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00:00 We are in conversation with the CMD of the company, Mr. Sanjay Swaroop.
00:04 Mr. Swaroop, good morning.
00:05 Thank you so much for taking the time out.
00:07 Let me start by asking you about the quarter gone by.
00:10 We're looking at a six and a half percent growth in your revenue.
00:13 I want to understand as to the factors that have actually contributed to this growth.
00:18 I also want to see and rather understand the impact of the railway haulage rates
00:23 and how they panned out and that what sort of a consequence
00:28 that they have when it comes to your top line.
00:30 Yeah, actually, we have posted excellent results for Q4 of this financial year.
00:40 In fact, this has been the best quarter ever in the company's history
00:44 as far as top line is concerned.
00:46 And the drivers for this growth has been steady volumes in Ex-Im
00:52 and very good growth in domestic volumes also.
00:56 And we have identified several circuits in domestic
01:00 and eliminated the empty running to a great extent.
01:03 As far as Ex-Im is concerned, in fact, Ex-Im and domestic both.
01:08 There was a slight effect of the haulage busy season surcharge
01:14 that was imposed by railways from October.
01:17 But by this Q4, all these were absorbed by the industry.
01:24 And whatever hikes strategically, wherever we have passed on to our customers,
01:29 they have now more or less accepted it.
01:32 And the business is quite stable now.
01:34 So double digit volume growth, 11 percent to be precise.
01:38 Is this what we can expect going forward into the next financial year as well?
01:43 Or do you think that we could do better than what the volumes that we've seen so far?
01:51 Yeah, in this financial year, we are expecting 15 percent growth in Ex-Im
01:56 and 25 percent growth in domestic.
01:59 So if we combine these two, there will be growth of 18 to 20 percent
02:03 in this financial year.
02:04 That is the guidance I would like to give to the viewers.
02:08 So that that is an incredibly positive guidance going forward.
02:13 That's these are very strong projections.
02:16 So I just want to understand then, because we've also seen an expansion
02:19 in margins for Q4 specifically, and this is due to tune of nearly 100 basis points.
02:25 Well, about 90 basis points is my according to my calculation.
02:28 So you were making a point about the impact of railway haulage rates going forward.
02:34 Do you think that there could be some amount of volatility in your margins in FY25?
02:40 Is this the range that a container corp could be with
02:44 over the course of the next few quarters?
02:46 See, it has been the philosophy of container corporation
02:54 that we give excellent service to our customers without sacrificing our margins.
03:00 And it has been well, you know, absorbed by our customers.
03:03 And they are very happy with our service.
03:06 And they don't mind paying a little bit extra for the service that they get.
03:10 This is this philosophy will continue in the future.
03:14 Plus, we are bringing out some new products in the market,
03:18 which will be the main growth drivers for this financial year.
03:23 And I am very, very hopeful.
03:24 We have an initial discussion with our customers and they are looking forward to it.
03:29 And we are very hopeful that we will bring more volume into our fold
03:34 and we will not sacrifice our margin.
03:37 We have been maintaining an EBITDA of 25% for the last several quarters,
03:42 which will be continued to be maintained.
03:44 Right. So can you tell us about these new products that that are on the anvil
03:49 going forward?
03:50 Yeah, actually, we will be starting
03:56 loading of bulk cement in tank containers, which is a new product for us.
04:00 And we are aiming to capture
04:04 a lot of bulk cement in the country.
04:07 Secondly, we will be starting the double stack trains for Navasheva
04:12 up to Varnama terminal that is near Baroda,
04:15 because we are hopeful that DFC connectivity will be given up to Varnama.
04:21 So from NCR region to Baroda, we will be running double stack trains
04:25 that will that way we are hopeful of shifting a lot of cargo into our fold.
04:30 And thirdly, we are,
04:34 you know, hopeful of getting more business in our new terminals
04:37 that we have commissioned.
04:39 We have had talks with our customers.
04:41 They are very, very bullish about our services.
04:44 They are very happy.
04:45 And so we feel confident and emboldened
04:48 that we will be able to achieve this target, you know, in the financial year.
04:53 All right, Mr. Swaroop, you know,
04:55 one of the notes also suggests that there's been a there was a demand notice
04:59 from the Indian railways for land license fees worth about nearly 700 crores.
05:04 So can you give us an update here?
05:07 We want to better understand what what this means.
05:09 Yeah, we keep on receiving demand notes from Indian railways.
05:13 That is a continuous process.
05:15 But we have reconciled the payment of land license fees with Indian railways.
05:20 So there is nothing to, you know, get worried about it.
05:23 So we will handle this issue and we will continue to make the payment
05:27 as per the agreed formula with Indian railways.
05:30 All right. Fair enough. Fair enough, sir.
05:32 So also a word on the strategic divestment plan.
05:35 Any updates on that?
05:36 Where has process reached? What's going on with that one?
05:39 See, it's a government policy that they want to divest.
05:47 So we are following the directives given by government of India.
05:51 So whenever we get any update, definitely we would like to share with you.
05:55 All right. All right, Mr. Swaroop.
05:58 We leave it at that.
05:58 Thank you so much for joining us here on NDTV Profit.
06:01 And we will be back with another episode of the NDPTV.
06:05 On NDTV Profit.
06:06 And we look forward to having a conversation once again soon after.
06:10 Thank you.
06:11 [Music]