Pending order book grown almost 30%: Praj Industries

“There is a good earning for people who are supplying ethanol, it is good for the farmers realising higher prices for their feed stocks,” Nabar said.

“Praj is well geared to take advantage of this situation with all our infrastructure in place and quality of engineering and technology that we are offering,” he said.

Praj has planned to shorten the project cycle for Uganda orders and is well in progress, Nabar said.

Petrobras order is moving slower than expected for unknown reasons, he said.

Below is the edited transcript of Gajanan Nabar’s interview with Anuj Singhal and Ekta Batra on CNBC-TV18.Anuj: Your operational number is quite decent because your EBITDA margins have gone up and net profit has also gone up even if I have to exclude the other income. However, going forward do you think this kind of margins are sustainable and what kind of bottomline number which is more important for a company like yours you think you can deliver over the next four quarters? A: We are very happy with the numbers. It shows the traction on the various initiatives that we have taken in terms of cost savings and increasing our bottomline.If you look at our annual numbers year-on-year (YoY), the numbers are further better. We have an order book of higher 25 percent than last year, sales turnover by 3 percent, EBITDA 17 percent and PAT at 40 percent. So, overall we feel that it is a watershed year. We have taken a lot of initiatives to shore up our bottomline and we are seeing some signs of early green shoots coming on, on the way. So, we are pretty confident and happy with the numbers. Ekta: At around Rs 1012 crore that you did for the entire fiscal how much more do you think you can build it up to in FY16 and what will it be led by? A: We don’t give any indication of our margins. What we would like to look at is our carry forward order book which is grown by almost 30 percent. Carry forward order book is a good representation of what kind of revenues we will expect in the next fiscal. So, it is a good indication for investors to look at our carry forward order book at all times. Ekta: What does your order book stand at as of current reckoning? A: We booked about Rs 1,200 crore of orders in the last fiscal and our carry forward order book is standing at Rs 1010 crore, just about Rs 1000 crore out of which 43 percent are from international customers. The international orders, dollar denominated or euro denominated and about 40 percent of that are from our emerging or new businesses like water, waste water, critical process equipment and systems. Anuj: What is happening on the ethanol front, have you heard from government on any further move on ethanol blending and is your company prepared for any kind of move on that? A: Government is very supportive and positive on blending mandate from sustainability standpoint. It is also going to help the rural economy in India so in addition to having foreign exchange savings. So, it is all in the right direction. Government has taken a lot of steps in the last six months and they are all positive. There is a good earning for people who are supplying ethanol, it is good for the farmers realising higher prices for their feed stocks. So, I think government’s aspiration of 20 percent blending I don’t think is just any more an aspiration but I think there is a bold plan for going to 10 percent first and to 20 percent. Let me assure that Praj is well geared to take advantage of this situation with all our infrastructure in place and quality of engineering and technology that we are offering