Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Antony Waste Handling Cell Limited Q1 FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call. This conference may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company as on the date of this call. These statements are not the guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. As a reminder, all participants' lines will be in listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Subramaniam N. G., Group CFO from Antony Waste Handling Cell Limited. Thank you and over to you, sir. Thank you, boss. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our Q1 FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I have with me SGA, our Investor Relations Advisor. Our investor presentations for the first quarter of FY 2026 are available on the Stock Exchanges and on our Company's website. For the first quarter of the financial year 2026, the company had a strong start, reaching peak operational and financial performance across all verticals. This performance reflects the resilience of our business model and the efficiency of our operations and our unwavering focus on sustainable growth. During the quarter, our collection and transportation operations efficiently handled approximately 0.52 million tons of waste, while at our processing facilities, we handled around 0.81 million tons of municipal solid waste, reflecting a year-on-year growth of 10% and 13% respectively. Overall, total tonnage for the first quarter of FY 2026 reached about 1.33 million tons, marking a 13% increase compared to the previous year's same quarter. Our Waste-to-Energy plant delivered a strong performance as always, operating at a healthy PLF of about 84%. This not only surpassed our expectations but also set new industry benchmarks for a project which is up for more than a year and a half, underscoring our capability to consistently convert waste into clean energy. In Q1 FY 2026, our PCMC- WTE generated over 25 million green units, underscoring our commitment to reducing fossil fuel dependency and cutting carbon emissions. These efforts resulted in the avoidance of approximately 3,432 tons of CO2 emissions, further demonstrating our focus on sustainability and responsible environmental stewardship. I would like to highlight the commercial launch of our Extended Producer Responsibility initiative in the WTE division. With the PCMC- WTE project registered to qualify for EPR credits, we have monetized 20% of the first-year allocation of over 94,400 metric tons. This excellent position puts us at the forefront of India's circular economy transition, seamlessly integrating environmental responsibility. Furthermore, our demolition waste recycling sites continue to operate smoothly, setting a new industry benchmark with an impressive 96% recycling rate. This achievement not only showcases our capability to convert waste into valuable resources but also strengthens our confidence in successfully entering and operating new businesses, further advancing our social economic goals. Resource recovery emerged as a key highlight this quarter, with the segment recording its highest ever sales. Compost sales stood at approximately 6,600 tons, up 10% year-over-year, while our refuse-derived fuel sales surged by an increase of 62% to around 55,500 tons. These achievements reflect our steadfast progress in advancing circularity, reducing reliance on landfills, and fostering a greener and cleaner environment. On the ESG front, Scope 1 and Scope 2 emmissions for the year was approximately 6,615 tons and 564 tons of CO2 emissions, respectively, while our overall emissions stood at about 3,432 tons, as I mentioned earlier. Our ground staff strength totaled around 10,300+, underscoring our continued investment in a skilled workforce to drive operational excellence and advance our sustainability goals. A point on the legal aspect, by order dated August 1st, 2025, the Supreme Court has stayed the Bombay High Court's judgment of May 2, 2025, in PIL number 20 of 2013. This stay maintains the status quo at the Kanjurmarg landfill, allowing landfill operations to continue and safeguarding the concessionaire, that is, Antony Lara, which is a significant subsidiary of the Company's rights under the concession agreement, including the right to seek compensation for losses arising from any premature call in operations. For special leave petitions against the High Court's decisions filed by our subsidiary, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, and the State of Maharashtra challenged the question of the 2019 notification of about 120 hectares at Kanjurmarg and the restatement of its protected forest status under the Forest Conservancy Act, 1980. The High Court held the notification ultra- vice, ordered the restoration of the forest. With the Supreme Court's stay, we believe long-term revenue visibility under the contract remains strong, together with the Company's equity and strong net assets. We remain very robust to handling the waste of the City of Mumbai. Now, coming to the financial performance, our operating revenue increased by 13%, reaching around INR 224 crores in Q1 FY 2026 compared to the same period last year. In Q1 FY 2026, we observed a notable shift in our revenue composition. MSW C&T contributed 60%, processing accounted for 28%, and contracts and others comprised the remaining 12%. This marked a change from Q1 FY 2025 where the respective contributions were 59%, 26%, and 15%, respectively. Our diversified revenue streams continue to offer strategic flexibility and position the company for sustained long-term growth. Our focus to concentrate more on processing segments has yielded these results. In Q1 2026, our C&T witnessed a strong growth in revenue, reaching INR 151 crores, registering a growth of 11% on a YoY basis. At the processing division, we showed a growth of 17%, with the revenue reaching INR 72 crores. This growth was driven by steady power sales from the PCMC- WTE, ramp-up of our CIDCO Bio-mining project, and revenue from our C&D waste processing entity. These results highlight our integrated waste management strategy, blending operational excellence with strategic infrastructure investment, which allows better delivery and consistent returns. The group reported an EBITDA of INR 52 crores for the quarter, representing a robust 12% YoY growth, with margins at 24%, in line with the Company's expectations. The PAT for the quarter was INR 23 crores, which is a growth of 8% as compared to Q1 FY 2025. As of June 2025, the group's gross debt stood at approximately INR 448 crores. Cash and bank balances of around INR 87 crores result in a net debt of approximately INR 361 crores. This indicates a net debt-to-equity ratio of 0.4x. The group's weighted cost of debt is approximately 9.2%, and our sales outstanding remains stable, which ended the quarter at 140 days. Our robust track record, coupled with trust in municipal places, backed by a strong and improving quarterly ranking of the cities that we operate in, positions us well to capture emerging opportunities in the fast-evolving municipal solid waste sector. With all these efforts combined with a resilient business model, disciplined execution, and a committed team, we are confident in our ability to deliver sustainable growth and long-term value to our stakeholders in the quarter's end. This concludes our remarks. We would now like to open the floor for Q&A. Thank you. Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchstone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Gaurav Gandhi from Glorytail s Capital Management. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, sir. Congratulations on the good set of numbers. Just one question, sir. As we have achieved good success in PCMC Waste-to-Energy plants and the government also focusing on such energy projects, are there any more such opportunities visible? Good afternoon, Gaurav. Yes, we are definitely looking at WTE to be the next growth focus for the company. There are a few tenders which are already out. We have already participated in a few of them. We expect their results to be declared shortly, we will be able to get back on that growth path. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Before we move towards the next question, we would like to remind participants you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Bhavya Gandhi from Dalal & Broacha Stock Broking. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Hope I'm audible. Yeah, yeah. Just wanted to understand, which are the upcoming projects? Our Our revenue still not broken. Historically, we've been driving for a 25% CAGR, but in the last two to three years, we've not seen that number coming across. If you can just, you know, provide some light on that, great idea. Yeah, Bhavya. We have bid for a few projects. A few of them are from the southern part of the country, and two of them are from the western part of the country. We would not like to name the projects since they are in the bidding process. Going back to our guidance of 25% CAGR growth, that's spread over four to five years. If you look at a number from 2022 onwards, we have been able to grow our revenue from INR 600 crores to around INR 900 crores. We would be likely to show a positive trend once the new projects that we bid for get into the bidding cycle for us. The numbers that I've shown today, for example, Q1 core operating revenue growth of 13%, those are all from contracts that have already been executed today. There are no upcoming projects' revenue which has been built into those numbers. Any future growth, which we are confident to bag, should help us achieve the target that the management sets itself for. Sir, are there any contracts going to expire in the current revenue that we have already put in? I just wanted to get some understanding or flavor for the next two to three years. I understand that new contracts are underway. In terms of existing ones, are there any contracts which are going to expire? There is one contract which we are executing in the City of Mumbai. This is a collection and transportation contract, which contributes to not more than 3% of the control number. That is expiring by December 2025. The new tenders are already out. We have already submitted our bid to bid for them. Any quantum you can provide on the newer tenders? What size are we looking out for? What would be the ROCE and some metrics if you can provide? The size would be similar to the ones that are expiring, but slightly more, given the fact that all of them are assessing higher amounts of capital employment. The return metrics would be equal, if not better, than what we already have in our budget. Okay. Fair enough. Sir, on the construction debt, how much has been the revenue booked in this quarter? You can provide some numbers on it. This quarter is strong because it's monsoon, so we don't see significant traction coming in the second quarter, third quarter part, and till the month of July. The numbers are very soft. It's only more than INR 8 crores from my estimate because of the 2017 shift, which is very low. We expect tonnage to improve from the end of the second quarter till the end of the fourth quarter. That's the seasonality in the C&D business. Got it. In your case study and research from the Mumbai waste processing facility that you have, is structured out of the remote, what would be the risk, inherent risk, if at all, one has to shift its location? From the tenders, the risk for the concessionary, that is, annually sorted, is almost zero. The reason is zero because if the tender cannot absorb us as an operator from the risk related to the usage of land, that is under the purview of PMC and Maharashtra government. From a risk perspective, the answer is risk. From the land has been identified for fresh waste processing, we would have to move the assets to the fresh land. The cost involved in moving our assets to the fresh area will be borne by PMC and refunded to the company. The cost of movement, the cost associated with the time delay, and loss of profit are all captured in the existing tender. Got it. Just last thing on the EBITDA guidance, if you can provide, historically, you've been seeing 25% odd levels. Can you still write for the next two to three years? What is the broad number that one should walk out with? I think we are, over the last three quarters, we have been able to capture a slight increase in EBITDA margin. We are now at our last six-quarter high EBITDA number on the reported fund. We would like to go with the same number for now for the next two to three quarters before we dive into significantly larger contracts. 23%- 23.5% EBITDA margin is something that is there for us. Fair enough. Thank you so much. Really appreciate all the answers. I'll get back to the queue. Thank you. A reminder to all participants, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one. The next question comes from the line of Neerav Dalal from MIB Securities India. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hello. Thank you for the opportunity. I would just want to continue with the Kanjurmarg, High Court, Supreme Court's ruling or stay. I believe that that contract would be material to our operations at the moment. Any change there, though it might be part of the contract, wouldn't it have a material impact on the operations of the company? What are the remediation measures that we would? Yeah. Good afternoon, Neerav. Let me put things into perspective. Now, if you look at the Kanjurmarg landfill facility, that's the only facility for the entire City of Mumbai which can handle 6,500 tons of waste a day. If you were to ask and move by the Bombay High Court's order of shutting it down, the first question that has been raised is, where will this waste go? To answer that, the Supreme Court sees just as if the customer can't go anywhere. That is the response that nobody had today. The plan of action from BMC and from the Maharashtra government is to get those rulings out and kind of squash the High Court order and also try and remedy the denotification order that was there on our chief task. That is on the existential question of Kanjurmarg as a waste processing site for the City of Mumbai. The operators of the site, we have kind of absorbed from the entire issue mainly because we are an operator on the land which has been assigned to handle waste by the client. Tomorrow, if the client is forced to shift the operation to some other site, till that day, we will continue doing the operation, which is witnessed by the fact of the matter, the way it is today. The day the corporation identifies a new land, we have to move our operation to that new site. For this, all costs will be refunded by the client to us. From a cash flow point of view, from a revenue point of view, and from a liability and a risk point of view, everything is headed completely end-to-end. We don't see any risk to our project overall. Okay. Got that. My second question was, so BMC has also come on with another bio-mining project. Is there any specific reason why we did not participate in that contract, or is it because the margins were lower, or if you could just elaborate on that? You're referring to the one which was awarded in the owners and backed by a company called Navayuga Industrial Engineering, right? Yes, yes. Yeah. The contract closing cases were two things at once. Second is, we totally didn't qualify because one of the main conditions is the company should have handled 18.5 million tons of waste in three to four years, which we have not done. Technically, we were not qualified, neither had we had the experience of moving earth or soil of that magnitude in our experience. On technical parameters, we were not being able to beat the mark, neither would we form a JV to achieve the same because the tenders didn't allow JVs to be formed. On technical parameters, we were not able to qualify for that contract. Also, our operational side note, 18.5 million tons to be biomined in three years, including monsoon, effectively means 20,000 tons of waste to be biomined from the city center. Shipping it out required a large amount of focus, which we felt, A, we didn't qualify on the tender aspect, and B, we felt at the price that it was granted and the costing works out, we found it to be suboptimal. Okay, just for a proper example, the CIDCO project, what would be the size of that? The CIDCO project is 1.4 million tons. Oh, it's 1.4 million tons over three years? Over two years. Over two years. Okay. The other question I had was on this, the EPR thing that you've spoken about for the Pune project. If you could elaborate, is the amount material to the scheme of things, or how should one look at it? That is number one. Number two is, RDF and compost. Where would those revenues sit, and what would be the percentage of that? If you could just elaborate on these two. Right. On the EPR aspect, it is not material at the control level, but it's definitely material at the operating company level, which is Antony Lara, which is an entity which is executing the PCMC WTE. It just definitely adds to the EBITDA profile, and it will be a slightly material amount going forward. On the sale of recyclables like compost and RDF, that would sit in our other income line. Today, they contribute to close to 4% of our control revenue, which was 0.2% last year, which has increased to 2.3%. Now it's around a shade below 4%. It'll be part of the other income and not the contract. No, no, no. It won't be part of the contract. Okay. Lastly, have we seen a decline in debt in this quarter? Have we paid? Yeah. We have repaid close to INR 60 crores of debt from March onwards to June. That is part of the normal procedure. It goes to INR 62 crores of debt in the first quarter of the financial year. Yeah. Got it, sir. Because, yeah, it has come down to INR 448 crore, and then some more than INR 500 crores last year. Yeah. Got it. I'll come back, sir, if you can. you can. Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Prachi Sharma from ACE Investors. Please go ahead. Yes, Ms. Sharma, your line has been off. Hi, sir. Good afternoon, sir. Just two questions. One that we've been talking about the vehicle scrapping and tire recycling business for quite some time now. Just wanted an update. What are your views? What are we doing on that front? Secondly, we are planning to reduce our C&T contribution and increasing the processing contribution. Any actions that we are taking? Anything over this? Yeah, Prachi. To answer your first part of auto scrapping on the tire recycling, we are definitely working on those parameters. We have already given a market- study report. We have started scouting the areas. We feel currently that the management view is that we would like to go slightly slower given the market maturity at this point of time. We expect to work on these parameters as one of the broader management views to de-risk the business model by getting into a non-multiple revenue. Those two parameters of auto and tire recycling are definitely still under consideration by the management. The pace of growth and focus would be slightly slower given the market opportunities, the way it is today, and the margin profile, the way it is being executed on the assets and the component of the C&T operation. If you look at our Q1 2026 number, we have definitely seen an increase in the profile of revenue generation from processing versus C&T. If you look at last year's performance, we were looking at 59% and 26% from processing. Now the processing is now contributing to 28%, which has been a slight increase over those parameters. C&T is remaining flat. The largest chunk of growth is coming from processing contracts for the company in the current financial year as compared to last year. Understood, sir. On the first question, you want to comment on any timeline here? We are now talking about timelines in the time the Company has a viable project which can be scalable. As a case management, the Company, our focus continues to remain in MSW space given the fact that until the mid-hour hour, and that gives us a double-digit EBITDA margin and a single-digit cash margin. We are not able to reproduce the same profile in a non-multiple business today. Our growth focus continues to remain in MSW, but we are always scouting for opportunities. Till the time we are convinced internally to use profiles of non-multiple businesses commensurate to the return of on a rookie basis for our existing business, we would like to be very cautious before spending money into a project about which we are not convinced about it. Got it. I'll get back in the queue. All the best. Thank you. Thank you. A reminder to all participants, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one. The next question comes from the line of Amit Agicha from H.G. Hawa. Please go ahead. Hello. This is Faisal Hawa here, how are you? My question is with regards to our project in Pune. Do you feel that the PLF can further go up, and what effect will it have on our EBITDA? Yeah. The PLF for the first quarter was 84%. That's softer mainly because we took 11 days of planned maintenance shutdown. Normally, if you look at an average PLF that we are targeting, it could be upwards of 88%- 90% is what we look at. Normally, there will always be a planned maintenance shutdown because of the fact of feedstock and repairs and maintenance that is as per the norms given by Hitachi Zosen for us. Any significant improvement of EBITDA would be offered by planned maintenance shutdown. If I were to look at a PLF of 90% versus 84%, there will be at least a 250- 300 basis points expansion in my EBITDA on that particular operating asset. What did you say? What would be the 300 percentage points? 300 basis points, yes, if t he PLF improves from 84%- 90%. We have been promising around 24%, 25% CAGR. I know that this is over a period of three to four years. Of lately, growth, at least in the sales, has been a little anemic. What are the steps that management is taking to address those? We have been very acutely looking at new contracts that are being put up for bidding, and we are definitely putting our hats in the race in those contracts to ensure that the profitability and the margins and the client's profile. You should remember that we work in municipal solid waste business. We don't want to go at each and every order that is input on the bidding stage. We are very conscious. We have been working with a few municipal corporations, and we are actually actively facing a few projects which we feel will help us achieve the targets that we have set ourselves up, which are also communicated to all the stakeholders. We are working towards achieving these numbers, and we will be able to give you some more color in the current or the next quarter. Is it the right statement to make that at least in bio-mining now, we will be amongst the most recognizable players, and we should be able to get even more contracts there? In the bio-mining detail, we are definitely one of the serious contenders for any new projects. The only limiting factor for biomining projects is the corporation's budget allocation for that activity and the availability of low-lying areas to get rid of the projects of soil, which cannot be stored otherwise. To answer your question, yes, we are a very serious and a large contender in the bio-mining space in India. We do the project on a case-to-case basis. Thank you so much. Thank you. A reminder to all participants, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one. The next question comes from the line of Neerav Dalal from MIB Securities India. Please go ahead. Thank you again for the opportunity. A very quick one. For the current year, say for fiscal year 2027, we would maintain a 4%- 6% volume growth and then another 3%- 4% value growth. Would that be a right assumption, or are there certain contracts which are not at the moment fully operational? If you could give us some indication on that. On the EBITDA profile, we are already showing a 13% core operating revenue growth on the same platform. On a year-on-year basis, 8%- 10% growth is something that is vague in the numbers the way it is tagged today. We expect the volumes at the concession and demolition waste to move upwards from the end of the second quarter onwards. That will be the positive shift to the numbers to help us achieve those kinds of targeted revenue growth. It would not be wrong in saying that, okay, an 8%- 10% growth. We did 13% for this quarter, but an 8%- 10%. We have been conservative, given the fact that the existing RC/RN and contract, the one in MCGM C&T contract, is expiring in December. I'm not including the last quarter revenue over there. I've just been conservative over here when we give these numbers. That will be a fix when the new project kicks in. That will kind of more than compensate us to achieve these numbers that we have stated ourselves for. Got it. Got it. One can say that the current quarter performance could be something that one can look ahead for for the full year in terms of revenue growth and margins. Yes. Got that. Thanks a lot. Thank you, sir. Thank you. A reminder to all participants, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to Mr. Subramanian N.G. for closing comments. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Thanks. I would like to take a moment to thank our dedicated team for the incredible contribution to our success. The Thailand effort has been essential in achieving our goals, and we will continue to build on the momentum. We are committed to investing in innovation and leveraging our expertise to strengthen our market position and ensure that our clients' Swachh Bharat rankings remain the way they are or at least improve on the basis of what they have achieved. I'm particularly excited about our WTE section, which is full of all kinds of promises and growth going forward. Thank you, and wish you all a very pleasant meeting, guys. Thank you. Thank you. On behalf of Antony Waste Handling Cell Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and we will now disconnect on our time.