Hi, good evening everyone and thank you so much, a very warm welcome to you all for coming to VA Tech Wabag's annual investor meet 2026. I just give you a little bit of the overview of the company. The VAB group, founded in Germany in 1924, today as we speak, VA Tech Wabag is a pure play Indian multinational in the sphere of water technology. As a market leader in the water sector, its operations are spread across four continents and in over 25 countries. Wabag is ranked among the top three global private operators and global desalination players. Wabag has successfully delivered over 1,500 projects over 25 plus years across drinking water treatment, wastewater treatment, recycled reuse, desalination, and industrial water treatment for marquee clients in the municipal and industrial sector. As a group, Wabag has always strived to remain asset light and technology focused to deliver sustainable solutions to its customers worldwide. From groundbreaking technologies to comprehensive water management systems, the group has played a pivotal role in shaping the landscape of the water sector while resiliently weathering the ups and downs of the markets over decades. This year, Wabag celebrates over 100 years of legacy in delivering innovative, affordable, and sustainable water solutions touching the lives of billions of people across the world. It is our pleasure to host all of you for this informative and interactive session with the senior management of VA Tech Wabag. Today we have with us Mr. Rajiv Mittal, chairman and managing director, Mr. Bopesh Chowri, our new deputy MD, Mr. S. Vard Rajan, director and chief growth officer, Mr. Scandra Prasad Sitha Raman, chief financial officer, Mr. Shillesh Kumar, chief executive officer India cluster, as well as Mr. Rohan Mittal, head strategy and business growth. Before we begin, I would like to add that the presentations and the discussion during this meeting may contain some forward-looking statements about the company and the group. These may be based on beliefs, opinions, and expectations as of date. Statements are not guarantees of future performance and can involve risks and uncertainties that may be difficult to predict. Without much ado, I now request Mr. Rajiv Mittal to kick off the proceedings. Thank you so much. Looking forward to a wonderful and interactive session. Over to you sir.
Good evening ladies and gentlemen and friends. It's my pleasure to welcome you all to our annual and quarterly result interaction. It's become a tradition for Wabag once in a year to come and have a face-to-face interaction with you all. It's been very beneficial for us this face-to-face interaction. We carry lot of messages from you. We can clarify a lot of your doubts and expectations what you may have and we have always found it very fulfilling to have this face-to-face interaction and I hope that we will continue this in future. I think it's a time when water is becoming even more important and there's a huge awareness about this resource which was very undervalued to suddenly come to limelight and we know that it is an economic resource. It's a valuable resource and especially recently in this wartime in the Gulf area this has become a very precious resource. I'm sure we are all following this. We know each of the countries where we are present including India are focusing on water and we'll go through some of the slides just to create this feeling about why water and what is the role of Wabag in this water sector. This presentation will be covered into four topics. We'll talk about Wabag as a group, then about the strategy. Then Sesh Kumar our India's cluster CEO will take you through India cluster and then Rohan Mittal will take you through the MEA cluster, Middle East and Africa cluster and we will have our new addition to the Wabag family, Mr. Bopesh Chowri, will talk to you about his initial impression about Wabag and his interaction with the Wabag team and what he believes this sector has to offer and what will be his role in shaping the future of Wabag. Let's start. Wabag as a group. See this is very important to see that even today when we say about water we realize that more than 2 billion people still are lacking safe drinking water which is a basic necessity for a human and this is not available to more than two billion people across the globe. So just to give you an idea what this requires, what is the opportunity here. This is also Wabag is looking at providing treatment to the waste water or used water so that unused or untreated water is not discharged into the streams into the surface water and polluting our freshwater resources. So that's another opportunity we have to talk about is what we need to do to treat this water. The next, our industry is dependent on availability of reliable, sustainable and affordable source of water which can keep the industry going. Otherwise we see that industry can suffer up to $80 billion per year if this water is not made available to the industry. Even today we see that fresh water is declining because of climate change, 7% in a decade the freshwater resources are declining. Other side the demands are going up because urbanization, quality of life. We all used maybe our parents and grandparents used to take bath in one bucket of water. Today we are used to tub baths, power showers, we consume maybe three times five times of that one bucket. So our demands have gone up. Washing machine, dishwashers all consume lot of water compared to what we were using maybe a few decades back. One side the demand has gone up, other side the availability has come down. So there's a big gap between demand and supply. Again if water is not available as a reliable source 365 days in a year this can affect almost 50% of global GDP. This $70 trillion is almost 50% of the global GDP. That's the impact water has on our daily life, on our economics. So when we say why water, this is the reason water is important and we all have to consider water. We have to look at this and say how we as water managers can help to resolve this situation, correct this situation and be the brand ambassadors for water. See the capital which is allocated for water is at an all-time high. There has never been an opportunity where so much capital was allocated for water. Today this is what is capital allocation for water. You can see even in India in last 10 years including the COVID years the funds which were allocated for water sector has never reduced. Year on year these funds have increased and so is that in other geographies where we are present. So we are not seeing any shortage of funds available for water sector and that's another good news that we can look at it bullishly, we can be very positive about the future of water sector. Last, the new demands, the new sector which has emerged over the last 5 to 10 years. You know during the COVID crisis the chips, the semiconductors, were not available. Almost every country dependent on China to supply this and almost for a year the supply from China was stopped or partially available which affected almost every industry, every country of what they had to deliver. So all the countries including the developed world have taken a decision to set up their own manufacturing, no more depend on China to supply these chips and this sector requires special, we call it ultra pure water, almost zero salts in that water because they don't want any salt deposited on the chips which affects the performance of the chips. So that's a new sector which has come up. India recently got a license to manufacture PV cells. We were making panels. Now this PV cells for solar panels requires again ultra pure water and this is a new again sector for water which we need to supply for PV cell manufacturing. Data centers another new thing which was not there 5 years back. Today massive data centers across the globe are coming up. You must have read it, you must have researched it. And you know the biggest consumption for a data center is power and water and that is mainly for air conditioning and this water is again a new area for growth for us and we are focusing on it. Next, we have heard for last decade, the green hydrogen is a talked about subject. Still economically not very viable but because of certain carbon emission reduction targets various countries have taken they are still investing in this sector and as the production goes up of this green hydrogen, I'm sure the cost economics will be more favorable to make it economically viable which we believe in next 3 to 4 years we'll see more of these plants coming up and they will get hydrogen will get converted into ammonia which is a basic raw material for fertilizer. Again AI is a hot topic, everybody is talking about it. Do you know for AI also there is a water consumption and that's another new area which we are focusing on. So these are the new five sectors which we didn't have a few years back and suddenly the focus is there and identifying our opportunity, we have a separate vertical, separate team who focusing on this opportunity. You see, this is the question: why Wabag? If water yes it is important, yes there is opportunity, yes funding is available, new sectors are available, then why Wabag, not somebody else? We are showing you the performance of the company and how it is well suited to take advantage of the opportunity which is available in this sector. Today we have 17,200 crores of backlog. We have a record high of 371 crores of PAT. We have a revenue growth of almost 20% which we had told you in the same forum about 3 years back that we'll be having a growth of 15 to 20%. We are at that 20%. Our rating is double A minus stable on long-term and for short-term A1 plus. Our net cash excluding the investment in HA is 950 crores because our borrowing is less or more or less close to 100 crores because that's the working capital we take because we don't want to break our fixed deposits. So that is the reason otherwise we are completely debt-free company. ROC we had given you a target of 20% and we are almost there 19.4%. EBITDA we had given you target between 13 to 15, we are there. So you can see that what we committed to you we have delivered. This is the same thing you see as a company we are present in 25 countries mainly as developing countries or emerging world except a few countries which are in the developed world. Mainly our business is in the developing or the emerging world. We have almost 2,000 technically qualified competent engineers who are working across the globe who are full-time employees of Wabag. We have built more than 1,500 plants since 1995. We are globally number three both in terms of number of people we serve as a private operator and also in desalination plant. So we are number three globally not India. India we are top company by far, we are bigger than anybody else. All businesses put together we are still bigger than anybody but globally also we are recognized at number three. We are a technology company. We have our own R&D and we spend a portion of our revenues for R&D and upgrading our technologies. We have more than 125 patents and trademarks. We have R&D centers both in Europe and in India and we have probably the lightest balance sheet. If you see our gross block in this sector, nobody has less than what we have. So we are very very low on assets in our balance sheet. So we are a very asset light company and that is what we want to continue what we have achieved in the last over 25 years. We want to continue that. We have told you before and I want to repeat. We are more than a 100-year-old organization started in 1924 and we have gone through various phases. Significant is the Indian business was established in 1996. Post that in 2005 it did the management buyout and then we did a historic event where we as a subsidiary company bought our parent company. This is a historic milestone globally and that was done in 2007 where we bought the global business of Wabag from Siemens in 2007 and then we became a listed company in 2010 and after that all this you can see the major projects we have taken including the recently we won the Asia's largest desalination plant which we are building and next year around this time we should be commissioning this plant. Now if you see as a company, we follow the UN SDG goals and also ESG goals and we just want to tell you on one slide how we are following by being clear about power water. First we want to say that carbon emission, greenhouse gases emission we want to be net zero. We want to be water positive. Waste to energy or waste to wealth as many may call, we have been in that business for over 25 years where we are converting waste into wealth. Resource recovery like many other products, water or waste water, nothing goes waste. We ensure all the three forms, the gas, the liquid and the solids are used as valuable economic resource. So there's no waste from the used water. Circular economy, everything which comes goes around and there is no external discharge. So everything is reused in this model. On the ESG side, environmental, social and governance, I think we have talked enough to you about it and we are proud to say that these remain our focus and we are always very clear that this is something we focus on and we want to remain very focused on ESG goals. This is our board. We have the management here. As you can see, we have four independent directors or non-executive directors. Only two are executive directors. So majority is non-executive directors. Further all our committees are headed by independent non-executive directors. Not a single committee is headed by executive director. That's how we bring in the governance and independence of your board. Very few companies would find this kind of structure but we have achieved it. And then at the lower section of this slide we have our top management. All of them are here except we have Mohammad Ged who's from Europe could not join today but otherwise the management is in full attendance here. These are our clients. You can see all the market names both in India and abroad are our clients. As you know, payment security is a biggest factor when we select our projects. All this multilateral or funding agencies are important for us because only projects funded by them are on our order book. We don't take projects which are funded by state government or municipalities because we consider that as a big risk. You can check our order backlog. Either they are funded by these multilateral agencies or they are sovereign funded by the government like Government of India funds Namami Gange and Jal Jeevan Mission. This kind of projects, you go to Saudi, it's a Saudi government which will fund or Ministry of Finance which will fund these projects. Please you can come forward there's enough space in the front please come forward. In the industry side, you can see we really work equally good in the industrial side. The major sectors where we work is oil and gas, power, steel, fertilizer. These are major industrial infrastructure where there's a massive requirement of water and we focus on only large, mega and complex projects and these are coming from this kind of projects. You see this now regarding the market opportunities. This is what is the opportunity we have. If you see everything is in billion dollars in next 5 to 7 years. So you see India itself is more than $25 billion in next 5 to 7 years. Saudi more than $30 billion in next 5 to 7 years. Then comes Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia and CIS countries. This is the region which we are operating. And if you put all this together, this is almost $75 to $100 billion in next 5 to 7 years is the opportunity. And the future energy sector which I told you, solar, semiconductor, data centers and all this is further $5 to $6 billion. This is just emerging now. I'm sure as we go along in future the opportunity will be much bigger than this but the initial this is the number we have. This is what I have broken down, that's our core market which is $75 billion, then future energy solutions is $4 to $6 billion. And then we have another vertical you know very well is operation and maintenance which is a predictability in this because these are long-term contracts, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years contract and that is another $10 billion in next 5 to 7 years. Now if you see what is helping the sector and what is providing the headwinds which we need to be aware of and trying to navigate that. See one, there is enough opportunity in the water sector. We have seen it in the last few slides. There is a huge investment. India has allocated whether it's Jal Jeevan Mission, Namami Gange, all these initiatives the government has funded for the water sector. GCC and Africa, there is this Saudi 2030 vision plus you know there is a FIFA World Cup which is being hosted by Saudi Arabia. That's another opportunity to invest in the infrastructure. Then new economy, we have seen the new sectors have further requirement of all this ultra pure water and then reuse market. When you see the headwinds, we have seen recently the geopolitical situation in Gulf area which is trying to affect the smooth operations of this market. We have to be careful about it. We have to be aware of it, not to be over concerned about it but we must know that there is an area which can destabilize it and we should be able to navigate that. Government spending, it depends. Now if oil, we are spending more money on the oil naturally government will have to cut down some spending somewhere. So that is another risk which we should be aware of and we hope that this doesn't happen but we know it can also happen. Currency and raw material volatility. This is also something which is the effect of geopolitical situations. First we saw Ukraine, Russia, now we see Gulf crisis. So these are the things which can have an effect on the business. Of course when sector is so attractive, the competition is going to grow. We are aware of it. We should have a strategy how to beat the competition. Also when we look at, this is what I told you, the company's result in spite of all this headwinds, the tailwinds had more effect to give a positive result than the headwinds trying to affect our speed and reduce our speed. As a goal, what we as management work on, if you see global water leader, we aspire to be the most trusted name in water and we have lot of awards and recognitions to get that. We have sustainability champion. We try to advocate circular economy. We try to do resource recovery. We reduce emissions, carbon emissions, greenhouse gases. So we want to be seen as helping the environment in general by giving clean and safe environment for our future generations. Technology-wise, digitization is a top of our agenda and going forward you will see that Wabag is taking, we have already adopted that in few of our plants, going forward we are expected to do much more. Employer of the choice. I think when the growth is there and resources are limited, we somehow have to be attractive to the employees that Wabag as a brand should attract the best talent in this sector and that is what we try to do and we also maintain diversity so that equal opportunities are given to all genders. This is something we work and also because we work at site we have lot of labor force at site we try to see that there's a zero loss of time because of injury. We always have a mantra that we grow. We not only grow on top line but our growth on bottom line has to be more than top line. That's what we call as profitable growth. If we grow on top line 20%, we ensure that the bottom line grows more than 20%. That's what is profitable growth. We don't grow at the cost of our profit and also we ensure that at the same time our cash generation is more than this 20%. So that's profitable growth and that's how we want to grow. Most valuable water company. Again, return on capital employed, return on investment, all these ratios. We want to have the best in the class. We also want to enjoy you as investors confidence and trust and that will make us a most valuable company. Yeah, I will give it to my colleague our group CFO Mr. Scandra Prasad to continue the financial part of the presentation.
Thank you. Good evening to you all. Thank you very much for joining us today and allowing us to present to you what we have done this year and what we are going to do for the future years. I'll quickly take you through the strategy and performance. This is the performance for the quarter and year ended FY2526. As you can see, we have grown at 20% year-over-year on top line and on PAT we have grown at 26%. So the profitable growth mantra which Mr. Mittal mentioned we have been demonstrating and it is not different this year. Likewise also for the quarter we have grown profitably. These are the key performance metrics. EBITDA at 13.3%, PAT at 9.4%, closing with a net cash of 950 crores, return on equity of over 15%, net working capital days hovering around 100 days and our return on capital almost 20%. In terms of the key things that happened through the year, one, our order intake we closed with 7,500 crores, almost that is year-over-year. Last year we did about 5,700. This year we have done 7,500 crores and closed with an order book of 17,200 crores with a robust revenue visibility as well as a robust pipeline visibility. As we move forward, we also secured many mega projects. Some of them here, one is the mega project at Chennai, the 45 MLD TTRO plant which is on a rehab plus O&M. When we say mega, these are 1,000+ crore projects. One more was the ADB funded Chennai citywide looped water grid. This is the first in the country to build a ring main which ensures equitable water distribution for Chennai and also the mega Yanbu desalination order in Saudi. So this year we had three mega orders, 3,000+ crore orders. We closed the year as net cash positive for sixth consecutive year and 13th consecutive quarter. So it's not just year ends that we are positive. When quarter ends we ensure that we remain net cash positive. And in line with the performance, the board recommended a dividend of 5 rupees per share, up from 4 rupees last year, recommended to the shareholders for approval. Now having seen the numbers, we also wanted to show you the measurement against the commitment. The first column you would see the commitments that we made in terms of the medium-term outlook. We said we will grow, we will keep our order book at at least 3x of revenues. We are at over 4x of revenues giving a robust revenue visibility. 15 to 20% CAGR of revenue. This year we did almost 20%, the higher side of the band. EBITDA 13 to 15%, we firmly remained in that band not just this year over the last two to three years. ROCE over 20%, we are getting closer to that and I'm sure in the next couple of years we will surely cross 20%. O&M at 17%, we said that our medium-term 3 to 5 year outlook is to take it to 20% and we are working and on track from that perspective. ROE over 15%, we are closer to 16 now inching upwards. Profitability better returns and net cash positive for the sixth consecutive year. Now it is not just this year. I'm sorry. It is not just this year you would see six consecutive years and just I put out the 3 years from the time we gave commitment we came here we were about 100 crores net cash positive. Today we stand at close to 1,000 crores net cash positive over a period of 24-30 months and this is thanks to the focus from the entire business team to look at profitable growth, cash accretive profitable growth and focusing on better working capital management and debt and cash management. Cash flow for the year, the free cash flow to firm was almost 300 crores. We started with the opening gross cash at the start of the year at 950 crores. Through the year this is the cash generation on a free cash flow basis. We further reduced our debt. Today our debt stands at about 100 crores. We reduced about 140 crores from the cash we generated, de-risking the company from a debt perspective. Today we take debt by choice not by compulsion. So we take debt more as a strategic decision rather than as a decision to run the business. And we also paid dividends last year which is reflected here. This is the interest and we closed with about 10,500 crores of gross cash, adjusted for 1,110 crores of debt would be the 950 crores of net cash and year-over-year you would see our net cash growth is 35%. Last year we had 700 crores, we closed with this year we are closing with 950 crores. This is the revenue breakup. EPC O&M about 83% and 17%. Municipal industrial 80-20 and India-ROW almost 50-50 in line with what we said. As we move forward, we would see that we are inching towards our commitment in terms of the O&M moving to 20%. On the closing order backlog again our India-ROW is 60-40. I think in a couple of quarters we should be more in 50-50 if you take the average we've been around 50-50. O&M is almost 40% of our order backlog, this is a high revenue visibility segment where you can see almost 6,500 crores of order backlog is there. We have orders which range from 5 to 10, 15 and even 20 years of O&M. This is recurring annuity, cash accretive, margin accretive, asset light, very very low on risk and this is what we see as one of the levers to build the business both from a revenue and margin perspective as we move forward. And these are the major orders in our order book. You can see most of the orders we have are all technology orders. You see out of the top five, three are desalination, one is a reuse order and this is the first of its kind in the country, a loop water grid in Chennai that we are building and it is well spread across the world: India, Saudi Arabia, Middle East, Africa, SAR countries, Southeast Asia. So there is a fair spread also which gives both geographical diversification and opportunities to improve revenue. Year over year, our order backlog grew by 26% when our revenue grew by 20%, we have grown our order backlog by 26%. That gives better visibility on the revenue growth as we move forward. With this, I'll hand it over to Mr. Shesh to take you through the India cluster highlights.
Thank you. Naturally with this kind of result what we have given and the outlook what we have projected, natural interest would be where is the next phase of numbers or result would be coming from. From that point of view, I'll take you through some of the geographies which I am responsible for, what is the growth which is coming from. So India will continue to remain a growth engine for us as we have humongous opportunity there. We are treating still only 28% of the sewage which gets generated in the country and we are moving towards a developed nation, Viksit Bharat, and that definitely creates lot of opportunities for us to be creating our impact in this market. Having said that, SAR countries again on social sector, the multilateral funded projects opportunities are there and numbers what you are seeing, India $20 to $25 billion opportunities we foresee and SAR countries again $5 to $10 billion opportunities which are there which we are connecting with the people and there we are hopeful of converting some of those to our advantage. Southeast Asia is another geography where we are putting our foot there and we are successful in some of the places. We are consolidating our position in some of the countries and that is what we see further expansion into this region. So all this growth which will be coming from this geography, we'll continue our focus that the projects are sovereign guaranteed and MDB funded project. We will have also mix of social sector and industrial sector and from that point of view industrial capex would be another driver for our growth. As we saw, future energy is another component of our growth though it is what we are going to create value, it may not be contributing significantly to the top line but in times to come it will be having volume also. So we are putting our, we have started working in that and there are certain successes also and of course across all the geographies the urbanization pressure is there and from that point of view growth is coming. Some of these projects, Kandanda was talking about in the last financial year or recent past we had these successes. The Chennai project what he was talking, the grid which is first of its kind and not only we have bagged this, this puts us into advantageous position that we would be able to get advantage out of it in other prospects which are going to come and other cities are definitely going to follow the suit. We have in our endeavor towards reaching 20% of our component on O&M, this is a major win what we had, mega win on O&M and coding plant. So this is again a tertiary treated plant and this is water reuse which is further we are unique in the country in terms of tertiary treated and we are helping industries and the nation of effective water utilization. And naturally in the process we have good opportunity in terms of O&M. Nepal is another geography I was there couple of days back and major project on water sector and wastewater sector both we are doing there. We are probably doing the maximum volume in this country and we see further opportunities again multilateral backed fund, fund is there and they are ready to invest and we see opportunities. Today, Renus is one where ultra pure water which is of interest everybody's talking about and we are helping this solar prospect or solar industry and ultra pure water, ETP and ZLD is one which we have bagged and the project is going well. That is one aspect. Industrial is another. BPCL is another project which we got, big project, large project and again this is consolidating our position in terms of industrial prospects in the country. And PWSSB again mix of industrial and this is on social sector, that project is also what we have proudly bagged and we see further opportunities in this place in Bangalore and PWSSP which would be coming. Our, the numbers what we see are also coming from some of these big projects what we have been executing and I'm really pleased to announce you that this bit, the DKSTP project which we have recently completed, this was awarded as the best wastewater treatment project of the year by GWI. There was a thorough competition and jury decided with this at GWI that best project of the year and this is a proud achievement by your company at the international forum amongst the competition from all the places across the globe. This project got the best project award. This is Bhagalpur again another project in Bihar which we have done and this is a state-of-the-art technology and we are serving that social sector and it has a huge impact. Project has entered into O&M phase. This is the third project what we are looking at is the TTRO project. This is again to serve the industry and the impact it is.
Created that industries which were on the verge of closed down came back and told us we helped them survive. We feel happy doing business, but when the commissioner told me that industries never expected such pure, clear water and are reorienting their business plan based on the quality of water we supply, and industries are surviving, that is a proud success for the company. There are three Philippines projects almost completed, in the process of proving, and the project is on the verge of getting concluded. These project statuses are adding to the numbers. Those are some mega projects. Peru desalination – I will leave you with the video of that plant. This is a jewel in our crown: Southeast Asia's largest desalination plant, and we have done it very well. Every facet, from specialized offshore and onshore areas, we improve daily, and the project is looking more promising. The second project is in Bangladesh. Despite all the turmoil, we are well on path; a few challenges are history, and we are moving toward advanced stages of completion. The project is doing well, and we see more prospects coming similar to our country. Bangladesh is also focused on the social sector; there is opportunity for river cleaning. I was there with the minister, and they asked how they can follow what is being done in India, which gives us an opportunity to help those prospects grow. Nepal, as I told you, we are a major player, and this is another project moving toward completion by the end of this year. Three projects we are going to complete, and Reliance is one project in advanced stage. Having said that, these enablers will help us consolidate our position. We will continue to maintain our market leadership. The volume we have exclusively in the water sector as a pure‑play water company, and the volume on EPC is unparalleled. We will continue to maintain our leadership. Our strategic focus is profitable growth; we will be selective with projects and maintain focus on which project, which geography, and which multilateral funding agency. Everything depends on our team, and we are growing close to 20%. The biggest need is team development, and we have a great plan to reinforce our team; that work is in progress. We will have a diversified portfolio ensuring O&M and EPC, and within EPC, desalination, wastewater, and water treatment balance the portfolio. Technology is an enabler; we have that edge and will continue to grow, focusing on R&D and engineering capability. That is our competitive edge, and we will maintain that. That's all from my side. This is the way we will grow. I'll leave you with this video of our proud project. This is Asia's largest desalination plant, 400 million liters. After completion, almost 23% of Chennai's population will be served with seawater desalination. It is about 70–75% complete. The biggest and most risky part is the marine work, which is 95% completed.
Hi, good evening everyone. It has been a good year for the company, and exceptionally good for the Middle East and Africa cluster. We chose the right jobs and kept our strategy that Middle East and Africa will be the growth engine for VA Tech Wabag. We picked up good orders, not being desperate in the market, but orders that are sustainable and protect the company's risk. GCC is one of the biggest markets; for the next 10 years we see an average of $5 billion per year opportunity from initiatives like Vision 2030, the FIFA World Cup 2034 and 2030, driving growth in Morocco. Following Saudi and Morocco, Oman announced Vision 2040, which we expect will bring growth. Kuwait has a lot of potential; we have been trying to win jobs there and now, with DHA, we are in a preferential position and should sign a job shortly. We are also in a good position to enter UAE with our first order. It's a mix of everything: mega orders like Yanbu and entering new geographies. This has been an excellent year for the cluster. Such big demand requires a big team, and we are working on that. In GCC, we see $50 billion in market opportunities from our research and talks with authorities. Africa also receives focus; all projects come under multilateral funding, giving payment security and professional contracts. We have been doing steady business in the francophone region and are looking at projects in sub-Saharan Africa; we won a Namibia job and are executing it. We hope to keep up the tempo and bring more growth to the company. Desalination has been a mega driver in the region. Wastewater treatment is used for fauna and flora; the Riyadh Green initiative uses treated wastewater sustainably. We have executed Jeddah, are executing Al-Hire, and are in a preferential position for another project where the water will be used for irrigation. SWA is leading that thought with other government entities, pushing for sustainability, which aligns with our vision. Industrial is a big area where we look to expand, especially as Aramco comes up with big plans. We see traction in AI and mining in Saudi Arabia; we are registered with Aramco and working on work groups. We have focused on municipal and want to increase the industrial mix. All projects in Saudi are sovereign‑guarantee funded, secure. SWPC's BOOT model brings security, attracting global interest. With FIFA coming, developing cities and parks are drawing population inflow, and water follows. What makes us special: VA Tech Wabag has been there for four decades, with a good name and 7,000 plants built since inception, all functioning well. We walk the talk, and that matters in the Middle East. We won the wastewater project of the year and were top five for desalination company of the year. Now is the time to use our technologies, knowhow, and engineering manpower to win jobs and execute. Our goal in the Middle East is to do that. We have a young team; the oldest is 42 and has been with us for 20 years. These are a few orders; we could have picked up many more. The Yanbu desalination mega entry brought trust with clients; we had a good name in wastewater but not in desalination. Now this project has opened entries with other customers. They have seen our technical capability and confidence. Today we work with the who's‑who of the market; we are one of the bidders. This shift puts us in the right position to capitalize. The BWR Al‑Juf project shows our focus on technology: ceramic membranes, radium removal. We have built tough oil and gas plants and love to showcase them. We are second to none in building industrial plants. The repeat order from MEW Bahrain shows customer confidence. We built the plant, operated it for seven years, got it again. Our projects in execution include Al‑Hire, a 200 MLDD STP with a partner; we have achieved 83% physical progress and are on track for commissioning. This technology job adds value for the client. In Senegal, supply is done, commissioning started; we expect to close soon. In Zambia, civil works started, and we are looking to complete it. Our O&M projects include Bahin, Papco (first industrial O&M in the region), Tokum (plant we built and operated), and Qatar Energy. We have won safety awards. Our strategy is to expand into new markets, not just KSA or francophone regions, to manage geopolitical risk. We have recruited a senior person for CIS and are hopeful to take two to three more projects besides Georgia. Our global strategy uses offshore‑onshore model: local marketing team connected with clients, bids controlled from here, repeat customers like Miaona and Etidadi. Team development is constant; we need people to penetrate better. We focus on EPC and EP, and now want to start O&M and industrial. We have a registration team and expect good inquiries; next year we will be in a very good position for a more diversified portfolio. Our technical knowhow is proven; for example, Ras Tanura had an eight‑barrier system, not easy to design. Wabag has built a brand and we are exercising it. That's it from my side. I will show you a video of one of our projects, a 200 MLDD STP with radar technology, the second plant of its kind. [Video description] The first part shows a sludge dryer, an engineering innovation to save power. We keep improving to add value to our customers. And that's the new name for the biggest company that rebranded. Thank you everyone. At the last, I will take this pleasure to introduce our senior colleague Mr. Bupesh Chowri, who joined us recently as deputy managing director. I request him to talk a few words about his early impressions.
Thank you very much, Ahmed. Good evening to all of you ladies and gentlemen. It's wonderful to be amongst all of you. It gives me privilege and happiness to go through the discussions with the investor‑friendly team in the first half and with the team here in the second half. I am Bupesh Chowri. I have 30 years of industry experience managing large portfolios, building organizations from scratch to scale. My last assignment was with Tata Projects heading utilities for water, oil and gas, metals and minerals. I also worked with L&T and the Adani Group, where I started many verticals from scratch, built a billion‑dollar company, and listed it. I spent time overseas in the Middle East and Southeast Asia on utility projects. Three things I want to share: my interaction with the VA Tech Wabag team shows them to be professional, transparent, and dedicated. This is an organization that is very detailed, which is important in the water segment. The quality and performance are crucial for success. The legacy of this 100‑year‑old company is in our hands to take to the next level. Regarding business positioning, Wabag is not new to me; I have used their projects as a client. They deliver on time and quality, and repeat orders show the legacy. The opportunities, as discussed, are phenomenal. The company is positioned in different business models, addressing municipal and industrial water treatment and desalination across the globe. We are the number one water company in India, a sunrise sector, and we are expanding globally. The opportunities in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa are huge. We need to go in a calculated way and build an organization ready for the future. I have started working on a five‑year strategy plan with a blueprint to address gaps and capabilities. We will put a robust mechanism in place to execute, scale, and grow to newer heights. That's all from my side. Thank you very much.
I think thank you for your patience listening. We will now open the floor for Q&A and any suggestions you may have. Please put up your hand; the mic will come to you. Please say your name and organization and ask a question. Ensure you do not ask more than two questions; if you have more, we will come back to you. Please start.
Thanks at the outset. My name is Nathan Gandhi from Inoquest Advisor. I wish to understand: the business in India is about $20–25 billion, versus $40–50 billion elsewhere, almost two times. How is the revenue and growth rate shaping up for the next five‑year vision? The order book is now tilting that side. Second, how do we benchmark ourselves with the top two in both markets, technologically and execution capability, and how do we plan to reach those levels? And third, regarding technology: advanced equipment companies like Zyclem are extraordinarily good. Are we intending capability building toward equipment that helps improve margins, as they operate at 14–16% margins? Does technical capability building help us get better mileage? Thank you.
Thank you for the question. I'll answer the second question first because it's a little easier. We focus on what we are good at – producing solutions to treatment problems. We do not need to get into product development to improve margins; there is enough opportunity in core and new markets plus O&M. We invest R&D in process: how to crystallize salts from tertiary treatment, using ceramic membranes over polymer to enhance life and reduce lifecycle costs. A plant must have the lowest footprint, lowest totex (capex plus opex), and run on the lowest possible power. That's our technology investment. Regarding your first question on growth for the next 3–5 years: we already gave an outlook three years back. Our deputy managing director is working on a strategy we will put out this year. Broad guardrails remain: we will grow at 15–20% profitably, EBITDA margins at 13–15%. Key levers for margin growth: economies of scale with project sizes, increasing international mix (currently 50/50, looking to raise it through Middle East and Africa), and achieving O&M at 20% – a high‑margin, recurring business. O&M also provides competitive advantage; for example, the Dukum plant we built and maintained was taken by someone else who did not run it well, but the client came back to us, and we restored it to optimum capacity. That is a long‑term competitive advantage. Regarding capacity building: there are not many large water companies to hire experienced people. We are globally third largest and India's largest. So we take 200 fresh engineers from colleges, give them classroom and on‑job training for about a year and a half, and then deploy them. This builds loyalty and productivity. That has been our strategy.
Okay. Next here the gentleman, please give the mic to the gentleman in the first row.
Sir, Romeshani from Ma and Maki. You have made an all‑encompassing presentation touching virtually every aspect of your business, which has stratified and grown in scale. Two questions: You are building the biggest 400 MLD desalination plant in India (Tamil Nadu) and a 200 MLD plant in Saudi Arabia (Sharakut). I believe desalination is the way forward due to climate change. Our city is seeing humidity at 84% and midnight temperature reaching 30°C for the first time. Climate change is real, and lower rainfall is forecast. What is the cost of each plant, and why not standardize the models instead of picking 60 or 80 MLD? Reliance, for example, has a 30 MLD pilot and can itself give 400 MLD plants. I would like your thoughts.
I think very right question and very apt observation. We fully agree. Because of climate change, the earth is receiving 7% less fresh water, and this will increase. We quickly need to realize this fact and act...
We have advocated a concept called manufactured water. Desalination is drought-proof using seawater. It is affordable at 8 paise per liter, much cheaper than bottled water. The second perennial source is used water recycling, which can be even cheaper at 5 to 6 paise per liter. These plants are modular and can be replicated. We contribute to water security for industry and domestic users.
With your permission, you have an order book of 17,300 crore. You have been very conservative in guiding us 18 to 20 conservative.
20 because we live in Chennai. We are a conservative lot not like you in Mumbai.
That is very well said. What I see is this order book you will finish off in inside two years. You may refrain from commenting today as you said that you are in the process of rescheduling, reworking and recycling the whole activity making it much more fine-tuned and refined. So maybe next time when we meet you will revise this guidance.
As they say in Arabic. Inshallah God wishes.
Thank you and all the best. Next. Yes, gentlemen there.
Thank you for inviting us. My name is Akash Talke from financial consulting. My questions are: on order winning in Middle East, do we bid on price or technical parameters? And second, what does asset light mean for our company, especially for O and M contracts?
I'll take the second one first. Asset light means we don't invest in real assets like buildings or equipment. Our assets are our people and our 125 patents. We achieve a high return on investment because our assets employed are very low. Now let Rohan answer the first question.
On the first question, in the Middle East, it's not just about lowest price. We win because of our technology and operating experience. We are the third largest operator, with decades of data. We offer end-to-end solutions, optimizing both capex and opex over the life cycle. Our 500 engineers provide deep expertise. That's our competitive advantage.
