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Subject: Transcript of Mahindra CIE Automotive Ltd Q1CY19 Earnings Conference Call
Dear SirlMadam,
Pursuant to Regulation 30 read with Para A of Schedule I11 and Regulation 46(2) the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015 and our letter dated 30111 April, 2019 in respect of Mahindra CIE Automotive Ltd QlCY19 Earnings Conference Call on 7'" May, 2019, please find enclosed herewith transcript of the same.
The same is being uploaded on the website of the Company llttr~://71o7i1i[~.i11nl1111ifr(7~1e.(.o111
Kindly ackliowledge the receipt and take the same on the record.
Thanking you, For Mahindra CIE Automotive Limited
IX'
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Panltaj V. Coyal Company Secretary and Compliance Officer Membership No.: A 29614 Encl.: as above
Mahindra CIE Automotive Limited CIN L271001\/1H1999PLC121285
“Mahindra CIE Limited Q1 CY2019 Earnings Conference Call”
May 07, 2019
ANALYST:
MR. NISHANT VASS – ICICI SECURITIES
MANAGEMENT: MR. ANDER ARENAZA ALVAREZ – CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER – MAHINDRA CIE LIMITED MR. K JAYAPRAKASH – CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER - MAHINDRA CIE LIMITED MR. VIKAS SINHA – SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT – STRATEGY – MAHINDRA CIE LIMITED
Page 1 of 21
Mahindra CIE Limited May 07, 2019
Moderator:
Ladies and gentlemen good day and welcome to the Q1 CY2019 Earnings Conference Call
of Mahindra CIE hosted by ICICI Securities Limited. As a reminder all participant lines
will be in the listen-only mode and there will 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 your touchtone phone. Please note
that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Nishant Vass
from ICICI Securities. Thank you and over to you Mr. Vass!
Nishant Vass:
Thanks Bharath. Good day everyone and thanks for joining us today for the call. From the
management side, we are represented by Mr. Ander Arenaza Alvarez, CEO, Mr. K
Jayaprakash, the CFO, Mr. Vikas Sinha, Senior Vice President, Strategy. Now I would like
to hand over the call to the management for their initial remarks. Over to you Sir!
Vikas Sinha:
Thank you Nishant. Good afternoon everyone and good morning to those who are joining
from Europe. I welcome all of you on this call. There is also Mr. Ander Arenaza our CEO. I
will present the MCIE results for the first quarter of CY2019.
We will start with the results of MCIE India on page 4. The EBITDA for the India business
was at a high of 16.3%, but this includes the financial income, the interest income from the
cash, which had been made ready for the Aurangabad Electrical acquisition. So without this
one-time income, the equivalent EBITDA percentage is about 15%. The absolute EBITDA
has grown by 10% versus the first quarter of CY2018, EBIT by 13% and EBT by 2%.
On the sales front in India, there was a 2% growth in revenue despite the negative market
evolution in passenger vehicles, utility vehicles, tractors, two-wheelers as well as some of
our key customers. Now, based on the overall economic indicators in India and the normal
forecast for the monsoon this year, the market forecast seems positive, though at this stage,
for the automotive market, the situation continues to be uncertain and we do believe these
forecast can change.
Our European results are shown on page 5. Despite the underlying markets beginning to
face headwinds in Europe, sales have grown healthily by 15% vis-à-vis the first quarter of
calendar year 2018. Only 1% of this growth is in account of exchange rate translation
impact, so this is a performance that we are proud of.
We have managed to slightly increase EBITDA margins to 13.1% as compared to the Q1 of
last year. In absolute terms, EBITDA has grown 15% versus Q1 CY2018, EBIT by 18%
and EBT by 21%. The sequential comparison versus previous quarter shows an increase on
an absolute basis, but a decline on the margin and this was essentially due to the stock
increase that had happened for the Christmas season.
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Mahindra CIE Limited May 07, 2019
As far as forecasts are concerned, we are confident about the evolution of our results in
Europe in the next quarters, as our internal operations we believe are solid. The underlying
market itself, there is some uncertainty in the second half of the year.
Now if we go to slide 6, we will see the consolidated results, which are a combination of the
good results in both India and Europe. 10% growth in revenue, 13% growth in EBITDA,
16% growth in EBIT and 12% growth in EBT when we compare the same quarter of last
year. I am also proud to point out that Q1 CY2019 results in terms of absolute value are the
best ever results in the MCIE history. The consolidated EBITDA margin is at 14.4% for Q1
CY2019 compared to 13.9% in Q1 CY2018 and 14.7% in Q4 CY2018. The decline
compared to previous quarter is due to the effect of the stock increase in Europe that we had
referred earlier.
In conclusion, I would like to say that these figures presented by us stack up well on their
own, but they are even better when we see them in the light of the macroeconomic
uncertainty and sector turmoil in which you know we have achieved this results. It is in
times of trouble like these that the solidity of CIE’s business module is demonstrated.
Thanks to the strategy of geographical, technological and customer diversification and our
financial discipline among our other strengths. With that we can proceed to the Q&A.
Moderator:
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Ladies and
gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first
question is from the line of Hitesh Goel from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Hitesh Goel:
Thanks for taking my question. First question is basically regarding the European business.
Your revenue growth has been quite impressive despite a sluggish market. Can you please
tell us why is it regarding, how the Metalcastello business has done and also the CIE
businesses, just a more breakdown and outlook on the same. Also my second question
pertains to the India business. Basically we have seen quite solid margins despite slowdown
in the industry. So can you just guide us on what is the outlook there as well?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: Good afternoon everybody. I am Ander Arenaza. Let us say that European results have been
really positive and we have this 15% growth in Euros, we are talking about 14% growth.
This is an impressive growth taking into account that the market is flat or is slightly down.
The drivers of this growth are coming from first we have this Metalcastello Company where
we have programs for our customer Caterpillar that we launched a couple of years ago and
we are ramping up, so let us say that the growth is coming for this new program launch.
Then we have also Lithuania that is growing importantly when we are already delivering
crankshafts for our Volkswagen customers and this is a program that we launched last year
also coming from the investment that we did in the new press line to produce these
crankshafts for our customers of Volkswagen. Then we have German Forgings, the MFE
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Mahindra CIE Limited May 07, 2019
where we still have growth as the market in Europe is growing approximately in the
commercial vehicles about 5% and we are having growth of more than that. So, we are still
strong in the sales. So, overall gives us this 14%, 15% growth that is fantastic if we see how
the market is right now. My view and my forecast for the next quarter is that we will
continue with the same trend in the short-term, probably in the last half of the year, the
commercial vehicle market will go down a little bit, that is what all the analyst and
companies like IHS is telling us that the commercial vehicle market will go down slightly
by the end of the year, so let us say that we are quite confident that we will continue
improving and let us say getting this good results in Europe.
Regarding India, it is true that in India we had let us say quite significant slow down and the
biggest impact is coming for two-wheelers where our Bill Forge plant has been relatively
affected. So Bill Forge by itself had more or less flat sales in this quarter when we were
expecting much higher growth. The main impact is coming from of course the four-wheeler
downturn, especially two-wheeler affected to Bill Forge. That is more or less the situation.
We expect that for the next quarter and especially by let us say second half of the year, the
Indian market should start revamping. We understand now there are certain uncertainties in
the market, this insurance impact in the two-wheeler, the different political instability and
uncertainty creating some downturn in the market, but we expect that if the monsoon helps
us, and we have a good monsoon this year, probably by the end of the year, we will
recuperate this 8% to 10% growth that is expected in a country like India. So, as usual even
though we have this downturn in India, our margins remains solid because we continue
working in efficiency and productivity and that will help us to be prepared for the next
market jump that we all expect to come soon.
Hitesh Goel:
Just one followup question on the Aurangabad Electricals, when are we consolidating
Aurangabad Electricals?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: Next quarter, we will see first time that we will consolidate Aurangabad. Aurangabad, the
closing date was April 9, so the second quarter of this year, we will report also Aurangabad
in the consolidated results.
K Jayaprakash:
Hitesh, the Indian margins, I hope you are looking at the interest income there, so we have
done well, we are still 15%, but that 16.5% includes the financial income.
Hitesh Goel:
Thank you very much.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ujwal Shah from Quest Investments.
Please go ahead.
Ujwal Shah:
Thank you for taking my question. Sir, can you give more breakup in terms of how Bill
Forge has performed and will perform in the coming years, as well as Bill Forge Mexico we
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Mahindra CIE Limited May 07, 2019
were doing a lot of things to improve performance so again how that is shaping up and in
terms of Indian margins, good numbers for Q1 but more are we doing over there?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: Let us say Bill Forge as I stated before has been impacted relatively mainly the two-wheeler
business reduction; however, we see a solid margins in Bill Forge and we have a quite
positive expectations on Bill Forge for the next quarters. Let us say, Mexico has been also
affected to our business because we have the beginning and launch in Mexico, we have
certain operational issues that we have been all working very hard in the last month to solve
them. I can proudly say that we have a fantastic Spanish team supporting there, but also a
team of Indian engineers moved there and all working together to solve these issues and we
are quite optimistic right now about Mexican company. In the next quarter, we should see
improvement in Latin growth and in margins in Bill Forge because this Mexican business
will start paying its dividend. The other point regarding the Mexican plant is that we
launched this business with for one customer, for GKN, now we have a second customer
and for the second customer already start of production has happened since last month. So
this will give us additional push for the growth. So overall I would say that the Mexican
activity, we will consolidate this activity and we will improve margins and growth rates.
That is regarding Bill Forge and overall let us say that Bill Forge in India, we think that we
can improve our margin even more because of this consolidation and growth that we expect
to come once the two wheeler market recuperates to the normal and standard volumes.
Ujwal Shah:
Sir, in terms of Europe business, on the MFE part, we have been growing handsomely over
there. We have been maintaining that margin expansion in Europe would be a slow and
steady process. What kind of margin target are we seeing for Europe and MFE for the
comings years, if you can give some guidance to this?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: European business is giving us nice margin of about 15% return in the last couple of years.
We are supported by lets say passenger vehicle forgings and Metalcastello that is globally
support in the EBITDA and German EBITDA is slightly lower. What we see is that we are
taking a lot of actions and we are working a lot in operational area in order to increase our
efficiencies, our productivities, reduce the rejections, this kind of internal operations,
because we want to at least double-digit EBIDTA in Germany. We are not yet there, so if
we have this double-digit, we will be able to have the 15% EBIDTA level that is our target
for the next year. So, overall I would say that we are improving, we are consolidated, we do
not have any delivery, quality issue with customers, the companies are running smoothly
and we are quite solid both operationally and financially, but yes, we are trying to improve
our margins especially in Germany and that is our challenge for the next year.
Ujwal Shah:
So by when do you think that double-digit margin can be achieved at Germany Sir?
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Mahindra CIE Limited May 07, 2019
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: It is complicated to say, but this was our target for this year. I think that probably due to the
downtown of the market we will have some difficulties, but I cannot give you a proper rate,
but I would say it will be soon.
Ujwal Shah:
Sir any thoughts on new order wins or new customer wins be India or Europe?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: I would say that mainly we continue working with the same customers, but what we are
doing is we are opening different technologies with different customers. So, I would say
that we have won some businesses with BSA in India, BSA is our customer, we have a
French customer, we have in Europe but we are winning probably in India, so we are
opening this region to them, so this is a very good step. We also made the transfer as we are
closing our UK plant. We made a transfer from Stokes to Bill Forge and this is also certain
that this will add to growth of Bill Forge and thanks to this transfer we are adding Jaguar
Land Rover, we are adding Volvo and we are adding Honda on to Bill Forge’s portfolio. So
those are the main activities in this quarter.
Vikas Sinha:
Especially the Stokes business you know hopefully will be say may be towards later part of
this year I think it will start having an impact.
Ujwal Shah:
Great! Thank you for your answers. I will jump back in the queue.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shyam Sriram from Sundaram Mutual
Fund. Please go ahead.
Shyam Sriram:
Thanks for the opportunity. Very strong growth in Europe. Going forward, you did
highlight on this EV side, you are anticipating some slow down there, other than that,
between the Metalcastello and the CIE businesses, are you seeing any specific headwinds.
Also this year, there is a transition to the Euro 6.3 RB norms, will there be any disruption
per se because of that, if you can talk about these two please?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: We do not see headwinds or important headwinds for Metalcastello and CIE Forgings. It is
true that the market in Europe is going down 3% to 4% probably at that rate in the next
quarter, but our position both in Metalcastello and CIE Forgings is solid. As I mentioned
before, what we see bigger drop I think that it will be more important that commercial
vehicles where the growth of 5% that we are facing now, I do not think will be sustainable
by the end of the month and we already see some reductions in orders. In fact, we are not
worried at all because as you know this business is the lowest margin business that we have,
so let us say that for us it is not critical to lose some or to reduce a little bit of business in
our German Forgings. So that is the review of Germany at this moment.
Shyam Sriram:
In that VW CIE Lithuania plant, the 2 million order, is it fully ramped up or do we still have
some more scope to ramp up there?
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Mahindra CIE Limited May 07, 2019
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: We are now let us say, close to be in the peak, but not. We still have some room, let us say
that theoretically we should have some increase, but due to the market situation, perhaps we
will be close to the peak now. So I would say that we consider that right now after the
growth that we have had in the last quarter, we will be close to the unit.
Shyam Sriram:
Similarly in Metalcastello Sir? Is there some 5 to 7 million Euro growth?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: Metalcastello is still growing, and in fact we are adding some additional capacity, we have
signed capex already approved to increase our capacity in Metalcastello, so we will have the
opportunity to continue growing. So we are fully booked, we are working of almost 21
shifts per week that means Saturdays and Sundays we are working and we are at same
capacity to have the possibility to continue growing. So, it seems that our products and our
competitiveness is there and customers are acquiring and asking more and more. So, we
expect to continue growing in Metalcastello.
Shyam Sriram:
In Bill Forge Mexico, we had this 35 million order that we were executing, to what level
can we ramp up this calendar year there?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: Now we are let us say, at something like 10-12 million. We are producing at that rate and
our view is that we should double that rate by the end of the year. That is where we are
now. We are lower than expected because of some operational issues and also some
customer delays, but we expect that after solving everything and after producing smoothly
in the last quarter, we will be able to jump a little more. That is our expectation.
Shyam Sriram:
And with that will our margins also be close to the Bill Forge India margin, 18%-19% Sir?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: Yes that is the expectation, yes.
Shyam Sriram:
Sir one last question if I may in Aurangabad Electricals what are the current utilization
levels and what level of capex do you see to expand production there?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: They have been let us making important capex or investment plan in the last years because
they have got impressive growth of I think about 34% the last fiscal year. That means that
the big investment has been done. We plan to continue investing in 2019 and into 2020 as
we see that we have new customers and we have new opportunities to continue developing
the company. The investment plan last year was something like €12 million something like
that.
Vikas Sinha:
The investment plan last year was about Rs.1400 million. I think out of which the actual
was Rs.110.
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: For this year, we will have similar plan.
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Mahindra CIE Limited May 07, 2019
Shyam Sriram:
This is for to expand into four wheelers Sir that we were earlier taking about for
diversifying away from the two-wheeler customers there?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: Yes what we want is to continue growing with the two-wheelers and also diversifying for
the four-wheelers, yes. I think that we will continue in both routes and we will grow in the
two-wheelers where we are now growing with Bajaj and then we will start and we will
develop therefore their four-wheeler business also.
Vikas Sinha:
The four-wheeler business is also there. Two-wheeler business is growing, but the four-
wheeler business is also expanding.
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: In fact we have prepared in our strategy plan for the four-wheelers with higher tonnage
machineries so we can replicate the production that we have in Europe in this component in
India and at least in the last commercial contract we had with our customers there is a huge
interest from their side to develop this technology in India.
Shyam Sriram:
Understood Sir. Sir one last question in Europe are your passenger vehicle OE customers
worried about transition to Euro 6.3 or do you think there can be any disruption around that
or you are not hearing of any such thing?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: In Europe the transition to the Euro 6.3 is not creating any noise or problem. All the
carmakers are now working a lot and they are really worried is with the Euro 7. In 2023, the
Euro 7 will enter in action and this Euro 7 requirement that is 95 g Co2 per kilometer that is
a big challenge for lot of them, so the current Euro 6 engine they are fulfilling the Euro 6.3,
so there is no big changes in the short-term, but for the Euro 7 in 2023 there will be major
changes and then there is another trend that is I think it is important to mention is that diesel
engines the share of the diesel engines is dropping at this moment mainly because of higher
NOx emissions and it is seems that this technology will slowly decrease in the next three to
four years and probably when the Euro 7 enters will get the residual technology, so this is
the main change that it is happening now in Europe. At least all the carmakers are now
launching and installing gasoline engines assembly lines to shift to the diesel engines that
they are not selling.
Shyam Sriram:
Understood Sir. Thank you very much. I will come back in the queue Sir.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Yash Gupta from Friends Group. Please go
ahead.
Yash Gupta:
Good afternoon Sir. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. My first question is after the
consolidation of the Aurangabad Electric what EBITDA and the revenue we are expecting
and after that followup question on same? We have purchased Aurangabad Electrical for
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Mahindra CIE Limited May 07, 2019
their aluminum business how do you think that this is going to affect our existing product
with a positive way or a negative way?
Vikas Sinha:
To answer your first question, the FY2019 Aurangabad numbers are roughly about Rs.8500
million sales, Rs.850 Crores and EBITDA margin is about 11% to 11.5%, so that will be
quarter wise it will be consolidated from next quarter. To your next question on
Aurangabad business is aluminum. It is complementary to our business. The reason why we
acquired Aurangabad Electricals is because it gives us an entry into the aluminum die
casting space in India. Of course CIE has a very large and thriving aluminum business in
Europe and worldwide in fact Ander is also the head of the business for CIE. There is
absolutely no conflict with any of our product groups in India or the CIE product groups in
Europe, so there is absolutely no conflict.
Yash Gupta:
Thank you Sir.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jinesh Gandhi from Motilal Oswal. Please
go ahead.
Jinesh Gandhi:
My first taking a question on the net debt, which we have as of March.
Moderator:
Sir I am sorry to interrupt. Mr. Gandhi, but we would request you to please speak a bit close
to the phone.
Vikas Sinha:
Jinesh we can hear you. You wanted net debt as of March?
Jinesh Gandhi:
Yes as of March?
K Jayaprakash:
As of March end, it is around the same number as of December end may be about Rs.50
Crores lower, Rs.675 Crores.
Jinesh Gandhi:
This will get reduced by Rs.850 Crores post April?
K Jayaprakash:
Yes with Aurangabad.
Jinesh Gandhi:
Secondly for the India business what would be the share of passenger vehicle in our
revenues now?
Vikas Sinha:
After Aurangabad you are saying the share of passenger vehicles in our business.
Jinesh Gandhi:
Right?
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Mahindra CIE Limited May 07, 2019
Vikas Sinha:
We have not made that calculation, so today without Aurangabad, we are roughly about
50% in passenger vehicle plus UVs. Aurangabad is roughly today about 20% in passenger
vehicles and UVs and this 20% is gradually increasing to about 30%. That is the idea for us,
so if I can request you to make that bit of a calculation.
Jinesh Gandhi:
Sure I will do that and in passenger vehicles would it be fair to say large part of this 50%
would be towards our diesel?
Vikas Sinha:
No. You are saying diesel vehicles or diesel engines?
Jinesh Gandhi:
Diesel vehicles?
Vikas Sinha:
Of course since M&M is our large customer, I think Bolero, Scorpio, XUV, and TUV these
are our platforms on which we are there, but I understand where the line of questioning is
going in terms of are we afraid of Maruti's decision with regard to that, but I think diesel
will still be the dominant engine as far as the larger vehicles are concerned, so we see less
of a challenge in that direction and most of the M&M vehicles fall in that category. I think
it is more the smaller vehicles, which are getting affected for diesel. We also have some
business with Maruti's diesel vehicles in the smaller category, but I think those will get
replaced and we will have adequate presence even in their equivalent petrol models, so that
should not be an issue, so this whole Maruti decision should not affect us, so much.
Jinesh Gandhi:
The other question was also on M&M and Tata Motors diesel portfolio for us, do you see a
challenge particularly post BS6 transition in the short to medium term having impact on our
business as well because of cost inflation that you are looking at and revenues getting
materially impacted in FY2021 because of that?
Vikas Sinha:
No, as far as the cost inflation is there we know that there will be more cost inflation in
diesel models vis-à-vis petrol models, so to that extent there will be some affect on demand
and what we do believe is that for larger vehicles it will still remain diesel. The prices might
go up, but it will still remain diesel, but the prices will go up and it might have some impact
on the overall demand because of the total cost of ownership issues.
Jinesh Gandhi:
Understood and lastly the Stokes closure is on track for June 2019 right?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: Yes, all these process has been done is smoothly and everything goes as planned. We make
the transfer of certain production to Bill Forge in India and we are already producing here in
India and fulfilling the pipeline. The assets now are availed and we will transfer. We will
bring them to India also, so our idea is to use this presses for the further growth here in
India so that the closure has been done and let us say according to the plan no major issues
and no major issues with the customers or with the workers that we pay them the extra time
they work and we finish their relation amicably we follow them.
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Mahindra CIE Limited May 07, 2019
Jinesh Gandhi:
So the Euro revenues, which you have put in this quarter is without revenue from Stokes?
Vikas Sinha:
Yes it does not include Stokes.
Jinesh Gandhi:
That light of the 14% growth is even more commendable given that the base would have
Stokes revenues?
K Jayaprakash:
No. Both the base and the current we have removed it.
Jinesh Gandhi:
So that is in the current operations and so margins also, the EBITDA will also be on the
like-to-like basis?
K Jayaprakash:
Yes.
Jinesh Gandhi:
Thanks and all the best.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bharat Sheth from Quest Investment.
Please go ahead.
Bharat Sheth:
Good afternoon and congratulations. Sir just again taking a little more on this Aurangabad
Electricals how is the revenue split between HPDC and Gravity Die Casting?
Vikas Sinha:
85:15 as of now, but with GDC one is increasing because you know we have as we have
talked about I think the GDC business is also expanding, but currently 85:15 and it will
remain weighted in favor of HPDC.
Bharat Sheth:
Now with Gravity Die Casting I believe is mainly for export purpose is that correct?
Vikas Sinha:
I think there is some domestic business also there, so export at Aurangabad is roughly about
8% to 9% so a large part of GDC business is for an export that is correct.
Bharat Sheth:
How do we see from a year with the CIE coming in, is there any room to improve the
margin profitability from 11% and how much current utilization do they have?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: The utilization rate is quite high because the market has been rolling in the last year and last
year as I told you they had a fantastic growth of 34% and they had to invest in order to cope
with this demand, so we can say that they can be at 90% of utilization and 95%, and we
plan to continue investing in the next year to increase this capacity and debottleneck the
production, so this is clear and coming back to the margins that you mentioned yes these
margins are below Mahindra CIE’s standards and we are already working with them in
order to improve efficiencies, to improve productivity, and to be able to reach our 15%
EBITDA where we are India at least. Then the European aluminum business is even more
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Mahindra CIE Limited May 07, 2019
profitable than that so what we expect that we should get these Indian standard margins in
Mahendra CIE in the next quarters.
Bharat Sheth:
In the next quarter itself?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: Not next quarters let us say in one-year time.
Bharat Sheth:
The last quarter we opened up a new stamping facility world-class facility and we were
looking to bring more customers on that so any color on that how it is ramping up and all?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: This facility is almost finished. We will be very close to make that final assistance and final
audits for the customers, we have the audits for the customers plan by the end of June or
beginning of July, so one of the new customers has already confirmed one of the orders and
we have now in the last discussions, so we expect that in couple of months. We will have
the company already running and with several new programs already allocated to the plant,
so we have quite optimistic and I think that during the next two months we will have
completed of the award what we call Kanhe2 plant.
Bharat Sheth:
And I understand that this plant so profitability of the Stamping division is better than the
other division?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: Yes, it depends on the volume of course, but of course what we have tried to launch in this
new plant is completely the state of the art plant where we will produce with the much more
efficiency and the minimal labour cost so as to try to have a very, very productive plant, so
yes we expect to have a higher margins than the rest of the Stamping business.
Vikas Sinha:
Mr. Bharat just one thing, since we are talking AEL and we have been talking new
customers, let us also emphasize that we are fully committed to our existing customers at
AEL also, so anything that we do will be at absolutely no compromise on existing
customers.
Bharat Sheth:
Thank you and wish you all the best. That is all from my side.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Gautami Desai from Chanakya Capital
Services Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Gautami Desai:
Ander our endeavor will be to increase the margins of our India business, but I was
wondering that electricity cost and quality of labour, I think for which there is no long-term
solution, so where else can the saving come from?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: It is a good question because it is a difficult question. Let us say that we are still far from
our standards in Europe in terms of productivity, efficiency, and structural costs. So, I think
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that in the last years we saw we increased the margins mainly with the existing team and
existing machinery so let us say that we just apply certain rules to improve the P&L and we
got it. We are now preparing the next steps. We are working very hard in terms of
automating the process. We are working very hard with TPM so the preventive system in
our plants, we are working in the 5S programs where we will try to have the plants
completely or the ramp up is completely efficient and let us say these are the key items to
continue improving the system business. On top of that what we are doing is we are looking
for a more complex and more added value components for our plants. We are trying to
increase our value, we are adding to our products, adding machine in operations to our
forgings, to our castings, we are doing these kind of things and we are adding also some
more complex components that can give us higher as a value and higher margins. So,
mainly those are the kind of functions that we have taken and I would say that some of them
are in operative actions that we are implementing and we getting the results in other areas
we are doing certain product renewals with more high value components that will give us a
higher margins for the future, so let us say that we continue improving, we continue
working, also the growth when it comes not now because the growth in India is not
important in this moment or we are in the negative in this moment in the market, but when
the growth comes again probably with the support of this growth we will have room to
improve our margins also, so let us say that this is never ending story, we cannot stop. This
is continuous improvement what we are trying to implement in our factories and yes, we are
challenging the managers every week, every months and this our job as a manager, so my
view is that we reached, I would quite acceptable level in this year, but we still have to
room to improve and that is what we are trying to get.
Gautami Desai:
Vikas, I have one question for you is that can you explain market productions slide, which
you have and particularly the quarter-on-quarter growth, what is your insights on that?
Vikas Sinha:
Which slide are you referring to Madam?
Gautami Desai:
I think the first page of the results.
Vikas Sinha:
No, we are talking about page 4.
Gautami Desai:
Yes, page 4.
Vikas Sinha:
Page 4, we also have an annexure where the market numbers are given in greater details
segment wise, so if you look at page 4 MCI India number on the right side you have market
update, in the bracket it says production, when we say production it means production
number, you know like you have two kinds of numbers that would be available, the sales
numbers, which the OEMs sell to their dealers and production numbers, which the OEM
produces. The difference between the two leads to inventory and so on. For us production
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matters because we supply against production, so what we would give here are production
number.
Gautami Desai:
So, then Vikas, if that tells me that the production numbers are better quarter-on-quarter,
right than the year-on-year numbers?
Vikas Sinha:
Yes, sequentially we are definitely better.
Gautami Desai:
How have you grown in tandem with that?
Vikas Sinha:
The sequential numbers you are saying, say for PV, UV, LCV and why our sequential
numbers are not as good?
Gautami Desai:
Exactly.
Vikas Sinha:
Our sequential number is roughly about 5% in India and if you look at weighted average
customer numbers it will be roughly around 10% to 11% something in that range, but lot of
that is coming because of the new models that M&M has launched and these are smaller
models, so compared to Bolero or Scorpio the outsourcing levels on those models are lower,
so even though the number growth is there since they outsource is less and XUV3OO has
lesser outsourcing than say Bolero or Scorpio, our content on a Bolero or Scorpio is much
higher than in an XUV3OO, so that discrepancy is being caused by that, also the tractor
numbers have come down, so what you are seeing, if you go to tractor number is minus 13
if you look at that. Some of it is coming from there and the two-wheeler number, so yes, the
PV, UV numbers that you are seeing they have grown, large part of it is because of the new
model launches at M&M, which are smaller models compared to the larger models like
Bolero or Scorpio, so there is some difference between the production growth rates in terms
of units and our revenue growth rates.
Gautami Desai:
Just one more thing, you said in your commentary that the forecast would change for the
industry, you are so close to the ground, so would you like to give us some insight while
you are interacting with your customers, how they are placing the orders, what has been the
change over the years especially this year compared to the year this for?
Vikas Sinha:
Let me answer that question with one positive and one negative statement. The positive
statement is yes. Things are improving. The April, May things are little better. The negative
thing that I would say is that most people in the market including customers are not willing
to bet beyond two or three months and that is the reason why, whatever numbers that we are
sourced from CRISIL, they might be liable to change that is the only caveat that we are
putting there because right now it is difficult to look beyond two or three months that is the
reason why, so when we make a forecast or an outlook for the market for the next six
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months, so there could be some changes there. You know that was the caveat that I had
made at the initial part of the call.
Gautami Desai:
Thanks a lot.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ronak Sarda from Systematic Group.
Please go ahead.
Ronak Sarda:
Sir, couple of questions more it is slightly longer-term, if I look from last 5 year perspective
post the between CIE and Mahindra Group, lot of changes have happened to the product
mix, we have shut down few plants and you are added Bill Forge and now Aurangabad
Electricals, so how does the next 5 years look like or what is the plan for next 5 years? Are
we satisfied with the product mix and focus would be more on organic growth that is my
first question?
Vikas Sinha:
Ronak, yes, of course whole lot of changes has happened after the CIE takeover of mines of
CIE. What you have seen is essentially all that you talked about was in terms of plant
closures or anything else first focused around profitability improvement, so we have closed
down Jeco, we have closed down Stokes, those were least performing plants, let us put it
that way that is the reason why they were closed. Of course, the two acquisitions Bill Forge
and AEL both them were done to fill strategic gaps. Both Bill Forge and AEL increases our
presence in the non-Mahindra space that we have always talked about diversifying our
customer base, I think Bill Forge bought in two-wheelers, AEL also strengths our presence
in two-wheelers and adds the Bajaj Auto perhaps the most profitable OEM in India, so to
that extent from a customer diversification point of view, also Bill Forge brought us cold
forgings, warm forgings, southern location, AEL is bringing in aluminum, our focus on
aluminum, also the GDC bit that we talked about in an earlier question, so this was the
acquisitions were both for growth as well as filling in strategic gaps. So going forward, of
course wherever there is a gap to be filled we can look at inorganic options for sure. As we
have always pointed out CIE’s philosophy is to grow both organically and inorganically
depending on how we can fill those strategic gaps, so we will continue looking for both
organic as well as inorganic growth, so that focus will not change. Of course, on an organic
basis also we need add that we have added so many new customers after CIE has taken
over, so we are talking about for example, Ashok Leyland and Stamping the ramping up of
Renault, Kia, PSA, ZF in Forgings, so that focus area will always be there. In our business
it is a truism, organic growth, it is an everyday job, so that is never going to change and in
organic growth wherever there is an opportunity, wherever there is a strategic gap to be
filled up company, which we feel will fit in to the CIE manufacturing philosophy we will
look at it. If you have any further questions let us know.
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Ronak Sarda:
Actually, what I wanted more to understand are there any gaps, like are you now looking to
add something in plastics, which is something what CIE has globally and how does the
balance sheet supports because we had one preferential capital raising already done, so
slightly longer term, but that is what I wanted to understand whether there are any gaps,
which you see in the portfolio today?
Vikas Sinha:
Yes, of course, you know like plastic one area that we have always talked about that is one.
Two, we have always said that we will bring in Brazil, China, Mexico, which will happen
after this whole market situation settles down a bit, so that is a gap that we need to fill up,
we have talked about that for long, so that is there. We have also said that for some of the
more stronger passenger vehicle OEMs in India like Maruti, Hyundai, Toyota, Honda you
know it sometimes easier to enter via the acquisitions mode so that will also be, as I said for
example, two-wheeler business, we would not have built up such a large portfolio of the
two-wheeler business if you have not made acquisitions, so if we get that kind of a
opportunities to diversify our customer base, for sure, we will look at acquisitions. To you
other question on how we will finance that, of course we will look at various options as you
are very much aware we cannot take Indian debt, foreign debt is permissible, of course
raising money is also there, bringing money from CIE that is also there, so there are various
options, but we will cross bridge when we come to it, at this stage right now we are focused
on the business as it exists today, but as I said, whenever we think we can fill up any of the
gaps and something that fits into the CIE manufacturing philosophy we may look at it and
we will look at the different financing options as we go along.
Ronak Sarda:
Second question is for Ander, you made a statement that post 2020-2023 diesel might
become residual tick, I know for CIE we have always highlighted that our content is neutral
to petrol or diesel, but we have seen a lot of company is highlighting that the content for
them goes down when we shift from diesel to petrol, do we still maintain our statement for
the European side?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: Yes, I am seeing that this transition from diesel to gasoline that is happening now and it is
happening, I would say they were from the last two or three years this transition started. In
Europe, the diesel was about 54% of the market now it is approximately 30% and probably
in a couple of years will be 10% and you can see that the CIE results and even our internal
growth has been more than 20% in this year, so we are not affected because is to that we are
processing components for diesel, but we have also the same components for the gasoline
cars, so the gasoline cars volume are going up, we are reducing our diesel components, so
we are not concerned especially in our forging division either Metalcastello that is
commercial vehicles we are not affected by the diesel and what we see is that yes, in a
couple of years the diesel will be only 10% in the European market more or less mainly for
the diesel SUVs and small vans, and this kind of thing that they are making long ranches
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that need ranch because they are used for transportation and this kind of things, but not
passenger will probably be residual.
Ronak Sarda:
Does this in anyway strengthen CIE global portfolio the shift from diesel to gasoline or
there is no such benefit for CIE or Mahindra CIE?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: I would not say it has not strengthened in our position. I would say that it is quite neutral for
us, of course when we realize then we would try to enter more in the gasoline engines than
in diesel, so I would say that in certain ways we are benefitted by this movement because
we have producing more crankshafts for gasoline than for diesel and now gasoline is the
winning technology.
Ronak Sarda:
Thank you and all the best.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Hitesh Goel from Kotak Securities. Please
go ahead.
Hitesh Goel:
Sir, my question was related to European CIE business in passenger vehicle business, how
much business is coming diesel power, so basically diesel engine and powertrain?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: It can be something like 25%.
Hitesh Goel:
For in a particular model you are both in gasoline and diesel, so is you product like
crankshafts and all engine agnostic, if there is a shift towards petrol, you get impacted or
not that is what my question would be?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: Mr. Hitesh, we were in both technologies and can give you one example where we are
producing crankshaft for the K9-engines that is the biggest diesel engine for Renault, we
were producing crankshaft for them for this engine and at the same time we were producing
for the H5 engine that is gasoline engine. Right now, the trend is that K9 engine crankshaft
is going down significantly, but at the same time as Renault is transferring the production
from K9 to H5, we are increasing our number production in H5, so finally this is becoming
positive for us, so we are going down, but as we are also in that so the gasoline is growing
we were all growing a little bit, so that is the one good example of how is this affecting us, I
would say that this neutral or even I would say that this is becoming positive for our
business in this moment.
Hitesh Goel:
Sir, any business you have won on the electric side on electric models?
Ander Arenaza Alvarez: In electric models, in Europe we have, in Mahindra CIE, we are producing some
components in forgings, in stainless steel forgings in Lithuania but the amount of this
business is small. In this moment, we are not affected by this electric vehicle move. Let us
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say that the market share of this electric vehicle is approximately 1% or 1% to 2%, so the
impact for us is residual in this moment.
Hitesh Goel:
Thank you.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nikhil Kale from Axis Capital. Please go
ahead.
Nikhil Kale:
Thanks for taking my question. Couple questions, first housekeeping one, can you just help
us with the PAT number FY2019 for a year?
Vikas Sinha:
AEL PAT for FY2019?
Nikhil Kale:
You have mentioned the EBITDA. You can just help us with the PAT number for
Aurangabad Electricals for FY2019?
K Jayaprakash:
So, it is about Rs.300 million, so about 30 Crores.
Nikhil Kale:
Thank you. Just a question on the margin improvement seen at Aurangabad Electricals, so if
I look at the historical numbers, the margins were around 8% and they have improved
substantially from FY2018 onwards, so just wanted to understand what has driven that
improvement and how much of it has been due to the strong growth that we have seen in
Bajaj volumes?
Vikas Sinha:
To answer your question, Nikhil, of course increase in volumes have helped, but you have
to see that during the same period there has been a diversification towards GDC, towards
exports, which have helped them to increase the margins, so the GDC has become 15% and
new plant has been set up for that purpose, most of the GDC is exports, so that also helps,
so it is not just volumes alone, the diversification of product portfolio, customer portfolio
has helped. Obviously, the strong Bajaj growth has been a contributory factor and the
efficiency improvement that have gone along with some of these new plant additions, so
new practices have been adopted, they have been disseminated across the older plants, so to
that extent has also helped, so it not completely volume driven and in fact Ander has
pointed out the current margins at Aurangabad Electricals can be improved through CIE
best practice adoption.
Nikhil Kale:
Thank you. Just lastly on the capex, so I think you mentioned that for Aurangabad the
utilization is at very high levels, so you might need to invest more, so just wanted to
understand it there is any change in our capex plans that you have mentioned that capex
would be around 5% of sales in the last quarter, so is there any change in a capex plans?
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Vikas Sinha:
In an earlier question we have talked about, I will speak in Crores, I think the earlier plan
for FY2019 was 140 Crores I think, but the actual was 110 Crores and we had earlier talked
about 50 Crores to 60 Crores as the normal capex, so that 50 Crores to 60 Crores is
increased by that 40 number, so this year also it would be in the same range of 100 Crores
to 110 Crores that was there in FY2019 and then it will settle down at 5% to 6% of sales as
we talked about.
Nikhil Kale:
And lastly just quickly any progress on the Kia talks that you had mentioned that you are in
talks with them for orders in the other divisions as well, you had one order last quarter for
the other divisions any progress in that?
Vikas Sinha:
Kia Foundry division I think there is start of production is going to happen in July or
something like that and for other divisions we are still talking, we are in advance stage for
example at one of the other divisions.
Nikhil Kale:
Thank you.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bharat Gianani from Sharekhan. Please go
ahead.
Bharat Gianani:
Thank you very much for the opportunity. Two questions, what is the gross debt level
currently and how much impact it will have after we would include Aurangabad Electrical
numbers?
Vikas Sinha:
As of March 31, 2019, the gross debt would have been closer to 1.4 and net debt was 7
billion and Aurangabad should add about 9 to 9.5 billion to that.
Bharat Gianani:
I have joined the call a bit late so, what is the overall margin guidance that you have given
for the consolidated operations for the next year?
K Jayaprakash:
We do not give any margin guidance.
Vikas Sinha:
We do not make any forward-looking statements on margins we have not made, but do you
have anything specific in your mind regarding margins on a qualitative basis we will
explain.
Bharat Gianani:
So, basically just something on the European operations because I think earlier there were
some comment on the German margins, there was some scope of improvement, so just
some light on that?
Vikas Sinha:
Of course this is something that we have talked about even in the past that in Europe we
have three basic segments. We have car forgings, which are based out of Spain and
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Lithuania, which does the car crankshaft that we are talking about, that have very good
margins roughly in the range of 18% to 19%. The second business there is the gears
business in Italy Metalcastello, Caterpillar order that we were taking about was with respect
to Metalcastello that is also margins in the range of 18% to 19%, while the third business,
the truck forgings business, which is based out of Germany, I think the margins more in mid
to high single digits, there the scope of improvement is there and I think we are constantly
working towards that, the phase of improvement is slow, but it is slowly improving so that
was the comment.
Bharat Gianani:
Fine, Sir.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vidur Suri from Kitara Capital. Please go
ahead.
Vidur Suri:
One is just the clarification. I saw that in the presentation for AEL and we had acquired the
company, we had stated a margin of 4.7% PAT, did the PAT come in lower that to about 40
Crores, I just want to clarify that AEL PAT for FY2019 was 30 Crores?
K Jayaprakash:
Yes, it was 40 Crores, but I have just removed the exceptional item from there and on a
sustainable basis that I have mentioned, so 30 Crores to 32 Crores is what it would be if you
what to just normalize it for this year.
Vidur Suri:
My second question is actually around CIE plants, we have been talking about it over a
couple of quarters as to bring here into MCIE, when are just the size and margin of this
business and when do we plan to actually bring this in MCIE?
Vikas Sinha:
So, the ‘when’ question I can answer, as you said right now as there is lot of uncertainty in
the market, etc., I think and also we have done acquisitions so we first want to focus on
integration and settling down of the market situation and then we will focus our attention
there, of course the counterview could be that we have talked about this for a long time and
we are guilty of that, so to that extent unfortunately something or the other has been
happening in the external environment, and that is the reason why we have pushed this back
a little bit, so that answers the when question. As far as how big this is, I think it is about
€150 million roughly in that range, so €160 million and very good CIE standard EBITDA
levels.
Vidur Suri:
So, that would be around 16% to 17%?
Vikas Sinha:
Yes, say roughly 15% and above, it keeps fluctuating here and there because volumes
allover the world are fluctuating, but say 15% plus that range.
Vidur Suri:
Thank you.
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Moderator:
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. On
behalf of ICICI Securities that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You
may now disconnect your lines.
Note: This statement has been edited to ensure quality
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