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Informist, Wednesday, May 20, 2026

 

By Eshitva Prakash, Simran Rede, and Anshul Choudhary

 

MUMBAI – Astral Ltd.'s management expects the earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation margin of the company's plumbing business to be 16-18% during the financial year 2026-27 (Apr-Mar), compared with 19.6% in FY26. The conservative margin outlook reflects the current volatility in costs of key input materials such as polymers, the management told analysts in a post-earnings conference call Wednesday. The company has guided for 20-25% revenue growth in FY27.

 

After commissioning its new chlorinated polyvinyl chloride resin plant, the company expects to gain meaningful market share in chlorinated polyvinyl chloride pipes and fittings. "So once the backward expansion kicks in we will have accelerated market share gain as compared to our competitors and margin expansion can also happen around 200 bps (basis points)," the management said. The full benefit of the backward integration is expected to accrue from FY28, it said.

 

The pipes and adhesives maker has raised prices in its adhesives segment and expects to raise them further in the June quarter. "I don't think whatever the price inflation is that we are passing out to the market and that is the reason you can see our margins are still stable (and) our margins are not deteriorated in adhesive," the management said.

 

Astral expects its revenue to rise by INR 10 billion in the next 3-4 years and said it may even do better than the guidance. The company aims to achieve sales growth of 25% in its paints and bathware business in FY27 with a project pipeline of more than INR 1 billion in the bathware business. It is on track to launch three premium items this year, the management said.

 

Astral plans to bring down its capital expenditure to INR 3 billion in FY27 from INR 3.6 billion spent in FY26. The management said it has already incurred more capital expenditure than was usual in the past few years in pursuit of its aim of expanding to new geographies and gaining market share.

 

"...every year we were putting one plant but first time it has happened that 3-4 plants have come in the last two-and-a-half-year time," the management said. "We are aggressively putting the capacity but we don't want to unnecessarily spend too much... we are waiting acquisition opportunities also, if any good opportunity is available we can park our cash over there also." Astral had consolidated cash of INR 7.90 billion as on Mar. 31.
 

For the March quarter, on a consolidated basis, Astral reported a rise of nearly 19% on year in its net profit to INR 2.13 billion and over 24% in its revenue to INR 20.89 billion. Wednesday, its shares closed at INR 1,443.70 on the National Stock Exchange, down slightly from Tuesday.  End

 

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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