<p><br></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.38">Understanding Right of First Refusal (ROFR) in unlisted markets</h2><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify">Unlisted equity trading has picked up fast in India. People know more now, and they've got more money to put to work, so Indian investors have started buying into companies that never touch a stock exchange, pre-IPO startups, family businesses, joint ventures, private-equity-backed firms. None of it is listed anywhere, and that comes with conditions most people don't think about upfront. One of the big ones is the Right of First Refusal, ROFR for short.<br><br></p><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify">Own a stake in a private company, weighing whether to buy into one, or just trying to wrap your head around how ownership works when nothing's listed, this is the stuff worth knowing. It's the quiet force behind who's allowed to invest, how fast someone can walk away with their money, and how much pull founders and early backers keep as things move forward.&nbsp;</p><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 16px"><br></span></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 16px">What is ROFR?</span></h2><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify">Basically, ROFR is a clause that lives inside a company's Articles of Association or shareholders' agreement most of the time. What it says is straightforward: a shareholder who wants to sell can't just go sell, they have to offer those shares to the existing shareholders, or the company itself, before an outsider ever gets the chance.&nbsp;<br><br></p><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify">Here's the mechanics of it: someone gets a real offer from an outside buyer, and instead of just taking it, they're required to bring that exact same deal back to the existing shareholders or the company first. Those insiders get a fixed amount of time to say yes or no. Only after they pass does the shareholder get to actually sell to the outsider.<br><br></p><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify">So really, what ROFR gives existing shareholders is the chance to match an outside offer, not a guaranteed right to buy the shares. It's a system built on preference rather than obligation, one that just makes sure the people already in the company get first say before ownership gets diluted any further.</p><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 16px"><br></span></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 16px">Rationale behind ROFR</span></h2><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify">Private companies don't work like public ones. There's no open, anonymous market where shares change hands freely, and there's a lot less transparency about who owns what. Bring in a new investor and you're not just adding a name to the list, you're handing someone access to confidential information, maybe a say in decisions, maybe a shift in the balance of power that used to sit somewhere else.<br><br></p><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify">ROFR exists mainly to protect that tighter, more relationship-driven setup. A few reasons it tends to show up:</p><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify">It keeps unwanted outsiders from getting a foothold. Competitors, purely speculative buyers, anyone the existing shareholders would rather not deal with, ROFR gives them a way to block that.<br><br></p><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify">It protects the pull founders and early investors already have. Bring in enough new, unfamiliar faces and that influence starts to thin out fast. ROFR slows that down.<br><br></p><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify">It helps a company hold onto its culture, which matters more than people give it credit for, especially with small startups and family businesses where a shared sense of direction is often what keeps the whole thing together.<br><br></p><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify">And it gives everyone a valuation that's actually grounded in something. Since the price in a ROFR sale comes from a real offer someone already made, there's no need to argue over what the shares are "really" worth. Somebody already put a number on it.</p><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 16px"><br></span></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 16px">Distinguishing ROFR from other related Shareholders Right</span></h2><p style="line-height:1.38">Shareholder agreements are usually packed with clauses covering share transfers, and a lot of them blur together because they're dealing with similar ground. Worth pulling ROFR apart from the rest.<br><br></p><p style="line-height:1.38">Right of First Offer, ROFO: actually runs the other direction. The seller has to go to existing shareholders first, before they've even looked outside. Under ROFR it's flipped, there's already an offer from outside sitting on the table, and the existing shareholders have to decide whether to match it.<br><br></p><p style="line-height:1.38">Tag-along rights: Tag-along rights are something else entirely. These protect minority shareholders, letting them sell alongside a majority shareholder on the same terms if that majority shareholder decides to exit.<br><br></p><p style="line-height:1.38">What really sets ROFR apart is timing. It only kicks in once a real offer has already landed, so existing shareholders are reacting to something concrete rather than trying to get ahead of a sale before it even happens.<br><br></p><p style="line-height:1.38">Here's the part that trips people up: most investors don't realize a ROFR clause applies to them until they try to sell and run straight into it, and by then there's not much room left to push back. That's really the whole case for understanding this stuff early. Know the terms going in, and you'll have a much clearer read on how easily you can get your money out later, what could slow that down, and whether the investment's even worth making in the first place.</p><p style="line-height:1.38"><br></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.38">​<span style="font-size: 17px">Conclusion</span></h2><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify">Capital keeps pouring into India's unlisted and private markets, and that's made understanding safeguards like ROFR matter to a lot more people than just institutional investors now. It's trying to balance two things that pull against each other, keeping ownership stable and giving current shareholders a measure of control, while still leaving a door open for them to sell and get their money out when they actually need it.</p>

Unlisted equity trading has picked up fast in India. People know more now, and they've got more money to put to work, so Indian investors have started buying into companies that never touch a stock exchange, pre-IPO startups, family businesses, joint ventures, private-equity-backed firms. None of it is listed anywhere, and that comes with conditions most people don't think about upfront. One of the big ones is the Right of First Refusal, ROFR for short

What is ROFR (Right of First Refusal) in Unlisted Share Transfers?

<p><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">If you have ever tried to figure out what a company is really worth, you have probably run into two numbers that sound similar but mean very different things: market capitalisation and enterprise value. Most people stop at market cap because it is easier to find. But if you are serious about valuing a business, especially one that is not publicly traded, enterprise value (EV) is the number that actually tells you something useful</span></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.38"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">Enterprise Value - Simple Meaning</span></h2><p style="line-height: 1.38"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Think of it this way. If you wanted to buy a company outright, you would not just pay for its shares. You would also have to take on whatever debt it owes, and in return you would get to keep whatever cash it has sitting in the bank. Enterprise value captures exactly this: the true cost of owning the entire business, debt and all, cash included.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><br></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">The formula is simple:</span></p><p style="line-height:1.38"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">EV = Market Capitalisation + Total Debt − Cash and Cash Equivalents</span></p><p style="line-height:1.38"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">For an unlisted company, "market capitalisation" is replaced by the equity value derived from a valuation exercise or we take the price at which it is traded on different platform like Planify, Unlisted Zone etc., since there is no stock price to pull from an exchange.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent"><br></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">Common ratios built on EV</span></p><ul><li style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)"><span style="background-color: transparent">EV/EBITDA: how the business is valued relative to its operating earnings, before the effects of interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation</span></li><li style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)"><span style="background-color: transparent">EV/Sales: useful for early-stage or loss-making companies that don't yet have stable profits</span></li><li style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)"><span style="background-color: transparent">EV/EBIT: similar to EV/EBITDA, but accounts for depreciation and amortisation as real costs</span></li></ul><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">These ratios are popular because they strip out the noise created by how a company is financed, and focus purely on how well the underlying business performs.</span></p><h2><span style="font-size: 24px;background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Why EV Matters So Much for Unlisted Shares</span><span style="font-size: 24px;background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">​</span></h2><p style="line-height: 1.38"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Unlisted companies don't have a stock ticker updating their price every second. There is no daily market feedback telling you what the shares are worth. This is exactly where EV earns its keep.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><br></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38"><strong><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">1.&nbsp;</span></strong><strong><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">Enables Comparison: </span></strong><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">It levels the playing field between companies with different debt loads. Two unlisted companies can have identical revenue and profit, yet one might be carrying heavy debt while the other has none. Comparing them on equity value alone would be misleading. EV corrects for this by looking at the whole capital structure, not just the equity slice.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent"><br></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38"><strong><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">2. Helps Calculating Equity Value:</span></strong><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent"> It works backwards to find equity value. For <a target="_blank" href="https://www.planify.in/unlisted-shares/">unlisted shares</a>, the usual approach is to first estimate EV using comparable company multiples (like EV/EBITDA from similar listed or recently-transacted businesses), then subtract net debt to arrive at equity value, and finally divide by the number of shares. This is often the most practical starting point when there's no market price to anchor on.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent"><br></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38"><strong><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">3. Eliminates need of P/E and P/B: </span></strong><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">P/E and P/B need a reliable price, and unlisted shares don't have one. The P/E ratio depends on a current, dependable share price, which usually doesn't exist for unlisted companies. There is no single exchange quoting the price every second. Instead, the same share might trade at different prices on different unlisted-share platforms, or through different brokers, at the same time, and that price may not even update daily. Using P/E here means anchoring your valuation to a number that could be stale or inconsistent depending on where you looked it up. P/B runs into a similar issue, plus it relies on book value, which rarely reflects what an unlisted business, especially a growing, asset-light one, is actually worth. EV/EBITDA sidesteps this entirely, since it's built from the company's own operating numbers rather than a price that shifts from platform to platform.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent"><br></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38"><strong><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">4. Better than DCF:&nbsp;</span></strong><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">DCF needs detailed financial visibility, which most unlisted companies don't offer. A discounted cash flow model needs a lot of inputs to build: multi-year revenue projections, profit margins, capex plans, and a reasonable growth trajectory, all built on solid historical data. Unlisted companies typically don't disclose all details publicly, so forecasting future revenue and profit becomes difficult for them. Most unlisted companies also don't pay dividends, so there's no steady cash distribution to anchor a cash-flow-based model on either. EV-based multiples avoid this problem because they lean on real, observable numbers- comparable transactions or listed peers- instead of years of assumptions about a company whose financials you can barely see.</span></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.38"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">Conclusion</span></h2><p style="line-height:1.38"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color: transparent">Hence, for unlisted companies, there is no daily price to lean on, so the valuation has to do more work. Enterprise value gives a cleaner, capital-structure-neutral way to size up a business and compare it fairly against others, which is exactly why it has become the starting point of choice for investors, buyers, and anyone pricing unlisted shares.</span></p>

If you have ever tried to figure out what a company is really worth, you have probably run into two numbers that sound similar but mean very different things: market capitalisation and enterprise value. Most people stop at market cap because it is easier to find. But if you are serious about valuing a business, especially one that is not publicly traded, enterprise value (EV) is the number that actually tells you something useful.

What is Enterprise Value, and Why It Matters for Unlisted Companies

<p><br></p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">​<a target="_blank" href="https://www.planify.in/research-report/national-stock-exchange/">NSE's</a> June 2026 quarter results dropped on July 30, 2026, and there's a lot more texture here than "profit up 7%." Let's unpack it properly.</p><h4>1. The headline numbers (Consolidated)</h4><div><table><thead><tr><th><div>Metric</div></th><th><div>Q1 FY27 (Jun'26)</div></th><th><div>Q1 FY26 (Jun'25)</div></th><th><div>Change</div></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><div>Revenue from operations</div></td><td><div>₹4,560 cr</div></td><td><div>₹4,032 cr</div></td><td><div>+13.1%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Other income</div></td><td><div>₹692 cr</div></td><td><div>₹766 cr</div></td><td><div>-9.7%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Total income</div></td><td><div>₹5,252 cr</div></td><td><div>₹4,798 cr</div></td><td><div>+9.5%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Total expenses</div></td><td><div>₹1,172 cr</div></td><td><div>₹1,053 cr</div></td><td><div>+11.3%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Profit before tax</div></td><td><div>₹4,169 cr</div></td><td><div>₹3,776 cr</div></td><td><div>+10.4%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Net profit (total)</div></td><td><div>₹3,120 cr</div></td><td><div>₹2,924 cr</div></td><td><div>+6.7%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div>EPS (basic &amp; diluted)</div></td><td><div>₹12.6</div></td><td><div>₹11.8</div></td><td><div>+6.8%</div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">At first glance, a 6.7% profit growth on 13% revenue growth looks like margins are slipping. They're not — the gap is almost entirely a base-effect quirk, which is worth explaining in any write-up so readers don't draw the wrong conclusion.</p><h4>2. Why "6.7%" is the wrong number to anchor on</h4><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">Last year's Q1 (June 2025) carried a ₹112.04 crore one-off gain tucked into "discontinued operations" — proceeds from NSE's education-business subsidiary (NAL Academy) selling its stake in TalentSprint. That gain inflated the year-ago base.</p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">Strip out discontinued operations and compare the core, continuing business:</p><ul><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Q1 FY27 continuing-ops PAT: ₹3,122 cr</li><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Q1 FY26 continuing-ops PAT: ₹2,812 cr</li><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2"><strong>Real growth: 11%</strong></li></ul><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">That 11% is the number that actually reflects how the core exchange business performed. The 6.7% headline is just an artifact of comparing against a quarter that had an unusual boost baked in.</p><h4>3. Where the revenue growth came from (segment-wise)</h4><div><table><thead><tr><th><div>Segment</div></th><th><div>Q1 FY27</div></th><th><div>Q1 FY26</div></th><th><div>Growth</div></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><div>Trading</div></td><td><div>₹4,103 cr</div></td><td><div>₹3,639 cr</div></td><td><div>+12.8%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Clearing</div></td><td><div>₹494 cr</div></td><td><div>₹453 cr</div></td><td><div>+9.0%</div></td></tr><tr><td><div>Others (data, indices, licensing)</div></td><td><div>₹198 cr</div></td><td><div>₹149 cr</div></td><td><div>+32.5%</div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">Trading is still the dominant engine — it's roughly 85% of segment revenue — but the "Others" bucket (data feeds, data terminals, index licensing) is the fastest grower by a wide margin, even if it's small in absolute terms. That's a bucket worth watching over the next few quarters since it's the more diversified, less market-volume-dependent part of NSE's business.</p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">Segment <em>profit</em> tells a similar story — Trading segment result was ₹2,960 cr vs ₹2,599 cr, Clearing was ₹317.4 cr vs ₹303.4 cr, and Others jumped to ₹106 cr vs ₹71.1 cr (+49%), so profitability is actually growing faster than revenue in the smaller segments.</p><h4>4. Cost side — expenses grew, but not alarmingly</h4><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">Total expenses rose 11.3% YoY, slightly faster than total income (9.5%) but slower than core operating revenue (13.1%). The main movers:</p><ul><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Employee benefits expense: ₹242.6 cr vs ₹197.6 cr (+22.8%) — the biggest percentage jump, partly tied to the new Labour Code transition (more on that below)</li><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Regulatory fees: ₹188.3 cr vs ₹169.9 cr (+10.9%)</li><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Depreciation: ₹162.5 cr vs ₹150.1 cr (+8.3%)</li><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Other expenses: ₹578.6 cr vs ₹535 cr (+8.1%)</li></ul><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">Nothing here looks like a red flag — it's a business scaling its cost base roughly in line with growth, not overspending.</p><h4>5. Two "exceptional items" worth knowing about</h4><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">These sit below operating profit and are one-offs, so they don't reflect the ongoing business, but they explain some of the swing between PBT lines:</p><ul><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2"><strong>Profit on sale of investment in associates</strong>: ₹20.3 cr gain — from partial stake sales in Indian Gas Exchange (IGX) by NSE Investments Ltd, done to meet shareholding-norm requirements, not a strategic exit</li><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2"><strong>Impact of new Labour Code</strong>: ₹48.3 cr <em>reversal of provision</em> (a gain) — this relates to gratuity accounting changes under India's new labour codes that kicked in this year</li></ul><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">Together these added about ₹68.6 cr to pre-tax profit, on top of the operating performance.</p><h4>6. The SEBI settlement — the real story behind the story</h4><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">NSE's board approved paying ₹714.7 crore to close out the Colocation and Dark Fibre cases with SEBI — disputes that have been running since 2019, through SEBI's Whole-Time Member orders, Adjudicating Officer orders, SAT appeals, and Supreme Court proceedings. The total settlement is ₹1,491.2 crore, of which NSE had already deposited ₹776.5 crore earlier; this payment closes the gap.</p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">Why this matters for anything investor-facing: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.planify.in/research-report/national-stock-exchange/">NSE</a> had already provisioned ₹1,391.2 crore for this in FY26, so the P&amp;L hit isn't sitting in this quarter — the cash settlement is largely pre-funded. What it does do is remove a near-decade-old regulatory overhang right as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.planify.in/research-report/national-stock-exchange/">NSE</a> moves toward its IPO, which is likely to matter more to unlisted-market sentiment than the quarter's actual profit number.</p><h4>7. Standalone vs Consolidated — the associate/subsidiary gap</h4><ul><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Standalone PAT: ₹2,634.8 cr vs ₹2,408.61 cr (+9.4%)</li><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Consolidated PAT: ₹3,120.08 cr vs ₹2,923.85 cr (+6.7%)</li></ul><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">The ~₹485 crore gap between standalone and consolidated comes from subsidiaries (NSE Clearing, NSE Indices, NSE Data &amp; Analytics, etc.) and NSE's share of profit from associates like NSDL — a reminder that a meaningful chunk of NSE's overall earnings power sits outside the parent entity, in the ecosystem it has built around itself.</p>

NSE Q1 FY27 vs Q1 FY26— What the Numbers Say? Core Profit Growth, One-Off Adjustments & the IPO Narrative

<p style="text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Ask ten different unlisted-shares investors how they arrive at a "fair" price, and you'll likely get ten different answers. Some swear by the last traded price in the grey market. Others insist on running a full DCF before they touch a single share. The truth sits somewhere in between — fair market value isn't a single number pulled out of a formula, it's a range that gets narrower the more methods you cross-check against each other.</span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">For anyone investing in India's pre-IPO and unlisted space, this matters more than it does in listed markets. There's no ticker flashing a real-time price, no order book depth to lean on, and no SEBI-mandated disclosure cadence forcing companies to keep the market updated every quarter. You're often working with an annual report that's eight months old, a couple of broker quotes, and your own judgment. Getting the valuation right — or at least defensible — is the difference between buying into genuine value and overpaying for a story.</span></p><h2 style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">What "Fair Market Value" Actually Means Here</span></h2><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Fair market value (FMV) is the price at which a share would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller, neither under compulsion to transact, both reasonably informed about the business. For listed stocks, the market does this work for you every second. For unlisted shares, you have to reconstruct that willing-buyer-willing-seller price yourself, using a mix of methods that Indian tax law, merchant bankers, and RBI/FEMA valuation norms all recognise in some form.</span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">There isn't one "correct" formula. There are several, and each one covers for the others' blind spots.</span></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Method 1: Comparable Company (Market Multiple) Approach</span></h3><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">This is perhaps the most straightforward place to start, and often is the very first place where Planify’s research desk looks. Essentially, you pick up an unlisted firm, find a similar-listed firm that does the same type of business, and multiply its metrics, be it P/E, P/B, EV/EBITDA, or industry-specific multiples like AUM-based valuation for asset managers, against the unlisted firm’s financials.</span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">But it's hard to choose peers that are really comparable by size, development stage, margins, and to use illiquidity discount, because after all, an unlisted firm cannot be disposed of within a single day like a listed company would be. Otherwise, you’ll always overestimate the price of every unlisted company.</span></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Method 2: Income Approach (Discounted Cash Flow)</span></h3><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Whereas Comparable Company Approach asks what the business is worth compared to its peers, DCF asks what the business is worth based on its future cash flows. It's the most theoretically sound method and the one auditors and merchant bankers lean on for statutory valuations under the Companies Act and Income Tax Act (Rule 11UA).</span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Its weakness is also its strength — it's only as good as your assumptions. Push the terminal growth rate up half a percent or shave the discount rate down, and the valuation swings meaningfully. For an early-stage or pre-profit company, this method can be almost meaningless. For an established, cash-generative business, it's often the most reliable anchor.</span></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Method 3: Net Asset Value (NAV) / Book Value Approach</span></h3><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Here you simply value the company based on its assets minus liabilities, adjusted to fair value where needed — real estate marked to market, investments marked to current prices, and so on. This method matters most for asset-heavy businesses: NBFCs, holding companies, real estate players, and financial institutions where book value is a meaningful anchor rather than an afterthought.</span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">For an asset-light services or tech business, NAV tells you almost nothing about what the company is actually worth, since most of its value sits in intangibles the balance sheet doesn't capture.</span></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Method 4: Recent Transaction / Precedent Deal Method</span></h3><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">If the company has raised a funding round recently, or if there's been a documented block deal in the unlisted market, that transaction price is often the single most reliable data point you have — provided the deal is recent and at arm's length. A primary funding round six months ago, priced by an institutional investor who did their own diligence, tells you more than any spreadsheet model built from outside the company.</span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">The risk is relying on stale or thin-volume data. A single trade of 500 shares between two individuals, six months back, in a company that's since changed its growth trajectory, isn't a price you should anchor to blindly.</span></p><h2 style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Putting It Together: Why You Need More Than One Method</span></h2><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">In practice, none of these methods stands alone. A credible fair value estimate usually triangulates two or three approaches and looks at where they converge. If your DCF says ₹1,800, the peer multiple method says ₹2,100, and the last real transaction happened at ₹1,950 — your fair value band is probably somewhere in that ₹1,850–₹2,050 zone, not any single point estimate. Divergence between methods is itself informative: a big gap usually means either your assumptions are off, or the market is mispricing something the fundamentals haven't caught up with yet.</span></p><h2 style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><strong><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">A Live Example: Valuing NSE's Unlisted Shares</span></strong></h2><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">u can be considered a relatively valuable example of a live case exactly because it lies on the crossroads of all the approaches listed above and because actual figures are available for analysis.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><br></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><strong><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Where the stock trades:</span></strong><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"> The stock is trading in a wide band between around ₹1,960 and ₹2,065 per share with a 52-week range between around ₹1,600 and ₹2,350 at the end of July 2026. Such a range alone is quite revealing – a stock so close to liquidity should not typically fluctuate by more than 40% during a single year and the fluctuations coincide with IPO news almost perfectly.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><br></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><strong><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Comparable company approach: </span></strong><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">As of financial year 2026, the PAT of NSE comes in at ₹7,710 crore with an EPS of ₹41.62, down from ₹49.24 for FY25 due to lower volume of trades and margins throughout the year. At an approximate market price of ₹1,960, such EPS would make for a trailing P/E of 47.1x (1,960 ÷ 41.62). Compare that with BSE — NSE's closest listed peer — which has been trading at a P/E closer to 54.1x over the same period. Applying BSE's multiple to NSE's updated EPS gives a comparable-value estimate of roughly ₹2,252 (41.62 × 54.1) — about 15% above where the unlisted market currently prices the stock. That's a narrower gap than a P/E built on the older, higher FY25 EPS would suggest, which is exactly why using the latest reported earnings — not last year's — matters when you're running this method.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><br></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><strong><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Recent transaction data: </span></strong><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">NSE's own IPO-related valuation chatter has pegged the business at approximately ₹5.19 lakh crore, based on regulatory filings and board-approved processes following SEBI's no-objection steps earlier in 2026. That figure, divided across NSE's outstanding share base, gives a valuation reference point that sits reasonably close to the upper end of the current trading band — which makes sense, since anticipation of a listing tends to pull unlisted prices toward the expected IPO price as the timeline firms up.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><br></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><strong><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Reading the gap:</span></strong><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"> The roughly 15% delta between the comparable-company fair value (~₹2,252) and the current traded price (~₹1,960) isn't necessarily "free money" waiting to be captured. It reflects real, priced-in risks — continued regulatory delays, uncertainty on the final IPO valuation band, and the simple fact that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.planify.in/unlisted-shares/">unlisted shares</a> carry liquidity and lock-in constraints that BSE's listed stock doesn't. Worth noting too: the gap has actually compressed year-on-year, since FY26's softer PAT and EPS pull the comparable-value estimate down even as the traded price has held up in its ₹1,960–2,065 band. A disciplined investor treats the remaining gap as the illiquidity and event-risk discount the market is demanding, not as a mispricing to arbitrage away. If the IPO timeline concretizes and the discount narrows further, that's the re-rating thesis; if earnings keep softening, the gap could close from the other direction instead — the fair-value estimate coming down to meet the price, not the price rising to meet it.</span></p><h2 style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">The Practical Takeaway</span></h2><p style="line-height:1.38;text-align: justify"><span style="background-color: transparent;color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">Calculating fair market value for an unlisted share isn't about finding the "right" formula — it's about building a defensible range using methods that check each other's assumptions, then understanding why the market price sits where it does relative to that range. When the gap is wide, ask what risk is being priced in before you assume it's an opportunity. That discipline is what separates informed pre-IPO investing from simply following momentum in a grey market.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0)">​</span></p>

Fair market value (FMV) is the price at which a share would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller.

How to Calculate the Fair Market Value of Unlisted Shares

<p><br></p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">​<a target="_blank" href="https://www.planify.in/research-report/zepto-kiranakart-technologies-pvt-ltd/">Zepto's</a> road to the stock market just got a detour. The quick commerce company has decided to lay aside its IPO plans for the time being and is instead lining up a <strong>pre-IPO</strong> round of <strong>more than ₹1,000 crore</strong>, according to reports citing people familiar with the matter.</p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">The money is expected to come largely from names already on Zepto's cap table. <strong>Glade Brook Capital, General Catalyst, Goodwater Capital, and Nexus Venture Partners </strong>are all said to be in the mix. There's some disagreement in reports about whether this will be a purely domestic affair or include foreign investors too, but the broader picture is clear: this is existing money coming back in, not new investors being courted. SEBI rules allow companies to raise up to <strong>20%</strong> of their proposed fresh issue this way, with whatever's raised getting adjusted against the IPO's fresh issue later. <br><br>So why the sudden change of plan? It really comes down to money, specifically how much Zepto is actually worth.</p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal">Institutional investors, mutual funds and insurers among them, have apparently been pushing back hard on valuation. Word is they're valuing the company somewhere between <strong>$2.5 and 3 billion</strong>, which is a pretty brutal haircut from where things stood just weeks earlier, when foreign institutional investors were reportedly working off a <strong>$4.5 billion pre-money</strong> number, pointing to something like <strong>$5.1 billion post-money</strong>.&nbsp;<br></p><div style="text-align: justify"><br></div><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify">Go back further and the gap looks even wider. Fund managers are said to be holding out for pricing <strong>30-40% </strong>below Zepto's last valuation of <strong>$7 billion</strong>, set when the company raised <strong>$450 million</strong> back in October 2025. Part of the resistance, apparently, is that investors don't think Zepto should be priced in the same league as Swiggy or Eternal (Zomato's parent). Unlike those two, Zepto has no food delivery arm, it's quick commerce only, so the comparison&nbsp;doesn't quite hold up in their eyes.<br><br>None of this is entirely new territory for Zepto. The company first talked about going public back in 2025 but backed off when markets turned choppy and the valuation math got messy. Since then, it's done the groundwork you'd expect from a company serious about listing, moving its base from Singapore to India and building up its domestic shareholding, and had even gotten as far as receiving SEBI's observation letter on May 8.<br><br>For now though, that process is on ice. Zepto hasn't responded to questions about the fundraise, its valuation, or when, or if, the IPO timeline gets revived.<br></p>

Is This a Strategic Delay or a Valuation Setback for Zepto? Is Zepto Waiting for Better Markets—or a Better Valuation?

<p style="text-align: justify"><br></p><p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 16px">For NRIs who want to make investments in unlisted Indian companies including <a target="_blank" href="https://www.planify.in/pre-ipo/">pre-IPO stocks</a>, shares in startups or even shares held in family businesses in India, the decision between using an NRE account vs. NRO account becomes more significant than mere banking procedures.&nbsp;The reason is that the account you choose determines whether your investment and its proceeds can leave India in the future.</span></p><h2 style="text-align: justify">Key Difference</h2><p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 16px">An NRE (Non-Resident External) account holds money earned outside India, such as an overseas salary or business income. Both the balance and the interest are fully and freely repatriable, and the interest is tax-exempt in India. An NRO (Non-Resident Ordinary) account holds income earned in India, such as rent, dividends, pension or proceeds from selling Indian assets. NRO interest is taxable, and the balance can be sent abroad only up to USD 1 million per financial year (April–March), after paying applicable taxes and submitting Forms 15CA and 15CB.<br></span></p>

<h2>Why It Matters More for Unlisted Shares</h2><p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 16px">Where it comes to listed equity, there is flexibility if even if you used the account-you can unwind slowly and spread out your repatriations. The exit will be in one big transaction due to either a M&amp;A deal, secondary sale pre-IPO,or listing of the company itself. And if that money is stuck inside your NRO structure, the limit is USD 1 million per year irrespective of size of that transaction, and you are reconciling taxes with a CA before moving rupees. In case of a large exit, it means that you will need multiple years for repatriation.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 16px">There is alsoan initialconsideration related to structuring under FEMA rules. Whenever you are buying <a target="_blank" href="https://www.planify.in/unlisted-shares/">unlisted shares in India</a>, the source of your funds is defining whether the RBI will consider it to be repatriable or non-repatriable investment from the very beginning. Investments made from NRE or directly transferred to India is considered repatriable investment and reported to RBI as such in Form FC-GPR. On the other hand, investments made from an NRO account will automatically be considered non-repatriable — not your bank account but your shares.</span></p>

<h2>Pricing Still Applies Either Way</h2><p style="text-align: justify">It is true irrespective of whether any of the accounts makes the investment, that the pricing guidelines of the FEMA will apply to the unlisted shares, and therefore, the issue price cannot be less than the fair value as per internationally accepted valuations and the price to the resident at the time of transfer cannot be more than the fair value. The valuation certificate from a chartered accountant is normally obtained for both entries and exits, so the process is common to all accounts.</p>

<h2>The Practical Call</h2><p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 16px">Where the capital comes from overseas and there is any possibility that you may wish to take out the capital gains from the investment made from outside of India, then it would be advisable to make the investments through NRE accounts as it leaves more optionality for you in the future without requiring any further approval. In case the investment isfinancedthrough Indian earnings and repatriation is not a concern, then you can go ahead with the NRO investment.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 16px">There is one exception that should be noted for any investor who might be giving this advice to someone else – that is, the transfers of NRO to NRE can take place up to a limit of USD 1 million per year, so NRO investment will not lock you into something you cannot get out of.</span></p>

For unlisted share investments in India, an NRO (Non-Resident Ordinary) account is generally used for non-repatriable investments, while an NRE (Non-Resident External) account handles repatriable investments under Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) guidelines.

NRE vs NRO Account: Which One for Unlisted Share Investment?

<p style="text-align: justify">India holds somewhere between ₹50–60 lakh crore of household wealth in gold. Weddings, festivals, emergencies — for generations, that wealth has moved through jewellers, chits and hand-written ledgers, with almost no digital infrastructure behind it.</p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify">India Gold Metaverse (IGM) is trying to build that missing infrastructure. Despite the name, there's no VR headset involved — it's four connected businesses:</p><ul><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2"><strong>Elanzia</strong> — a marketplace linking jewellers and bullion dealers</li><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2"><strong>RamMudra</strong> — blockchain-backed digital gold and coins</li><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2"><strong>GoldSense</strong> — an AI-based purity-verification engine</li><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2"><strong>BullionX</strong> — an institutional trading and settlement platform</li></ul><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify">Revenue is meant to come from commissions, trading spreads, vaulting fees, software licensing and gold-backed lending — an ecosystem play, not a single product. The company is mentored by Jignesh Shah, founder of 63 Moons, a name with real weight in Indian exchange-building circles.</p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify"><strong>Then came the headline: ₹300 crore raised</strong>, with marquee names attached — Ashish Kacholia, along with the Jagdish Master, Waaree, Ravi Sheth and Anuj Sheth family offices, in a transaction run by Pantomath. For an unlisted company with sub-₹10 crore revenue, that's a very loud number. So it's worth checking against the paper trail.</p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify"><strong>What the filing actually shows</strong></p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify">Every Indian company issuing new shares has to file Form PAS-3 with the Registrar of Companies — and that filing doesn't do adjectives. IGM's PAS-3, for an allotment dated 2 May 2026, shows:</p><div style="text-align: justify"><table><thead><tr><th><div style="text-align: justify">Particulars</div></th><th><div style="text-align: justify">Detail</div></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Shares allotted</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">9,56,70,628</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Nominal value</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">₹1</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Premium</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">₹20</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Issue price</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">₹21 per share</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Amount raised</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">₹200.91 crore</div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify">Not ₹300 crore. ₹200.91 crore, at ₹21 a share.</p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify">That's not a contradiction — it's a timing gap, and there are two straightforward reasons for it. <strong>One</strong>, MCA filings run on their own clock. Large rounds are routinely allotted in tranches, each with its own PAS-3 filed weeks later. IGM has already expanded its authorised capital from ₹108 crore to ₹153 crore, well beyond what's been issued so far — a sign it's making room for more allotments. <strong>Two</strong>, an announcement isn't a wire transfer. Round sizes get declared when terms are signed; the cash can follow over months. So the ₹300 crore figure is very likely genuine — it's just not yet fully verifiable, which is different from being untrue.</p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify"><strong>The number that actually deserves attention: price, not size</strong></p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify">Three prices exist for the same stock, within weeks of each other:</p><div style="text-align: justify"><table><thead><tr><th><div style="text-align: justify">Reference</div></th><th><div style="text-align: justify">Price per share</div></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Registered valuer's fair value (29 Mar 2026)</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">₹19.50</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Price paid by anchor investors (May 2026 allotment)</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">₹21.00</div></td></tr><tr><td><div style="text-align: justify">Current indicative unlisted market price</div></td><td><div style="text-align: justify">₹25.00</div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify">Kacholia and the family offices came in at ₹21. The unlisted market today is quoting ₹25 — a <strong>19% premium</strong> over what the informed, anchor money paid, and a <strong>28% premium</strong> over the independent valuer's fair value, in the space of a few weeks.</p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify">Sometimes that kind of premium is earned — smart money moves early and the market re-rates around it. Sometimes it's simply the cost of arriving after the story has already been packaged and sold.</p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify"><strong>Running the scale math</strong></p><ul><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Paid-up capital before the round: ₹92.10 crore (92.10 crore shares)</li><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">New shares issued: 9.57 crore → roughly 9.4% dilution</li><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Post-money at the round price of ₹21: ~₹2,135 crore</li><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Implied market cap at the unlisted price of ₹25: ~₹2,542 crore</li></ul><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify">If the full ₹300 crore eventually lands at ₹21, dilution rises to roughly 13.5% and post-money moves to about ₹2,234 crore. Either way, the unlisted market is currently pricing in close to <strong>₹400 crore of value that no investor in this actual round paid for.</strong></p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify">A two-and-a-half-year-old company, still building, with revenue that barely registers — which is normal for infrastructure at this stage. It just means investors buying at ₹25 in the unlisted market are paying a ~₹2,500 crore valuation for a plan, in a market with no daily price discovery and lot sizes as small as 5,000 shares.</p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify"><strong>The takeaway</strong></p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify">There's a genuine thesis here: India's gold trade is fragmented, under-digitised, and enormous in scale, and the people backing IGM are far from naive. But in the unlisted market, the story almost always arrives before the paperwork — and that gap is exactly where retail investors tend to get priced badly.</p><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify">Three checks worth applying to any unlisted "mega-round" headline:</p><ol><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2"><strong>How much has actually landed</strong>, not how much was announced — tranches are normal, but assuming they're all in is not.</li><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2"><strong>What price the informed money paid</strong>, not the price you're being quoted today.</li><li class="font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2"><strong>Wait for the filing.</strong> PAS-3 doesn't do storytelling — press releases do.</li></ol><p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal" style="text-align: justify">As of now, what's verifiable is ₹200.91 crore, at ₹21 per share, allotted 2 May 2026, on record with the MCA. The rest is announcement, not confirmation — and if it shows up in a later filing, that's worth tracking, not assuming.</p>

India Gold Metaverse: The ₹300 Cr headline vs. the ₹200 Cr paper trail — and why the price gap matters more than the round size

<p>​<a target="_blank" href="https://www.planify.in/research-report/a-one-steels-india-ltd/">A- One Steel India Ltd</a>. was established in 2009 under the vision of&nbsp; Mr. Krishan Kumar Jallan. It is a&nbsp;backwards-integrated steel manufacturing company in southern India with a diversified product portfolio in both long and flat steel products and industrial products used in steel manufacturing.&nbsp; The company has a total installed capacity of 1.497 million metric tonnes per annum. The company is&nbsp;one of the top 5 (five) steel producers in southern India in terms of crude steel capacity.</p><p><br></p><p style="line-height: 22px">A-One Steel&nbsp; have six manufacturing facilities of which five are located in Karnataka and one in Andhra Pradesh. Company's manufacturing facilities are located at Gauribidanur, Bellary, Koppal, and Chikkantapur in Karnataka and Hindupur in Andhra Pradesh.</p><p style="line-height: 22px">A- One Steel India has published its performance for the financial year 2026.<span style="color: rgb(26, 26, 26)">FY26 was a strong turnaround year for the company: revenue grew ~17.7% to ₹4,202 Cr, while EBITDA and net profit grew far faster (+70% and over 11x, respectively), driving a marked improvement in margins and return ratios.&nbsp;</span>​<br></p><h2 style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left: 0cm"><span style="font-size: 24px"><strong><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">1.</span></strong><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)"><strong> Revenue, EBITDA, Net Profit &amp; EPS Summary (₹ in Cr)</strong></span></span></h2><table><tbody><tr><td><div><strong>Particulars</strong></div></td><td><div><strong>FY26</strong></div></td><td><div><strong>FY25</strong></div></td><td><div><strong>YoY change</strong></div></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">Total Revenue</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">4,202</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">3,569</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">+17.7%</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">EBITDA</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">339</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">199</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">+70%</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">EBITDA Margin</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">8%</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">5.6%</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">+2.5 pp</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">Net Profit&nbsp;</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">125</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">10</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">+1,104%</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">NP Margin</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">2.99%</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">0.29%</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">+2.7 pp</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">EPS</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">18</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">1.58</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">+1,053%</span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><em><br></em></p><p>Revenue grew a healthy 17.7%, but the real story is operating leverage - EBITDA grew nearly 4x faster than revenue (+70%), lifting margin by 2.5 pp. This flowed through to the bottom line, with net profit rising over 11x, aided by FY25's one-off fire-damage loss not repeating and finance costs holding flat despite a larger balance sheet.</p><h2 style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left: 0cm"><span style="font-size: 24px"><strong><span style="color: rgb(31, 56, 100)">2. </span></strong><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)"><strong>Common-Size Statement (as % of Revenue, ₹ in Cr)</strong></span></span></h2><table><tbody><tr><td><div><strong>Particulars</strong></div></td><td><div><strong>FY25 (₹Cr)</strong></div></td><td><div><strong>FY25 (% revenue)</strong></div></td><td><div><strong>FY26 (₹Cr)</strong></div></td><td><div><strong>FY26 (%revenue)</strong></div></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">Total Revenue</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">3,569</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">100%</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">4,202</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">100%</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">Cost of materials consumed</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">3,054</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">85.5%</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">3,487</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">82.9%</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">Employee benefit expense</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">48</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">1.37%</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">53</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">1.26%</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">Finance costs</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">111</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">3.1%</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">111</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">2.64%</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">Depreciation &amp;   amortisation</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">56</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">1.57%</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">62</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">1.49%</span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br></p><p>Material cost fell around 2.6 pp as a share of revenue, the single biggest driver of the EBITDA margin expansion. Finance cost also eased by 0.5 pp despite a larger balance sheet, while employee cost and depreciation remained broadly stable as a proportion of revenue.</p><h2 style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left: 0cm"><strong><span style="color: rgb(31, 56, 100);font-size: 24px">3. </span></strong><span style="font-size: 24px"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)"><strong>Key Balance Sheet Items (₹ in Cr)</strong></span></span></h2><table><tbody><tr><td><div><strong>Particulars</strong></div></td><td><div><strong>FY26</strong></div></td><td><div><strong>FY25</strong></div></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">Property, plant and   equipment</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">633</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">569</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">Inventories</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">899</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">797</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">Trade receivables</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">664</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">437</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">Cash and cash equivalents</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">25</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">11</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">Current borrowings</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">674</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">680</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">Non-current borrowings</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">336</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">282</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color:#1A1A1A">Trade payables&nbsp;</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">965</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#1A1A1A">765</span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><em>.</em></p><p>Trade receivables grew by 52%, far outpacing revenue growth (18%) - suggesting that though revenue and profits have expanded significantly in FY26 but the company faces difficulty in collecting cash. However, trade payables also grew 26%, indicating part of the receivables build-up was funded by stretching suppliers rather than drawing on working capital lines.</p><h2 style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left: 0cm"><span style="font-size: 24px"><strong><span style="color: rgb(31, 56, 100)">4.</span></strong></span><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);font-size: 24px"><strong>Key Ratio Analysis</strong></span></h2><table><tbody><tr><td><div><strong>Particulars</strong><br></div></td><td><div><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)"><strong>FY26</strong></span></div></td><td><div><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)"><strong>FY25</strong></span></div></td><td><div><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)"><strong>YoY change</strong></span></div></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">Net Profit Margin</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">2.99%</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">0.29%</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">+2.70 pp</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">Return on Equity&nbsp;</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">14.5%</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">1.45%</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">+13.11 pp</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">Fixed Asset Turnover Ratio</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">6.6x</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">6.2x</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">+0.36x</span></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">Debt-to-Equity Ratio</span></strong></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">1.17x</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">1.34x</span></p></td><td><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">-0.17x</span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)"><br></span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34)">ROE's sharp jump is largely a low-base effect from a weak FY25. The Debt-to-Equity ratio actually improved (fell 0.17x) even as the balance sheet grew; the growth was funded more by retained earnings than fresh debt. Fixed asset turnover rose only modestly, consistent with FY26's profit growth being margin-led rather than driven by significantly better asset utilisation.</span></p>

A- One Steel India has published its performance for the financial year 2026.FY26 was a strong turnaround year for the company: revenue grew ~17.7% to ₹4,202 Cr, while EBITDA and net profit grew far faster (+70% and over 11x, respectively), driving a marked improvement in margins and return ratios

A- One Steel India Limited: FY26 comes with a strong performance but with a working capital warning. Is the company facing any cash crunch?

<p style="text-align: justify">At each scanning session for patients in an MRI machine, when a semiconductor wafer is being etched, and also at the drawing of optical fiber cables, helium at -269°C is used to ensure that all machines work efficiently. India does not produce any commercial helium at all and all of it is imported. The fact is that commercial helium occurs only in a few places on the planet (for example, in Texas, Qatar, Algeria, and Canada). And it is five companies worldwide who monopolize 80% of total helium production.  AirLife Gases Private Limited was founded by Kiran Karnawat, an industry veteran, to address the problem of India's dependence on helium supplies.<br><br><strong>Key Pivot: Major Strategic M&amp;A Moves</strong><br>While AirLife’s success has been driven by the business model of arbitrage on the basis of sourcing and logistics, its recent bold move in M&amp;A has completely transformed the future of the business:<br></p><ul><li><strong>Acquisition of Royal Helium Ltd. (Canada):</strong> From October through November 2025, AirLife became involved in a significant fundraise round and completed the acquisition of a 52.9% controlling stake in Royal Helium Ltd., a Canadian E&amp;P company with helium rights covering southern Saskatchewan and southeastern Alberta.</li><li><strong>Acquisition of GNG Infrastructure (US): </strong>In July 2026, AirLife entered into a definitive deal for the acquisition of a controlling stake in GNG, a helium gathering, processing, and liquefaction infrastructure company in the United States.</li></ul><p style="text-align: justify">Within one year, AirLife has gone from being a middleman distributor to being fully vertically integrated as an upstream helium producer – owning everything from the reservoir to the liquefaction and transport process.<br><br><strong>The Truth Behind the Financials &amp; Fundraising</strong><br>The pivot of strategy at AirLife won it much praise, raising about ₹143.5 crore between April and September 2025 at ₹900 per share. The marquee backers involved were Ashish Kacholia (who wrote a ₹15 crore check), Shiv Sehgal, and Neo Alternatives, giving it a post-money valuation of ₹958 crore.&nbsp;On the post-money ₹958 crore against FY25 PAT of ₹12.5 crore, P/E is closer to 77x.<br><br>FY25 Revenue was ₹183 crore (down 3% from ₹188 crore in FY24), showing stagnation in the top line in recent years. The operating margin fell from 26.4% in FY23 (due to the global helium shortage) to 8.6% in FY24 (when Russian supply came back into Asian markets) before inching up to 10.9% in FY25 with ₹12.5 crore PAT in FY25. At ₹900 per share, AirLife is trading at around 65x FY25 P/E multiple and an EV/EBITDA multiple in the mid-40s. The valuation of this fundraise depends greatly on optimistic internal forecasts (revenue in FY26 at ₹412 crore) and terminal multiples beyond FY30.<br><br><strong>Conclusion</strong><br>The demand for helium in India in the spheres of medicine, aerospace and technology has been growing, and its recent M&amp;A activity solves the problem of molecule security by becoming a major supplier of the product. Nevertheless, entering upstream operations entails a great deal of execution, geological and recommissioning risks. The current market valuation of AirLife, at 65 times historical earnings, clearly speaks to the future rather than past success.<br><br>​<br></p>

AirLife Gases: Strategic M&A, High Valuation, and the Helium Shortage

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