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'll just give you a little bit of the overview of the company. The VA 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, recycle 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 Wabag. Today we have with us Mr. Rajiv Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director; Mr. Bhoopesh Chowdhri, our new Deputy MD; Mr. S. Varadarajan, Director and Chief Growth Officer; Mr. Chandra Prasad Sitharaman, Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Shillesh Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, India Cluster, as well as Mr. Rohan Mittal, Head of 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 guaranteed 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 these four topics. We'll talk about Wabag as a group. Then about the strategy. Then Shillesh Kumar, our India cluster CEO, will take you through India cluster. And then Rohan Mittal will take you through the MIA cluster, Middle East and Africa cluster. And we will have our new addition to the Wabag family, Mr. Bhoopesh Chowdhri, 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 wastewater 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 changes, 7% in a decade the freshwater resources are declining. Other side, the demands are going up because of 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 machines, 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 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 dearth 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 sectors which have 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 these PV cells for solar panels requires again ultra pure water, and this is again a new 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. Next, we have heard for last decade the green hydrogen is talked about, a subject, a project, 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 hydrogen will be 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 are focusing on this opportunity.
You see, the question is 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 AA- stable on long-term and for short-term A1+. Our net cash excluding the investment in HA is 950 crores because our borrowing is 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 a 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, 2005 we 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 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 wastewater, 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 this ESG side, environmental, social, and governance, I think we have talked enough to you about it, and we are proud to say that this remains our focus, and we are always very clear that this is something which 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 you 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 Mohammed Gedik who is from Europe, could not join today, but otherwise the management is in full attendance here. These are our clients. You can see all the marquee names both in India and abroad are our clients. As you know, payment security is a biggest factor when we select our projects. All these 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, AMRUT, Jal Jeevan Mission, this kind of projects. You go to Saudi, it's the 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.
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 operations and maintenance, which brings predictability because these are long-term contracts, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years contracts, 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 with its Jal Jeevan Mission, AMRUT, 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 are seeing 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. Like now, if 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 these 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 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 just 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 gender. 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 the most valuable company. Yeah, I will give it to my colleague, our group CFO, Mr. Chandra 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 in 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 FY 2025-26. 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, a 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 plus 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 plus 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, even 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 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 2 to 3 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. 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 to 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 100 to 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, RO 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, RO 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 to 7,000 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. If 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 looped water grid in Chennai that we are building, and it is well spread across the world. India, Saudi Arabia, Middle East, Africa, SAARC 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. Shillesh 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 results would be coming from. And from that point of view, I'll take you through some of the geographies which I am responsible for, what is the growth it is coming from. So India will continue to remain a growth engine for us as we have humongous opportunity there. We are treating still 28% only of the sewage which gets generated in the country, and we are moving towards a developed nation, a big Bharat, and that definitely creates lot of opportunities for us to be creating our impact in this market. Having said that, SAARC 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 SAARC 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 projects. We will have also mix of social sector and industrial sector, and from that point of view, industrial capex would be another driver for us growth. As we saw, future energy is another component of our growth. Though it may not be contributing significantly to the top line, but in times to come it will be having volume also. So 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, Chandra 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 backed 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, 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, Koding 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 a couple of days back, and major project on water sector and wastewater sector both we are doing there. We are probably doing the maximum value in this country, and we see further opportunities. Again, multilateral backed fund is there, and they are ready to invest, and we see opportunities going there. Renewables 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 JLD is one which we have bagged, and the project is going well. 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 PWSB again mix, industrial and this is on social sector, that project is also what we have proudly backed, and we see further opportunities in this place in Bangalore, and PWSSP which would be coming our way.
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 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 fora amongst the competition from all the place across the globe. This project got the best project award. This is Bahalpur again, is 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 a TTRO project. This is again to serve the industry, and the impact it has created, that industries which were on verge of closed down, they are coming...
Back and telling us you have helped us in surviving one. We feel happy that we are doing the business, but when we hear that the commissioner was telling me that industry is coming and telling them we never expected such pure, clear water would be coming, and they are reorienting their business plan based on the quality of water we are supplying, and the industries are surviving. So this is a proud success by the company that we have been able to do this. There are three Philippines projects which we have almost completed. It is in the proving stage and the project is on the verge of getting concluded. So these are the project status and those are definitely adding to the number. These are some of the mega projects. Peru desalination. I'll be leaving you with the video of that plant. But this is something jewel in our crown that this is Southeast Asia's largest desalination plant and we have done it very well so far. Every facet of the project being the specialized offshore area, onshore area, with each passing day we are improving our position on this project, and the project is looking more promising.
This is Asia's largest desalination plant, 400 million liters per day. After it is completed, almost 23% of Chennai's population will be served with sea water. It's almost 70 to 75% complete. Biggest and the most risky part is the marine work which is 95% complete.
Hi, good evening everyone. It's been a good year for not just the company but exceptionally a good year for the Middle East and Africa cluster. We have chosen the right jobs. We have kept our strategy as set out in RIDHI that Middle East and Africa is going to be the growth engine for WABAG. We have picked up orders. We have picked up good orders. We have not been desperate in the market. We have picked up orders that are going to be sustainable and will protect the company's risk. That is what is our aim at the cluster. So GCC, yes, one of the biggest markets as what was shown earlier in our presentation, for the 10 years we see an average of $5 billion per year of opportunity. This would be coming from various initiatives in GCC like the Vision 2030 or the FIFA World Cup 2034 or the FIFA World Cup 2030 which is driving a lot of growth in Morocco. Also, following Saudi and Morocco, Oman has now announced their Vision of 2040 which we expect that it will bring a lot of growth. We are seeing a lot of traction also which we are very happy about. Kuwait a lot of potential in the market. We've been trying to win some jobs there but we weren't successful before but now with DHA we are proud that we are in a preferential position. We should be getting signing the job in a short span. So this is our forte into Kuwait. Also, we have opened not just Kuwait we are also in a good position to foray into UAE. This would be our first order. The branch has been there for a long time. We've been trying hard but we would be happy that we would be finally entering into UAE. So it's been a mix of everything, getting mega orders like Yanbu, we've been getting into new geographies. I think this has been an excellent year for the Middle East and Africa cluster. Also, keeping that in mind such a big demand requires a big team and we are working on that. So GCC we see that $50 billion give or take. This is what the market research, our research, our talks with the authorities in Saudi, UAE, we are seeing projects, we're seeing consultants starting to do their feasibility studies. So these are few numbers that are astonishing but for us to see that this is the size of the market and I'm sure while we did our strategy we recognized correctly that Middle East and Africa would be the growth engine. Africa also as a market there's a lot of focus. The best part about Africa is all of these projects come under multilateral funding which we have been talking about, gives us a lot of payment security, a lot of professional contracts, a very good market for us that we have been doing steady business. We've been prevalent in the francophone region, now we are seeing foraying, looking at projects in sub-Saharan. We have won our Namibia job there and we are executing it so we are really hopeful that we'll keep up the tempo, we will keep up and we will be getting more and more growth to your company.
Now, yes, obviously the municipal desalination has been the mega driver in the region. So wastewater, especially the wastewater, they are treating it, they're using it for fauna and flora basically it's all their initiatives. Riyadh Green is using treated wastewater which is a sustainable way and if really you go to Riyadh or some place it's as green as India now. So I think their vision is correct, they are implementing it. We are executing, we have executed Jeddah, we are executing Al-Khobar in a preferential position for another. All this water is going to be used for irrigation so we are seeing a lot of strategy being put, projects being implemented for the right purpose. They're not wasting expensive water, comparably expensive water, desalinated for irrigation like they used to do. There is a lot of thought being there. SWCC is now leading that thought with the other government entities and this is something that we're seeing that there's a lot of push from the government to be more sustainable and which is something that synchronizes with our vision what we want to be at WABAG, which excites us to be in a market and as such one place where we have yes, we've got few jobs that we have done in the past. I think we have done Jazan, Ras Tanura, but industrial is a big plethora where we are now looking to expand exponentially as Aramco is coming up with big plans. We are seeing a lot of traction in industrial especially as we said earlier, AI and mining is a field that we see will bring in a lot of growth in Saudi Arabia. We are there, we are keeping ourselves upbeat. We are getting ourselves registered. We are already registered with Aramco. Now we're working on work group. So we will see more and more of industrial jobs being added as we move along because we've been focusing on municipal, now we want to increase our industrial mix that is something that we are focusing. All the projects in Saudi are sovereign guarantee funded so they are all secure, there is no issues on security. In fact, SWCC, you know this concept of it being a BOOT project brings in a lot of security and hence you see a lot of interest from companies globally going there and bidding. Obviously now with all this FIFA coming in, all the attraction of Saudi developing cities, developing parks. You're seeing a lot of population going there that sometimes they also don't give us visas on time. So you're seeing that a lot of influx is there and as when there's influx definitely the water follows it. So that's a good sign for us.
So what makes us special, WABAG is already there for four decades. We have a good name. We have done some discrete projects. We have executed projects, yes, 1,500 since 1995, but from the inception we have built 7,000 plants and all of these plants have been functioning well. We have no black marks. You know we don't just talk, we walk the talk. So that's something that in a market like Middle East it matters more than just talking. They trust us. We are one of the Indian companies who are getting so much of attention, applaud, like Sales told we have won the wastewater project of the year. Not just that we got selected for the desalination company of the year. Unfortunately, a bigger developer who was in a developer stage won it. But we were one of the five that got top five that got selected as a desalination company of the year. So I think we have everything now. It's the time to use it, to use our technologies, to use our know-how, to use our engineering manpower and to win jobs, execute it. And that's what is our goal at Middle East. It's a young team. We are all young. I mean, the oldest person in our team would be I think 42 and he's been with us for 20 years. So, he's looking after our execution. So this is how what we are aiming to do. These are a few orders. We would have picked up much more. Everybody knows about the Yanbu desalination. A mega entry into the market. This brings in a lot of trust with our clients. We always had a good name in wastewater but never in desal because we although we had done a few projects there but we hadn't done many others. Now this project has opened a lot of entries with all of the other customers. They have got their trust on us. They have seen our technical capability. They have seen that even if unfortunately the client had to recalibrate we have gone again we have worked with the client we have won it again we understand the subject and I think more than anything that confidence gives them a lot of hope on us and today we are working with the who's and who of the market every job we are there with our foot we are one of the bidders. We are not just lying back and doing nothing. So this is something that we see that we have wanted in the market which is a shift we were eyeing to have and now we are in the right position to capitalize on the shift.
So our strategy has been to go into new markets. We are as a cluster looking to expand into not just keep our focus on GCC or in francophone regions and bring in risk in the sense of a fixed market, a fixed geopolitical risk. We have been trying to expand into other markets which I had told before we have been successful. We're keeping at it, we are recruiting people in the CIS. We have recruited a very senior person. We are serious about it. This year we are really hopeful that other than Georgia, we will also be taking two, three more. It's a good market. It has to develop in the sense of develop, the municipal small jobs have been coming but a developer job we are still waiting for it. We are hopeful that soon we'll get a job, crack through a big one there. Global strategy we have been talking about it offshore, onshore model. This is what we have done. We have been successful by this model. We have been having a local marketing team who is in touch and connected with the client. We control all the bids from here. We do bid camps with our clients for weeks or two weeks or months to understand to talk about strategy how to win it add value to them. We have had repeat customers like Miahona, Etihad these have a lot of good hope, good trust on us that whatever we say we mean it and we have a lot of operating data as we are the third largest which supports them a lot. So this shows that we are here to partner with people. We are a serious company and we want to do good work in the market. Team development. Yes, when you're growing, you need people. It's never a one-man show. This has been constant that we have been looking to develop a team. It's a new market, new team. We are looking to add in more and more people so that we can penetrate better. Like I said, we have been focusing on EPC, EPC in the past. O&M and industrial is something that we have to start focusing on. So we have put in our thoughts. We have put in a registration team. We are getting registered. We expect good amount of inquiries coming to us. And you would see in the next year we would be in a very good position to do more diversified portfolios. We obviously have a technical know-how. We have built a lot of technologically advanced projects. Ras Tanura there was only one of us, only WABAG in the market that could build that plant. There was a treatment scheme with eight barrier system. Not easy, not easy to design. Water is not the easiest subject where you have to look at the smallest of the impurities, how to remove them, exactly how to be competitive, what is the right scheme that you have to give, you should not be expensive. And this was one of those projects where a lot of companies from Netherlands, from France tried to be competitive, tried to work on it. We went in, posed bid, we did our presentations. We showed what we have built and immediately after the presentation it was told to us we will give the job to you. We discuss everything else later. So I think that's something that WABAG has built. They have built a brand and we are just exercising it.
At the last, I will take this pleasure to introduce our senior colleague Mr. Bupesh Chowri who joined us at the senior management level as deputy managing director. He joined us very recently only a few weeks back. So we said it's good to come along and get introduced to all of you. So I'll request him to talk a few words about his early impressions what he has spent time with us in the last few weeks.
Thank you very much chairman. Good evening to all of you ladies and gentlemen. It's wonderful to be amongst all of you. It gives me a privilege and also happy to be there going through all the discussions with the investor friendly team in the first half and also the team here in the second half. I'm Bupesh Chowri. 30 years of industry experience. I come across with a large portfolio of managing some of the organizations which has been built from scratch to scaling it up. Few of them are like the last assignment with the Tata Projects Limited heading the utilities, power, utility of water and oil and gas and the metals and minerals and also the Larsen & Toubro primarily again utilities and also with long-term with the Adani group started many of the verticals from scratch and built a billion-dollar company and listed it also spent overseas and as an expat both in Middle East and also in the Southeast Asia again onto the utility projects building and executing and operating them. Three things that I thought I should share with you. My first the opinion or the interaction that I had with the team at WABAG about the people and the organization. I can only say that it is though it is a few weeks as if I am feeling that it is more than 10 years old I am in the company. The warmth and also the team that has been interacting with me has been very transparent, very professional and also very attached to the company and to the business that they do it and I'm really impressed that it is to say that people are very dedicated in a way to take things forward what has been given and they ensure that it is done to the minute level. An organization which is very detailed. It's very important in the industry that what we are in as a tech EPC and solution provider in the water segment. We deal with the people and the society. The quality and the performance that comes out of this company is very important for us to be successful. That's where it is about a 100-year-old company. The legacy that has been built now it's in our hands to take the legacy to the next level and what the future could be. You all can imagine that we would have to take it forward to the much better and better and to the best. Now coming to the business positioning part of it what I understood and what I see WABAG is not new to me, been in the industry, I've used their projects in terms of some of the businesses that I have been involved in many as a client, what you give the job they deliver it on time as well as on quality and that's very important to look at it as a user has been very much appreciating in a way to see that most of the clients they give the repeat orders that shows the legacy that carries as part of performance part of the organization. Now when you see the opportunities that has been talked about my colleagues the sales funnel is phenomenal. The opportunities are galore and the company is also has positioned itself into very different business models. We address and also serve to the need of the requirements whether it is municipality or whether it is industrial both in terms of the water treatment, wastewater treatments we service the desalination projects across. Now having I would say positioned ourselves as a number one company in the water segment which is a sunrise sector today having so much of presence in India it is also has moved out of India to see that we expand as an Indian company to a global company and happy to be there with the company to take it to the next level. If you look at it, the opportunities in Middle East and Southeast Asia and Africa is much more. But we need to go calculated way and also to build as an organization future ready to take those opportunities and challenges to make it as a successful endeavor to make the organization to a great level and that is also lies with all our hands and I'm also started working in a way to say that we have a strategy plan for the next 5 years that will be also as a blueprint will be drawn and the short gaps and also the capabilities that need to be built for the organization and the structure that would also get in place so that we have a robust mechanism as a part of organization to not only to execute successfully but also to scale and also to grow to the newer heights. That's all from my side. Thank you very much.
I think thank you for your patience listening. We'll now open the floor for Q&A and any suggestions you may have for us. So please put up your hand. The mic will come to you and please say your name and the organization and ask a question. Please ensure that you don't ask more than two questions and if you have more we'll come back to you. Please start.
Thanks at the outset. My name is Nathan Gandhi. I'm from Inoquest Advisor. Yeah. Clear. Okay. I wish to understand WABAG's business, that's like India 20 to 25 billion. WABAG's world 40, 50 billion almost two times. So how does the revenue and the growth rate shaping up for next five year vision which is here? If you can share some thoughts on that because the order book is also now started tilting that side. And second thing is like how do we benchmark ourselves with the top two in both the markets technologically as well as the execution capability wise and how do we plan to reach those execution levels and something which over there and the second question is with reference to technology like advanced equipment companies some like Xylem is extraordinarily on that side so I'm not saying we are planning to become equipment but are we intending to do some capability building towards that which helps and aids to get more margin products as compared to the execution what we have been doing because they have been most of the time operating beyond 14, 16% margin all the times in their equipment of course it's a smaller opportunity but does that technical capability building helps us or aids us to get some better mileage thank you those are the two questions
Thank you for the question. I think I'll answer the second question first because it's a little more easier than the first one. First one is more long-term. See we focus on what we are good at. What we are good at is producing solutions to treatment problems that the customers have. And today we don't have to get into a product or any kind of those kind of development to improve our margins. There is enough and more as you saw as the opportunity both in the core market as well as in the new market plus the O&M. So we keep doing our R&D when it comes to process. So we look at various issues like how do we crystallize the salts that come out when you do a tertiary treatment. How do you look at putting in ceramic membranes over polymer membranes to enhance the life of a project and reduce the total life cycle costs. So these are the kind of technologies that we invest our time, effort and resources on. As I say there are three things that a plant has to be optimum on it. It can occupy the lowest footprint. Second it can have lowest totex in terms of capex plus opex and it has to be run on the lowest power possible. This is how a plant can be efficient and everything that is required to meet these objectives is how we invest on our technology. Your first question was around the growth for the next 3 to 5 years. We've already given out an outlook 3 years back. And as our deputy managing director said we're also working on a strategy which we will put out once that is ready through this year. But broadly the guardrails remain that we will grow at a 15 to 20% continue to grow profitably. Our EBITDA margins will remain 13 to 15 and key levers in terms of margin growth will be one with the kind of sizes you see there will be economies of scale which will improve the margins. Number two, we have been saying that our international mix will go up as we move the years. Today we are at 50/50. We're looking at Middle East, Africa. You've seen the sizes that are there. So this will provide an opportunity for better margins as well as better working capital profiles. And third is of course our medium long-term objective of taking O&M to 20%. O&M is high margin, annuative business very close to the customer which can allow us to access new business as it comes. A lot of repeat business can come when we are more closer to the customer and it in a way is also a competitive advantage only somebody who is strong and confident of the process can take long-term O&M contracts otherwise they will remain a contractor. You can build the plant somebody else like Rohan said the Dukum plant which we built we maintained it for a couple of years then somebody else took it they didn't run the plant well the client came back to us and today we are maintaining for 2 years we have brought the plant back to shape and it is producing at optimum capacity. So we look at this as a competitive advantage where we can take these long-term calls maintaining the plant with the least amount of power consumption and best quantity and quality. So this is the broad outlook in terms of growth as we see the business is growing once we have the new strategy. Obviously the guardrails, new guardrails will be drawn out and I'm confident the new guardrails will only be better than what we have already guided for and achieving and we will put that out to the larger market once that is ready.
Okay. Next here the gentleman please give the mic to the gentleman in the first row here.
Sir Kamesh Pani from Meta and Vaki. You have made an all-encompassing presentation. You have touched virtually every aspect of your business which has rectified and grown in scale and size. The two questions one you are putting up the biggest 400 MLD desalination plant in India in Tamil Nadu and second a 200 million liter per day desalination plant in Saudi Arabia which is acronym Sharakut. I personally believe desalination plants are the way forward because of climate change. It is for the first time in our city we are having humidity touching 84%. And it was the first time the midnight temperature touched 30°. So climate change is now a reality and possibly there is a forecast of a lower than average rainfall. That means we have to get ready ourselves to meet the challenges of climate change. The thought which came to me this 400 MLD and 200 MLD plants desalination once you put up and you overheat them and they are running. One what is the cost of each and two why not we standardize the models of these two plants instead of picking up a 60 MLD or 80 MLD. I mean as I can understand Reliance you have done a kind of a pilot plant of 30 MLD. Reliance is such a large conglomerate. It can itself give you 400 MLD plants for desalination. Would like your thoughts on the same.
I think very right question and very apt observation you have and we fully agree with you. See today because of this climate change and we talked about 7% lower fresh water which the earth is receiving and over the years this is going to be more and more so quickly we realize this fact and act on it. So as a company last almost a decade we have advocated a concept called manufactured water. So somebody can ask what do you mean by manufactured water? Nobody can
Only almighty God manufactures water by having glaciers in the higher altitude and rainfall during this 3, 4 months which we call as a rainy season or monsoon. But these are all prone as very rightly said by you prone to the climate change. So we wanted something which is not prone to climate change, which is immune to climate change. So there are no droughts, it's drought-proof. So we thought of taking something which is perennial. What is perennial? Like you talked about desalination as one example. The seawater we have a take example of India. We have a 7,500 kilometers of coastline. We have a huge coastline. Now, if we use this seawater for desalination, as you mentioned, the sea is never going to dry. Even in the worst of the worst climate changes, there's always will be a water. It's a perennial source. So we said why not we use this water which is not normally available as available water or drinking water or portable water. Why don't we use our technologies to convert seawater into a portable water and that's what you are mentioning that we are building Asia's largest plants and some of the plants for Reliance or Middle East. This is the seawater which we are using and today the technology has made it very affordable. There's a myth I'm sure in this I think room also some people must be thinking desalination water must be very expensive. That's not true. It's a myth because today a desalination water the bottles on your table if you go and buy one liter of bottle it cost about 20 rupees from the market and nobody today puts a hand under the tap and drinks we all drink this water so 20 rupees we are willing to pay and a desalination water is 8 paisa I repeat 8 paisa a liter it's affordable. So why don't we build these capacities and make this lovely earth of ours water secure rather than water scarce. We all can pay 8 to 10 per liter. Happily we'll pay rather than I'm sure in Mumbai also you have limited water. Some of the times you are taking in your society or buildings tanker water. You don't know what the bloody tanker water is bringing the water and dumping in your sumps. The watchman starts goes up. Nobody analyzes what water you get is and waterborne diseases all are coming into us. Whereas the desalination water will come in a pipeline enclosed pipeline absolutely safe and clean if it is affordable, reliable, drought-proof, sustainable. What more we want? That's number one as a manufactured water. What is number two? This is done. The community gets drinking water, safe drinking water. Good. Second resources. We found that as long as human being are there, we will always generate used water. This used water goes from our washrooms, from our baths, from our toilets, from our kitchens. All this water goes where does it go? It goes and pollutes something. It goes into surface water. It goes into the sea. It goes into rivers, lakes or open nalas. Why do we allow that? Collect all this, treat it and recycle it. This is a second perennial source. As long as we all live, we will produce use water. It will never dry up. This is also drought-proof. This water we are producing in many plants in the country and abroad which are perfectly portable. If you come to our plants, I will take a empty bottle fill up and I'll drink and I'll show it to you. But you know the human mind because if I tell you it is produced from used water, you will say yuck I don't want to drink it. Okay. But we all go we all go to Ganga G, Alabad, SAM, Ardo. My wife tells me go and get a bottle and we go obediently fill up the water, bring it to our puja room. Every day we drink two drops. If we can drink raw sewage, why not treat it? And that's the myth. Okay, but doesn't matter. It will take some time to do the PR exercise to convince people that is perfectly portable. You can do biological test, chemical test, everything is perfectly pass all the test. It will be better than this bottled water. But in the meantime, we are using this water to give it to the commercial installment in institutes factories and release the drinking water which they were getting. So this water is used for industrial purpose, for irrigation, for agriculture, for commercial institution and the water which is released goes back to the domestic users. So that's the second source we have which is even cheaper than diesel maybe 5% to 6 a liter and that way we can make the industries self-sufficient in terms of water because we are reusing the water and they will never be short of water. They will never have to close down their factories. They will never have to reduce their production for lack of water. And this is how we are contributing to the economy. So we are very convinced our concept as we call manufactured water. Why we call manufactured? This is not God-given. This is something we have manufactured. So this is how we are helping the economy, helping the domestic users, helping the industry to sustain. So yes number one your question is right and this is how our contribution number two yes very correct observation these plants are very modular in nature they can be replicated in certain capacities and that's what exactly we are building and doing so that when we get a project we replicate the modules so that we don't have to do re-engineering redesigning and we can build the plants faster that's the future of this manufactured water. Thank you very much.
Sir, with your permission, you have an order book of 17,300 crores.
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 bless.
Thank you and all the best. Thank you.
Next. Yes gentlemen there.
Yes sir. Thank you for inviting us here. My name is Akash Talke and I represent at Financial Consulting. I had very specific questions relating to contract life cycle. Just to fill the missing gaps like I've read the annual report seen your presentation but I could not get those complete answers. So thought to directly ask and of course it might help other investors as well. So on the order winning specifically the international order let's say if an like an order comes up in Middle East and top five competitors are bidding for that order. So what are we bidding on like are we bidding on the price or the technical parameters I'm assuming both but like who wins the contract? So how do we ensure like if a new contract comes and among those five people we win the contract. So do we bid on the price or like we have those meetings and specify our technical parameters, history and then win those orders. Then the second question was asset light like we use the word quite often. So like in a technology company like a pure technology company it's very easy to understand what asset light means but for our company I'm assuming you're mentioning like your engineering operation design is like inhouse and the construction is like given to other people. Does that mean asset light and like typically for an O&M contract what does asset light mean like what do we retain and what do we go out and this is the last part of it.
Yes sir. I'll take the second one first and then tell Rohan to answer the first one about the Middle East. How the orders are awarded. I think asset light is a simple word especially you all finance wizards. You take the balance sheet and say the gross block, net block and you see what is the asset we have invested in the company for doing this business. What we are doing almost 10,000 crore valuation 4,000 crores top line 370 bottom line. What are the assets we have invested to achieve this performance? And that's what when we say asset light we are sure when you analyze us and compare with other equivalent companies you will see our gross block net block to be the lowest. So basically what we are saying we don't invest in real assets or real estate buildings offices we don't invest in equipment we don't invest in manufacturing we are a design technology company which is all brain here our asset is in our human resources okay this is our first asset our people they are our asset and the second is our technology 125 patents trademark this is a second asset so that's what we mean when we say asset low some have a manufacturing base some have construction companies huge infrastructure they have as equipments construction machineries and all that we don't have all that so from the investment we do and the return on investment is always good because our assets employed for this business is very very very low. Okay. Good. Sorry. Anybody?
Yeah. So on the first question you know Middle East that's where why it was recognized as a growth engine for Wabag because it recognizes not just coming L1 anybody can come drop the price it that's something that is not well rewarded basically Middle East the major chunk are PPP projects there's a mix of our OPEX CAPEX. So we being a technology company why we are doing so good in the last six STPs we won three what sets us apart first is we are the third largest operator we have a lot of operating data we have four decades in the country this gives us a lot of benefit than the entrance we have all the connections we have all the data the plants were few plants were operated by us. Second is obviously our focus on the technology and we have kept it captive. We don't sell our technology that makes us a lot of brings in a lot of competitiveness in our proposals not just in CAPEX but also in OPEX. We are a we are one of those few companies that do end to end from building the plant to operating the plant is known by us and this is very rare in the market. There are only people who build plants or only people who operate plants. If you remember that I had told that the developers develop and operate the plants. So there are not many companies or EPC contractors who have operated the plants who understand what will what will help my developer to be competitive in OPEX. So that's something that is a knowledge that inherently comes in us. We optimize maybe the CAPEX might be a little higher than others but on a whole our power our OPEX and CAPEX has to be minimum. This is really hard that we work a lot. We have to find each and every project is different. We have to find that thin line you know how much whether we should go for IE3 whether we should go for IE4 whether we should go IE5 motors. We go to that details on motor efficiency is 0.5 1%. And we add that value because one big advantage that we have that you know I can say that other companies don't have we have 500 engineers sitting and engineering plants at house understanding the issues why what decision was taken. This I think is the biggest advantage that we as a company have and obviously we are you know a very technology-driven company. So immediately as soon as you take a project we look at it okay you know you change this orientation little it will help us that is something that as a package when you do it we have the biggest advantage so I think that keeping that in mind that's what makes us competitive makes us you know to do more than double of what margins they bid at and execute at. So these are few advantages that Wabag has.
Good good question for a technology company. So that we again emphasize we are a engineering and technology company. We are not just contractor. Okay. We do like our technologies and we use our technologies sit on metal. We use our technologies for our captive use. We don't sell our technologies. We don't license out our technologies. It's only used for captive use. Our team of engineers are continuously working on technology development, technology improvement, technology acclimatization to the local condition. This is what we do. We have a budget each year which we invest. When we took this company from Siemens in 2007, almost Siemens had stopped any investment on R&D. when we took over though we were much smaller compared to what Siemens giant Siemens was but we quickly realized that our USP is technology and we must continuously upgrade and enhance our technology skills so we are investing every year and that's how you see our patents and trademarks which are developing every year though some of the old patents will expire but we quickly have new patents and this is the advantage we have which the new technologies are more efficient, space saving, less energy consumption, less power consumption which we just said it lowers our life cycle cost and that helps us to win our projects. That is the advantage the technologies are doing. You wanted to know where the tech which kind of technologies we are using. Today it's all about clean technologies. When we talk about desalination, we talk about reuse. Most of the technologies are membrane based technologies. And also like Rohan said earlier recently we did a very large plant using ceramic membranes. Mostly these are polymer membranes. Ceramic membranes are made of ceramic. One of the biggest cost in any of such plants is a membrane cost. Membranes have to be replaced after 3 years, 4 years because they get clogged and the efficiencies go down. But ceramic membranes have a huge advantage. Being ceramic, you can put it in the furnace and fire it and all the junk which is settled on it or clogged it. They burn out and then you bring the membrane back and load it. They are fresh membranes. So we also do lot of work on ceramic membranes though they are expensive at the moment but very effective and I think future does belong to ceramic membranes.
Next. Yeah. Gentlemen here.
Give the mic here to the gentleman. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. No no here.
Yeah. Hello sir. Thanks for the presentation. Sir my question is like when you look at last decade basically the strategic what what we made earlier that we will choose high margins lower let's say payment security business asset light business and that is we are reaping the benefit of that as of today in terms of higher growth higher ROC better margins better cash flow now looking at the next decade now we are sitting on a good decent order book and probably with another 10,000 12,000 crores of order book in the next two years we are secure for next four years and we'll reach from 15% CG 4,000 to 8,000 crores what after that will grow sides become a constraint from there that probably at 8,000 crores we'll need another $1.5 billion each year to maintain that 15% growth 15 to 18 20 18 20%. Or will we have to make a strategic pivot now in within the water segment or maybe some outside water segment that four year down the line when we look at next 5 year will be able to maintain the 15 to 20% growth mark thereafter what are your thoughts there.
Good I think one thing I want to clarify as of now there is no need and we are not looking at in near future of any diversification which is outside water we call ourselves pure play water company and in near future we don't see that changing I showed you the market I showed you the opportunity for next 5 to 7 years there's a tremendous scope there's hardly anything done in water globally especially in the developing world or the emerging world so we believe at least our grandchildren will don't have to worry so we don't have to worry for next 5 years. So we believe that there's enough and more opportunity available in the market for water companies to grow and maintain the growth targets whatever each company builds. Plus we have shown you some of the new areas like solar PV, data centers, hydrogen. These are the new areas. There was never a need for water in those areas. So that's developed. So these markets itself will grow in next few years. Plus the standards what we are treating today in future if you go to a developed world like Switzerland, Europe, Germany, the standard of treatment itself is very high. Now we cannot afford that at the moment. So we are compromising for the standard of treatment. Maybe in 10 years, maybe in 20 years, we also will migrate to a better standard which will need more investment. Plus the old assets will need replacement, renovation. So I believe water market is big enough and we don't have to move out of water to achieve our growth targets. Yeah.
The second question there a small follow-up there. We are sitting on 2,000 crores cash now. Okay. And that number will keep moving higher as we execute the projects. Absolutely.
Now are we looking at that small maybe bolt-on acquisition for the technology globally where which can add or help on our technology progress?
Hi definitely answer short answer is yes.
This gentleman here first yeah.
