Vardhman Special Steels Limited has informed the Exchange regarding Analysts/Institutional Investor Meet/Con. Call Updates- we herewith enclose the transcript of the conference call as required under ...
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VARDHMAN SPECIAL STEELS LIMITED
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Sir,
We refer to our letter dated 2nd May, 2019 regarding the intimation of Analyst/ Investor Conference Call on the audited financial results of the Company‘ for the financial year ended 3,1St March, 2019 scheduled on 6th May, 2019 at 02:30 p.m.
In this regard, we herewith enclose the transcript of the conference call as required under Regulation 30 read with Part A of Schedule III of SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015.
Kindly note and display the notice on your notice board for the information of the members of your exchange and general public.
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Yours faithfully,
FOR VARDHMAN SPECIAL STEELS LIMITED
/ '
(S nam Taneja) Company Secretary
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VARDHMAN SPECIAL STEELS LTD.
“Vardhaman Special Steels Limited
Q4 FY2019 Earnings Conference Call”
May 06, 2019
Q V
VARDHMAN SPECIAL STEELS LTD.
II E I
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ANALYST:
MR. ANUPAM GUPTA — IIFL CAPITAL LIMITED
MANAGEMENT: MR. SACHIT JAIN — VICE CHAIRMAN AND MANAGING
DIRECTOR— VARDHAMAN SPECIAL STEELS LIMITED
MR. SANJEEV SINGLA — CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER -
VARDHAMAN SPECIAL STEELS LIMITED
Ms. SONAM TANEJA — COMPANY SECRETARY -
VARDHAMAN SPECIAL STEELS LIMITED
MR. AKSHAY - CORPORATE FINANCE DEPARTMENT -
VARDHAMAN SPECIAL STEELS LIMITED
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Moderator:
Ladies and gentlemen good day and welcome to the Vardhman Special Steels Limited Q4
and FY2019 earnings conference call hosted by IIFL Capital Limited. As a reminder, all
participant lines will be in the listenronly mode and there W111 be an opportunity for you to
ask questions after
the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the
conference call, please signal an operator by pressing
* then "0" on yoiu touchtone
phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to
Mr. Anupam Gupta. Thank you and over to you sirl
Anupam Gupta:
Thanks Steven. Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the call w1th Vardhman Special
Steels management today. We have with us Mr. Sachit Jain, Vice Chairman and Managing
Director and Mr. Sanjeev singla, CFO on this call. Without further delay, I hand over to the
management for the opening comments post which we can have the Q&A. Over to you Sir!
Sachit Jain:
Anupam thanks. Ladies and gentlemen good afternoon and thank you for joining our call.
With me are Sanjeev singla, our CFO, Sonam, our Company Secretary, Akshay from our
Corporate Finance Department and also we have a new visitor here, my daughter Saganka
Jain who is working in Vardhman Textile, she is also joining in the call
today as her
exposure to investor interaction.
Of course,
let me start with some key recent developments. We have last year been
upgraded to CRISIL AA stable and shortrterm reaffirmed to CRISIL Al+ rating. We have
also changed our statutory auditors to BSR KL Company,
I believe,
they are part of the
KPMG group. We have added additional Woman lndependent Director, Mrs. Shubhra
Ehattacharya. She is a graduate of XLRI, 1993 batch. We have also added Mr. Raghav
Chandra as an Independent Director who is a Retired Chairman of National Highway
Authority of India, an IAS officer from the Madhya Pradesh cadre who retired from the
center.
We also wanted to share that we have already declared that we are in talks and have entered
into an LOI nonrdefinitive with a global steel company to enter into strategic alliance. So,
talks are going on with this company as you all know that this has been on my agenda for
the last few years and finally we have narrowed down to a company and we have started
talking to them.
Moving on to the financial results. First of all I must apologize, our results have not been
too good. Results can be good and bad that is part of life, but I think what I am feeling
particularly bad about is, we did not anticipate the extent of
the performance and we
certainly did not anticipate a loss even in February when we had the investor meet at that
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t1me we were not ant1c1pat1ng the loss. AndI w111exp1a1n to you the reasons why th1s th1ng
happened.
Overall volume for the quarter was 34,360 tons and yearronryear dec11ne of 10.65% and of
course as you all know the ma1n reason 1s a s1gn1ficant slowdown 1n the auto 1ndustry and I
bel1eve the other automot1ve steel compan1es all have shown a decl1ne 1n the fourth quarter
1n terms of volumes.
The revenue from operatmns IS 243 Crores. For Q4 versus 231.3 Crores 1ast year, growth of
5.14% and Q4 of course Includes 13.5 Crores of raw matenal KL outsourced sa1es, wh1ch
was not part of last year.
EEITDA was 11.17 Crores versus 19.49 Crores In Q4 2018 and as we sa1d that IS because
of major s1owdown and resu1ttng pnclng pressure a1so. Thts s1owdown conttnues In the
current quarter a1so and overa11, we have a 1oss of 15 lakhs 1ast year agalnst a profit of 7.21
Crores In Q4 2013. So, the questton that everyone IS asklng IS how 1ong IS the s1owdown
l1kely to cont1nue7 Very d1fficult to pred1ct, I bel1eve even Raj1v Bajaj sa1d 1n h1s call that 1t
1s very d1fficult to pred1ct when th1ngs w111 turnaround, but we are heanng about th1ngs, 1t
seems that the worst 1s beh1nd us that 1s what we are heanng from some of the auto people
and the excess 1nventones 1n the auto sector are com1ng down, wh1ch means maybe second
quarter we should see an 1ncrease 1n product1on levels back to normal
to the current sales
volumes. And of course then the but1dup starts happentng for the hol1day day sa1es of
second quarter I bel1eve should be better than the first quarter.
For the year as a who1e, vo1ume for the year was 161000 tons, yearronryear growth of
6.25%, lower than what we were ant1c1pat1ng, so clearly growth but not as much as we were
expectlng. Yearronryear growth of 30% In revenue to 1120.76 Crores hrst ttme we have
crossed 1000 Crores of sales. Of course, thIS also Includes 70.75 Crores of raw matenal 1n
outsourced sa1es wh1ch was not there In FY2018.
The EBITDA for the year was 69.71 Crores, yearronryear Increase of 2.47% and net profit
was 22.21 Crores.
Commg to the balance sheet, one clear th1ng we have seen 1s that the total debt 1ncreased
from 228 Crores to 333.58 Crores. So,th1s1s pnmanly because one there IS ongotng capex
so there 1s debt on account of that.
In add1t1on to that we have surplus 1nventory of b1llets,
wh1ch has been bu11t1n for the shutdown, wh1ch IS comlng 1n.
Thls shutdown has been postponed by a coup1e of months because there was an accldent of
a truck carry1ng some cnt1cal equ1pments and that equ1pment had to go back to the factory
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and repaired. Fortunately, there were not too much damage, but since it is critical equipment
it had to be reexamined thoroughly to make sure that nothing is wrong. So, if all goes well
we will start the shutdown sometime in June and will continueinto July.
From Vardhaman’s point of View, I would believe that this slowdown in the market has
come as the best possible time for us, ifit had to come. Nobody likes a slowdown but really
from our point of view it enables the shutdown to happen peacefully without the worry that
we will have problems in serving the customers.
As you know serving the auto industry, we have to maintain inventories, we have to have
inventories of all the products and to be able to service the customers on immediate basis.
So therefore, reduced sales actually gives us some benefit, it enabled us to build up the
Inventory and also we are quite confident of meeting all our customers’ needs dmlng the
shutdown.
I
think these are enough for my Opening remarks and I would be open to taking any
questions and any financial questions will be answered by Mr. Singla, our CFO and any
management related questions, I will be happy to answer. Over to you!
Moderator:
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. The first
question is from the line of Kunal Sukwani from Crescita Investments. Please go ahead.
Vijay Sarda:
This is Vijay Sarda here. Sir my question pertains to two competent
two parts. One is
related to the slowdown that has affected the sales and second is related to the margins. So I
can understand some bit of margin mm a function of slowdown in sales as well, but
eventually what I can gather from last two, three discussions thatI had during the previous
concall, in first two quarter also our margin got
impacted on account of raw material
pressure. So, the raw material prices were moving up and we were suffering on account of
the same. But I think it has been told that what all raw material prices moves up that gets
corrected subsequently and you get that rise during the next two quarters. So eventually the
raw material price is totally passed on and it will not affect the bottomline. So I did not
understand the benefit of that has not occurring despite that the result is getting much more
worse? So just wanted to get the understanding on the same.
Sachit Jain:
You are absolutely right that that has been the pattern in this industry that has been the
understanding with all our OEMs. Unfortunately, we were actually expecting a much, much
better second half. As I told in the beginning remarks that we were hit by surprise more than
one is a result is so bad, but the surprise, because in the negotiation with the OEMs in fact
this time they have not given full regards to the raw material increase and because as their
profits were under squeeze the price increases that we have got are far lower than what was
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justIfied. So that Is the reason for the declIne In the margIn whereas we were expectIng an
Increase In margIn In the second half. As you can see In the thIrd quarter our EBITDA per
ton Is hIgher, because we had put In some provIsIons for the expected prIce Increases, but
the final Increase happened much lower than the antIprated and therefore I would say that
we need to look at Q3 and Q4 together. Those are the margIn that should have happenedIn
Q4 also, a ltttle btt lower because the volumes were lower, but the lower volume would
have been made up by reduced power cost at the end. So Q4 margtn should have been very
stmtlar or margInally lower than Q3. So the reduced margtn In Q4 IS prtmartly because the
auto sector was In a bIg soup and therefore they have forced all theIr supplIers to take bIgger
cuts than what was warranted.
Vijay Sarda:
Just I wanted to understand one thIng because as I understand In your agreement all other
costs Increases are pass through. So then It does not stand to at thIs kInd ofproblem because
eventually than we are always at a recerIng end then how thIs cost escalatIon thIng works?
Sachit Jain:
One there Is no ertten agreement of thIs. So It Is all based on understandIng and In my nIne
years In the Industry thIs Is the first tIme thIs has happened. So up tIll now we have never
had any problem, so nIne years of my exIstence In thIs Industry and even before that thIs has
been the way bustness has been goIng on. I thtnk the sales drop has been unprecedented and
the cost pressure on the OEMs are also unprecedented and as I can see all auto companIes
have shown very poor results and that pressure came on. So In fact some of the OEMs
actually saId please support us. So that Is the kInd of thIng that there was pressure on us
from some of the OEMs, and Much Is why I saId even In February when I came for the
Investor meet, I dId not antIprate the results that bad, dIscussIons were stIll goIng on and
our numbers were clear, some of the OEMs they could not fault our calculatIon, but they
saId we w111 not gIve thIs Increase.
Vijay Sarda:
SIr just last thIng In terms of the technIcal collaboratIon or tIeeup that we are talkIng about,
has somethIng concrete happened there or stIll we are awaItIng sIgnals, or some due
dIlIgence IS goIng on?
Sachit Jain:
Yes, first step Is that you sIgn a letter ofIntent. So that has been sIgned and due dIlIgence Is
goIng on as we speak. So once the due dIlIgence Is over that Is when the negotIatIons and
dIscussIons on the exact form of the agreement would take place.
Vijay Sarda:
SIr In a broader understanding IS thts more on the techntcal collaboratIon stde whereby they
wIll brlng up theIr expertIse and It can help us In terms ofImprovIsIng our product me7
Sachit Jain:
As I saId thIs Is all In talk stage at thIs stage and thIs deal may happen, may not happen all
those caveats we need to keep In mInd. Now the way we vIsualIze It,
there could be a
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possIbIlIty of theIr becomIng an Investor In the company, there Is clearly possIbIlIty of a
techntcal allIance and when we are taktng about global steel major then they also have the
abIlIty to Influence customers and have better product me and better customer relatIonshIps
all those benefits are there.
Vijay Sarda:
SIrjust last thIng you saId In your remark that power cost has been lower In thIs quarter, but
power cost seems to be hIgher the way round. So In fact power cost despIte the sales drop Is
on a hIgher sIde compared to the lastquarter sales?
Sachit Jain:
Power cost
IS hIgher because we kept on productng. The sales have dropped. The
production has not dropped as much because we were butldtng Inventory for our shutdown.
The power cost IS the bIlls patd but sales are lower and therefore It appears as a hIgher
proportIon to sales. The profits have also gone Into the Inventory.
Vijay Sarda:
Yes, so because the Inventory almost has Increased by so Crores‘]
Sachit Jain:
Yes and thIs Inventory, thch has gone up Is goIng to come down by, so when you see the
September 30 results the excess Inventory would have dIsappeared.
Vijay Sarda:
Sure. Now that has been the Increase In antIpratIon of the product cut, we Increase the
Inventory, rlght?
Sachit Jain:
Not productIon cut, zero productIon, because we wIll be shuttIng down the meltIng shop
and upgradIng It. So, puttIng new eqqument there and therefore there w111 be complete
shutdown of productIon and sInce thIs Is an auto Industry where we have cntIcal parts and
In some cases, we are the only supplter we have to have Inventory In place. So we wIll
con tIn ue productIon.
Vijay Sarda:
SIr
thIs drawdown on the longrterm debt has happened on account of the Capex only
because there has been an Increase In longrterm debt as well‘.7
Saehit Jain:
Yes, It Is mostly on account of the capex.
Vijay Sarda:
Thank you very much.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next questton IS from the ltne of Dhaval Shah from Glnk Capttal. Please go
ahead.
Dhaval Shall:
SIr couple of questIons. FIrst SIr have you seen any new capacIty gettIng added In the
Industry because of the resolutIons of some NCLT cases or any stressed asset gettIng some
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help from the investor or getting funding from the bank, any sort of new supply, which has
added to th e total ov erall industry capacity?
Sachit Jain:
The only one, which we expect W111 increase, W111 be eventually Bhushan Steel and Power
once it gets resolved that is the only one which is likely to increase. Adhunik is another
company, which was acquired by Liberty, but Liberty we believe is not going ahead with
that is what we are hearing in the newspapers only. So in fact NCLT is taking them to court
again there are some charges against them being framed and so on. So but these were the
only two companies from the NCLT basis which were there. The third company we have
changed that is Usha Martin. This has been sold to Tata Group and of course they need to
invest some money to increase the capacity it may take some time.
Dhaval Shall:
IfI am not wrong 5 million tonne is the current size of the capacity right. The supply I
assume is little less than that. So by how much W111 the demand supply dynamics look after
this Bhushan and Usha get on their capacity started?
Sachit Jain:
Bhushan’s capacity already part ofthis, the uncut capacity that we are talking about and
Usha Martin W111 be an increase In Capacity. So Bhushan IS actually supplying below us
capacity, the capacity is already part of the capacity taken earlier.
Dhaval Shall:
Okay, so already part of 5 million ton.
Sachit Jain:
The 5 million is the market size roughly and not the capacity.
Dhaval Shall:
Capacity would be how much total?
Sachit Jain:
I would not know the figure exactly but should be 6.5 or 7,6 million roughly 6 million, but
the exact figure, I do not have the exact figure.
Dhaval Shall:
No, that is fine, like 6 million. So this includes the Ehushan and Usha also.
Sachit Jain:
Usha Martin we have the possibility of increasing capacity in Usha Martin, so that will
increase beyond 6 million.
Dhaval Shall:
Sir now if we see the realization per ton you mentioned there has been, so have you taken a
cut or you did not get a price increase?
Sachit Jain:
No, we got price increases, but we did not get the required price increases. So in the first
half you saw that the raw material cost had gone up and there was a margin squeeze and
commensurate with that raw material price increase we were supposed to get a price
increase from October 1, and from one of the OEMs we got a pnce increase of 4300,
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another OEMs we got a pnce Increase of3200 and some people have gIven much lower and
then some Tter 1’s entered the procure that okay we wtll not gtve any pnce Increase later
because It happened later, our books are closed and when you are In negotIatIon stage In a
slowdown then all kInd of thIngs happen.
Dhaval Shall:
LIke If wejust seeIng realIzatIon per ton across four quarters so In Q] It was 648007
Sachit Jain:
Fourth quarter would be the hIghest. The average pnce Increase In the fourth quarter Is
about 2300 should be around Rs.2300 a ton.
Dhaval Shall:
Yes so thIs lIke 64, 69, 50, 72, then 70 so thIs shows change In product mix also a lot of]
Sachit Jain:
Yes, It Is also be partly product me change but the prIce Increases there are only two pnce
poInts Apnl
l, prIce poInts and that Is the pnce poInt there are one or two customers where
the pnce changes from July I, and January 1
there are only one customer of thch that
change happens that way. So theoretIcally pnces In the first half and pnces In the second
half that Is the only change should be there but the rest Is all product me changes.
Dhaval Shall:
Okay, got It and SIr have we got the entIre pass through of our electrode Increase In cost?
Sachit Jain:
No. As I saId when the Increases ofpnces happened we dId not get the full pnce Increase.
So whether you say you got for electrode fully and raw materlal fully or raw materlal got
fully electrode wIll get fully It IS difficult to say. So llke I saId from one of the OEMs we
got a Rs.4300 pnce Increase, but some customers despIte havIng shown on paper that the
pnce Increase IsjustIfied thch they saId we wIll not gIve you that Increase.
Dhaval Shall:
Got It and SIr durlng such tImes, do customers change theIr procurement cycle, do they
shorten theIr Inventory what they hold for your products at theIr end let us say they are
tryIng more towardsjust In tIme Inventory kInd of?
Sachit Jain:
No they anyway work atjust In tIme Inventory. So no change happened thch Is why, now
I am makIng a hypothetIcal statement, but I know that when the demand pull w111 come the
pull wIll come llke the way we had a sudden drop theprohahthty at our end there wIll be a
sudden jump that probabIlIty cannot be ruled out and agaIn I am talkIng about possIbIlIty
and probabIlIty these are the thIngs when they happen then we w111 see. Because you see
what Is happenIng Is as the InventorIes run down then they go to the other extreme of goIng
to bare mInImum InventorIes and then a lIttle bIt of pull comes and they had even find that
they are short on InventorIes In the entIre cycle and then the pull w111 come at a redoubled
pace.
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Dhaval Shall:
Str just last questton that
ts longrterm tn nature. Str when you are figurlng out your
engagement wtth a foretgn partner and you are maktng your fiveryear, tenryear bustness
plan. How much nsks do you see and taken tnto account because the electrlc vehtcle and
reduce tn the demand of steel. Does anythtng appear on your agenda as of now? Are you
seetng any change because we see a lot of bus ordertng comtng from the government
agenctes for the transport tn the local w1thtn the ctty transport. So what ts your sense on
that?
Sachit Jain:
Ftrst of all one, my beltefts that the electrlc vehtcle there are two ktnds of electrtc vehtcle
one ts 100% EV and one ts a more hybnd ktnd of EV. So my heltefts the way forward ts
more hybrld ktnd of EV. lt W111 reduce the fuel consumptton. 100% EV tn my vtew ts sttll
some ttme off, but that rtsk ts there, there ts no doubt about tt and one of the advantages of
tytng up w1th the global major ts that the access, they have to knowledge from the OEM
levels at the top most level that knowledge ts passed through to us and our abtltty to plan for
these cycles ts far, far better.
Dhaval Shall:
Thank you very much.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next questton ts from the ltne of Abhljeet Vara from Sundaram Mutual
Fund. Please go ahead.
Abhijeet Vat-a:
Thanks for take to my questtons. The first questton ts on the realtzatton drop agatn. Just
wanted to understand that you made the comment on profitabtltty was tt EBITDA per tonne
or tn terms ofpercentage Str.
Sachit Jain:
No, no, EBITDA per tonne we never talk percentages. We always talk EBITDA per tonne.
Abhijeet Vat-a:
So my questton ts str the pnce htke was affected tn Q4 right?
Sachit Jain:
No, no Q3.
Abhijeet Vat-a:
You are sttll negottattng?
Sachit Jain:
Yes, sttll negottattng tn to Q4 and the negottattons completed by end of March.
Abhijeet Vat-a:
Rtght, by whtch ttme Q3 results already came out, so how was the adjustment done?
Sachit Jain:
So all the excess provtstons taken tn Q3 were all taken tn Q4, rolled back.
Abhijeet Vat-a:
So the sales would you thtnk tt would bepmfit?
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Sachit Jain:
Q3 profitability is much higher than Q4. You need to see the profitability of both together,
average out. Ideally negotiations should be over before the quarter end and you should not
have these provisions, but unfortunately when the price increase is happening then the
OEMs tend to drag the discussions on. And If you 1eave zero price hike you give a wrong
picture and you take the full price hike again you take a wrong picture what you estimate so
you take an average somewhere inrbetween so on a conservative basis. But this time despite
take a conservative basis the price hike was lower than the estimate we have taken in Q3.
Some had already been negotiated so as 1 said one OEM have already taken 4300 so that
was already done and the other OEM had already done 3200 so these two were in the bag
and our ca1cu1ations were showing higher than Rs.3500 price increase required and we had
got 4300 from one and 3200 from one. So we were sti11 feeling pretty positive on the price
increase part that we were to get even in February but the final increases are happened were
lower and which is why the surprise in the resu1ts, which in my 30 years ofcareer this is the
first ever seen this kind of thing. Nine years in steel and even earlier the textile industry I
have never seen this kind of a price negotiation as we saw this time.
Abhijeei Vara:
Sure Sir. Second question is on the vo1umes. Usually the OEMs wou1d be sharing some
production plans with you so and as recently as February also you were reiterated the
guidance which means they went back on the production plan which they shared with you is
it or the offtake plan which they shared w1th you was that the case?
Sachit Jain:
Yes I think the auto industry themselves were taken by surprise. Nobody anticipated this
kind of a drop.
Abhijeei Vara:
Is there no compensation for the supp1iers, supp1ier 1ike you?
Sachit Jain:
What happened is you have a little extra inventory or you cut down your production. So we
have cut down our production, if we did not have shutdown coming the production cuts
wou1d have been bigger 1ike Maruti has dropped production by 20%. We have already
heard the news. So everybody is dropping production now. They should have seen the signs
coming earlier and cut production earlier but they did not.
Abhijeei Vara:
So there is no compensation for supp1iers1ike even such extraordinary cases?
Sachit Jain:
No.
Abhijeei Vara:
My last question before I get back to queue is how much of Capex in rupees Crores is left
and what can be the peak debt now‘.7
Sachit Jain:
Currently we are at 333 Crores. The peak debt will be below 285 Crores.
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Abhijeet Vara:
No, you are saying 333 w111 be thepeak, which you seem the nearrterm, compared on year:
onryear basis?
Sachit Jain:
See we are going to exceed that it is only going to come down with the inventory run down.
So we are very clear that we are conscious of having a strong balance sheet to handle tough
time and so on. So we are not budging from that.
Abhijeet Vara:
Sure. How much of capex is left Sir‘.7
Sanjeev Singla:
Capex left is about 20 to 25 Crores of outflows which w111 happen in the first half of the
current fiscal.
Abhijeet Vara:
I will get back in the queue. Thank you.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anupam Gupta from IIFL Capital Limited.
Please go ahead.
Anupam Gupta:
Sirjust on the negotiations which you did last time. So you said the last negotiations, which
were due on, October got finished by March?
Sachit Jain:
For OEMs.
Anupam Gupta:
Yes, so for the current cycle so let us say March end have the negotiation started what are
you seeing there in terms of pricing?
Sachit Jain:
Clearly the prices will either maintain or fall down depending on OEMrtoDEM and some
OEMs we said that the price increase, you did not give us the full price increase last time
you hold that price increase. So those discussions are going on it is very difficult to predict
at this point in time how w111 things shape up.
Anupam Gupta:
But so basically the first quarter or the first half we will see volume pressure as well as
some, may or may not see some pricing pressure, is what you are saying effectively?
Sachit Jain:
There will be some pnctng pressure, but as of now we will take definitely some provisions,
but that is why we said on the first quarter, results are going to be similar to last quarter of
Q4, similar order.
Anupam Gupta:
That is it. Thank you.
Sachit Jain:
The reason for that is as there is a cost reduction already happening on account of electrode
pnces falling as well as raw material prices falling there is a cost reduction. Now depends
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on final price settlements at the OEMs so even if there is a price reduction we should match
the Q4.
Anupam Gupta:
Okay. Thank you.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Devang Sanghavi from ICICI Securities.
Please go ahead.
Devang Sanghavi:
Good afternoon Sir. Thank you for taking my question. Sir just wanted to know the
proportion of bright bar for Q4 FY2019 and the full year FY 2019in terms of total volume?
Sachit Jain:
Just a minute, Sanjeev W111 take this question.
Sanjeev Singla:
Right now it is not available but for the whole year it is available but for the whole year it is
available it is around 33000 tons of bright bars.
Devang Sanghavi:
33000 tons of bright bars. And secondly have we increased our exposure to engineering and
Offrhlghway division in Q4 is that the case because the auto was going?
Sachit Jain:
Yes, there is a marginal change. Our share of business the customers are all similar. So now
volume W111 change depending on how the customer changes.
Devang Sanghavi:
And in terms of electrode pricing what type of decline we have witnessed for the current
quarter and what do you expect for the next year?
Sachit Jain:
The cost depends on what is the inventory also, but in terms of pricing the electrode has
allen by more than 50% from the peak.
Devang Sanghavi:
I think we had a good January and February, but we had a subdued March. So do you like
to give guidance for the next year in terms of volume what we are targeting?
Sachit Jain:
See one at this point in time when we are at the bottom is very difficult to give a very
optimistic picture. Maybe when we give our when we have the conference call after the first
quarter results we would be in a better position to predict, but as of now we would be
looking at a marginal growth from this year or flat, flat or marginal growth as of now, but I
do believe just now we are all conditioned by the bad conditions around. Hopefully with the
election coming in the results are favorable there were stable government
there, mood
changes and suddenly public starts buying because I am sure there is a pentrup demand
because the sales had been lower in the last few months and the whole scenario can change.
Today there is a newspaper report about the buyback offer from Hero for the scooters so
these kind of schemes if they come in from the OEMs so suddenly you may see a demand
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ptckup very soon.
I know you would expect a clearer answer from me. But at thls point In
tlme very dlfficult to give a definmve answer, but I belleve within three months we should
be able to give you a better answer. Now our shutdown w111 not effect our production and
our performance, our sales because we have bulltrup tnventory. So our sales If the market
picks up we have the abtltty to produce more and sell more.
Devang Sanghavi:
Rtght. Any kind of money recetved from the Punjab Government for the power we were
kind ofrecelved 3 Crores every year In thts regards somethtng ltke that?
Sachit Jain:
Some money has started comlng In. We have not accounted for that In the results because
the full calculatlon has not come In as yet, so that small amount of money that has come IS
shown as advance recoverable from the Government of Punjab. So bastcally hopefully In
the first quarter we should be able to take It lnto account the pendlng lncentlve of the last
three years hopefully, yes, but money has started comlng In. So the good part IS the
government has recognlzed the money started comlng In we are not recognlze the Income.
Devang Sanghavi:
That Is all from my side and all the best Sir.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next questton IS from the ltne of Rttesh Poladla from Gmk Capttal. Please
go ah ead.
Ritesll Paladia:
Thanks for the opportunlty Slr. On thls Incremental capaclty when thls will come lnto
commerclal operatl on?
Sachit Jain:
It depends on when exactly the shutdown starts, but we expect
the production to be
operatlonal from the month of August.
Ritesll Paladia:
str for thts 2000 Crores capex what kind of returns you expect?
Sachit Jain:
No, not 2000, Crores that IS a blt too much for us.
Ritesll Paladia:
I am sorry 200 Crores‘]
Sachit Jain:
The 200 Crorests sum total IS over five years. Some of]! IS sttll under planntng stage, sol
would say at
least 70 Crores IS under planmng still, so we have not got definltely plans to
put In that as of now and now that when we have a partner comlng In potentlally comlng In,
we would llke to wall for thelr Inputs also, If thls happens agaln I am puttlng In all
those
caveats because It IS not certaln, but If thls partnership happens and then when It happens
then we w111 llke to take that In puts on all uncommltted capex.
Ritesll Paladia:
Okay. So for thls 40000 tonnes Incremental capaclty what IS the Capex amount?
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Sachit Jain:
The Capex amount for that Incremental capacIty was about 45 to 50 Crores.
Ritesll Poladia:
Now my other questIon Is for thIs potentIal partner. ThIs partner may come w1th the
hnanctal Infusion or Ills purely techntcal or technology collaboratIon‘]
Sachit Jain:
ll depends on how dtscusstons happen w1th them. They have already tndtcated that they
may examIne InvestIng In the company as a mInonty stake and we have also saId In
pnnctple we are okay to such an Idea, such a proposal comes all
that depends on the
dIscussIons. The Ideal
thIng for us Is that they w111 take a mInonty stake and there Is a
technIcal assIstance and there Is a marketIng assIstance, all three that Is the Ideal stake for
us, and a buyback Ifthat happens.
Ritesll Poladia:
If you can gtve us some Idea what IS the ttme hame you are looktng for thts discussion?
Sachit Jain:
AgaIn very dIfficult to say how the dIscussIons happen, negotIatIons happen and so on butIf
the due dIlIgence are goIng on, we belIeve In the next two to three months we could have an
understandtng but agatn thts IS all hypothettcal, all depends on how the due dtltgence
proceeds and then the dtscusston when they happen.
Ritesll Poladia:
Great. That IS all from my stde. Thank you str.
Sachit Jain:
From our stde there wIll be no delay because we clearly recognize the benefits from such an
assocIatIon and my understandIng Is they also see the benefits from thIs assocIatIon because
the IndIan market Is very Important to them. So from both sIdes I belIeve there Is a value,
we see In thIs potentIal deal.
I belIeve from both sIdes there would be reasonable
commItment to complete thIs as fast as possIble. But agaIn as I saId thIs Is I amjust readIng
what they would be thInkIng but tIme w111 tell. Hopefully, the next quarter wIll actually be a
much better ttme for us wIll have far more clarIty on pnctng, we wIll have far more clarIty
on volume, we w111 have far more clarIty on the shutdown, how the shutdown has happened
and we w111 have clarIty on what Is the mood ofthe potentIal strategIc Investor. So really the
next quarterly August meettng, we wIll have wIll be on July or August conca11, we wtll be
able to have a much more clearer vIew.
I am sorry I am probably a lIttle vague at thIs poInt
but that Is the realIty. But I am also sayIng thatI belIeve that the worstIs behInd us. So we
are goIng to look at sImIlar posItIon and then ImprovIng posItIon after that.
Moderator:
RItesh do you have any more questIons?
Ritesll Poladia:
I am done.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next questton IS from the ltne of Athjeet Vara from Sundaram Mutual
Fund. Please go ahead.
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Abhijeet Vat-a:
Thanks for the followiup. Sir in terms of profitability again what I wanted to understand is
earlier we were expecting the capacity utilizations to run flat out because of which we can
choose the product mix and thereby have a very good profitability, but now it does not look
such a good scenario. With this current scenario in mind do you think you can go back to
the profitability, which was envisaged six months back at the current level?
Sachit Jain:
See we had believed that our profitability would be in the range of 4500 to 6000 and this
year because of the exceptional circumstances we have come to 4300. I will not say that this
was the normal negotiation that we saw in the second half. So we are still
I mean we had
outset the range, but I would say we are in the kissing range of the lower end of the range.
So I believe with the coming year, we are one year behind now because of this. So once this
the volumes pickup again because we are expecting from the auto companies really 2021 is
going to be a much better year because BSVVI wi11 be behind them, the pentiup demand wi11
be all over and w111 be coming in the government would have been settled in. So these are
all speculations at this point in time but till the volumes pickup and the demand comes in it
IS difficult to expect a significant improvement in margins, But I expect Within a year’s
time, I expect a year, year and a half’s time, we should be definitely better than now
because hopefully by then our partners wou1d have come in and the p1an that we have with
them if they all work out we should be definitely at a better footing.
Followiup on the same question, now you will have an additional capacity coming in and
you will have to service the additional capacity at a volume run rate which is lower than
earlier envisaged, that might also start eating into profitability plus we are looking at this
quarter volume decline was, 1 do not know If you had but 1 have coup1e of years of data
there was never a volume decline for Vardhman special steel and our volume declined on a
yearronryear basis. This was the first time you are having a volume decline and the situation
as of now it does not look like turning around so with these factors in mind that we have
new capacity coming in plus the volume decline or muted volume growth sort of scenario.
Can the profitability stay at depressed level, which is Q4 level
itself not even, go to the
Rs.4000 per tonne sort oflevels‘.7
Sachit Jain:
No, it wi11 dehnite1y go beyond Q4 because Q4 has one e1ement of lower prohtabihty and
one element of extra provisions taken in quarter three. So Q4 levels are more depressed than
normal than what actual is, the reported Q4 numbers are worse than the actual Q4 numbers.
Would it be possib1e to share how much was the provisions?
Sachit Jain:
We have not declared that.
Abhijeet Vat-a:
Sir what is the trade payables increase on account of?
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Saohil Jain:
I am saylng the best ls average of two quarters you wlll get the ldea.
Abhijeel Vara:
What ls the reason for trade payables lncrease? Was that worklng up to management?
Sanjeev Singla:
Thls trade payable lncrease ls malnly because on one hand we are lncreaslng thelnventory
and we have purchased some of the matenals on credlt basls lnstead of cash basls to
manage by hlgher level oflnventory.
Sachit Jain:
Some oflt ls temporary lt wlll go away agaln by September. So ln that sense lt ls worklng
capltal management yes.
Abhijeel Vara:
Thank you.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next questlon ls from the llne of Nltln Dharmawat from Aurum Capltal.
Please go ahead.
In Dharmawat:
Thank you for the opportunlty. I had just one questlon. Regardlng thls potentlal partner as
you mentloned that lt can have an lmpact on the customer acqulsltlons as well and you have
not revealed the name so far. So just wanted to know the geography even lflt ls posslble for
you to let us know whlch geography wlth the potentlal partner ls comlng from that would be
good enough for us to understand?
Sachit Jain:
Number of players are so few ln any one country, the moment we have name the country lt
wlll be very easy to spot
the name lmmedlately. So we are not at
llberty to release the
country at thlspolnt ln tlme.
In Dharmawat:
Thank you.
Moderator:
Thank you. As there are no further questlons I would now llke to hand the conference over
to Mr. Anupam Gupta for closlng comments.
Anupam Gupta:
Thanks a lot Sir. Do you have any closlng comments?
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Sachit Jain:
Thank you all. As I sald we have a commuted management team and Ills also cognlzant of
the fact that the performance IS below par. We have a new system of worklng where the
semor, entlre semor management around 15 people, they lel be gettlng zero lncrements
because they are all
llnked to performance of the company. If the profits are lower thelr
lncrements are zero. So all of us are sufferlng and the entlre semor management have also
suffered tf the performance goes downs. So we are all very keen and redoubllng our efforts
to see that we qutckly come back to where we should be.
I am reasonably hopeful
that tf
thls partner comes In,
In a tlme, whlch IS what we are worklng towards thhln a few
months, we should start seelng slgnals oflmprovement comlng In because clearly they are a
super-tor company. I am looktng forward to thts. I haye been worktng on thts company for
the last elght years and thls IS somethlng whlch has been the last unflnlshed ltem on my
agenda to complete phase 1 of 0m company’s work but we will be haytng better answers
when we speak In August. Thank you all. Thank you for your Interest In Vardhaman
Spectal Steels.
Moderator:
Thank you. On behalf of IIFL Capttal Ltmtted that concludes thts conference. Thank you
for jmmng us. You may now dtsconnect your hnes.
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