<p><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">A-One Steel India has just come off a year that tells a much better story than the one before it. After a rough FY25, where falling steel prices dragged both revenue and profit down, FY26 has turned out to be a genuine comeback year. Here's a closer look at what's driving the numbers, and whether the current unlisted share price of <strong>₹220.5</strong> makes sense.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify"><strong>About the Company</strong></h2><p style="text-align: justify">A-One Steel India is a backward-integrated steel manufacturer based out of South India, with operations spread across six plants: five in Karnataka (Gauribidanur, Bellary, Koppal, and Chikkantapur) and one in Hindupur, Andhra Pradesh. It's counted among the top 5 crude steel producers in South India, and what sets it apart is the sheer range of products it makes, reportedly the only company in the region producing all 10 major steel and industrial by-products under one roof.<br><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">Its product mix spans:<br></p><ul type="disc"><li><strong>Flat      products</strong> – Hot Rolled Coils and Cold Rolled Coils (made from MS      Billets), which are further processed into HR pipes, CR pipes, and      galvanized tubes<br><br></li><li><strong>Long      products</strong> – TMT Bars, also manufactured from MS Billets<br><br></li><li><strong>Open-market      sales</strong> – surplus MS Billets not used for captive consumption<br><br></li><li><strong>Industrial      by-products</strong> – met coke, silico manganese, and ferro silicon<br></li></ul><p style="text-align: justify">This kind of vertical integration gives the company more control over costs and margins, which becomes especially important during periods of raw material or price volatility like what we saw in FY25.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify"><strong>Revenue: The FY25 Dip Wasn't About Demand</strong></h2><p style="text-align: justify">Revenue climbed steadily till FY24, hitting Rs. 3,844.64 Cr, before slipping to Rs. 3,544.61 Cr in FY25. At first glance, that looks like trouble, but dig a little deeper and the picture changes. Global steel prices fell that year because of oversupply and cheaper Chinese imports flooding the market a problem the entire industry was dealing with, not something unique to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.planify.in/research-report/a-one-steels-india-ltd/">A-One Steel</a>.<br><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">What actually confirms this is the gross margin, which <em>improved</em> to 13.2% in FY25 even as revenue fell. If the company was genuinely losing sales volume, margins would have taken a hit too. Instead, this looks like a pricing-driven dip rather than a demand problem.<br><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">And true to that read, FY26 revenue bounced back strongly, up roughly 18% to Rs. 4,174 Cr, the highest in the company's recent history.<br><br></p><table><tbody><tr><td><p style="text-align: justify"><strong>Year</strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify"><strong>Revenue (Rs. Cr)</strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify"><strong>Growth</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="text-align: justify">FY23</p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify">3,031.72</p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify">—</p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="text-align: justify">FY24</p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify">3,844.64</p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify">26.82%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="text-align: justify">FY25</p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify">3,544.61</p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify">-7.81%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="text-align: justify">FY26</p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify">4,174</p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify">17.76%</p></td></tr></tbody></table><h2 style="text-align: justify"><strong>Net Profit: Interest Costs Were the Real Culprit</strong></h2><p style="text-align: justify">Here's where things get interesting. Even while revenue was growing between FY22 and FY25, net profit went the opposite direction, falling from a peak of Rs. 89.02 Cr in FY22 to just Rs. 10.46 Cr in FY25.<br><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">The reason isn't operational weakness; it's debt. Interest expense more than tripled over this period, going from Rs. 31.94 Cr in FY22 to Rs. 111.44 Cr in FY25. Put in growth-rate terms, revenue grew at a CAGR of 10.4% between FY22 and FY25, while interest expense grew at a CAGR of 51.7%, completely outpacing the top line. Add to that rising power, fuel, and depreciation costs, and profit had nowhere to go but down.<br><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">FY26 marks a turnaround. The company got a better handle on power, fuel, depreciation, and employee costs as a share of sales, and net profit jumped to Rs. 125 Cr — more than 10x the FY25 number.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify"><strong>Debt, Liquidity &amp; Solvency</strong></h2><p style="text-align: justify">The debt story is improving on almost every front:<br></p><ul type="disc"><li><strong>Debt/Equity</strong>      fell from 3.31x in FY23 to 1.3x in FY26, as the company leaned more on      equity funding<br><br></li><li><strong>Interest      coverage ratio</strong>&nbsp;dropped from 4.59x (FY22) to just 1.06x (FY25),      largely due to falling EBIT and rising interest costs, but recovered to      2.24x in FY26<br><br></li><li><strong>Current      ratio</strong> dipped through FY24 before recovering to 1.14x (FY25) and 1.24x      (FY26)<br><br></li><li><strong>Quick      ratio</strong> has stayed below 1 throughout, which means the company still      leans heavily on inventory rather than cash or receivables for its      short-term liquidity</li></ul><h2 style="text-align: justify"><strong>FY26: The Turnaround Year in Numbers</strong></h2><p style="text-align: justify">Revenue:      Rs. 3,544 Cr to Rs. 4,174 Cr<br></p><ul type="disc"><li>EBITDA      margin: under 5% to 7.5% (back above FY23 levels)</li><li>Net      profit margin: 0.3% to 3.0%</li><li>Net      profit: Rs. 10 Cr to Rs. 126 Cr</li><li>Interest      cost: held flat at Rs. 111 Cr (after nearly tripling from Rs. 72 Cr in      FY23)<br></li></ul><p style="text-align: justify">That last point matters a lot. The company borrowed heavily between FY23-25 to fund capacity expansion, and that expansion is now starting to pay off; volumes and earnings are catching up without interest costs climbing further.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify"><strong>Valuation &amp; Outlook</strong></h2><p style="text-align: justify">At the current price of ₹220.5 (as per Planify Capital), A-One Steel trades at an EV/EBITDA of 8.22x and a P/E of 12x, down from the 14.52x EV/EBITDA it commanded a year back, even as earnings have improved sharply.<br><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">Looking at the business itself, FY26 marks a clear shift from where things stood a year ago. Revenue is back to growth, margins have recovered well above FY25 levels, interest costs have stopped climbing after three years of steep increases, and the balance sheet shows signs of reduced reliance on fresh borrowing. Taken together, these point to a company where the capacity expansion undertaken over FY23-25 is now starting to show up in actual earnings, rather than just sitting on the balance sheet as debt.<br><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">That said, it's still just one year of recovery. Whether this marks a sustained turnaround or a one-off rebound will depend on how FY27 numbers shape up, particularly whether margins and interest costs hold steady as volumes continue to grow.</p>

A-One Steel India has just come off a year that tells a much better story than the one before it. After a rough FY25, where falling steel prices dragged both revenue and profit down, FY26 has turned out to be a genuine comeback year. Here's a closer look at what's driving the numbers, and whether the current unlisted share price of ₹220.5 makes sense.

A-One Steel India Ltd: Unlisted Share Price & Growth Outlook

<p style="text-align: justify">​<br></p><p style="text-align: justify">Cochin International Airport Ltd. (CIAL), the operator of Cochin International Airport, has reported its highest-ever profit in FY26. The company posted a <strong>standalone net profit of ₹502 crore</strong>, while its consolidated profit, including subsidiaries, stood at <strong>₹526.75 crore</strong>. Total consolidated income rose to <strong>₹1,492 crore</strong>, and the board recommended a <strong>55% dividend</strong>. </p><p style="text-align: justify">At first glance, the numbers suggest another strong year for CIAL. However, the growth in profit was not driven by a sharp increase in passenger traffic. Passenger numbers increased only <strong>2.2% to around 1.14 crore</strong>, while total aircraft movements actually declined by <strong>3.9%</strong>. Domestic aircraft movements fell nearly 6%, while international movements declined about 1%</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">How CIAL makes money<br></h2><p style="text-align: justify">CIAL generates revenue from two broad sources. <strong>Aeronautical revenue</strong> comes from airport-related charges such as landing fees, User Development Fees (UDF), parking and aerobridge charges. This contributed around <strong>₹742 crore</strong>, or 65% of standalone revenue, in FY26.</p><p style="text-align: justify">The remaining <strong>₹399 crore</strong> came from non-aeronautical activities such as rentals, commercial services and duty-free operations. Interestingly, <strong>rent and services generated ₹273.8 crore</strong>, making it CIAL's largest individual revenue stream. This highlights that CIAL is not simply an airport operator; a significant part of its business comes from commercial real estate and leasing. </p><p style="text-align: justify">The company also operates through subsidiaries covering duty-free retail, maintenance and repair operations (MRO), infrastructure and the proposed Air Kerala airline.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">Profit rises, but underlying growth is moderate</h2><p style="text-align: justify">Consolidated revenue from operations increased <strong>7% to ₹1,401 crore</strong>, while EBITDA rose 2.9% to ₹907 crore. Reported PAT increased only <strong>2.2% to ₹526.75 crore</strong>, partly because expenses increased faster than revenue. </p><p style="text-align: justify">However, FY26 included a nearly <strong>₹28 crore loss on fixed assets that were sold, demolished or discarded</strong>. This appears connected to the airport's expansion activity and is not a normal recurring expense. Excluding this item, consolidated profit growth would have been closer to <strong>6.2%</strong>. </p><p style="text-align: justify">Another positive is CIAL's balance sheet. Finance costs declined 18%, while standalone debt fell from ₹401 crore to ₹277 crore. The company also had around <strong>₹936 crore in cash and bank deposits</strong> at year-end. </p><h2 style="text-align: justify">The key issue: what happens after FY26?</h2><p class="" style="text-align: justify">The biggest question for CIAL is its regulated tariff structure. AERA's five-year tariff period ended on <strong>31 March 2026</strong>, and much of FY26's revenue growth came from revised aeronautical tariffs rather than higher passenger volumes. The new tariff period will therefore be crucial for future earnings. </p><p style="text-align: justify">CIAL is also investing around <strong>₹1,300 crore in airport expansion</strong>, while looking for additional growth through real estate, MRO, cargo and airport consultancy. These businesses provide long-term opportunities, but they are unlikely to replace tariff-led growth immediately. </p><p style="text-align: justify">At an indicative unlisted share price of around <strong>₹455</strong>, CIAL's market capitalisation is about <strong>₹21,760 crore</strong>, implying a consolidated P/E of roughly <strong>41x</strong>. With earnings growing at mid-single digits, the valuation leaves limited room for disappointment. </p><p style="text-align: justify">In simple terms, CIAL remains a highly profitable airport business with a strong balance sheet and several long-term growth opportunities. But the record FY26 profit should not be mistaken for strong volume-led growth. The key factor to watch now is AERA's new tariff order, which could have a major impact on CIAL's earnings in FY27 and beyond.</p>

CIAL Reports Record FY26 Profit, But Growth Story Faces a New Test

<p><br></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Introduction</h2><p style="line-height: 1.5;text-align: justify">63SATS Cybertech Limited (formerly 63SATS Global Cyber Technologies Networks Limited) is a Mumbai-headquartered cybersecurity company and a subsidiary of 63 moons technologies limited, founded in 2023. The company offers an integrated portfolio of cybersecurity solutions spanning enterprises, government and critical infrastructure, and individual consumers. <strong>Its flagship enterprise offering, Cyber Security Force (CSF), provides unified protection across networks, endpoints, cloud environments and, more recently, AI workloads, while its consumer mobile app, CYBX, equips individual users with tools against phishing, network surveillance and other digital threats, and has crossed close to 19 lakh downloads with over 2 lakh paid subscribers.</strong> The company's client base spans BFSI, defence, manufacturing and government, including names such as the Indian Navy, ICICI Securities, Adani Ports, Tata CLiQ, Marico and Lupin. In February 2026, 63SATS raised ₹245 Cr in a Series B funding round (following earlier private placements of ₹180 Cr and ₹65.05 Cr), positioning it to scale product innovation, SOC operations and threat-intelligence capabilities for the AI era.</p><p style="line-height: 1.5;text-align: justify">This report presents a summarised analysis of 63SATS Cybertech Limited's financial results for the year ended March 31, 2026, compared with the year ended March 31, 2025. All figures are drawn from the company's audited financial statements and are presented in ₹ Crores for ease of reading. FY26 was a year of rapid scale-up off a very small base:<strong> total income grew roughly 31x, from ₹3.01 Cr to ₹95.15 Cr,</strong> as the company expanded its enterprise and consumer client base. The company remained loss-making at both the operating and net level, though the net loss narrowed meaningfully (from ₹16.06 Cr to ₹5.03 Cr) even as it continued to invest in people, infrastructure and product development.<strong> The balance sheet was transformed by large capital infusions during the year, with total equity swinging from a negative ₹3.50 Cr to a positive ₹297.50 Cr, sharply strengthening the company's solvency position. Given the company's early-stage, loss-making profile, several ratios below (margins, ROE) are negative or not meaningful in the traditional sense, and are presented with that context</strong>. The analysis covers headline profitability metrics, a common-size cost structure, key balance sheet items, financial ratios, and a bird's-eye summary view, each accompanied by a brief commentary highlighting the key movements and their implications.</p><h2 style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">1. Revenue, EBITDA, Net Profit &amp; EPS Summary (₹ in Cr)</h2><table><tbody><tr><td><div>Particulars<br></div></td><td><div>FY26<br></div></td><td><div>FY25<br></div></td><td><div>YoY Change<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Revenue (Total Income)<br></div></td><td><div>95.15<br></div></td><td><div>3.01<br></div></td><td><div>+3,061% (~31x)<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>EBITDA<br></div></td><td><div>(3.88)<br></div></td><td><div>(15.18)<br></div></td><td><div>+ 74.4%<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>EBITDA Margin<br></div></td><td><div>-4.08%<br></div></td><td><div>-504.3%<br></div></td><td><div>+500.2 %<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Net Profit / (Loss)<br></div></td><td><div>(5.03)<br></div></td><td><div>(16.06)<br></div></td><td><div>+68.7%<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>NP Margin (NPM)<br></div></td><td><div>-5.29%<br></div></td><td><div>-533.6%<br></div></td><td><div>+528.3 %<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>EPS (Basic &amp; Diluted, ₹)<br></div></td><td><div>(0.26)<br></div></td><td><div>(3.68)<br></div></td><td><div>+ 92.9%<br></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="line-height: 1.2;margin-left: 5pt;text-align: justify">Revenue scaled roughly 31x off a very small FY25 base, reflecting the company's rapid enterprise and consumer client acquisition during the year. Despite this, both EBITDA and net profit remained negative - the company is still in an investment-heavy growth phase -<strong> but losses narrowed sharply (net loss fell ~69%) </strong>as revenue began to catch up with the fixed cost base built out during the year.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">2. Common-Size Statement (as % of Revenue)</h2><table><tbody><tr><td><div>Particulars<br></div></td><td><div>FY26 (₹ Cr)<br></div></td><td><div>FY25 (₹ Cr)<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Property, plant and equipment<br></div></td><td><div>20.21<br></div></td><td><div>0.28<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Investments (current)<br></div></td><td><div>86.93<br></div></td><td><div>3.58<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Trade receivables<br></div></td><td><div>58.21<br></div></td><td><div>0.44<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Cash and cash equivalents<br></div></td><td><div>33.32<br></div></td><td><div>1.07<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Borrowings (total)<br></div></td><td><div>2.57<br></div></td><td><div>10.11<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Trade payables (total)<br></div></td><td><div>4.47<br></div></td><td><div>0.98<br></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="line-height: 1.2;margin-left: 5pt;text-align: justify">In FY25, the company's cost base - especially employee expense, at over 3.6x revenue - far outstripped its still-nascent revenue, typical of an early-stage business investing ahead of scale. <strong>By FY26, with revenue up ~31x, employee cost fell to ~20% of revenue and finance cost to under 2%</strong>, showing early signs of operating leverage even though the business is not yet profitable. Cost of Goods Sold appears only in FY26, consistent with the ramp-up in enterprise product/hardware-linked revenue.</p><h2 style="line-height: 1.2;margin-left: 5pt;text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 32px">3. Key Balance Sheet Items (₹ in Cr)</span></h2><table><thead><tr><th><p style="line-height: 1.2"><span style="font-size:13px">Particulars</span></p></th><th><p style="line-height: 1.2"><span style="font-size:13px">FY26 (₹ Cr)</span></p></th><th><p style="line-height: 1.2"><span style="font-size:13px">FY25 (₹ Cr)</span></p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><p style="line-height:1.2"><span style="font-size:13px">Property, plant and equipment</span></p></td><td><p style="line-height:1.2;text-align: center"><span style="font-size:13px">20.21</span></p></td><td><p style="line-height:1.2;text-align: center"><span style="font-size:13px">0.28</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height:1.2"><span style="font-size:13px">Investments (current)</span></p></td><td><p style="line-height:1.2;text-align: center"><span style="font-size:13px">86.93</span></p></td><td><p style="line-height:1.2;text-align: center"><span style="font-size:13px">3.58</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height:1.2"><span style="font-size:13px">Trade receivables</span></p></td><td><p style="line-height:1.2;text-align: center"><span style="font-size:13px">58.21</span></p></td><td><p style="line-height:1.2;text-align: center"><span style="font-size:13px">0.44</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height:1.2"><span style="font-size:13px">Cash and cash equivalents</span></p></td><td><p style="line-height:1.2;text-align: center"><span style="font-size:13px">33.32</span></p></td><td><p style="line-height:1.2;text-align: center"><span style="font-size:13px">1.07</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height:1.2"><span style="font-size:13px">Borrowings (total)</span></p></td><td><p style="line-height:1.2;text-align: center"><span style="font-size:13px">2.57</span></p></td><td><p style="line-height:1.2;text-align: center"><span style="font-size:13px">10.11</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height:1.2"><span style="font-size:13px">Trade payables (total)</span></p></td><td><p style="line-height:1.2;text-align: center"><span style="font-size:13px">4.47</span></p></td><td><p style="line-height:1.2;text-align: center"><span style="font-size:13px">0.98</span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="line-height: 1.2;margin-left: 5pt;text-align: justify"><br></p><p style="line-height: 1.2;margin-left: 5pt;text-align: justify">The balance sheet expanded dramatically on the back of the FY26 capital raise - <strong>PPE grew over 70x</strong> as the company built out infrastructure, while cash, investments and receivables all scaled with the business. Encouragingly, borrowings actually fell (from ₹10.11 Cr to ₹2.57 Cr) even as the company grew, meaning growth and infrastructure build-out were funded almost entirely through fresh equity rather than debt.</p><h2 style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">4. Key Ratio Analysis</h2><div style="margin-left: 0pt; text-align: justify"><table><thead><tr><th><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Ratio</p></th><th><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">FY26</p></th><th><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">FY25</p></th><th><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">YoY Change</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Net Profit Margin</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">-5.29%</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">-533.6%</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">+528.3%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Return on Equity (ROE)</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">-1.69%</p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify;line-height: 1.2">-</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">-</p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Fixed Asset Turnover Ratio</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">4.71x</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">10.75x</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">-6.04x</p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Debt-to-Equity Ratio</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">0.01x</p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify;line-height: 1.2">-</p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify;line-height: 1.2">-</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="margin-left: 0pt; text-align: justify"><br></div><p style="line-height: 1.2;margin-left: 5pt;text-align: justify">Most FY25 ratios are not meaningful because the company had negative shareholders' equity that year - a common feature of early-stage, loss-funded businesses. The picture that matters is the FY26 turnaround in the balance sheet:<strong> equity turned strongly positive, leverage is now negligible </strong>(D/E of ~0.01x), and while ROE remains slightly negative, it has moved from a fundamentally unstable base to a stable, well-capitalised one.</p>

63sats Cybertech : FY26 Results

<p><br></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Introduction</h2><p style="line-height: 1.5;text-align: justify">63SATS Cybertech Limited (formerly 63SATS Global Cyber Technologies Networks Limited) is a Mumbai-headquartered cybersecurity company and a subsidiary of 63 moons technologies limited, founded in 2023. The company offers an integrated portfolio of cybersecurity solutions spanning enterprises, government and critical infrastructure, and individual consumers. <strong>Its flagship enterprise offering, Cyber Security Force (CSF), provides unified protection across networks, endpoints, cloud environments and, more recently, AI workloads, while its consumer mobile app, CYBX, equips individual users with tools against phishing, network surveillance and other digital threats, and has crossed close to 19 lakh downloads with over 2 lakh paid subscribers.</strong> The company's client base spans BFSI, defence, manufacturing and government, including names such as the Indian Navy, ICICI Securities, Adani Ports, Tata CLiQ, Marico and Lupin. In February 2026, 63SATS raised ₹245 Cr in a Series B funding round (following earlier private placements of ₹180 Cr and ₹65.05 Cr), positioning it to scale product innovation, SOC operations and threat-intelligence capabilities for the AI era.</p><p style="line-height: 1.5;text-align: justify">This report presents a summarised analysis of 63SATS Cybertech Limited's financial results for the year ended March 31, 2026, compared with the year ended March 31, 2025. All figures are drawn from the company's audited financial statements and are presented in ₹ Crores for ease of reading. FY26 was a year of rapid scale-up off a very small base:<strong> total income grew roughly 31x, from ₹3.01 Cr to ₹95.15 Cr,</strong> as the company expanded its enterprise and consumer client base. The company remained loss-making at both the operating and net level, though the net loss narrowed meaningfully (from ₹16.06 Cr to ₹5.03 Cr) even as it continued to invest in people, infrastructure and product development.<strong> The balance sheet was transformed by large capital infusions during the year, with total equity swinging from a negative ₹3.50 Cr to a positive ₹297.50 Cr, sharply strengthening the company's solvency position. Given the company's early-stage, loss-making profile, several ratios below (margins, ROE) are negative or not meaningful in the traditional sense, and are presented with that context</strong>. The analysis covers headline profitability metrics, a common-size cost structure, key balance sheet items, financial ratios, and a bird's-eye summary view, each accompanied by a brief commentary highlighting the key movements and their implications.</p><h2 style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">1. Revenue, EBITDA, Net Profit &amp; EPS Summary (₹ in Cr)</h2><table><tbody><tr><td><div>Particulars<br></div></td><td><div>FY26<br></div></td><td><div>FY25<br></div></td><td><div>YoY Change<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Revenue (Total Income)<br></div></td><td><div>95.15<br></div></td><td><div>3.01<br></div></td><td><div>+3,061% (~31x)<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>EBITDA<br></div></td><td><div>(3.88)<br></div></td><td><div>(15.18)<br></div></td><td><div>+ 74.4%<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>EBITDA Margin<br></div></td><td><div>-4.08%<br></div></td><td><div>-504.3%<br></div></td><td><div>+500.2 %<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Net Profit / (Loss)<br></div></td><td><div>(5.03)<br></div></td><td><div>(16.06)<br></div></td><td><div>+68.7%<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>NP Margin (NPM)<br></div></td><td><div>-5.29%<br></div></td><td><div>-533.6%<br></div></td><td><div>+528.3 %<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>EPS (Basic &amp; Diluted, ₹)<br></div></td><td><div>(0.26)<br></div></td><td><div>(3.68)<br></div></td><td><div>+ 92.9%<br></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="line-height: 1.2;margin-left: 5pt;text-align: justify"><br></p><p style="line-height: 1.2;margin-left: 5pt;text-align: justify">Revenue scaled roughly 31x off a very small FY25 base, reflecting the company's rapid enterprise and consumer client acquisition during the year. Despite this, both EBITDA and net profit remained negative - the company is still in an investment-heavy growth phase -<strong> but losses narrowed sharply (net loss fell ~69%) </strong>as revenue began to catch up with the fixed cost base built out during the year.</p><p style="text-align: justify">​</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">2. Common-Size Statement (as % of Revenue)</h2><table><tbody><tr><td><div>Particulars<br></div></td><td><div>FY25 (₹ Cr)<br></div></td><td><div>FY25 (% of Rev)<br></div></td><td><div>FY26 (₹ Cr)<br></div></td><td><div>FY26 (% of Rev)<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Revenue (Total Income)<br></div></td><td><div>3.01<br></div></td><td><div>100.00%<br></div></td><td><div>95.15<br></div></td><td><div>100.00%<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Cost of Goods Sold<br></div></td><td><div>0.00<br></div></td><td><div>0.00%<br></div></td><td><div>40.08<br></div></td><td><div>42.13%<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Employee benefit expense<br></div></td><td><div>11.05<br></div></td><td><div>367.11%<br></div></td><td><div>19.27<br></div></td><td><div>20.25%<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Finance costs<br></div></td><td><div>0.74<br></div></td><td><div>24.59%<br></div></td><td><div>1.74<br></div></td><td><div>1.83%<br></div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Depreciation &amp; amortisation<br></div></td><td><div>0.14<br></div></td><td><div>4.65%<br></div></td><td><div>0.74<br></div></td><td class="se-table-selected-cell"><div>0.78%<br></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="line-height: 1.2;margin-left: 5pt;text-align: justify">In FY25, the company's cost base - especially employee expense, at over 3.6x revenue - far outstripped its still-nascent revenue, typical of an early-stage business investing ahead of scale. <strong>By FY26, with revenue up ~31x, employee cost fell to ~20% of revenue and finance cost to under 2%</strong>, showing early signs of operating leverage even though the business is not yet profitable. Cost of Goods Sold appears only in FY26, consistent with the ramp-up in enterprise product/hardware-linked revenue.</p><p style="line-height: 1.2;margin-left: 5pt;text-align: justify"><br></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">3. Key Balance Sheet Items (₹ in Cr)</h2><div style="margin-left: 0pt; text-align: justify"><table><thead><tr><th><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Particulars</p></th><th><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">FY26 (₹ Cr)</p></th><th><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">FY25 (₹ Cr)</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Property, plant and equipment</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">20.21</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">0.28</p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Investments (current)</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">86.93</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">3.58</p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Trade receivables</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">58.21</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">0.44</p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Cash and cash equivalents</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">33.32</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">1.07</p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Borrowings (total)</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">2.57</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">10.11</p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Trade payables (total)</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">4.47</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">0.98</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="margin-left: 0pt; text-align: justify"><br></div><p style="line-height: 1.2;margin-left: 5pt;text-align: justify">The balance sheet expanded dramatically on the back of the FY26 capital raise - <strong>PPE grew over 70x</strong> as the company built out infrastructure, while cash, investments and receivables all scaled with the business. Encouragingly, borrowings actually fell (from ₹10.11 Cr to ₹2.57 Cr) even as the company grew, meaning growth and infrastructure build-out were funded almost entirely through fresh equity rather than debt.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><br></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">4. Key Ratio Analysis</h2><div style="margin-left: 0pt; text-align: justify"><table><thead><tr><th><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Ratio</p></th><th><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">FY26</p></th><th><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">FY25</p></th><th><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">YoY Change</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Net Profit Margin</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">-5.29%</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">-533.6%</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">+528.3%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Return on Equity (ROE)</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">-1.69%</p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify;line-height: 1.2">-</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">-</p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Fixed Asset Turnover Ratio</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">4.71x</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">10.75x</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">-6.04x</p></td></tr><tr><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">Debt-to-Equity Ratio</p></td><td><p style="line-height: 1.2;text-align: justify">0.01x</p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify;line-height: 1.2">-</p></td><td><p style="text-align: justify;line-height: 1.2">-</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="margin-left: 0pt; text-align: justify"><br></div><p style="line-height: 1.2;margin-left: 5pt;text-align: justify">Most FY25 ratios are not meaningful because the company had negative shareholders' equity that year - a common feature of early-stage, loss-funded businesses. The picture that matters is the FY26 turnaround in the balance sheet:<strong> equity turned strongly positive, leverage is now negligible </strong>(D/E of ~0.01x), and while ROE remains slightly negative, it has moved from a fundamentally unstable base to a stable, well-capitalised one.</p>

Signify India FY26: Revenue Grows 5.6%, While Profit Jumps 38% on Stronger Margins

<p style="text-align: justify">Bombay Swadeshi Stores, the company behind the 120-year-old Bombay Store chain, closed FY26 with revenue above ₹100 crore for the first time. Profit rose 18%. Debt is almost nothing. On the surface, a clean year. Look past the headline number and the trend is a lot more mixed.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">What the business actually is</h2><p style="text-align: justify">No factory. No manufacturing. The company buys handicrafts, home décor, and gifting items from artisans, marks them up, and sells through 30 leased stores across 13 cities. Gross margin sits around 52%, and that markup is basically the whole business.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">Because the model is "buy, stock, sell," inventory carries the balance sheet. The company holds close to ₹22 crore of stock at any time, roughly 160 days worth, since a ₹2 lakh showpiece can sit on a shelf for a year before it finds a buyer. Rent runs about 15% of revenue, the biggest cost line after goods sold. There's also a real export angle: nearly ₹18 crore of foreign exchange earnings, about 18% of revenue, largely from tourists buying at counters in cities like Mumbai and Jaipur.</p><p style="text-align: justify">One more oddity worth flagging: the company carries no bank debt at all. Its only borrowing is an interest-free loan from a promoter director. Total finance cost for the year was ₹23,000.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">The year, in numbers</h2><p style="text-align: justify">Revenue: ₹100.01 crore, up 12.7%.Profit after tax: ₹10.31 crore, up 18.3%.Operating cash flow: ₹7.07 crore, up roughly ninefold from ₹0.80 crore.Debt to equity: 0.20, down from 0.46.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">The cash flow jump is the real story here. Most of it came from a weak FY25 comparison rather than any structural shift, but it let the company pay down ₹4.71 crore of the promoter loan, fund ₹1.45 crore of capex, and still close the year with more cash in hand.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">Where the story gets less clean</h2><p style="text-align: justify">Store count went from 27 to 30, an 11% jump. Revenue grew 12.7%. Do the simple division and revenue per store barely moved, from ₹3.29 crore to ₹3.33 crore. New stores don't get a full year of sales, so this isn't a perfect comparison, but the company doesn't publish same-store growth either, so there's no clean way to tell whether existing stores are actually improving or whether the top line is just riding new square footage.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">Costs are rising faster than sales too. Staff expense climbed 18.5% as headcount grew from 213 to 245, and rent rose almost 13%, both ahead of revenue growth.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">There's also a legal overhang worth knowing about. One store, in Pune, is tied up in an eviction dispute with its landlord. The company has ₹5.21 crore locked with the court as a deposit, about 15% of its entire net worth, plus ₹5.5 lakh going out every month in interim compensation while the case runs.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">Zoom out to two years and the picture sharpens further. Revenue has grown about 9.7% a year since FY24. Profit has grown roughly 2% a year over the same stretch, mostly because FY25 was genuinely weak before FY26 recovered some of that ground. Net margin was 11.9% in FY24 and sits at 10.3% now.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">What the current price implies</h2><p style="text-align: justify">Indicative levels on the unlisted market have this stock around ₹470 a share, putting the company's value near ₹232 crore. At that price you're paying about 22.5 times FY26 earnings and 6.5 times book value.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">The book value multiple looks much cheaper than it did two years ago, but that's mostly an accounting effect: the company pays no dividend, so every rupee of profit stays on the balance sheet and book value keeps climbing even if the underlying business isn't growing much faster. Earnings, meanwhile, are close to where they were in FY24.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">Also worth noting: because the company reports under older accounting standards, its store leases don't show up as liabilities the way they would for a listed peer. That flatters both its debt ratios and its return ratios versus companies you'd normally compare it to.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">Bottom line</h2><p style="text-align: justify">A no-debt, cash-generating, 120-year-old brand with 52% gross margins is a genuinely attractive setup. But almost 90% of the company sits with three promoters, there's no dividend, no stated plan to list, and a float of only about 5.5 lakh shares to trade. Growth right now looks more like new stores opening than existing stores getting better, and two-year profit growth is nowhere near as strong as the FY26 headline suggests on its own.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">This is a bet on FY26 being the start of a real recovery, not a one-year bounce. Worth understanding that distinction before pricing it in.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><em>Based on Bombay Swadeshi Stores Limited's FY26 annual report. For information only, not investment advice. Unlisted shares are illiquid and difficult to exit.</em></p>

The Bombay Store just hit ₹100 crore. The two-year picture tells a different story.

<p style="text-align: justify">In October 2025, investors backed Zepto at a $7 billion valuation. Nine months later, India's largest mutual funds looked at the same company and priced it at $2.5 to $3 billion. In that window, nothing broke. Revenue more than doubled. So what changed?</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">It's not really one business</h2><p style="text-align: justify">Most people think of Zepto as quick grocery delivery. On the numbers, it's four businesses bundled into one app: selling groceries, charging for warehousing and delivery, selling ad space to brands, and collecting subscription and franchise fees.&nbsp;Grocery sales, the part everyone associates with the brand, grew 92% in FY26 to ₹17,588 crore. That's the slowest growing piece of the business. Warehousing and delivery revenue grew 131%. Advertising grew 151%. Platform services jumped over 500%, though off a small base. Total revenue crossed ₹22,624 crore, up 104% from ₹11,110 crore the year before.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">Where the losses actually come from</h2><p style="text-align: justify">Break down every ₹100 of revenue and the story becomes clear. Zepto spends about ₹80 buying the groceries it sells, leaving roughly ₹20 of gross margin. Getting that item to your door then costs around ₹13.50 in delivery and ₹9.50 in storage, so the basic act of fulfilling the order already costs more than the margin earned on the product itself. Everything else, wages, marketing, depreciation, and interest, stacks on top of that.&nbsp;The encouraging part is that this gap is closing fast. Gross margin rose from 14.1% to 19.6% year on year, while delivery and storage costs fell from 26.8% of revenue to 23%. The shortfall between the two shrank from 12.7% of revenue to just 3.4%. EBITDA margin improved from negative 41.3% to negative 23.2%, and the total loss grew only modestly, from ₹4,700 crore to ₹5,905 crore, despite revenue doubling. Marketing spend rose only 17% in that same period, and the company carries zero borrowings.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">The part that's actually working</h2><p style="text-align: justify">For the first time in FY26, Zepto earned more from advertising than it spent running the app. Ad revenue came in at ₹1,636 crore against ad spend of ₹1,389 crore, a net positive of ₹247 crore, compared with a net loss of ₹536 crore the year before.&nbsp;Advertising behaves nothing like grocery. Selling a packet of biscuits earns Zepto about ₹20 and then costs ₹23 to deliver. Letting a brand pay to appear at the top of search results earns close to ₹90 of every ₹100, with no truck, no rider, and no cold chain involved. Ads made up only 7.2% of revenue in FY26, but strip them out and the year's loss jumps from around ₹5,900 crore to nearly ₹7,400 crore. It's the same playbook Amazon ran, where advertising started small and became one of the most profitable parts of the business. Zepto looks early on a similar curve.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">Why the IPO got paused, not cancelled</h2><p style="text-align: justify">The timeline is worth laying out plainly. Zepto raised at $7 billion in October 2025 and filed a confidential draft prospectus in December. By May 2026, regulatory feedback and market chatter had the company talking ₹11,000 to 12,000 crore. The updated filing in June proposed an ₹8,010 crore fresh issue plus a stake sale by existing investors. By July, institutional investors were indicating a value closer to $2.5 to 3 billion, and on July 31 the CEO told staff the listing would pause for one or two quarters. The filing is still live with the regulator, and the company has until roughly November 2027 to use it.&nbsp;The business itself kept growing through this. Orders crossed roughly 640 million for the year, more than 2.3 million a day by the March quarter, across about 1,139 dark stores. What changed was who was setting the price. A private round involves people who all benefit from a higher number. An IPO brings in buyers who owe the company nothing and are simply asking when the losses stop and whether there's enough cash to get there.&nbsp;On that question, the balance sheet gives a real number to work with. Zepto held about ₹4,770 crore in liquid cash and investments as of March 2026, against roughly ₹3,462 crore burned on operations that year. That works out to something like 16 months of runway. Not a crisis, but not a position that lets you insist on your own price either.&nbsp;Zepto isn't the only one recalibrating. PhonePe deferred its listing plans earlier this year, Flipkart and Curefoods have pushed their timelines back, and Honasa filed at close to $3 billion but listed at roughly $1.2 billion. Public markets in India have stopped treating a private valuation as settled fact.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">Bottom line</h2><p style="text-align: justify">Zepto's underlying numbers are genuinely improving, arguably faster than most companies its size in the country. But the market isn't pricing the growth story right now. It's pricing the gap between what the business earns on each order and what it costs to fulfil, and asking how much more capital it takes to close that gap for good. The company thinks the answer is a quarter or two. Public investors seem willing to wait and see before paying up.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><em><br></em></p><p style="text-align: justify"><em>Figures from Zepto Limited's FY2025-26 consolidated annual report, converted to ₹ crore, with store and order counts from the updated draft prospectus. For information only, not investment advice.</em></p>

Zepto was worth $7 billion in October. Mutual funds now say $2.5 to $3 billion. Revenue doubled in between

<p style="text-align: justify">​<br></p><p style="text-align: justify">Cheelizza Pizza India Limited grew revenue 17% in FY26 from ₹19.35 Cr to ₹22.65 Cr and trimmed its EBITDA loss nearly in half. On paper, that's progress. But the cash position tells a very different story: just ₹9.54 lakh across 23 outlets in 4 cities, less than what one store typically brings in during a single month.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong><br></strong></p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong>The margin squeeze</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify">Raw materials (flour, cheese, packaging) eat roughly 35% of revenue a manageable cost. The real pressure comes after the kitchen:</p><ul><li>Delivery aggregator commissions: ₹3.98 Cr (17.6% of revenue)</li><li>Marketing &amp; advertising: ₹1.67 Cr (7.4%)</li><li>Rent: ₹1.95 Cr</li><li>Power: ₹1.55 Cr</li><li>Salaries: ₹4.57 Cr (20% of revenue)</li></ul><p style="text-align: justify">Roughly a quarter of every rupee earned goes straight to the platforms that bring in the order a structural cost every aggregator-dependent QSR chain in India is wrestling with right now.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><br></p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong>FY26 vs FY25 P&amp;L</strong></p><div style="text-align: justify"><table><thead><tr><th><div style="text-align: justify">Particulars</div></th><th><div style="text-align: justify">FY26 (₹ cr)</div></th><th><div style="text-align: justify">FY25 (₹ cr)</div></th><th><div style="text-align: justify">Change</div></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Revenue from Operations</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">22.65</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">19.35</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">+17.0%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Other Income</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">0.09</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">0.09</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">−7.2%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Total Income</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">22.73</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">19.45</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">+16.9%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Cost of Materials Consumed</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">7.87</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">7.29</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">+7.9%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Employee Benefit Expenses</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">4.57</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">4.46</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">+2.5%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Other Expenses</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">11.94</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">10.73</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">+11.3%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">EBITDA</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">−1.65</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">−3.04</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">45.6% better</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Depreciation &amp; Amortization</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">0.99</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">1.36</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">−27.5%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Finance Costs</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">0.67</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">1.05</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">−35.5%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Loss Before Tax</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">−3.31</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">−5.45</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">39.2% better</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Deferred Tax</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">−1.57 (charge)</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">+1.51 (credit)</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">reversed</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Loss After Tax</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">−4.89</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">−3.93</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">24.3% worse</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">EPS (₹)</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">(0.44)</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">(3.43)</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">—</div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p style="text-align: justify"><strong><br></strong></p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong>What the auditors flagged</strong></p><ul><li>Cash losses: ₹2.27 Cr in FY26, on top of ₹4.08 Cr in FY25</li><li>Loan repayments to multiple lenders (Capwise, Incred, Indifi, ICICI) running 30–120 days late through the year</li><li>TDS deducted from salaries between April–August 2025 was deposited with the government only in May 2026 about a year overdue</li><li>ESI dues of ₹11.13 lakh and labour welfare fund dues of ₹28,689 remained unpaid as of the audit data</li></ul><p style="text-align: justify"><strong><br></strong></p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong>Negative net worth</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify">Accumulated losses of ₹16.21 Cr have wiped out share capital and premium, leaving total equity at −₹15 lakh as of 31 March 2026. Current liabilities of ₹6.14 Cr sit against current assets of just ₹2.50 Cr a current ratio of 0.41. Strip out the ₹2.56 Cr deferred tax asset (which only has value if the company eventually turns a taxable profit), and net worth falls closer to −₹2.7 Cr.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong><br></strong></p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong>Who actually financed the year</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify">Operating losses of ₹1.60 Cr (loss before tax adjusted for depreciation and finance cost) explain only part of the ₹5.42 Cr cash outflow from operations. The rest went toward repaying ₹2.84 Cr of short-term borrowings and clearing ₹1.25 Cr of overdue liabilities carried from the prior year. Add ₹0.93 Cr of capex and ₹0.60 Cr locked up as a lien-bound fixed deposit against a working capital facility, and the total funding gap for the year came to roughly ₹6.95 Cr.</p><div style="text-align: justify"><table><thead><tr><th><div style="text-align: justify">Source</div></th><th><div style="text-align: justify">₹ crore</div></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Rights issue (43.7 lakh shares @ ₹12)</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">+5.25</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Increase in long-term borrowings</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">+2.43</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">CCPS application money</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">+0.02</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Interest paid</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">−0.67</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify"><strong>Net financing inflow</strong></div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify"><strong>+7.02</strong></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p style="text-align: justify"><br></p><p style="text-align: justify"><br></p><p style="text-align: justify">The "long-term borrowings" line is the one worth sitting with secured bank loans actually fell to zero during the year. That ₹2.43 Cr came from Managing Director Animesh Lodha personally, who advanced ₹7.27 Cr to the company over FY26 and drew back ₹6.01 Cr, leaving ₹2.47 Cr outstanding. In effect, the promoter's own account functioned as the company's working capital line.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong><br></strong></p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong>The valuation gap</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify">Cheelizza's pre-IPO shares have recently traded around ₹12–13, down sharply from a 52-week high near ₹78. Even at that lower price, the implied valuation of ~₹135 Cr works out to roughly 6x revenue rich for a business with negative equity and negative EBITDA.</p><p style="text-align: justify">Separately, the company is raising capital via Compulsorily Convertible Preference Shares priced at ₹10,000 each, of which only ₹100 per share has been called and received so far ₹1.82 lakh collected in total as of year-end.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong><br></strong></p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong>Governance notes</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify">The audit committee, nomination &amp; remuneration committee, and the statutory POSH committee were all constituted only after 31 March 2026. The statutory auditor resigned mid-term. And the AGM polling paper lists a resolution on rights-issue fund utilization that isn't part of the actual notice — worth a closer look for anyone tracking the paper trail.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong><br></strong></p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong>Bottom line</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify">A 100%-vegetarian QSR chain is a real, underserved category in India, and Cheelizza's ₹98 lakh average revenue per outlet isn't a bad number. But growth alone hasn't fixed the balance sheet it's been financed by promoter loans and a rights issue that went almost entirely toward debt repayment, not expansion. The next 12–18 months hinge on three things: store-level cash profitability, genuine equity capital rather than founder advances, and reduced dependence on aggregator commissions.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><em>Based on Cheelizza Pizza India Limited's FY 2025–26 annual report, audited by APRA &amp; Associates LLP. Not investment advice. Pre-IPO/unlisted shares carry limited liquidity and regulatory oversight.</em></p>

Cheelizza Pizza: ₹22.65 Cr in Sales, ₹9.54 Lakh in the Bank

<p style="text-align: justify">Imagine Marketing Limited, the parent of boAt, just closed a financial year where revenue fell and profit rose sharply. On the surface that looks like a company finally hitting its stride. Look at where the extra profit actually came from, and the picture gets more complicated, especially with an IPO on the horizon and a private-market valuation that was set years ago under very different assumptions.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">The Headline Numbers</h2><p style="text-align: justify">Revenue from operations dropped from ₹3,062.83 crore in FY25 to ₹2,928.08 crore in FY26, a decline of about 4.4%. Despite that, profit for the year rose from ₹64.22 crore to ₹92.15 crore, up roughly 43.5%. Profit before tax climbed even more sharply, from ₹83.37 crore to ₹123.93 crore, a jump of nearly 49%.</p><p style="text-align: justify">That combination, less revenue but meaningfully more profit, is unusual enough to be worth digging into. It didn't happen because boAt sold more. It happened because several cost lines shrank.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">An Asset-Light Business by Design</h2><p style="text-align: justify">boAt's financials make its operating model fairly obvious once you look past the brand. The company's property, plant and equipment stood at just ₹13.1 crore, a tiny number for a business generating close to ₹2,930 crore in revenue. There's no meaningful raw-material cost either. Instead, the largest line item on the expense side is "purchases of stock-in-trade," which came in at ₹2,047.54 crore, essentially finished products bought in and sold on.</p><p style="text-align: justify">In practice, this means boAt designs and markets products rather than manufacturing them itself. Production is outsourced to contract manufacturers, with a domestic manufacturing tie-up run through a joint venture with Dixon Technologies that sits outside boAt's own books. This kind of structure keeps capital requirements low, but it also means the company has relatively little to differentiate itself on besides its brand, since the underlying hardware, components, and even factories are accessible to competitors too.</p><p style="text-align: justify">That's likely why advertising remains such a large expense relative to everything else the company spends on product development. Advertisement and promotion expenses came in at ₹339.76 crore for FY26, down from ₹389.72 crore in FY25, a cut of nearly 13%. For comparison, spending on research and development was a small fraction of that. In a business built on brand recognition rather than proprietary technology, marketing effectively functions as the company's core investment.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">Where the Extra Profit Actually Came From</h2><p style="text-align: justify">Three specific changes explain most of the swing in profitability.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong>The wearables segment stopped losing money.</strong> boAt's Wearables division, largely smartwatches, had posted a segment-level loss of around ₹46 crore in FY25. In FY26, that same segment turned a small profit of roughly ₹2.9 crore. The improvement isn't dramatic in absolute terms, but the direction matters. India's smartwatch category has become intensely price-competitive, with margins compressed across most brands, and boAt appears to have pulled back from chasing volume there in favour of protecting margin.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong>Marketing spend was scaled back.</strong> As noted above, advertising and promotion fell from 12.7% of revenue to roughly 11.6%. That's close to ₹50 crore in savings flowing more or less directly to the bottom line. The trade-off is that brand visibility isn't free to maintain; reduced ad spend today can show up as softer sales later if the pullback continues.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><strong>Warranty costs declined sharply.</strong> Warranty expenses fell from ₹82.58 crore to ₹57.50 crore, a drop of over 30%. This could reflect genuine improvements in product quality, a reduction in customer claims, or some combination of both, and the annual report doesn't fully separate the two explanations.</p><p style="text-align: justify">Taken together, these three factors, a smaller wearables loss, lower ad spend, and fewer warranty payouts, account for the bulk of the profit improvement. None of them involve selling more product.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">A Concentrated Customer Base</h2><p style="text-align: justify">One detail in the disclosures stands out: two customers accounted for ₹1,692 crore of boAt's total sales, or about 58% of everything the company sold in FY26. The company doesn't name these customers directly, but given boAt's description of itself as scaling through major online marketplaces, it's not hard to guess the general nature of these relationships.</p><p style="text-align: justify">This concentration is a natural consequence of an online-first distribution strategy. Selling primarily through large e-commerce platforms avoids the cost of physical retail, but it also hands considerable negotiating leverage to those platforms over commissions, visibility, and placement. It may also explain why the company has been investing in a distributor network across smaller cities, an offline channel that's slower and lower-margin to build, but one the company controls directly rather than renting shelf space, so to speak, from a marketplace.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">A Shift Inside the Product Mix</h2><p style="text-align: justify">Audio products, the earphones and headphones that built the boAt brand, saw revenue fall by about 10% in FY26. Meanwhile, the "Others" category, covering chargers, cables, gaming accessories, and grooming products, grew by around 60%. The company's most recognisable product line is shrinking as a share of the business, while a less headline-grabbing category is expanding quickly. Whether that shift continues, and whether it can offset softness in audio, is one of the more interesting open questions in the results.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">The IPO Context</h2><p style="text-align: justify">None of this is happening in a vacuum. Imagine Marketing has filed IPO papers with SEBI, covering a fresh issue of ₹500 crore and an offer for sale of ₹1,000 crore by existing shareholders, with the company's draft filings having gone through the regulatory review process ahead of an expected listing on the NSE and BSE.</p><p style="text-align: justify">It's worth being careful here: as of now, this remains a filed IPO working through the regulatory process rather than a confirmed listing with a fixed date. Timelines for IPOs can shift, and market conditions between filing and listing sometimes change the final structure or size of the offer.</p><p style="text-align: justify">Companies preparing to list naturally want their most recent financial year to look disciplined, and a year showing margin improvement, cost control, and a turnaround in a previously loss-making segment fits that narrative well. That doesn't mean the numbers are misleading, the wearables improvement and cost reductions appear to be real, reported figures. But the timing is still worth keeping in mind when evaluating how representative FY26 is likely to be of future years.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">Doing the Valuation Math</h2><p style="text-align: justify">Imagine Marketing has roughly 15.06 crore diluted shares outstanding. On a consolidated basis, FY26 profit came in around ₹84.5 crore, which works out to earnings per share of roughly ₹5.61.</p><p style="text-align: justify">The multiple a market is willing to pay on that earnings figure depends heavily on growth expectations. A company growing revenue at 30% a year might reasonably command a premium multiple. boAt's revenue, however, fell in FY26, its largest category shrank, and this year's profit gain came primarily from cost discipline rather than expanding sales, discipline that has a natural ceiling once the easy cuts are made.</p><p style="text-align: justify">For a consumer brand in that position, without owning its manufacturing and with over half its sales concentrated in two customers, a more conservative earnings multiple in the range of roughly 35 to 40 times looks more realistic than an aggressive growth multiple. Applying that range to ₹84.5 crore in profit puts an implied valuation somewhere between approximately ₹3,000 crore and ₹3,400 crore.</p><p style="text-align: justify">Compare that to where the company was privately valued in the past. In October 2022, Imagine Marketing raised ₹500 crore from Warburg Pincus and Malabar Investments in a round that reportedly valued the company at close to $1.2 billion, in the range of ₹9,500 to ₹10,900 crore depending on the exchange rate used at different points. Early IPO speculation had floated figures closer to $1.5 billion, or roughly ₹12,500 crore.</p><p style="text-align: justify">Set against an earnings-based estimate of ₹3,000 to ₹3,500 crore today, that's a substantial gap, potentially two-thirds lower than the peak private valuation. Framed differently, a ₹10,900 crore valuation on FY26's ₹84.5 crore profit implies a multiple well above 100 times earnings, a level that only makes sense if the growth rates seen during the 2021-22 funding boom were expected to continue indefinitely. They haven't.</p><h2 style="text-align: justify">The Bigger Picture</h2><p style="text-align: justify">Imagine Marketing isn't a one-off case. A number of Indian consumer-facing startups raised capital at valuations set during the 2021-22 period, based on growth assumptions from that era, and are now approaching public markets that tend to price businesses on actual, current profitability rather than projected trajectories.</p><p style="text-align: justify">There's a case for a higher valuation too. Brand strength, an established customer base, and the possibility that investors value the business on revenue scale rather than profit, the way some consumer brands have been valued in the past, could push pricing above a pure earnings-multiple estimate. And if the IPO is ultimately priced below the 2022 private round, that isn't necessarily a failure; it may simply reflect a more grounded valuation than the one set during a very different funding environment.</p><p style="text-align: justify">For anyone evaluating this company, whether through the IPO or through unlisted shares beforehand, the more useful question isn't whether boAt turned a profit this year. It's whether that profit holds up once marketing spend normalises, and what the business is actually worth if audio sales keep declining while cost-cutting reaches its limits.</p><p style="text-align: justify"><em><br></em></p><p style="text-align: justify"><em><br></em></p><p style="text-align: justify"><em>This analysis is based on figures reported in Imagine Marketing Limited's FY2025-26 annual report and publicly available reporting on its 2022 funding round and IPO filing. Valuation figures presented here are illustrative estimates based on standard earnings-multiple reasoning, not a recommendation to buy, sell, or value the company at any specific price. Readers should refer to the company's official filings and consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.</em></p>

boAt's FY26 Profit Jump: What's Really Driving It, and What It Means for Valuation

<h2>The Setup<br></h2><p>All EV bull cases face one common problem eventually that the majority of the world's supply of battery materials lies under the control of China electrolytes, cathodes, binders, the lot. Any nation hoping to develop an EV industry in isolation from this dependence will have to develop sources of these chemical-based intermediate inputs in the domestic market. The Indian company which is in the best position to be a bottleneck for these supplies is the one known as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.planify.in/research-report/gfcl-ev-products/">GFCL EV Products Limited (GEPL)</a>, and since it is not listed, access to it via retail investors is via the grey share market.</p><h2>What the Company Actually Does</h2><p>GFCL EV was founded in June 2021 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited (GFL), which belongs to the nearly $18 billion INOXGFL group. The rationale here is backward integration. This is because GFL has three decades of experience in fluorine chemistry, while electrolyte salts, binders, and cathode coatings that are required for batteries are made using fluorine chemistry. Thus, instead of sourcing these products from imports, GFCL EV makes them locally at a single location in Jolva, Gujarat.</p><h2>Its product basket includes:</h2><ul><li><strong>LiPF6 (lithium hexafluorophosphate) </strong> the core electrolyte salt in lithium-ion cells<br></li><li><strong>NaPF6 -&nbsp;</strong>the sodium-ion equivalent, positioning the company for next-generation chemistries<br></li><li><strong>Electrolyte formulations and additives (FEC, VC)</strong><br></li><li><strong>PVDF and PTFE binders<br></strong></li><li><strong>LFP cathode active material (CAM)</strong><br></li></ul><p>As a package, it comprises almost 45–50% of an LFP cell battery component while accounting for as much as 70% of the cost of the LFP cell battery according to estimates, which few players from outside China can boast of. Competitors abroad in Korea, Japan, and the EU provide only one or two of these products; however, GFCL EV is trying to provide them all.</p><p><br>The story of commercialization is far from over. Supply of LiPF6 began in December 2025, while subsequent purchases were placed in Q4 2026. The LFP cathode facility is now functioning properly and currently going through customer qualification process. Commercialization of fluoropolymer binder is expected in H1 of FY27. For LFP initial customer approvals have been received and commercial sales are expected in H2 FY27. For PVDF, qualification is complete and commercial business is expected in H1 FY27. LiPF6 commercialization has already started, with repeat orders/FY27+ orders in place. In short, the facility exists and produces its products, but commercialization is just getting started.</p><h2>The Capital Story: Real Institutional Validation</h2><p>This is how GFCL EV stands out from the generic pre-revenue unlisted “story stock.” In December 2025, International Finance Corporation (IFC) a part of the World Bank Group announced an investment of about $50 million (₹430 crore) through compulsorily convertible preference shares, which was IFC’s first ever investment into an Indian battery material company. Barclays was the advisor for this deal.</p><p>Soon after this in early 2026, an additional fund raise of $80 million was carried out from a “global marquee investor” to reach total fresh capital raise amounting to about $130 million. There is another round that was completed way back in October 2024 raising ₹1,000 crore from the promoters and family offices of major Indian business houses, with an implied equity valuation of ₹25,000 crore.<br><br>There is also talk of a much larger capex plan of around $709 million (~₹6,000 crore) for the Jolva plant, overall program targeted by FY28, with full potential expected to be realized in FY29, with plans for infrastructure along with an AHF production facility, which will decrease the transport risk. This is a significant level of investment that reflects commitment rather than just an “EV side bet” by the parent company.</p><h2>The Unlisted Share Price: Proceed With Caution</h2><p>This is where potential investors should slow down. Since GEPL is not listed on any stock exchange, it does not have a market price. What it has, rather, is a series of different online platforms dealing in unlisted shares, each quoting their own indicative price:<br></p><ul><li>GEPL's quoted price on most platforms around mid-2026 is somewhere between ₹35-55, suggesting that the market capitalization stands at about ₹25,000-33,000 crore.<br></li><li>Some of the dealers' reported 52-week ₹39–55.<br></li></ul><p>The real-world lesson: treat any individual unlisted platform quote merely as illustrative, not as authoritative. These quotes are OTC dealer quotes and not matched exchange prices, price differences are huge, lot sizes and tick sizes differ across platforms (usually ₹35,000 – ₹113,000 depending upon the dealer), and there is no liquidity at all. Compare multiple platforms and compare with the official valuation of the company itself wherever possible.</p><h2>The Financials: A Pre-Revenue, Capital-Intensive Story</h2><p>The accounts of GEPL seem to reflect what would be expected of a company halfway through setting up a highly capital-intensive plant.<br></p><ul><li>Revenue has been effectively zero in FY23, increased to about ₹38 crore in FY26, and continues to increase at a modest pace as commercial production ramps up.<br></li><li>There have been significant and increasing net losses – of about ₹27 crore in FY25 and ₹104 crore in FY26 – due to high depreciation and interest costs, and pre-commercialization expenses, and not because of any business failure as such.<br></li><li>There are high capex requirements: property, plant and equipment expenditures have increased from ₹444 cr in FY25 to ₹773 cr in FY26.<br></li><li>The company has relied on IC deposits from its parent, GFL, along with funds raised through stock warrants, apart from raising funds externally.<br></li><li>EPS remains negative (about -₹0.14), P/E ratio does not make sense in this case, while P/B ratio (about 19.8x+) is more of forward-looking valuation.<br></li></ul><p>This is, without question, an earnings before story. The market is buying the call option on the expansion of battery materials capacity in India.<br><br></p><h3>Why the Bull Case Has Teeth</h3><ul><li><strong>Structural tailwind: </strong>The EV and stationary storage (BESS) sectors in India are at the beginning of multi-decade growth trajectories, with practically all inputs for batteries coming from outside, mainly China. Any credible domestic substitute would automatically have a huge addressable market.<br></li><li><strong>Genuine technical moat: </strong>Fluorine chemistry is dangerous, capital-intensive, and difficult to replicate fast. GFL’s more than 30 years of expertise creates a true barrier to entry as opposed to marketing speak.<br></li><li><strong>Institutional backing: </strong>Involvement of the IFC, which is its first investment ever in battery materials in India, together with another global marquee investor, adds credibility that most non-listed companies lack.<br></li><li><strong>Balance sheet prudence: </strong>While incurring losses, GEPL is being funded predominantly through equity and promoters’ / family office money, thus avoiding any kind of solvency risk in the ongoing "cyclical pause" as some analysts have described (EVs' growth in demand has been slowing in FY24-FY25 industry-wide).<br></li><li><strong>Sodium-ion optionality: </strong>Early positioning in NaPF6 provides some access to next-generation battery materials which can make lithium obsolete eventually.</li></ul><h3>Why the Bear Case Also Has Teeth</h3><ul><li><strong>IPO not listed, DRHP not filed: </strong>No IPO date is confirmed. Liquidity of non-listed shareholders lies only within the OTC dealing network, and getting out of the investment may prove to be tough, especially when the market sentiment is bad.<br></li><li><strong>Qualification Risk: </strong>Earnings will depend upon the qualification cycle of customers with EV OEMs and cell manufacturing companies – a long cycle that comes with no guarantee of converting into large volume of orders.<br></li><li><strong>Chinese Competition: </strong>The Chinese producers of battery material are at an advantage due to economies of scale, pre-existing connections, and sometimes even lower costs; the "non-China" factor of GEPL is an asset for selling to Western and Indian OEMs but that does not save it from price competition.<br></li><li><strong>Contingent risks at parent level: </strong>GFCL EV receives benefit from the parent company, GFL; however, this relationship works both ways since the guarantees offered by the INOXGFL Group to other affiliated firms (Inox Wind, etc.) is an indirect balance sheet risk. The R32 refrigerant gas quota limitations for GFL is another one.<br></li><li><strong>Valuation opacity and disparity: </strong>As pointed out above, the valuations across all the platforms have a huge variance, and the unlisted-market valuations tend to be based on sentiment and illiquid, hence are unreliable in terms of their intrinsic worth.<br></li><li><strong>Consistent losses: </strong>The company is still experiencing massive losses, and only its success in utilizing its capacities will help in becoming profitable in the coming years.<br><br></li></ul><h2>The Bottom Line</h2><p>GFCL EV Products is definitely one of the most meaningful opportunities in India's nascent unlisted EV materials space, a legitimate, funded effort to indigenize a crucial and entirely imported link in the batteries value chain, with credible institutional backing from IFC and other distinguished stakeholders. This is no speculative shell; the facility exists, is operating, and is scaling toward generating revenues.<br>That said, it is, by all the traditional measures of finance, a speculative, pre-profit industrial play that trades in an illiquid, opaque OTC market, in which quoted prices may differ by 30-40%, while any listing will require a six-month lock-in period post-listing. Those who find this package of attributes appealing enough for investing in GEPL, should put this company on their watch list. The rest should probably just wait until the company actually files the DRHP document, which as of the middle of 2026 has yet to be done.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              ​<br></p>

instead of sourcing these products from imports, GFCL EV makes them locally at a single location in Jolva, Gujarat.

GFCL EV Products Unlisted Shares: EV Materials Sector Bet

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