The Chatter: Sailing the Tide
Edition #33
Welcome to the 33rd edition of The Chatter — a weekly newsletter where we dig through what India’s biggest companies are saying and bring you the most interesting bits of insight, whether about the business, its sector, or the wider economy. We read every major Indian earnings call and listen to the interviews so you don’t have to.
We’re always eager to improve—please share your ideas on how else we can innovate “The Chatter” format to better serve your needs.
In this edition, we have covered 17 companies across 6 industries, along with some international features.
IT
CarTrade Tech
PB Fintech
Urban Company
Engineering Goods
TD Power Systems
Larsen & Toubro (L&T)
Premier Energies
Financial Services
Shriram Finance
Rural Electrification Corporation (REC)
Chemicals
Mod-Tek Packaging
Dhanuka Agritech
Healthcare
Sanofi India
Energy
Indian Exchange Energy (IEX)
NTPC
International
Netgear
Starbucks
Boeing
Shell
IT
CarTrade Tech | Small Cap | IT
Opening remarks on quarterly performance
“This has been an extremely good quarter for the company... In fact, not only at a consolidated level, but every vertical has achieved its highest ever revenue and profits during the quarter and of course during the 6 months as well.”
— Vinay Sanghi, Chairman and Managing Director
On resilience despite muted auto industry growth
“What we’ve also shown in the past and over the last many years is that we’re a little agnostic to the industry as such. No matter whether it grows at a slower rate or a higher rate, we tend to grow faster, right, which is a trend -- which is a secular trend going on because more and more money is getting spent on digital.”
— Vinay Sanghi, Chairman and Managing Director
Addressing concerns about AI impact on traffic
“Since any LLM, ChatGPT, Google or Google AI Mode or others have come, our traffics have grown at faster rates. I think that’s the first part you must know... The reality is also in India, the usage of these AI mode versus search is very low at this point. However, the chances of someone coming on AI Mode is even greater than Search Mode.”
— Vinay Sanghi, Chairman and Managing Director
Explaining OLX’s consumer monetization approach
“I think OLX over the many years, last maybe like maybe 10 years-15 years, has mostly tried to monetize dealers. We are actually in the last six months, eight months, thinking or we do believe that monetizing consumer sellers by giving them better products and better conversion capability is a massive opportunity for us. As I said more than 2 million consumer sellers come every month, which is a big, big number.”
— Vinay Sanghi, Chairman and Managing Director
On competitive positioning
“I don’t think manufacturers and dealers are connected with our margin structure. They will look at what it costs to sell a car through CarWale or BikeWale or a bike. And I think that’s where we pride ourselves that our ability to make sure that we are a very economical cost of customer acquisition or sale for OEMs or dealers is our strength.”
— Vinay Sanghi, Chairman and Managing Director
On competition across business segments
“If you look at each of our segments, like first look at OLX India, which is a used product marketplace, generally, we see no other digital -- as I said, we got 180 million users a year on -- which is a large part of India’s population on OLX. And generally, OLX has no direct like-to-like a digital platform, number one.”
— Vinay Sanghi, Chairman and Managing Director
Clarifying competitive dynamics with Spinny
“Someone like Spinny buys used cars from platforms like ours and then sells them also on platforms like ours. If you go to CarWale and see or OLX, you’ll see a lot of Spinny cars listed. So, Spinny is more and we have, in fact, an alliance with them... They’re almost complementary in a way because we don’t buy and sell used cars ourselves.”
— Vinay Sanghi, Chairman and Managing Director
PB Fintech | Mid Cap | IT
Management opening remarks about responding to unexpected GST announcement
“On 3rd of September this year, it was the last month of our quarter; it was announced that there would be a GST change on the 22nd September. Any sane customer should not have bought any Health policy or a Term policy between 3rd-22nd September and I was obviously worried about what would happen. I must totally congratulate our team which had found solutions before 9am that day. Our sales on that day were not lower, and as you will notice, for that month also were not lower.”
- Yashish Dahiya, Chairman & Group CEO
Explaining the unexpected positive demand impact from GST changes
“5th September and 22nd September were the biggest demand days, I can say, in the history of Policybazaar, on both Health and Term, as well as for other lines also. On 5th, of course, the conversion was not as good, but on 22nd, even the conversion was very, very good. What we are seeing is that because of this, there is a lot of dialogue about Health insurance, Term insurance and Life insurance in general, there is a lot of demand and interest in the category.”
- Sarbvir Singh, Joint Group CEO
Addressing concerns about potential commission rate cuts from insurers
“We are a very large source of business, specifically fresh Health and Term. And our business quality is fairly superior compared to many other channels. There are multiple stakeholders here: Insurers, Us, Regulators, Governments, Consumers, our Employees. We are having very constructive conversations. It’s not - Do this, Do that. It’s a very constructive conversation, and I feel we’ll end up in a good place.”
Warning analysts not to over-interpret quarterly margin fluctuations
“I would not read anything into any margin growth, etc. Our revenue for the quarter is ₹1,614 Cr. So, even if that changes by 2% here or there, that is ₹32 Cr positive or negative. What is 2%? It is 2 days or 1.5 days of revenue, or something of that sort. So sometimes, you may get some premium ahead, some payment later. Do not read into margin movements on a quarterly basis, and that’s the message I would give.”
Yashish Dahiya, Chairman & Group CEO
Update on new business initiatives in early stages
“On both Pensionbazaar and PB Money, don’t expect anything from a results perspective, at least for a year. I think we are in a drawing board stage, and any scale that happens will be irrelevant compared to the scale of our other businesses. But at the same time, here’s one more thing, we are deeply committed to both. Sometimes you can be very deeply committed to something, but not act on it immediately, because you don’t know exactly how you will act.”
-Yashish Dahiya, Chairman & Group CEO
Strategy for leveraging GST exemption on renewals
“Our objective, and it’s, again, early days yet, but our objective is to significantly try to build up our renewal rate. And we measure renewal rate on the basis of number of policies, because number of customers is what really matters. Our first priority is to increase renewal rates, both first year as well as second year onwards. Second priority is what you are, I think referring to, which is to try to cross-sell some more products, to maybe increase the value of the customer, etc. But I would say that it’s a second priority.”
- Sarbvir Singh, Joint Group CEO
Update on preferred network/narrow network health insurance products
“Yes, with many of our partners, we have Preferred network policies, where essentially if you take a rider which limits the network, you get a discount upfront. It’s a small percentage right now, in the order of 15-20%, and it will grow with time, but I think this is an area which we are very deeply interested in for many reasons. I think this is an area where we will work to make it more and more valuable, so that customers feel the value also of going to a narrow network.”
- Sarbvir Singh, Joint Group CEO
Explaining the value of renewal revenue streams
“I was just talking to Sarbvir before this meeting, and I was saying, in fresh business, even 0% growth is an achievement, because it is actually hunting every year. Because people have to come in, you have to convince them to buy, and that is why we add a lot of value along with our partners to the industry in bringing fresh customers to the market, both in Health and Term. Motor, at least, they have to buy, so they will buy from somewhere, but Health and Term, people don’t have to buy mandatorily.”
- Yashish Dahiya, Chairman & Group CEO
Approach to commission discussions with insurance partners
“Look, in reality, our conversations with most insurers are not as shallow as: This is your commission, take it or leave it, or anything of that sort. It is much more around operating ratios, the quality of the book, around how fast we are growing. And if you notice across channels, what you would notice is, our fresh growth is very high. Our percentage of the fresh is much higher than our percentage of renewal and we and our partners are very aware of our operating ratios, our combined operating ratio, which is actually far more favourable than many other channels.”
- Yashish Dahiya, Chairman & Group CEO
Defending the value proposition to insurance partners
“And I just wanted to say one thing, sometimes in the media it’s portrayed like this is some kind of commodity that anybody can bring Health customers or Term customers to the market. Remember, with 17-18 years of effort, a lot of hard work, a lot of brand build, a lot of direct traffic, with all those things, and everything we are doing; of the premium, we are able to make 1.77% at our scale. This is not an easy thing that anybody can just do.”
- Yashish Dahiya, Chairman & Group CEO
Explaining softness in Credit trail revenues
“On the trail side, we did see slowness, and I think the Credit area has been going through a tough time, and, the NPA rates were higher than we thought for or anticipated. That led to some softening on the P&L side for the partners, and we kind of shared that burden, and hence you see softening of trail revenue. Going forward, we’ve doubled down on risk assessment, we’ve doubled down on alternate data collection for consumers.”
- Sarbvir Singh, Joint Group CEO
Urban Company | Small Cap | IT
Company’s fundamental vision and key performance indicator
“Urban Company is still at the very beginning of its journey: The opportunity before us is vast. The Indian home services market remains unorganized and fragmented, with less than 1% online penetration. Over the next decade, our ambition is to build a trusted home platform that becomes the backbone of urban living... Before we open to Q&A, I want to highlight one last but important point, which is our long-term North Star metric, the one that we will truly optimize for in the long run, which is free cash flow per share.”
Growth trajectory of new InstaHelp business segment
“Our new business segment, InstaHelp, is scaling rapidly, and in a matter of a few months from launch, it has reached 4.7 lakh orders in October, but it did incur an adjusted EBITDA loss of INR44 crores... Just within eight months of launch, it has scaled to roughly 4.7 lakh monthly orders. This growth has come despite limited city and geographic coverage, underscoring the category’s massive potential. While it is not a like-to-like comparison, our India consumer services business reached similar scale in approximately four and a half years since the start of its operations.”
- Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Co-Founder & CEO
Key operational efficiency metric showing consistent improvement
“The monetized active hours on the platform per service professional per month has been steadily growing from 59 hours per month in FY22 to 83 hours in FY25. In our RHP, we had also shown that if we cut this by various cohorts of service professionals, then the top 10% are reaching almost 135-to-140 hours and the top 5% are reaching 150 hours. And that is largely a function of densification... In H1 FY26, this number has further increased to 89. So, there is consistent improvement in utilization as a function of densification.”
- Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Co-Founder & CEO
Understanding consumer adoption patterns
“Customer stickiness and retention is strong. Customer repeat rates are also strong. A predominant use case is amongst middle class households, particularly women consumers. Whenever their regular houses is on leave, both planned and unplanned leave, they look at InstaHelp as a replacement use case. And it helps that the service is instantaneous, particularly for unplanned occasions. Interestingly, we are also seeing a smaller cohort of customers using this as a more default use case for their daily housekeeping services.”
Investment required per service professional
“In the RHP, we did disclose for FY25 the average cost of onboarding of a single service professional in the India core services business, which is in the line of around Rs.65,000 to 75,000 depending upon the category per partner onboarded and we continue to see similar numbers in the India core services business in FY26 as well, nothing has meaningfully changed there.”
- Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Co-Founder & CEO
Approach to reducing platform leakage
“We do not believe preventing disintermediation is sustainable. No matter how many checks and balances you put in, if service professionals and consumers want to bypass the platform, they will find innovative ways to do so. Only sustainable way is that both customers and service professionals believe that going through the platform is more valuable. For customers, that is a function of trust, that is a function of immediate availability, that is a function of knowing that there is adequate grievance redressal and customer protection programs in place and also lock-in programs.”
Weather-related revenue dependency mitigation
“Over the years, we have been diversifying our service portfolio and our overall revenue pools to reduce dependency on the summer categories in the AMJ quarter. We had disclosed in the RHP that summer categories in the AMJ quarter had contributed about 24.5% if I am not mistaken to the overall revenue... Because of our diversification across different revenue pools, different lines of businesses, not just within India consumer services, but also Native, international, etc., and now increasingly InstaHelp, at the time it was not meaningful. Our overall revenue in AMJ for the consolidated business grew 31% year-on-year vis-a-vis the same period last year.”
- Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Co-Founder & CEO
Long-term geographic expansion opportunity
“In India today, we are in about 47 cities. I would like to highlight that we would not have complete micro market coverage or category coverage even within these cities... there is a long way to go even within these 47 cities, not just in terms of coverage of categories in micro markets, but also going deeper into those micro markets. So, that will be our first and highest priority. We will slowly and in a calibrated fashion add more cities as well over the next few years... we definitely see a market in the top 100 to 200 cities over the long term.”
- Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Co-Founder & CEO
Engineering & Capital Goods
TD Power Systems | Small Cap | Engineering & Capital Goods
Commentary on market dynamics for gas turbine and gas engine business
“Now coming to the gas turbine and gas engine business. The demand and forecast on US and Europe are extremely high and we’re experiencing a very large uptick in orders. The forecast made by our prime mover partners are extremely high and are exceeding expectations.”
- Nikhil Kumar, Managing Director
Updated guidance for current and next financial year
“Based on the surge in orders in this segment, we increased our guidance this financial year to INR 18 billion and over INR 20 billion for next financial year. Order booking in Q3 continues to be very strong and we will end this quarter with extremely strong, good order booking numbers.”
Performance in US market amid tariff challenges
“We’re getting orders from, as I said, all markets and particularly from the US market despite the duties and we expect further order inflows once the trade deal between India and the US materializes sometime in November and December.”
Discussion on maximizing existing capacity without major investments
“We’ve done a lot of capacity analysis once again with some further debottlenecking. We don’t expect to make any major investments up to FY ‘28. Of course if the demand further pushes the requirement to go beyond INR 3,000 crores, then we have enough land, we have enough buildings also. We have created 25% extra space in each building so that we can expand capacity, we can put in more machines up to 25% in the existing buildings.”
- Nikhil Kumar, Managing Director
Discussing long-term sustainability of data center demand driving orders
“I would recommend you to read an article which was published yesterday and the headline goes as follows, I’m referring to this article, big tech spending more than ever in AI and it is still not enough is the headline. And Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon also said they will increase spending in 2026. So I think that there’s no doubt that this spending and this investment in data centers and this AI boom is going to continue for some more time.”
- Nikhil Kumar, Managing Director
Explaining lower cash flow conversion during high growth phase
“The reason is obvious, right? We are ramping up our production so rapidly and we need to buy a lot of material and we are ramping up 30%. So we need inventory, we need to buy material and that’s what we’re doing. So in a period where you have flat sales or low growth or even declining growth, that’s when you start having very strong free cash flow. But at this point of time, all our retained earnings are going back into inventory because of buying more material.”
- Nikhil Kumar, Managing Director
Discussing challenges for data center development in India
“No, actually we hear something in the news, but we don’t see any actual ground level, I would say, investment taking place for large AI data centers or something server farms in India right now. Diesel is not an option. If you’re talking about 100 megawatt, 150 megawatt per site, it’s not an option. You can’t run those things with diesel. What kind of fuels will be used as an alternative? You can’t use renewables so gas is the only solution. How are we going to get gas into India? How are we going to make sure gas is available for power generation for data centers is a question mark?”
- Nikhil Kumar, Managing Director
Explaining why TD Power is winning orders currently
“In the generator business, our competitors are large multinational companies, all the big names are there. And we have certainly our own -- I mean people have advantages coming to us. We have a lower cost. But everyone has a lot of business, everyone is full. So I think that right now, the situation is that those who have capacity, those who can deliver faster are getting more business.”
-Nikhil Kumar, Managing Director
Update on 40-50 MW large generator development project
“Yes, we have an update. This machine will be offered to the customer by end of December, early Jan. And once the testing is complete and the qualification is complete, we expect to start getting larger orders by second half of ‘26 and it could be another big business or it will be another big business for TDPS. If this works out well, multi-hundred crores opportunity is there in front of us.”
Commentary on hydro generator business prospects
“Hydro, we have achieved excellent order inflow in this segment and next year will be one of the highest in the history of our company for hydro. And as mentioned in the last quarter, we’re also bidding for large refurbishment projects.”
Contingency plan for US tariffs using Turkey facility
“The number that we have put on the table is given things will not change because we also believe that if things don’t change between India and the US and a lot of customers will go for the Turkey option that we already placed in front of them. And that’s what they have also told us that in case the India trade deal does not materialize by end of December, then a lot of production for us will start getting shifted to Turkey and they have accepted that plan that we have offered to them.”
Discussion on total addressable market and growth runway
“In terms of our overall scope to grow, we have still something like single-digit market share on a global basis. So we have a lot of potential to grow. And in this current environment where all generator manufacturers, at least all the big major generator manufacturers worldwide are full, I think it’s a great opportunity for us to actually get more market share because we have taken the decision to put up the third plant new capacity where we know that our competitors have not done that.”
- Nikhil Kumar, Managing Director
Larsen & Toubro (L&T) | Large Cap | Engineering & Capital Goods
Opening remarks on quarterly results
“We continue to witness strong ordering activity in Q2 FY ‘26 across India and the Middle East, with order inflows growing 45% Y-on-Y. Supported by this sustained momentum, the order book expanded to Rs 6.67 trillion as of September 2025, reflecting a 31% Y-on-Y increase and providing a strong revenue visibility in the near future.”
- P. Ramakrishnan, Head, Investor Relations
On international market opportunities
“I think the overall in terms of opportunities, the pipeline looks strong in terms of what is available in Saudi, in Qatar and Kuwait and also the joint operation of Al Khafji. And also there are a lot of opportunities coming in UAE. So, we are quite bullish on Middle East now for the time being.”
- Subramanian Sarma, Deputy Managing Director and President
Addressing concerns about large international exposure
“No, you don’t need to worry because we worry about the order book in terms of our risk exposure. We have a very good robust system. Internally, Mr. Shankar Raman, Mr Govindan & team, they have a very strong risk management system. They interrogate all the businesses in terms of country exposure and geopolitics, etcetera.”
- Subramanian Sarma, Deputy Managing Director and President
On execution risks and customer payments
“Our experience has been good. The customers are paying well. All these companies are national oil companies, and they have a reasonably good cash flow, and we have not seen any payment risk. The commercial terms and conditions, what is available in the contracts are quite reasonable, acceptable, pretty balanced.”
- Subramanian Sarma, Deputy Managing Director and President
On domestic order composition changes
“As you may note, the share of the Private Sector in our domestic order book has increased from 21% as of March ‘25 to 30% as of September ‘25. This growth reflects improved activity in the Residential and Commercial Real Estate, Power Generation and Data Storage Solutions as well as the Minerals and Metals sector.”
- P. Ramakrishnan, Head, Investor Relations
On Infrastructure segment margins
“I think over the years, the infra margins have come down, have been southward bound for various reasons. But given the fact of rigor of execution and better control on project execution timelines and with also looking to ensure that the growth is related to the collections we get, this has finally resulted into a slow improvement in the infra margins.”
- P. Ramakrishnan, Head, Investor Relations
On domestic CarbonLite opportunities
“When it comes to domestic on thermal power, the market has suddenly become very buoyant and very active because of two reasons. One is that Renewable power round-the-clock availability has become a bit of an issue. So, we need additional power to stabilize the grid. And two is that, there is a general increase or forecasted increase in the power demand because of the sudden acceleration of the AI and the data centres.”
- Subramanian Sarma, Deputy Managing Director and President
On manufacturing capacity plans
“We’ve seen a significant uptick in that. We have picked up about 13.5 GWs. We are going ahead with expansion of our capacity, and we are gearing up for taking up additional maybe 10, 15 gigawatts in the next 2, 3 years.”
- Subramanian Sarma, Deputy Managing Director and President
On divestment transaction details
“We have reached an in-principle understanding with the Government of Telangana, wherein the Government will take over the Hyderabad Metro SPV by refinancing the current debt and acquiring the entire equity stake in L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad Limited. The contours of the final agreement are being finalized, and we expect this transaction to get consummated by the end of the current fiscal FY ‘26.”
- P. Ramakrishnan, Head, Investor Relations
On order book strength
“And our order book is so strong that we have almost 3 years of workflow in our hand. And if we pick up some more projects in the next 1 year or so, we will have almost more than 3 years of workflow. So I think that brings a lot of stability to our business.”
- Subramanian Sarma, Deputy Managing Director and President
On Middle East renewables opportunities
“We are one of the largest EPC contractors in the Renewable sector. I think most of the projects that we have in the portfolio are very iconic and are being done for very large customers like ACWA Power and Masdar in UAE. Our performance in these projects have been pretty good. Also, we have executed some of the projects ahead of time and the customer is extremely happy and they want to engage with us more.”
- Subramanian Sarma, Deputy Managing Director and President
Premier Energies | Mid Cap | Engineering & Capital Goods
On accelerating cell capacity expansion plans by 18 months
“We have made a major announcement of scaling up our 4.8 gigawatt TOPCon cell project in Naidupeta, Andhra Pradesh, to expand it to 7 gigawatt. The total capacity of our cell lines would be 10.6 gigawatt by September 2026, aligning closely with our module capacity and our mission 2028 target. What is important to note is that this upgrade is being done at a nominal cost, taking advantage of design efficiency, and is funded entirely through internal accruals.”
- Chiranjeev Singh Saluja, Managing Director
On creating India’s largest single-location cell manufacturing facility
“It’s going to be India’s single largest, single location, 7 gigawatt cell line, TOPCon line in one building.”
- Chiranjeev Singh Saluja, Managing Director
Explaining the temporary revenue slowdown despite strong order book
“Despite a full order book and a very strong production number, it was flat for two reasons, right? One is because of unprecedented rains customer sites were not ready to receive deliveries, causing certain negatives. And then we had the reduction in the GST rates, which is a big, big advantage for our IPP customers and they wanted shipments to be postponed beyond 22nd of September. So, this is kind of a temporary lift. Production numbers have actually increased as per our plan, thereby causing increase in the FG inventory levels.”
- Chiranjeev Singh Saluja, Managing Director
On revenue potential from inverter business
“The plan is to basically sell about a million inverters, which would typically translate to about 3 gigawatts of capacity. And at that capacity, we should be about -- given the current market prices, that would imply about INR1,500 crores of revenues. Eventually, our expectation is that the company should be able to easily, I would say, treble the current top line and the overall financial performance over the next 2 to 3 years.”
- Vinay Rustagi, Chief Business Officer
On BESS revenue projections for FY27
“We are expecting the first phase of the BESS line which is 6 gigawatt hours to be completed by June of next year. There will be obviously a slightly slow ramp up and this line would effectively be capable of producing about 4 gigawatt hours of end products. So, we would expect very roughly about 50% annual report, say somewhere between 2 to 3 gigawatt hour in FY ‘27. And the realizations in the industry currently are at about, I would say, somewhere around INR60 lakhs to INR65 lakhs, depending on exact specifications, duty rates, etcetera. So that will give us a turnover of about, if you use that simple math, that will be equivalent to about INR1,000 crores plus of revenues in the first year.”
- Vinay Rustagi, Chief Business Officer
On margin stability despite silver price increases
“Yes, silver prices have gone up substantially. There has been a marginal increase in our BOM cost, but looking at the operational efficiency which we have achieved, there has been no impact on our margins with respect to silver. We do keep even hedging silver at various intervals. We have not seen any effect on margins because of this as of today. And going forward also, we feel that with the operational efficiency which we are reaching in terms of scale, we don’t see any problem there.”
- Chiranjeev Singh Saluja, Managing Director
On synergies between transformer business and core solar business
“A lot of the growth in the transformer business is directly or indirectly aligned with the growth in the renewable energy capacity. Our analysis, all the work that we have done shows basically that for every gigawatt of capacity that is added into the grid, there is a, you know, 10x the 10 GVA is the demand for transformers. And now, given that about 80% of the capacity installation is now coming from renewables, there is a tremendous synergy in offering these transformers, different range, inverter duty transformers, HV and EHV transformers to the same clients who we are selling our modules.”
- Vinay Rustagi, Chief Business Officer
Financial Services
Shriram Finance | Large Cap | Financial Services
Addressing the impact of monsoon on agricultural production and rural economy prospects. While acknowledging some crop damage from excess rainfall, management remained optimistic about Kharif production growth and its positive implications for rural credit demand.
“The monsoon has been very good, spread across the country, even though there has been some excess rains, but overall, there is an estimation of increase in Kharif food grain production by 2.4%. It has come down from earlier prediction of 4% because of some damage to the crop, but it is still positive for the rural economy.”
Explaining why construction equipment sales declined despite overall positive trends in other vehicle segments. Management attributed this to reduced infrastructure spending at state and local government levels across multiple states.
“Construction equipment has declined as the infrastructure activity by the government have been on a slow pace. Here, I would like to say that the central government spent has been reasonably steady, but the local government, especially state government and local, the panchayat and the corporation level spent has been minimal in many of the states across the country, that has reduced the demand for construction equipment.”
- Umesh G. Revankar, Executive Vice Chairman
Explaining the dynamics of how GST rate cuts affected commercial vehicle pricing and the compensating behavior of OEMs. Management detailed how manufacturers reduced discounts to offset the GST benefit, resulting in minimal net price change for customers.
“A commercial vehicle costing around 50 lakh, a larger M&HCV, if the price is 50 lakh, the OEMs that manufacturers were giving discount up to 5 lakhs, that is around 10% discount on the value of the vehicle in the past. But GST, after post-GST reduction, all the OEMs have reduced their discounting. The GST rates have come down from 28 to 18, that means 10% relief they got. And the discounts which are offered by the manufacturers have come down from 10% to around 2% or 1%. So, the OEMs have significantly reduced the discount.”
- Umesh G. Revankar, Executive Vice Chairman
Addressing market speculation about used vehicle price depreciation following GST cuts. Management presented ground-level evidence from their extensive network showing that resale values remained stable, particularly for commercial vehicles.
“After more than one month of the GST rate cut, we did enquire, because we do have various sources of inquiry or various sources of information that we collect. We have not seen any reduction in the value of the vehicles, especially commercial vehicles. So, even in the car, it is only for a few segments, there has been some reduction in the value of a second-hand vehicle. So, overall, the business robustness has remained strong.”
Explaining the paradox of declining transaction volumes but increasing business growth in the used CV segment. Management clarified how higher vehicle prices and longer holding periods reduced transaction frequency while increasing average ticket sizes.
“What has happened is the number of transactions, I said it has come down because naturally what happens is if a person is owning a 10-year-old vehicle, he will upgrade and buy a seven years old vehicle after 3 to 4 years. That’s the general practice. But currently, since the prices have gone up significantly in the last two years, people who are having 10 years old vehicle, he’s using it for further two or three years, thereby, the number of transaction has come down. But since the value of each of the transaction being higher, for us, we are able to grow the business.”
Providing specific data on used truck price inflation trends over different time periods. Management distinguished between the sharp increases seen during 2021-2024 and the more moderate growth expected going forward.
“Year-on-year, it will be around 5%. But last year, if you ask me, it would have been much higher because the used vehicle prices went up sharply. Between ‘21 to ‘24, it went up sharply. Between ‘24, ‘25, ‘26, you will see the prices increases marginal by 4% to 5%.”
Responding to questions about SRTO (small road transport operator) cash flows and operator economics. Management expressed strong confidence in the segment’s performance, noting optimal utilization levels across all geographies over the past two years.
“I feel that the operator economics, if you ask me, the ideal time is one of the lowest in the last two years. I have not seen last two years, all the operators have been running at full, what you call, operations. There is no slowdown to any of the operators, any geography. There is temporarily some challenges are there, but that has been addressed over the period.”
- Umesh G. Revankar, Executive Vice Chairman
Discussing the cautious approach adopted for MSME lending post-US tariffs while explaining growth drivers. Management clarified their focus on service providers rather than manufacturers and highlighted geographic expansion post-merger as a key growth enabler.
“We have been cautious with MSME segment, especially the post the tariff, US tariff, because some of the segments are dependent on US market. And some of the segments have as high as 60% of their output going into the US market, especially manufacturers and some of the service providers to them. By and large, we are financing service providers, we are not lending to manufacturers. So, we do not really see a big challenge there for us.”
- Umesh G. Revankar, Executive Vice Chairman
Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) | Large Cap | Financial Services
Record sanctions achieved in first half of FY26
“Highest ever half-yearly sanctions of Rs. 2.5 lakh crores, that is almost $28 billion were sanctioned in comparison to roughly Rs. 3.37 lakh crores in entire last year. So, we are looking at a growth in sanctions of almost 34%, which is fairly large in any terms.”
Explaining actual growth potential excluding prepayments
“Our loan book has increased by 7%. We have received pre-payments of almost Rs. 49,000 crores. That is $6 billion. Had this pre-payment not been received, the growth in the loan book would have been almost around 16% on a year-on-year basis.”
Significant reduction in Stage-2 assets due to Kaleshwaram repayment
“We are very happy that almost Rs. 11,400 crores from Kaleshwaram has come back to us, reducing our stressed assets in the Stage-2 category to almost Rs. 16,000 crores, which is a reduction of roughly 52% in our Stage-2 stressed assets.”
- Jitendra Srivastava, IAS - Chairman and Managing Director
Timeline for resolution of remaining stressed assets
“As you know that we are in the process of becoming a net zero company by the Financial Year ‘26, so we expect that these main assets, that is Sinnar and the Hiranmaye, these will be resolved by the year, by Q4. These are at the advanced stage of resolution. Hiranmaye, the outcome of the final hearing is to come in this quarter, Q3 only, Hiranmaye is now with the Supreme Court, judgment is to come from the Supreme Court, and that will take place. And we are confident that all assets, around 11 or 12 assets, are there, that all will be resolved in the Financial Year ‘26.”
- Harsh Baweja, Director Finance
Strong pipeline for future disbursements
“We have a committed order book of nearly Rs. 2.5 lakh crores. And if we look at previous year pending sanctions also, which have yet to translate, the actual kitty which we are looking at for disbursement is much more than that. So, we are very confident that, yes, our pre-payments will be controlled. We don’t anticipate any major pre-payments apart from the ones which Director Finance has just mentioned.”
- Jitendra Srivastava, IAS - Chairman and Managing Director
Long-term growth vision and renewable energy target
“As all of you know, we have very categorically said that by 2030, our loan book will touch Rs. 10 lakh crores, out of which the renewable sector, we are anticipating it to contribute to 30% of our loan book, which is Rs. 3 lakh crores. I would like to inform all our investors and our shareholders that we are well on track to achieving this. We are maintaining our steady pace. We are moving up to our target, and we are very, very confident that come 2030, REC will be Rs. 10 lakh crores loan book company.”
Detailed breakdown of power sector investment opportunities
“We are very, very bullish on the power sector. We estimate that almost Rs. 46 lakh crores will be required over the next four or five years towards the entire power sector. For example, we are looking at the renewable energy capacity going up to 500 Gigawatts, where we are anticipating a market business of roughly Rs. 21 lakh crores. We are looking at additional thermal capacity of 80 Gigawatts, looking at roughly Rs. 5 lakh crores.”
- Jitendra Srivastava, IAS - Chairman and Managing Director
Maintaining competitive market position
“So, even assuming, as we very fondly say, that out of every four bulbs glowing in India, one is financed by REC, which is an indicator of a roughly 20% to 25% market share. Even if we maintain it, we are looking at roughly Rs. 10 lakh crores over the next five years. With our current loan book of around Rs. 6 lakh crores, we feel very confident that we should be able to touch Rs. 10 lakh crores by 2030.”
- Jitendra Srivastava, IAS - Chairman and Managing Director
New avenue for infrastructure lending
“I would also like to mention that our foray into infrastructure will keep on continuing. We are actively looking at new avenues of growth. Very recently, we have, even as we speak today, we will be signing an MoU with the Ministry of Shipping for investment in the shipping and maritime sector of our country. Similarly, the metros, the ports, the road transport schemes, and the road transport projects, any good infrastructure project which has steady revenue streams is going to be our priority.”
- Jitendra Srivastava, IAS - Chairman and Managing Director
Confidence in maintaining profitability metrics despite renewable growth
“We would be able to maintain our NIM between 3.5% to 3.75% and a spread between 2.75% to 3.5%. Since whatever the benefits passed on due to the competition in the renewable sector, some of that may compensate from the growth of the net worth, as well as from the new business, which is a higher billing business that is coming from the generation and the distribution sector.”
- Harsh Baweja, Director Finance
Government’s plans for addressing DISCOM debt
“As far as debt is concerned of DISCOMs, primarily six states account for a huge amount of the debt. I think it is UP, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu... And Government of India is working for a debt restructuring package that is in the process of development. And I think consultations are at an advanced stage... Let me assure you that whatever is finally taken, I think a better balance sheet on the distribution sector will only yield better results for us because then CapEx can really take off.”
- Jitendra Srivastava, IAS - Chairman and Managing Director
Effect of new RBI guidelines on provisioning
“Actually, that is coming into effect from the 1st of October. It is not going to have much of the effect on the balance sheet for the Financial Year FY ‘26. That will be applicable on the new project sanction and to be documented post 1/10/2025. So, that is not going to make much of the effect on my balance sheet for the Financial Year ‘25-’26.”
- Harsh Baweja, Director Finance
Chemicals
Mold-Tek Packaging | Small Cap | Chemicals
Opening remarks highlighting the company’s performance during Q2 FY’26, which is typically a low-volume season. Management acknowledged the challenges from heavy rainfall but emphasized decent volume growth and particularly strong performance in the pharma packaging segment which showed exceptional sequential growth.
“I am very glad to inform you we have a decent growth in volumes. As you all know, Q2 and Q3 are typically our low-volume season, and a lot of rains in the last 4-5 months has impacted movement of goods and sale of some of the food products like ice creams and yogurts and also paints. But in spite of that, we have posted a decent 9.65% sales value up, and volume-wise about 7%, and EBITDA is also up by about 8.37% compared to last Q2.”
- J. Lakshmana Rao, Chairman and Managing Director
Explaining the impact of GST rate changes announced in August and implemented in September on order patterns and volumes. Management noted that there was a temporary lull in demand during September as customers adjusted to the new tax structure, which affected Q2 volumes.
“Yes, definitely GST being announced a month ago, that is somewhere in August, I think, and made it effective from September. There was some lull in the pickup in the month of September and orders started flowing only after the GST impact has been really affected. So, there was some lull due to that factor also.”
Providing guidance for the second half of the fiscal year despite Q2 challenges. Management explained their typical seasonal patterns where Q2 and Q3 are weaker, with Q4 showing stronger momentum, while expressing confidence in maintaining double-digit growth targets for the full year.
“Always our Q2 and Q3 are typically low in a year and Q4 picks up momentum and that is how it will be in this year also. With GST getting implemented now, I should wait and see. October is still like September. It is moving a little bit slow, but we are on the positive side and November indications are pretty strong. So, I hope November and December should be decent enough to pull us up for at least a double-digit growth.”
- J. Lakshmana Rao, Chairman and Managing Director
Discussing the differential performance among paint customers, with Birla Opus/Grasim showing exceptional growth while others remained flat or negative. This highlights the company’s success in capturing growth from the aggressive new entrant in the paint market despite overall sector weakness.
“It is balanced across all the players other than Birla Opus because Birla Opus is on the growth trajectory. And in fact, we have a very positive growth even in this quarter. We grew by around 16% in value, 17%... Only for Grasim, yes... Opus is the only, in terms of our sales to them, they grew very handsomely.”
Addressing the declining realization per kg in the food and FMCG segment from Rs. 309 in Q1 to Rs. 300-301 in Q2. Management acknowledged competitive pressures from small regional players and freight cost disadvantages from centralized Hyderabad operations, but expressed confidence that the new Panipat facility will help address these issues.
“See, there is definitely some pressure in competition coming up in corners of food and FMCG sector. Here and there, I told even during last quarter also, there is an addition of few small-time players in different corners of the country who are definitely causing some competition. And we being all centralized in Hyderabad and supplying all the products across the country only from Hyderabad have the disadvantage of both time delays and freight costs. So, now that Panipat started and we already captured couple of big clients in that region, I am confident next season, we will be able to command and get back our numbers.”
- J. Lakshmana Rao, Chairman and Managing Director
Dhanuka Agritech | Small Cap | Chemicals
Explanation of which product categories were most affected in Q2
“We faced this challenge of herbicide almost across the board for all our specialty herbicides in soybean, groundnut, cotton mostly. So there was this challenge. However, paddy herbicides and total weed killers, they did really well in spite of the challenge. But specialty herbicides in major crops took a beating.”
- Harsh Dhanuka, Executive Director
Clarifying whether farmers shifted to generic products due to lower prices
“No, farmer has not shifted to generic products. That’s not the case. What has happened is that in the earlier application window, it was a dry period in quarter 1. And subsequent application window, it did not stop raining. So farmer did not get an opportunity to apply the herbicides in cotton, soybean, groundnut, these crops. Farmer has certainly not shifted to generic choices.”
Discussion on current trading conditions and outlook
“October has not done well as a carry forward of kharif and as opening of rabi... October rainfalls, and then add to it the impact of recent Cyclone Montha, that has really pushed forward the positive impact that rabi should have started giving by now.”
- Rahul Dhanuka, Managing Director
Factors affecting farmer investment sentiment beyond weather
“This judgment is not only based on the October situation, but the judgment is also based upon the change in the micro factors of the farmers’ economy in short term. So for example, Maharashtra soybean is still playing below MSP. And due to heavy rainfall, there has been crop damages in Andhra, Telangana, some parts of Maharashtra, a large patch of Punjab. All this is going to impact in a way, giving rabi a slow start or a delayed start, which could also probably impact farmers’ investment sentiment in short term.”
- Rahul Dhanuka, Managing Director
Long-term perspective on backward integration and manufacturing strategy
“Yes, we truly believe that India has a manufacturing opportunity, especially for chemicals. And within chemicals, agrochemicals is a bright and very lucrative opportunity. As we know, especially in Europe, US, Japan, all these locations, any new investments are very challenging. So, a lot of manufacturing is already coming to India.”
- Harsh Dhanuka, Executive Director
Explaining impact of rainfall timing on northern India crops
“It really depends upon when it is happening. So any rainfall after the sowing is like really, really beneficial to the North crops. And any rains almost for 30, 40 days will only bring cheers to the farmer in the wheat belt, so in the mustard belt, in the gram belt, which is the Bengal gram. So, all this is -- after sowing, if it’s raining, no harm.”
- Rahul Dhanuka, Managing Director
Analysis of why multinational exits occur and what drives success
“The entry happens because India is a growing market. It offers still about 7% to 8% growth opportunity in agri input industry... Yet, the market dynamics of managing a difficult season in terms of inventory, as well as in terms of receivables, is what decides your cash flow, what decides your working capital, the business prudence, ability to manage the downside, is what would probably differentiate in terms of who will survive and who will not.”
Optimism about future growth despite current challenges
“The negative impact of kharif would have evened out probably by another month. And we are looking at a really upbeat rabi, to begin with. And then, of course, the macros of the Indian economy, especially the rural economy and the agriculture ecosystem, is like really positive. So, we are looking forward to a great ‘26, ‘27 in any case. So, we are committed to our investments. We are committed to our growth plan, and we are committed to bringing in new products as we move forward.”
- Rahul Dhanuka, Managing Director
Healthcare
Sanofi India | Small Cap | Healthcare
On portfolio approach for diabetes franchise
“We have a clear segmentation that will ensure that we bring the right solution to the patients, in particular with our innovative portfolio Toujeo, which is second-generation basal insulin and Soliqua in the premix market, where we have a real opportunity to accelerate our uptake by shaping the market and increasing our reach.”
- Eric Mansion, General Manager Pharma – SEA & I and Non-Executive Director
On new export markets and offsetting export decline
“A plan was in place, as it was expected, so, our colleagues from the manufacturing and industrial affairs already put in place a kind of plan to increase the volume at the Goa site and include other countries in the exports. So, we are exporting right now to Russia - It’s a new market for us, South Africa and certain products that were sold previously in same way in India are moved to our site in Goa.”
- Rachid Ayari, Whole-Time Director and Chief Financial Officer
On impact of GLP-1 drugs (semaglutide) on insulin business
“So, the GLP market when it comes to the orals, so from what we understand from various FGDs with HCPs are that they are not to replace the insulin initiation. The segment is very different. One, we are talking about weight loss and here we are talking about the insulinization.”
- Suresh Babu, Diabetes Head
On biosimilar competition and market share
“Despite more biosimilars coming, we have not lost our value market share in the overall glargine segment and the basal insulin segment. We are still market leaders with approximately 50% market share for Lantus and the 12% market share for Toujeo, taking it to overall 62% - 63%.”
- Suresh Babu, Diabetes Head
On rationale for not launching many new products
“Look, honestly, when we look to the launches of new products from Indian companies, okay, the failure rate is quite high. So, they launch the product. I don’t have the rate exactly in mind, but for sure, it’s more than 50%.”
- Rachid Ayari, Whole-Time Director and Chief Financial Officer
On AI impact on forecasting accuracy
“I will share my experience in finance. So, in terms of forecast in supply chain or the forecast that we are doing for budgeting or whatever, we reached a certain level that AI in terms of forecast is plus/minus 1 versus the reality, whereas our forecast was not better than that.”
- Rachid Ayari, Whole-Time Director and Chief Financial Officer
On capitalizing on Novo Nordisk’s exit from human insulin cartridges
“Yes, you’re right that Novo has expressed its disinterest with the human premix insulins. But we should also be aware that human premix is a highly commoditized space with a lot of other generic players as well.”
- Suresh Babu, Diabetes Head
Energy
Indian Energy Exchange Limited (IEX) | Small Cap | Energy
Update on market coupling progress and timeline
“With regard to status of market coupling, we are not aware about any developments which have taken place so far. Because what we understand is that for working out details for implementing market coupling, there will be discussions which will be required with the exchanges, with Grid India and procedures will be worked out and regulations amendment will be done. Maybe those drafts will be issued for public consultation. So, to the best of our knowledge, so far, nothing like that has happened.”
- Satyanarayan Goel, Chairman and Managing Director
RTM Volumes Surpassing DAM for First Time, A Historic shift in market segment dynamics
“The RTM segment continues to demonstrate strong growth with 36% share in volume at IEX, surpassing the share of DAM segment for the first time ever. For Q2 FY ‘26, RTM volumes at nearly 15 billion units were higher by 39% on Y-o-Y basis, highlighting the segment’s critical role in helping DISCOMs and open access consumers efficiently manage short-term needs.”
- Rohit Bajaj, Joint Managing Director
Explaining flat power demand growth in H1 FY’26
“It was mainly because of the weather because right from April till October, we are seeing very good rains this time in the country, and there is a surplus rainfall in the country. As a result of that, the agricultural demand has crashed. And also, the summer domestic demand also was much lower than what was expected. So, Grid India’s estimate was a peak demand of 277 gigawatt against that only about 250 gigawatt was the peak demand.”
- Satyanarayan Goel, Chairman and Managing Director
Future volume expectations for IEX
“So far in the first half of the year, the demand in the country has been practically flat. In spite of that, we have done a volume growth of almost about 16%. So, for the remaining period also, we expect reasonably good growth. We should be able to maintain a growth of 15% to 20%.”
- Satyanarayan Goel, Chairman and Managing Director
Role of BESS in future exchange volumes
“As mentioned on an earlier occasion, BESS would be able to store surplus solar power during daytime to deliver electricity during hours of peak demand by leveraging power exchanges. This would increase liquidity and potentially increase volume on exchanges during daytime as well as during evening hours.”
- Rohit Bajaj, Joint Managing Director
Impact of lower solar-hour pricing
“When the exchange clearing prices are lower during the daytime, we are seeing lot of demand shifting during the daytime. So, if you see the demand curve of the country as a whole, earlier, the peak hour used to be in the evening hours, now the peak hour is during the daytime. So the demand shifting is also happening now, not that demand shifting is not happening.”
- Satyanarayan Goel, Chairman and Managing Director
Why RTM volumes are growing faster
“RTM volumes this year are higher than the DAM market, mainly because the availability of power on the sell side was much higher. The liquidity was much higher, the price clearing prices were lower. And RTM prices are practically 10% to 12% lower than the Day-Ahead Market price. So many of the distribution companies are taking advantage of this lower RTM prices and purchasing power in the RTM market.”
- Satyanarayan Goel, Chairman and Managing Director
How IEX will handle settlements under market coupling
“Whatever buy bids and sell bids will come on the IEX platform and whatever is cleared after the market coupling, we will settle those bids... Whatever volumes are cleared on IEX platform, we will do a settlement for that... In addition, I will also get money from the other exchanges whose buyers are cleared against the sell from my sellers. So, there will be interexchange settlement also.”
- Satyanarayan Goel, Chairman and Managing Director
Competition dynamics after market coupling
“Let the coupling happen. We will look at the market conditions and take a call based on that. I do not think we need to decide that thing today itself. I can tell you one thing, in the Term Ahead Market, all three exchanges are active. And there also, the price war is not there. So, I do not see any such situation that after coupling, there will be a price war in the DAM market. Why should we talk about war? Let us talk about peace.”
- Satyanarayan Goel, Chairman and Managing Director
Impact of proposed regulatory changes
“If you look at the government and regulators, everybody is basically interested in development of the market. And there are many such initiatives which are being taken by the government... Government of India has proposed amendment in the Electricity Act. And as per this, again, this is basically for bringing viability in the power sector, improving performance of the distribution companies. So, if that happens, definitely, the demand for power is going to increase, and this will definitely help exchanges to grow business.”
- Satyanarayan Goel, Chairman and Managing Director
NTPC | Large Cap | Energy
Management highlighted NTPC’s unprecedented capacity addition achievement in H1 FY26, surpassing any previous half-year performance in the company’s history.
“We have added 4403 MW till H1 FY26, by far the highest capacity added in any half year since our inception... It is worth mentioning that the highest ever capacity addition by the NTPC group in a single year stands at 6984 MW in 2019-20. However, we have already achieved 5359 MW within the first seven months of the current financial year.”
NTPC announced a significant upward revision to its long-term capacity targets, increasing from 130 GW to 149 GW by 2032 with a massive capex requirement.
“We have revised our capacity addition target from existing 130 GW to 149 GW by 2032 and 244 GW by 2037. Accordingly, the estimated capital expenditure requirement is 7 lakh crore by 2032.”
- Jaikumar Srinivasan, Director (Finance)
Management detailed NTPC’s comprehensive battery energy storage strategy across multiple deployment models, including TBCB route and co-location with existing assets.
“On BESS, we are developing 1990 MWh won through TBCB route, 1520 MWh at co-located solar projects of NTPC, 5280 MWh co-located near existing solar projects. Additionally, 5000 MWh at existing thermal projects being developed by NTPC and viability gap funding of ₹18 lakh per MWh shall be receivable.”
- Jaikumar Srinivasan, Director (Finance)
Management provided comprehensive details on the Mahi Banswara nuclear project, including capacity, cost structure, and execution timeline for this landmark venture.
“For Mahi Banswara, the cost will be around ₹20 crore per MW. The date of completion will be six years from first pour of concrete. That will be from December 2026 to December 2032... The total capex is around ₹50,000 crore. This will be four units of 700 MW, constituting 2800 MW.”
Management outlined the current execution status of the nuclear project, with excavation already awarded and major contracts expected shortly.
“The excavation contract is already awarded for Unit 1 and 2. And the free issue materials for this nuclear are already being done by NPCIL. The balance package of nuclear island and the TG package is expected to be awarded in this financial year.”
Management explained the significance of CERC’s Suo Motu order in addressing long-standing operational challenges faced by central generators.
“There were some constraints that NTPC or, for that matter, the central generators have been facing. While we had an obligation to supply power, there was no obligation on the part of the power off taker, the discoms, to give us a feasible schedule... now this Suo-Moto order has ameliorated that situation for us. And we will be getting a feasible schedule so that a certain amount of technical minimum operation is assured to us.”
Director (Finance) announced NGEL’s strategic entry into the green hydrogen value chain through a significant green ammonia supply contract.
“NGEL secured a contract for supply of 0.7 lakh tonnes of green ammonia in the recently concluded green chemical tender, marking its entry into the emerging segment. This win provides opportunity to set the foothold in the new market of green hydrogen chemicals under the National Green Hydrogen Mission.”
- Jaikumar Srinivasan, Director (Finance)
International
NETGEAR, Inc. | International
[Concall]
Netgear launched industry’s only unified SASE/hybrid firewall platform for SMEs using Exom acquisition technology, combining multiple security capabilities in one platform.
“Earlier this month, we announced a tailored security solution for SMEs based on technology obtained via the acquisition of Exom earlier this year. This exciting new unified solution is the industry’s only all-in-one SASE and hybrid firewall platform designed specifically for SMEs and the MSPs that support them. We can now secure remote workers as well as the on-premise networks and combine advanced threat protection, AI powered zero-trust network access, web gateway security, SD-WAN and firewall capabilities in a single user-friendly platform.”
– CJ Prober, CEO
DDR4 memory cost pressure stems from major suppliers exiting the market, impacting all segments but most acutely the home networking business.
“The main headwind is coming from the DDR4 memory situation where the largest suppliers in that space have taken their products end of life and at this point there are smaller players who are trying to pick up capacity. Memory is in products in each of our businesses. I’d say it’s more acutely felt on the home networking side at this point, but it does impact all three businesses.”
– Brian Murray, CFO
Starbucks Corporation | International
[Concall]
Retail channel innovation with protein drinks expanding from UK to eight markets in 2025, with US launch planned for 2026 through CPG partnerships.
“We continue to work with our partners to adapt and innovate to broaden our reach beyond our cafes. In fact, the 2024 launch of our protein drink in the UK has exceeded our expectations, resulting in growth into eight additional markets in 2025. We have expectations to expand this further next year, including in the US through our North American coffee partnership.”
– Kathy Smith, CFO
Shift away from broad-based menu pricing toward targeted strategic pricing as industry faces wage and commodity inflation pressures.
“As we think about pricing going forward, we’re going to be very strategic, very targeted with when we use it. I don’t envision us just doing broadscale pricing across our menu. We’ll continue to monitor what happens with the inflation that we have to deal with both wage and commodities and then we’ll be smart about the growth that we get. If we need to use that lever of pricing obviously we’ll always keep an eye on what happens with our value rating scores.”
– Brian Nickel, CEO
Loyalty program at 34.2 million members with transaction mix improving toward non-discounted purchases, while non-rewards transactions growing YoY.
“Our 90-day active Starbucks rewards member base grew 1% both quarter over quarter and year-over-year to 34.2 million members. This was led by higher re-engagement and fueled by customers returning for their seasonal favorites and new offerings as part of our fall launch. Transactions among this cohort also continued to improve in the fourth quarter and our intentional shift away from last year’s discounting strategies drove a healthier mix of non-discounted transactions. Non-Starbucks rewards customer transactions in the fourth quarter grew year-over-year for the second consecutive quarter.”
– Kathy Smith, CFO
The Boeing Company | International
[Concall]
777X creates $2 billion cash headwind in 2026 with heavy usage continuing through 2027, not reaching neutral until 2028 and positive cash flow only in 2029.
“As far as the cash profile, we see two impacts. The first is related to delivery timing where we expect headwinds of about $2 billion in 2026 as deliveries move to the right. This converts to a tailwind later in the decade as we deliver delay units. Second, the cash rolloff of the $4.9 billion charge is expected to be spread into the next decade. As I mentioned before, it’s a headwind relative to our prior expectations of $2 billion. So, I would expect the overall absolute cash flow to be a usage. It’s a little bit higher than that. Next year will be a heavy use year. The year after that will be better in 2027 and then we would expect ourselves to get closer to neutral in 2028. I would expect starting in 2029, neutrality will go to a positive free cash flow for the program.”
– Jay Malave, CFO
Defense backlog reached record $76 billion with $9 billion Q3 orders including $2.8 billion SATCOM and $2.7 billion precision strike contracts.
“BDS booked $9 billion in orders during the quarter and backlog grew to a record $76 billion. The US Space Force awarded Boeing a $2.8 billion contract for the evolved strategic SATCOM program, solidifying our position as a leader in the national security space. More recently, we signed multi-year contracts valued at $2.7 billion to produce additional Precision Strike seeker, leveraging the advanced investments we’ve made to ramp up quickly and meet the demand. Overall, we continued to make progress stabilizing our fixed price development programs, even with minor cost updates on a few programs such as for the tanker, which absorbed additional Everett shared costs from the 777X update.”
– Kelly Ortberg, CEO
Boeing doubling Charleston 787 manufacturing footprint to enable production rates in the teens, with expanded facility expected to be fully utilized by 2028.
“We’re investing in the expansion of our South Carolina site to ensure we’re prepared to meet exceptional market demand, and we look forward to an exciting future for the 787 program. We’re already making steps for the higher rates. We’re going to double the manufacturing footprint. Now, we don’t need double, but it also gives us a lot more flexibility for some storage space as well. It’s a major expansion of the Charleston facility and it’s all around getting to rates higher than 10. We think that the market demand will allow us to get to rates in the teens. We’re looking at really 2028 before we’re really utilizing that expanded facility.”
– Kelly Ortberg, CEO
Shell plc | International
[Concall]
CEO sees “highly credible scenario” of oil oversupply in 2026 with short-to-medium-term headwinds, but maintains long-term conviction on crude prices.
“What we see at the moment is indeed headwinds on the supply demand fundamentals going into 2026. And a highly credible scenario that there is an over supply in 2026. Of course, what we’ve seen in the last quarter or two is significant uptake in Chinese storage and we have seen a lot more oil on water. So that has in a way sort of pushed out some of the over supply and of course there’s the macroeconomic or the geopolitical reality that we see as well which puts a premium on prices and so I think in the short to medium term there are headwinds. Longer term we continue to have strong conviction in crude prices going forward.”
– Wael Sawan (CEO)
CEO confirms chemicals business still not cash-flow neutral despite cost cuts, targeting “a few hundred million” more in OPEX and capex reductions by 2026.
“On the chemical side of course the deep trough we find ourselves in means that what we have done in terms of the cost take out over the last few years is still not enough to get us into free cash flow neutrality. And I said at the last call that I’d instructed the team to take the next set of cash preservation measures which they have now outlined. There’s a clear plan to go after them and we have a trajectory to take out a few hundred million more over the coming months from both the OPEX and capex. I don’t expect that to feature in Q4 already. And you’ll remember of course Q4 in both chemicals and products is traditionally a weaker quarter for us. So I don’t expect that to flow through but I do hope to see it coming through in 2026.”
– Wael Sawan (CEO)
Shell withdraws from Atlantic Shores offshore wind and exits multiple renewable generation assets, pivoting power business toward trading-backed model to reach 10% returns target.
“On the res side, in particular, power where we have the bulk of the capital, we have been doing a lot of work to be able to reshape the nature of the capital employed in that portfolio away from renewable generation, capital intensive assets towards more trading backed assets. You heard yesterday in the news, we will have announced the withdrawal from Atlantic Shores, the offshore wind project in the US. We’ve sold some of our BTOC platforms in the US including Inspire. And we have also sold out of Cleantech in India at 49% equity interest, not to mention the Savon joint ventures. So, lots of good progress to start to reallocate that capital and put it into the much more productive share that allows us to get back towards that 10% across our segments that we are aiming to get to.”
– Wael Sawan (CEO)
CFO confirms biofuels attractive for near-term trading but lacks policy stability for long-term investment, now evaluating all projects for concentration and regulatory risk.
“In terms of the biofuels side I talked a little bit about HEA our view on let’s see where supply and demand goes to into the future and about where we see the trading in the prompt. We continue to be very bullish about trading in biofuels in the prompt but those supply and demand fundamentals as you play out further we need to see how they play and of course we do need stable policy and that’s the second part of your comment in a way was about how are we looking at political risk or just policy risk. We’re discussing all of our projects not only as a standalone opportunity as a capital allocation decision but looking at them in the aggregate. So how much concentration risk do we have to different aspects and it’s exactly as you say we’re not just looking at country we’re looking at themes whether that might be around changing or regulatory decisions etc.”
– Chenade Gorman (CFO)
That’s it for now! Your feedback will really help shape how The Chatter evolves. Drop it down in the comments below!
Quotes in this newsletter were curated by Vignesh & Meher.
Disclaimer: We’ve used AI tools in filtering and cleaning up these quotes so there maybe some mistakes. Now, if you are thinking why we are using AI, please remember that we are just a small team of 5 people running everything you see on Zerodha Markets 😬 So, all the good stuff is human and mistakes are AI.
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Points and Figures is our new way of cutting through the noise of corporate slideshows. Instead of drowning in 50-page investor decks, we pull out the charts and data points that actually matter—and explain what they really signal about a company’s growth, margins, risks, or future bets.
Think of it as a visual extension of The Chatter. While The Chatter tracks what management says on earnings calls, Points and Figures digs into what companies are showing investors—and soon, even what they quietly bury in annual reports.
We go through every major investor presentation so you don’t have to, surfacing the sharpest takeaways that reveal not just the story a company wants to tell, but the reality behind it.
You can check it out here.
Your new format of giving detailed commentry of selected company is welcome. Keep it this way. Thanks.