing base will be on a value of around Rs.275 crores. So the asset turnover should be calculated on this figure. As regards to your second part of the question, I will request Mr. Indraneel to address that. So on the second question as we said, this plant is pr

Sir, what is the revenue are you expecting from Roha plant in Q2 and full Financial Year, requesting you to give some ballpark figure for this Roha plant revenue?

Management

As you would know that we don't share any specific data on any specific production facility or a specific business line. So, as we said earlier in the call we expect the plant to be commissioned in 2nd Quarter, which is in this particular quarter, and we expect the plant to start shipping out products from the end of this quarter going forward. So we hope to ramp up capacity here and this is a modern plant with all the latest technology. And we expect volume to pick up as and when we have more to share on this plant we will come back, but we do not talk about specific plant or business perform

The answer to my question I already got it. Thank you.

Management

Sir I just have one question, are we optimized in terms of labor cost and other variable cost for the consumer product division, or do we see further savings out there. And also, do we need, are we fairly optimized in terms of the existing product portfolio or do you see any further marginal investments other than the regular improvements, some significant kind of investments for the division?

Management

It's a very intensely competitive segment that we are playing in. It's very important for us to ensure that we remain cost competitive to be able to, make the required top line and the improvement in the bottom line. It's also a segment which is extremely dynamic, and our competitors and the industry is always coming out with new technology and new product offerings. It's very important for us to also remain relevant, to look at opportunities in the market segments and come out with suitable offerings that will excite our targeted customer base. So we will need to continue to invest in new pro

Sir, when we look at our shareholding pattern, we find that under these there are shares to the tune of 16% being held by the employee trust. So if Mr. Patni could just elaborate, or anybody else could throw light on the nature of this trust, and whether, as per the regulation, the trust will be there for perpetuity, or we need to dilute the same over a period of time. It holds 16.18% equity of the company.

Management

So these are employee trust which are holding shares for benefit of all the employees of the company. And trust have been existing since the 80s and 90s of the previous century, and there are no plans to dilute any form of equity from that. No sir, what is the term it will remain always with this, and how will they get it accrued to the actual beneficiary, what is the process of these getting the benefit, how are the individuals going to benefit out of it when the same remains in the trust only? The income flow from these shares, which is dividend, that is what is used for the benefit of all t

Thank you all for participating in the earnings conference call. I hope we have been able to answer your question satisfactorily. If you have any further questions or would like to know more about the company, please reach out to our investor relation managers at Valorem Advisors. Thank you, wish you a very good evening.

Management

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Speaking time

Management

Moderator

Deepak

Chetan Vora

Sabil

Hemal Bagadia

Nirmam

Ruchit Agrawal

Saket Kapoor

Mihir Vyas

Opening remarks

Nupur Jainkunia

Thank you. Good afternoon everyone and a very warm welcome to you all. My name is Nupur Jainkunia from Valorem Advisors. We represent the Investor Relations of Ion Exchange (India) Limited. On behalf of the company and Valorem Advisors, I would like to thank you all for participating in the Company's Earnings Conference Call for the 1st Quarter 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 risks and uncertainties, which would cause actual results to differ from those anticipated. Such statements are based on management's beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to the management. Audiences are cautioned not to place any undue reliance on these forward-looking statements in making any investment decisions. The purpose of today's earnings call is purely to educate and bring aware

Vasant Naik

Thank you Nupur. Good afternoon, everybody. It is a pleasure to welcome you all to the earnings conference call for the 1st Quarter of the Financial Year 2026. For the 1st Quarter under review on a consolidated basis, the company reported an operating income of INR 5832 million, an increase of around 3% year-on-year. The EBITDA stood at INR 627 million, a decline of 2% year-on-year. EBITDA margin stood at 10.75% and the net profit was INR 484 million, an increase of 8% year-on-year, while the PAT margin was around 8.3%. During the quarter the company migrated to the SAP environment, which led to certain transition related challenges that partly impacted the business volumes. However, the operations have now largely stabilized. Now let me take you through the quarterly segmental performance on a consolidated basis. In the engineering division, the revenue for the quarter was INR 3180 million, reduction of 2% year-on-year. The EBIT for this segment was INR 278 million, an increase of 48%

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