Expect 30-35% growth in EPC business in FY17 : KEI Ind

KEI Industries posted a revenue growth of 12 percent at Rs 559 crore in the third quarter ended December. Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Anil Gupta, CMD of the company says he expects FY17 growth of 30-35 percent in the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) business.Furthermore, he expects the company to maintain margins at 11 percent and to achieve 20 percent volume growth in FY17. The raw material prices were down 12 percent, he says, adding, the company's cable business' volume grew 25 percent in 9 months of FY16. Below is the verbatim transcript of Anil Gupta's interview with Latha Venkatesh and Sonia Shenoy on CNBC-TV18.Sonia: You said your cables business has seen a volume growth of 25 percent in the nine months FY16 which is very healthy. Do you think that this trajectory can continue and by the end of FY16, what will the volume growth be? And even if you can give us an assumption for FY17.A: I believe that we will maintain this growth of 25 percent up to March end in this financial year, because we have significant order book position. And this volume growth has come , but in the financial terms, in the topline, raw material prices have gone down approximately 12 percent. But, we have been able to improve our financial numbers also in the topline. Next financial year also, we expect that we will continue to grow by at least 20 percent plus in volume.Latha: Since you said raw material prices are going down, would you expect that you will do better than 11 percent margins this quarter as well as next year?A: We expect to maintain these margins. However, will try our best to improve upon it wherever possible.Sonia: Your turn-key projects business was very strong this time. Although it is a smaller portion of your overall business, on this base of Rs 150 crore revenue per quarter, what can the growth in the turnkey projects business be?A: We are now getting pre-qualified in many verticals in Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS), in rural electrification, in underground cabling packages, in turn-key extra high voltage packages as well as sub-stations. So, we are bidding significantly and I expect a growth of approximately 30-35 percent in EPC business in the next financial year.For entire interview, watch accompanying video...