Rishi Laser shelved its tube business. It was supposed to be a growth vertical.
The company now cites bandwidth issues. Twice before, management called it a promising expansion.
What's new
- FY26 revenue was ₹160 crore, up 7% year-on-year; PAT fell 55% to ₹3.67 crore.
- Malur plant is now fully operational, with Caterpillar product approvals in place and shipments starting.
- FY27 revenue guided at ₹190 crore, with 9-11% EBITDA margins.
- Robotics target doubled to ₹10 crore after pipeline orders tripled.
Themes from the call
Commissioning Pain
Malur's large-format machinery took longer to commission than planned, making the plant unproductive for a large part of FY26 and directly causing the revenue and PAT miss.
Caterpillar Dependency
The recovery story is now concentrated on Caterpillar across all verticals, with management expecting 15-20% volume growth for the next two years.
Abandoned Strategies
Two announced growth vectors — tube processing and a Baroda retail steel vertical — have been shelved or failed to launch without a clear explanation.
Guidance watch
- FY27 consolidated revenue guided at ₹190 crore, with Malur targeting ₹60 crore (₹25-30 crore of that is relocated from Bangalore, not new).
- Three-year revenue CAGR of 20% from FY26-FY29 points to a ₹300 crore endpoint.
- Robotics target of ₹10 crore for FY27 is contingent on pipeline orders converting by July.
Risk flags
- Two prior growth strategies (tubes, Baroda retail) have been shelved or failed to materialise without a post-mortem.
- The ₹190 crore FY27 guidance implies only 19% growth after a year of commissioning delays and a low base.
- Employee costs jumped 65% in FY26 due to the Malur ramp; Karnataka wage inflation of 30% is a new headwind.
- The Baroda plant is stagnant after a major customer's business declined, but management is defending it on geographic grounds.
Key quotes
-
"FY26 was a year we paid for our ambitions in delays, in costs, and in results that fell short of what we committed to."
— Ganesh Agrawal, CFO -
"We have kept that aside for the moment because last year we were struggling with management bandwidth."
— Management, on the tube segment -
"We underestimated the complexity of commissioning the large-format fabrication machinery at the scale the new plant demanded."
— Management, on Malur
The brief
Rishi Laser's FY26 was defined by what didn't happen. The Malur plant, the centerpiece of a multi-year expansion, was not fully productive for most of the year. The commissioning of its large-format fabrication machinery was more complex than assumed, and leadership's attention was split. The result: 7% revenue growth to ₹160 crore and a 55% drop in PAT to ₹3.67 crore.
The consequences of this distraction are now visible. The tube processing segment, flagged as a high-growth opportunity in two prior calls, has been shelved for at least a year. The Baroda retail steel business, announced with fanfare in May 2025, is absent from the June 2026 update; the plant is flat because a major customer shrank. Management is not explaining these abandoned strategies so much as moving on.
The forward story rests on Malur and Caterpillar. The plant is live, product approvals are done, and management says post-COVID customer traction from Caterpillar is unprecedented. That underpins ₹190 crore revenue guidance for FY27 and a path to ₹300 crore by FY29. But the guidance is conservative. The target is only 19% above FY26, and ₹25-30 crore of Malur's ₹60 crore target is just relocated work. The new work is a ₹30-35 crore step-up.
For investors, the core question is credibility. Rishi Laser must prove it can execute a ramp at Malur after admitting it underestimated the complexity of building it. The robotics business, with its doubled target, offers a higher-margin diversification path, but it is a ₹10 crore business in a ₹190 crore company. The Caterpillar cycle dependence is clear, and so is the single-customer risk. The plant is finally running. The returns are only beginning.
Rishi Laser's Malur plant is live, but proving the ramp after two abandoned strategies is the next test.