Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Marico Limited's Q4 FY 2026 earnings conference call. We have with us today the senior management team of Marico Limited, Mr. Saugata Gupta, MD and CEO, and Mr. Pawan Agrawal, Group CFO and CEO, International Business. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the 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 0 on your touchtone phone. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that the Q&A session is only for the institutional investors and analysts. And therefore, if there is anybody else who is not an institutional investor or analyst but would like to ask questions, please directly reach out to the Marico investors relations team. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Saugata Gupta. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Yeah. Hi everyone, good evening to all those who have joined the call. With FY 2026 having concluded, I will begin with a brief overview of the operating environment, after which I will take you through our performance and strategic priorities going forward. During the quarter, demand sentiment remained broadly stable, supported by benign inflation, improving rural sentiment, and favorable policy stimulus. These are further aided by the enhanced affordability following the GST rate rationalization implemented during the financial year. We are optimistic of a gradual improvement in consumption trends in the quarters ahead, supported by these factors. However, the onset and progression of monsoon as well as the inflationary impact of the vegetation crisis will remain a key monitorable. I will now move to our performance. FY 2026 marked a year of strong execution in a tough and operating environment. Volume growth in India business, international business constant currency growth, and consolidated revenue of Marico reached multi-year highs. The India business continued its improving volume growth trajectory during the quarter. Offtakes remained robust with more than 95% of the portfolio gaining or sustaining market share and over 90% maintaining or improving penetration on a MAT basis. Investments under Project Setu are yielding visible results, particularly in rural reach and execution quality, supporting the revival and sustained growth of general trade this year. In parallel, alternate channels, including organized retail, e-commerce, and quick commerce, continue to scale strongly, driving differential growth in urban and premium portfolios. Delving deep into our key categories, Parachute continued to demonstrate strong resilience during the quarter and delivered low single digit volume growth after adjusting for ml-age adjustments. With copra prices having corrected to about 25% from peak levels and expected to remain range-bound from here on, we have passed on the benefit to consumers through some selective pricing actions. As pricing stabilizes, we expect a recovery in consumption with a pickup in volume growth, which will be evidently visible from Q1 FY 2027 itself. Our strengthened distribution and robust back end and supply chain capabilities position us well as compared to the smaller players in current situation, while the brand has continued to strengthen its leadership position during the year. Value-Added Hair Oils delivered robust growth in this quarter, led by volume growth in the low 20s and meaningful market share gains. The portfolio grew 20% this year, backed by strong momentum in the mid and premium segments, which is a non-Nihar Shanti Amla portfolio. These high-margin segments have delivered close to double-digit volume growth on a two-year CAGR basis. We have also entered the almond oil category under the Hair & Care franchise and we have made considerable inroads in modern trade already. We expect VAHO to sustain its double-digit volume-led growth trajectory, supported by a focused innovation pipeline, improved availability following GST rationalization, and distribution expansion under Project Setu. Saffola edible oils delivered steady performance in an elevated pricing environment. As we enter FY 2027, we expect stable growth while maintaining our focus on the threshold levels of profitability. We will remain disciplined in passing on necessary input cost movements through calibrated pricing actions while continuing to drive premiumization and pushing for higher growth in cold press oils, Saffola Gold and Total variants. Food transitioned to a mid-teen growth on the back of double-digit growth in core Saffola Foods in Q4. The Foods portfolio exited the year at INR 1,000+ crores in revenue. We now have a wholesome play in Foods with our portfolio spanning from mainstream health and wellness with Saffola Clean Label and Modern Breakfast, and snacking with True Elements, premium gourmet snacking with 4700BC, and functional nutrition with Cosmix and Plix. You must note that this growth is being delivered alongside a significant improvement in profitability. Our focus remains on building fewer, bigger and more profitable plays while driving category development through innovation and strong execution. In premium personal care, we continue to scale with a clear focus on profitable growth. The portfolio comprising serums, male grooming and skincare exited the year at an ARR of INR 350+ crores. The digital-first portfolio of premium personal care exited FY 2026 at INR 1,100 crores plus ARR. The scale-up of this portfolio is being accompanied by a structural improvement in profitability as we aim to exit FY 2027 at a double-digit EBITDA margins and eventually teens EBITDA margins in FY 2030. Beardo] and Plix remain on an accelerated growth trajectory with improving profitability. Our digital transformation continues to accelerate with 55% of Marico core spends, advertising spends now directed towards digital media. Of course, 100% of the digital I mean, it's 100% spends in the digital brands. Consequently, the combined revenue share of foods and premium personal care, including digital-first brands in the India business, moved up to 23% this year, despite the sharp pricing-led growth in the core portfolio. We expect the share of these new businesses to expand to about 27%, which was earlier targeted to reach 25% in FY 2027, and aspire to move about 1/3 of our business by FY 2030. Moving to the international business, we delivered robust growth this year, supported by broad-based performance across markets and portfolio diversification. Bangladesh maintained its strong momentum, while Vietnam, South Africa, and the export markets continued scaling up as key growth engines strengthen resilience of the portfolio. In MENA, performance in the Gulf region during the quarter was impacted by near-term supply-side constraints in March, while Egypt continued to deliver strong growth. We'll continue to monitor the impact on sales in some markets of the Middle East, which contributes, as in the Middle East region, to only 4% of our total turnover, but we see no immediate major concern. We are also making steady progress in premiumizing our portfolio across markets, driven by expansion into beauty and personal care categories and supported by innovation. This is expected to drive both differential growth and margin expansion over the medium term. Our ongoing diversification and premiumization effort across India and international mix, business markets are already reshaping our growth construct in a meaningful way. By FY 2030, we expect to have substantially transformed the portfolio, resulting in lowering the share of commodity-linked businesses from more than 70%- 50% over a decade. To sum up, we have delivered on our aspirations across key performance parameters while navigating a highly volatile input cost environment and strengthen the underlying growth drivers of the business. More notably, we have delivered double-digit profit growth despite facing unprecedented inflation in key inputs. This performance reflects the resilience and pricing power of our core categories, profitable scale-up of our new businesses, and the strength of our operating model anchored in supply chain agility, cost discipline, and the results of ramping up of investments in future-ready capabilities. Despite ongoing geopolitical tensions, we have maintained strong supply chain assurance through strategic positioning across raw materials, packaging materials, and finished goods, and do not foresee any material disruption in the near term. We believe that our supply chain and back-end advantages will act as a competitive advantage over smaller players and drive superior volume growth and market share gains from these players during the next few quarters. We remain focused on consistently driving competitive top quartile outcomes in the near term. We expect to sustain high single digit volume growth in the India business in FY 2027. The international business is expected to maintain strong momentum and mid-teen constant currency growth driven by broad-based performance across markets. At a consolidated level, we'll aim to deliver double-digit revenue growth to cross INR 15,000 crores in revenues and high teen EBITDA growth subject to stable macros. On the cost front, we are witnessing divergence in input trends. While copra prices have corrected meaningfully, declining by approximately 35% from peak levels, vegetable oils and other food-linked inputs continue to exhibit an upward bias driven by ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. While we benefit from tailwinds in copra, we will mitigate cost pressures through calibrated pricing actions and cost management initiatives. Far, the weighted average input cost increase next year is therefore extremely marginal. We have already implemented price hikes. We'll neutralize the impact. Over the medium term, our strategy remains anchored in driving profitable growth through expansion of the total addressable market, sharper portfolio choices, accelerated premiumization, and continued investments in digital media analytics, automation, and AI capabilities. This calibrated yet ambitious approach to growth, underpinned by strong execution capabilities and disciplined capital allocation, gives us the confidence in our ability to deliver consistent, sustainable, and profitable growth over the medium term. We will aim to maintain our current track record of top quartile volume growth in India and teens constant currency growth in international business. At a consolidated level, we will aim to sustain double-digit revenue growth to comfortably cross INR 20,000 crores in revenues and aspire for mid-teen EBITDA growth by FY 2030. Our growth trajectory reflects both ambition and execution, scaling from INR 10,000 crore to INR 15,000 crore in just two years and adding another INR 5,000 crore+ by FY 2030. With a transformed portfolio as we continue to build fewer, bigger, bolder and faster plays, a resilient operating model and a disciplined capital allocation, we believe we are well-positioned to deliver this sustained profitable growth at scale as we cross our journey into 2030. With that, I conclude my remarks. Thank you, and we can now take some questions. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question, may press star and then one on the touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and then two. Participants, you are requested to use handsets while asking your question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the questions queue assembles. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and then one to ask a question. We have the first question from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama. Please go ahead. Yeah, congrats. I have three questions. First is on international business. Two sub-parts to it. One is Bangladesh. There is a sharp acceleration of sales growth to 35% versus full year growth of 25%. Any one-off year, was there some delayed pricing which is benefiting now or was it a soft base? Given now, in FY 2027 entire year, a democratically elected government is there versus very fragile government in most part of FY 2027 in Bangladesh, what will be the outlook? Second, sub-part to the international piece is MENA obviously in March month was challenging for all FMCG companies which were having business there. In April month, are there alternate channels from which maybe the business has seen some improvement? If you could update on April. I understand March there was a sharp decline or maybe no business for most companies. How has the April been? Well, I think coming to Bangladesh, we have been extremely steady. Sometimes, you know, there are quarterly this one and obviously there are some pricings which has been taken into account. I think overall, as I said, I think as long as we continue to deliver, you know, obviously Bangladesh has been a critical component and has continued to remain resilient and therefore annualized double-digit growth, we are happy. We believe that we have been resilient in Bangladesh and continue to diversify and deliver consistent growth in Bangladesh. We are, actually we'll continue to invest behind brands diversify and we are, you know, pretty confident about delivering this number. Coming to MENA, March obviously there were issues on shipment. There was some visibility. There's a difference between impact on offtake and impact on the primary sale, because primary sale is a function of some of the shipment. There are alternative routes. We just don't feed MENA from India. Some of the stuff goes to Egypt. There are alternative routes there. Therefore, I think, what I alluded to in the call is that broadly the impact, I mean, is less, and we will wait and see how the situation unfolds. I think, in terms of offtake, we have no reason to have significant concern. Understood. My second question is on some of the recent acquisitions. If you could give us some update on 4700BC and some of the other ones in India and, say, Vietnam, et cetera. What is the initial scale-up in distribution? Any initial shocks? Because in M&A generally we see in India especially, everything looks quite positive initially, but when actual business comes up in the 1st year, there are a few challenges, either inventory buildup or say any other challenge. Any learnings you can share in, on any of the recent acquisitions? I think firstly, those challenges happen when there is a 100% sale, you know. We now have a playbook of ensuring how the integration happens, how we do the valuation, what are the things we look into. I think it has been a positive start. We are, I think extremely privileged, and one of the things we do is we ensure that we partner with fantastic set of founders. In all the cases, they're unique set of brands and therefore we have had positive start, no hiccups, like, and I think the one big change that has happened now that we have a house of brands, we are seeing the impact of synergy, at least in the back end, which benefits long-term profitability, long-term traction or even for example, if you know that, you know, like in the, a brand like a popcorn, in 4700BC, a price point pack can be taken over by GT. We have actually started immediate synergies on Modern Trade. It started off in a very well. As I said, that we don't acquire or buy stake in places where there is, we believe that the business is fundamentally weak or unit economics is not there. I think, you've, I mean, so far our success rate on that front has been fairly okay. Understood. Last quick question. I think you are one of the unique companies from a FY 2027 perspective, where key raw material is deflationary. I think for most other companies clearly there is a sharp inflation. If I see your raw material construct out of four, three are quite inflationary. The big one is deflationary. If you could tell us as a basket how things stand. I do understand things are volatile on a daily basis, but some sense if you can give on as a basket, how much is it up now? Second is, you did say some corrective action. Is there a MRP cut also, or is it just select grammage intervention, select promotions being changed, et cetera, in Parachute? One final question here. Can you cross-subsidize your inflationary part of the portfolio? Because, if bulk of the portfolio copra is deflationary, can you cross-subsidize your foods and personal care by this, which can give you market share gains also? I think, from a pricing perspective, what we've done is, since we have seen that copra prices have come down by approximately 35% from the peak. We have taken, you know, price cuts in non-price point in small packs to the extent of about 10% or so. We haven't really taken any call in terms of increasing the MLH, but as of now, that's the call that we have taken. On your question of cross-subsidization, we always take a portfolio approach. Of course, we have to keep in mind in terms of what are the expectations from a profit delivery standpoint. Of course, we'll keep calibrating those calls and take a portfolio approach in terms of when we take the calls on pricing, et cetera. Coming to a margin for next year, of course, there are a lot of moving parts. As you rightly said, yes, we have a tailwind in terms of copra prices where we have, you know, some gains coming in as compared to from the high base of last year. Because the crude where it is at this point in time and where it'll move, we don't know. Still, if you look at our guidance, what we've been given is that if situations were to normalize, we would target to deliver about high teens EBITDA growth, which in fact is slightly higher than what we had guided in the previous call. This definitely assumes that situation should normalize soon. If it doesn't really sort of, then it's difficult to sort of tell where exactly we will be. Just to add, I think, to what Pawan said that. See, normally, whenever there is Parachute deflation, which I think we now have, you know, in terms of our overall proactiveness in managing deflation is much better. Having said that, this is a unique year where we believe that given the supply chain constraints and the other challenges the smaller players will face, I think this is advantageous for us. Therefore, instead of cross-subsidizing, there is itself we have a, you know, we have a kind of a competitive advantage this year if this, you know, supply situation and all these constraints continue. On the RM basket, any sense, some of the companies have said 8%-10%? Sorry to interrupt in between, Abneesh. I would request you to kindly rejoin the queue again for more questions. Sure, sure. No problem. Thank you. Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Mihir Shah from Nomura. Please go ahead. Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my question and congrats on a very good performance. Thank you. Wanted to just understand on your rationale behind the upward revision on the EBITDA guidance, as this is despite the new acquisitions which could have some drag on the margins, plus the inflation in crude derivatives that we are seeing currently is very sharp. Believe in as Pawan highlighted, you know, you had highlighted about mid-teens EBITDA growth and now it's been high teens. What is driving the change in assumptions? Would appreciate, you know, some thoughts on those. I think two things. I think firstly, just to give a perspective, two of the three acquisitions, for example, Cosmix and Skinetiq are profitable. As you know, Skinetiq is in the mid-twenties, Cosmix is in the high teens. Therefore, actually these acquisitions and number two, of course, there's a significant, as we talked about in Plix, which is a large part of the digital business, which is also experiencing an upward trajectory in operating margins. Now coming to, I think, now we have a firmer view of copra, which is now going to be range bound for the rest of the year. We have a stress test version of what crude will be. Of course, it's very difficult to predict. Our current estimate suggests and obviously we have taken some pricing action in that part of the portfolio where there has been impact on input costs, which we have taken immediately when this, you know, this issue happened in March. Therefore, this is the best case of view, given the current situation, that this should be around mid-teens. Obviously, as I said, that there has been far better also visibility of what the digital business profitability improvement agenda is and what we can achieve. As I said, the one more thing which we have done is as now that we have a, what I call a basket of brands or portfolio brands in digital and with all synergies coming in, I think, we have been able to realize better gains in terms of, you know, input costs and procurement and other cost drivers. Secondly, I believe that one of the significant competitive advantage or a capability which we have honed over the last four years is ability to handle adversity. This started during COVID. We faced Ukraine, where there was input costs. We had our own unique adversity in terms of 100% increase in copra prices. We manage these situations far more proactively in terms of supply chain assurance and other things. I think a combination of all that where given the current situation, this is the best case visibility which suggests that we should be able to deliver a high teen. When I talked about in January, obviously those, we now have much more firmer data and visibility of that. Got it, sir. Thank you. That's very clear. secondly, on Saffola, both the volumes and pricing has seen some improvement on a sequential basis. The management also actually in the press note highlighted that there was some pantry stocking up in the early part of March due to the West Asia crisis. wanted to check just one, the level of pricing that will be required on Saffola to maintain margins. Two, any pantry stocking up and what can be the sustainable volume levels for Saffola for FY 2027? See, I think as I said, we have made it clear in Saffola we are okay to have a low to mid single digit volume growth subject to a threshold level of margin. Wherever there has been input cost increase, we'll pass it on. We have done already. Now coming to the other important thing we are doing is, we are focusing on Saffola Gold total and cold press oils, which is the higher margin portfolio and higher realization portfolio. There is no change and obviously given the volatility there could volume and value growth could fluctuate, you know, in quarter- to- quarter. As long as an annualized, that is the, you know, kind of an aspiration. Understood. Just one last clarification on VAHO. Did I hear you correctly when you said there was 20+% volume growth in VAHO? wanted to understand, is there any annualizing or pricing should one expect during, you know, the first half of FY 2027 in VAHO? There would be some pricing, yes. We already have taken about extra 7% price increase, in response to whatever increase we have seen in crude derivatives. Yeah, so that's the price increase that we've taken. Okay. Thank you, Saugata. With respect to volume growth, what you asked for, yes, in quarter four it was 20%+ volume growth, in the VAHO portfolio. Got it. Clear. Thanks. Thanks so much, gents. Wishing you all the very best. Thank you. Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Abhijit Mehta from Macquarie. Please go ahead. Hi. Just wanted to kind of understand, you know, you pointed about supply chain constraints that are present by the smaller players and especially in, you know, Parachute. Could you give us a sense on how is it? Where are we? What are the kind of constraints you are facing to better appreciate the competitive advantage that you are kind of alluding to? See, I think, it could be, as you know, all polymers, packaging materials. It could be fuel in the factory. We don't have such constraints. We have ensured to the best of our ability these things are managed. Also obviously ability to foresee that, you know, like for example, any smart player would have bought in advance in March, early March, because this issue started off in, you know, February 27th. Obviously, some people had a window of ensuring that you have that supply chain assurance, which gives you both, you know, both the cost advantage and as well as supply chain advantage. A smaller player's response times ability to foresee these would be, you know, lower and therefore also what happens when it's high inflation, they have working capital constraints. They are not able to stock and have, you know, kind of a position built up in these. That's the advantage. We have seen this during COVID. We have seen this highly inflationary times that always that, this is a good thing for us because normally in a deflationary environment they become active. We believe we have reasons to believe they are no longer active that much even if there is a deflationary environment in copra because all the other things have neutralized that copra impact for them. Saugata, the advantages that we saw which started, you know, probably towards the start of the conflict, would it be fair that, you know, that competitive landscape is broadly the same? It's not kind of changed materially from there on despite, you know, government trying to reduce cooking price availability, et cetera. It's more, it's something that, you know, should sustain or could sustain for some time. Is the right read? It depends. It depends. Obviously, as I said that overall, see the issue is, as I said that today packaging material there's inflation and there is some kind of a, you know, not I won't call it lack of availability but there is constrained availability. Obviously a small player, ability to cope with that is lower and this is going to continue for some time. Got it. It's a mix of inflation plus availability which is why this time it's going to be, which is what kind of gives us more confidence from now ex- and hence the upgrade to si- is what you're essentially kind of saying. That's right. Yes. Okay. Got it. The last bit I just wanted to kind of get a sense, see, on the foods portfolio. Yeah. we have now kind of broadly come out of any, when we kind of look at the growth momentum kind of going forward it's fair to expect profitability plus a 25% kind of plus growth momentum now is something that we can kind of achieve here or, is inflation a concern and hence their growth could take a hit in color over there or in consumption there? I think, let's take it as a 20% as a base case. Then we will see. Okay. Perfect. Perfect, Saugata. That's all from my side. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Harit Kapoor from Investec. Please go ahead. Hi, good evening. Just two or three from me. You know, one was on the Gross Margin side on the standalone entity. You know, given that sequentially I know we would normally see some sequential drops, but given that there hasn't been a sharp improvement sequentially, is it fair to assume that the low cost base completely starts playing out in quarter one only for copra? Is that the right way to think about it? That will start playing out from quarter one. Let me not, you know, get into quarter-wise as to what could be the gross margin expansion but rather I would want to paint a picture for the full year. I believe, for full year about 300 to 400 basis points improvement over the exit of FY 2027, FY 2026 is, fairly possible. Got it. Got it. Just one thing on, you know, your sense on this consumption uptick which it looks like in quarter four, right? You know, you've seen a lot of the companies actually deliver, you know, numbers which are ahead of third quarter, you know, trajectories. I mean, what would be your kind of, you know, prognosis thought process, you know, at least on a top-down basis on, you know, what's kind of driving this, you know, at a sector level would be great to hear your comments. If you look at the second half of the year, I think two things would have happened. I would say that one, of course, some of the parts of the sector were lapping a slightly softer base, but more than that, rural had earlier recovered. We started seeing a recovery in urban, as a combination of obviously the GST rate rationalization, and the affordability factor led to, I think, price increase. I mean, the price drops which were taken. Also what has happened is that if most of the, you know, especially in food now that everything is 5%, that unbranded to branded or unpackaged to packaged, you know, conversion is going to likely to get accelerated with that. We are also seeing in Value Added Hair Oil, for example, as a large category where there is some unbranded small players, so the gap is actually pretty small. Secondly, I think we continue to enjoy good period of these very low inflation. Low inflation helps in FMCG consumption. Ultimately, people are aspirational. They want to get into aspirational brands there as disposable income increases. Even now as we speak, I think the government has done a fantastic job of containing the kind of a you know, shock, which you know, other countries, a lot of emerging markets have faced because of the current crisis. I think we have been insulated and therefore we believe that, I mean, the sector and especially the organized part of the sector, because as I said that they have a better coping ability in terms of, you know, handling these kind of adversity. It looks okay for the sector and definitely looks okay for us because as far as we are concerned, we are inflation neutralized to a large extent. Great. Just one last bookkeeping was on the tax rate. Just any sense on FY 2027 on better consolidated level would be helpful. Yeah, you could consider around 20% or so. Got it. That's it from me. Thank you. Wish you all the best. Thank you. Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Tejas Shah from Edelweiss Institutional Equities. Please go ahead. Hi. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity and congrats on good set of numbers. I will begin with just one question. See, we have been navigating macro headwinds well over the past few quarters, in fact past few years. While the government has kind of parallelly for last one year or one and a half year is trying to revive consumption by making a lot of interventions. As we look ahead next year, are growth confidence is primarily driven by internal execution? Or are you beginning to see signs of sustainable consumption recovery at ground level as well? I think, as I said, in the second half of the year, the sector has started accelerating. Having said that, at the end of the day, we have to, we have to ensure that we continue to deliver top quartile performance. We believe that we have multiple vectors of growth, whether the recovery of the core, Setu has significantly given us a distribution reach advantage. The VAHO turnaround, the diversification strategy, the stable businesses international, and the significant profitable growth trajectory of digital. I think multiple vectors are playing out, and sometimes one or two are not playing, might not play. For example, I mean, we had a short-term issue in Middle East. I believe if I have, you know, eight to 10 vectors of growth and they are in a symphony, one or two strings not working, even then we are pretty confident of delivering what we are seeking to achieve. Lastly, the government's effort, fiscal effort also has been led by state governments also in some cases. Are you seeing any divergent growth trend in some of those states where, let's say there is a lot of push to put more money in hands of, bottom end of the consumer, or is it very secular as of now? I think it's pretty secular. Obviously, it's also for us, it has been a function of where we have got deeper gains because of Setu. As you know, in some of the states, our distribution, especially the direct distribution, was not indexed, you know, under indexed, and therefore we are seeing that. Obviously, because of our portfolio, especially in food and premium personal care, you know, the metros. To us, I think one of the things which is unique to us, we called it out first before others, is that we need to get GT back on right, you know, back on track. We started investing behind Setu, invested to say that, you know, as the general trade contributes so much to the country, creates so much employment, I think, and which the source of competitive advantage for us because, you know, the entry barriers have decreased in MT, but it continues to be in GT. I think our systematic investment, and we believe that we owe it into the entire general trade, our distribution partners and everything to increase their viability. To us, that is a big thing. Therefore, we believe independent of what happens in a state consumption or anything, this will help us to grow and consistently grow. Very clear. Thanks. All the best for coming quarters. Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Arnab Mitra from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Hi. Sorry, my line was muted. Congratulations on a great year, Saugata and Pawan. My first question was on foods. If I look at the 16% growth, I assume this includes the turnover, parts quarter turnover from the new acquisitions. If you could just help me understand how the organic business has done relative to the last couple of quarters, and are you seeing an improvement there? What are the building blocks there for FY 2027, as you go ahead in the organic part of the foods business? I think the first good news is that in the quarter, the core Saffola Foods has grown in double digits. Now, why overall foods growth is still not looking all that good in this quarter is because True Elements is lapping up the base quarter, which was a high base. Secondly, we've also taken some SKU rationalization call over there for some of the low GT products to accelerate the path of profitability in True Elements. However, we definitely expect team growth in True Elements in FY 2027 also. Thirdly, also for Plix, over the last three, four quarters, Plix is now more pivoting on more to personal care, and therefore, the contribution of Plix into foods growth is progressively coming down. These are the reasons as to why, you know, foods growth despite inclusion of 4700BC and Cosmix, is at about 16%-17%. As Saugata alluded earlier in the call, that we definitely believe going ahead it will be in the range of at least 20%-25%, if not more. It's not the entire quarter of Cosmix and, Yes. Yeah, It's a few days, you know. It's not entire this one. It's around, you know, We started doing it in, I think, maybe 50 days or something. Yeah. Got it. Got it. In that sense, like for next year when I think you spoke about 20% plus growth in foods, you should potentially be able to do lots more because the organic business also is recovering, and you will get a full year, plus I assume there will be a ramp up in that business. Just wanted to check whether you think the foods growth can be higher because of the M&A also adding to that 20%. Yeah. I think we took as a base case, let's take it as 20%-25%, I think. We'll see. As I said that, I don't think we have any concern as far as food is concerned, at least immediately, and you will see the results coming from quarter one. That's all I can say. Got it. My second question actually was, I just wanted to go back to the Bangladesh performance, because last two quarters there has been a very strong acceleration from 22%, 29% and 35% growth rate. Just wanted to understand, is the pricing cycle on coconut oil there going different from India in the sense that is Bangladesh also likely to see a deflation now on pricing or the price trends there are different and therefore the inflation-led growth could continue in the coconut oil business? If you could just help understand a little bit on how this last two quarters has accelerated, if we should think this will decelerate immediately or it's a gradual go back to that mid-teen kind of a growth that we've historically had. I think we shouldn't read, too much into this quarterly swings. On a steady-state basis, we expect definitely to deliver double-digit growth in Bangladesh. Specifically talking about the last couple of quarters, I believe it's a combination of good performance of both core and the newer portfolio comprising Shampoo, Baby, et cetera. I think it's also driven by decent volume growth. Therefore, going ahead, I think, from a guidance standpoint, we would say that at least double-digit growth is for sure is gonna be delivered. I think, one other thing which we are being watchful is about as to, you know, what happens on the consumption side, depending on the inflation, et cetera. Over there also, I believe that the robust business foundation and strong moat that we've built over the years and the favorable cost structure, we believe that we are in a unique position to sort of whether any of these kind of things play out, we would be in a position to sort of deliver healthy growth in this market. Got it. Got it. Thanks so much. That's it from my side. All the best. Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Vivek Maheshwari from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Hi, Saugata and Pawan. Great results. Two questions. The first question is, and I understand there is fair amount of volatility because of whatever is happening around us. When I just look at your guidance of INR 15,000 crore FY 2027 revenues and high teen EBITDA growth, if I just calculate the margins, the margins are actually lower than what you would have done in like four out of five years in the past, whether FY 2025, FY 2024. This is despite the fact that copra is correcting, your mix is getting better, some of the new initiatives have started to contribute, the portfolio mix is getting better. Is it just because of the uncertainty that you are, you know, you have given this guidance as a base case or am I missing something? Would love to know that. Are you suggesting that we are not going back to the peaks of the operating margin? Is that what your question is? Your margins, yeah, Pawan. Yeah. It's still, you know, way lower than what, where, you know, let's say the last five, six years, margins highs were. I just want to understand what am I missing, you know, if there is something dramatically different from, let's say, FY 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025, what am I missing then? One thing which has to be kept in mind, Vivek, is that, you know, peak margin was also a year where we had low inflation in all the commodities. In this year, while we would have, you know, copra tailwind, but the way and where the crude is at this point in time, there could be hit in the crude-led derivatives. Broadly what we've said is, you know, in gross margin terms, we expect about 350-400 basis points expansion for FY 2027. We would up the A&P investment again from the current levels. I believe maybe 200-250 basis points can be increased in the A&P. Balance 150 basis points to about 200 basis points, base case in case of 150 basis points is the operating margin expansion that we're looking at. Now, operating margin percentage is also a function of, you know, where your revenue is, because we have had a significant revenue growth and therefore a denominator effect also plays out. While we are delivering 17% in this year, it's also because of significant de-denominator effect. So therefore, keeping in all this thing, we are saying about 150 basis points expansion, and therefore, if you do the math, it will come out to about high teens EBITDA growth from a guidance standpoint that we've given. Right. But Pawan, just to follow up and just to clear my understanding. You know, in the past, and as I said, three out of five, actually, sorry, my bad, not four out of five. Three out of five, the margins were closer to, let's say, 20%. This time around, you know, your other parts of the portfolio mix, VAHO, which is a high margin portfolio, is also doing better. You know, is there a possibility that the guidance is a bit more conservative sitting today, or it is just the volatility, which is what is, you know, driving this kind of guidance? I think we would be the only company who would be giving this kind of a guidance in this kind of environment of high-teen EBITDA growth. I don't think there is a conservatism which has been factored into it. We also need to be mindful in terms of the environment that we are operating in. Still we are saying that, despite, you know, at 110 of crude and what derivatives, the crude and derivatives where it is trading at this point in time, we are still sticking out our neck and saying that we would be delivering 150 basis of expansion operating margin. We'll deliver high-teen EBITDA growth. I think that's more than one can expect, I guess. No, no, totally agree, Pawan. No, no doubts about it. Second question. I think let us stabilize also, right? In the sense that let the situation stabilize. Maybe after one or two quarters you will get a better visibility. Yeah. Right now, this is a base case kind of a situation in terms of 150 basis points expansion, you know, what he's talking about, you know. Sure, sure. I just want to clarify, it was just about the math rather than, you know, anything, not to say that, you know, your guidance and your disclosures are, you know, continue to be the top-notch, I would say. The second, without making it very abstract and, you know, open-ended thing, but Saugata and Pawan, what will be the top, you know, one or two things that, because your execution is good, you know, in the toughest of the commodity cycle, you have done very well. Versus peers also, you have done extremely well. Your new, you know, product strategy, D2C, whatever premiumization, everything has been good. What are the top one or two things that you worry about, you know, at this juncture for FY 2027, and which we should also monitor for your business? I think if you look at it, obviously the macro geopolitical, this one fortunately, of course, our Middle East contribution is low. The macro geopolitical, this one is important. Obviously in FMCG and the kind of portfolio we have, whenever there is, you know, inflation, it has an impact in terms of consumers either downtrading or upgrading. These are macro factors. I believe as far as internal factors are concerned, the way we are going about doing it, I don't think I mean, we are on a momentum on that. I don't see that as an issue, but obviously we have to watch out for the macro factors. If you see in historically, inflation is, you know, FMCG consumption's biggest enemy, especially in the bottom of pyramid or in rural. The last one is another monitorable is if it is a strong El Niño year in terms of El Niño effect impacting consumption towards the back half of the year, stretching into the quarter one of next year. All these factors are not material, this one. I believe at this stage, I think in terms of the machine that is running, we are okay. You know, we have Internally right now there are more of the external factors than internal factors. Got it. Very interesting. Thank you very much. Wish you and your team all the very best. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Nihal Mahesh Jham from HSBC Securities. Please go ahead. Sir, good evening, Saugata and Pawan. I had two questions. Yeah. First was on the PCNO part. What would be the relative price index at this point in time after we've taken the price cuts? Given a firm view of copra that we already have, what is the incremental pricing action we are thinking? As of now, I think we have taken that, what Pawan alluded to at around a 10, a 10%-ish on the non-price point packs. I believe copra will be range bound, and if we could manage with this, we'll manage. We'll see. Wait and see. As I said that, we seem to be in a relatively advantageous position compared to the other deflationary cycles because of weaker competitive positioning because of all these supply chain issues. Right. The 10% cut would still, from an RPI perspective, take a premium to the loose coconut oil. Is that something we'll consider in terms of readjusting or we are not looking at that as a metric? Even last year when the copra prices increased by more than 120%-130%, we did not take as much price increase. We had taken about 60% price increase. From a pricing RPI standpoint, we are not significantly off. As I said, we've taken calls on certain non-price points. If required and if, depending on copra trajectory, we might take certain calls. At this point in time, the visibility is that we would want to stay with this. Yeah. Just to add, I think, this, the price elasticity model has got challenged in the last year because we were ourselves surprised because of the strong brand equity of Parachute that we were able to carry on a flat volume growth-ish, you know, in spite of 60%. Therefore, there could be a case of a recalibration of our pricing model, you know, over the next couple of years. Understood. The second question was on Plix. If you could, just say, you know, what was the ballpark EBITDA margin for this year, given you've been alluding to, you know, looking at margins and the brand, did a break even last year. The second part of the question was that, when we bought the brand, the hero product was ACV and foods was a much larger contributor. Given the trends we see, at least in terms of weight loss, what is it that has changed where the focus is now shifting more to personal care, where I would believe that this part of the portfolio still has a lot of scalability and should ideally be a much higher contributor to growth? Yeah, that is the question. I think Plix currently should be hitting around mid to high single digit kind of a thing. We hope very soon it will get into double digits. Yes, we started with ACV. I think what it pivoted towards, and that is a function of, you know, see, Plix stands for plant-based and hair and skin food. Hair and skin food is what we pivoted. If you look at all the Plix play in personal care, we believe that the personal care had higher profitability. It expanded TAM, the brand could carry itself up. You will see similarly some of the launches, even in the nutraceutical, this one, over the next couple of months. I think secondly, what we have focused on Plix is, we have a very strong D2C play. I think D2C is around, what, 45% of the business in Plix. Therefore we own the consumer. It's a profitable CM to D2C play. Therefore it is important that we start cross-selling, upselling. Therefore it could be an ACV consumer having a hair growth serum, and that's how the Plix has played. The overall portfolio has pivoted towards that. Having said that, we will see action in the nutraceutical space. In fact, we have just launched an ACV canned drink. It is available, I think, in one or two quick commerce players. As you know, globally there is going to shift some carbonated soft drinks to healthy drinks. You know, in especially developed markets, we have just launched one. You will see some of the plays in nutraceuticals plays also. The other thing is this, that between Plix and Cosmix will be in the slightly more serious nutraceutical and protein play, so they'll be in the vitamin supplement, this one, nutraceutical play. Plix is a more fun brand, you know, it's a slightly more fun brand. Therefore we will then straddle both the things together. Going forward, we believe the center of gravity of Plix will be more towards personal care, which is far more profitable in the long term. Got that, Saugata. Thank you so much, and I wish you all the best. Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Siddhesh Deshmukh from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead. Oh, hi, this is Percy here from IIFL. Hi. Saugata, am I audible? Yes. Saugata, my first question is on the construct of the overall hair oil markets between VAHO and Coconut. We have seen in the last few quarters very strong growth in VAHO across all companies, not just Marico. Do you think this has got anything to do with the fact that copra price has, I mean, the coconut oil price has become very unaffordable, so there is a little bit of market share shift towards VAHO? Going ahead, do you think that market share shift could reverse a little bit where copra price is coming down and there could be sort of a little bit of market share move towards copra away from VAHO? These are, of course, not very, very large shifts, but to some extent, can it bring down the VAHO growth and can it actually accelerate the copra growth and act as a buffer against the general sort of slowdown we see during a deflationary cycle in volumes of copra? See, as you know that we repivoted our strategy on VAHO What had happened is that there was a significant focus between the two major players on price points, especially in amla and mustard. Therefore we decided that, and therefore where, also a lot of spends went from ATL to BTL. Couple of quarters, we decided that we should, as a leader in a one of the volume share leader in the category, we must invest behind category growth. Therefore in the mid and the premium segment, which are much more higher profitability. Consequent to that, if you notice from Q2 on, VAHO growth started accelerating. Obviously, the GST reduction has helped because a share from some of the smaller players or some unbranded VAHO to branded VAHO. That has helped. I think that is the reason, and we are extremely confident that we will be able to consistently deliver, you know, high, you know, growth, higher growths in VAHO, including double-digit consistent growths. Right. Saugata, my starting point was that, of course, you have done good actions on VAHO, no denying that. Across the industry, if I look, because many players are listed, we are seeing all the players reporting extremely strong growth on VAHO It seems to be more of a industry phenomenon in addition to, of course, you doing maybe slightly better than the industry. Overall, Wah! Wah! industry, not only in value terms but even volume terms, is growing way above what a long-term average would be. The question was in that context. Maybe I'll take that further offline. Also just wanted to understand second question on Plix. It's had a huge ramp up over the last few years, and I think it must be coming close to touching INR 10,000 crore kind of ARR. Do we see any kind of slowdown just from the point of view of absolute size of the brand? What kind of growth can we expect in Plix as a brand? Of course, I'm seeing food and personal care put together at the overall brand level. Can it keep growing at a sort of fast clip or at some point of time, there are some barriers that we hit in terms of it needing some new channels of growth in addition to sort of online. What are your thoughts on these? Without getting into specifics, let me tell you, I think Plix has the added advantage of a far more broader TAM than some of the other, you know, brands, because they either play in BPC. This is one of the very few unique brands that play across two distinctive categories, which is nutraceutical as well as nutraceutical wellness and personal care. Of course, you are right. I mean, as it reaches a certain number, and it's, you know, INR 1,000 crore, you can't be expecting that kind of a growth. I'll give you the philosophy, broader philosophy of our, you know, overall digital play. We are here to build to last. We are here to create a sustainable, profitable, consistent growth in the business. For me, any day, I will, you know, vote for a 20%-25% growth with significant increase in steady increase in profitability over a 60% growth without any increase in profitability. I think Plix is a brand, and Beardo also, we have shown we can do both. Obviously, I think as long as the digital business continues to grow 20%, 25%, 30% and be consistent on the journey to, you know, go into the teens, you know, profitability, you know, which we have talked about in 2030, we'll be happy. Do we need unlock of new channels for 20%-25% growth in the brand? Yeah, I think, as I said, we believe in maximizing full potential. Focus is a very important thing. I think food is something which we believe has a far better omni-channel potential versus BPC, but we are open to it. I don't think there is any capability or resource constraints to the growth, but we want growth which is mindful as opposed to growth, which is pray and pray. Sure. That's all from my side, Saugata. Thanks a lot and all the best. Thank you. Thank you. We We will take the next question from the line of Aditya Soman from CLSA. Please go ahead. Hi. good evening, and thanks for the opportunity. Two questions. First, on the sort of guidance of INR 15,000 crore. Now, the growth is obviously lower than what you've delivered. Is this largely a function of sort of deflation in copra prices, or is there anything else that, again, which is why the growth is more conservative than what you've delivered, let's say, last year? I think, delivering double-digit revenue growth is not conservative in any category and any sector. I don't know where you're coming from in terms of conservatism in this. This year, what happened is significant inflation that was built in. What we have said consistently, that we are confident of delivering high single digit growth in India. A kind of a mid-teens kind of a constant currency growth in the international business. Subject to that leads to a kind of a, you know, a growth which is again a double-digit revenue growth overall blended. Obviously, as you know that we have taken some pricing correction in Parachute in the non-discretionary passive extent of 10% that is being incorporated into the revenue expectations. That's very clear. Thanks. I just wanted to check if that Parachute price cut, because the guidance was similar even earlier, right? I mean, I'm assuming that you had already factored in that there'll be a price cut for Parachute. Exactly. Fair enough. Thank you. That's fine. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as the last question for today. I now hand the conference back to the management for closing comments. Thank you for listening onto the call. To conclude, we closed FY 2026 on a very strong note, achieving multi-year highs on most of the key business parameters in India international business. These results underscore the strength of our brands, disciplined execution and strategic diversification and premiumization initiative across geographies and categories. In a volatile environment, we believe that our ability to foresee and manage risk will continue to hold us in good stead. As some of you rightly mentioned, that we are in a unique position in terms of RM cost, which is great positive for us. In addition to this, positive shift in digital businesses, growth trajectory in premium VAHO, strong momentum in international business gives us confidence on the top line, bottom line guidance that we gave. We'll remain focused on sustaining the underlying volume growth momentum and improving the earning growth trajectory meaningfully in FY 2027, while continue to make consistent investments in pursuit of our FY 2030 strategic aspirations. That's it from our side. If you have any further queries, please feel free to reach out to our IR team, and they'll be happy to address. Thank you and have a great evening. Thank you, members of the management. On behalf of Marico Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining with us today, and you may now disconnect your lines.