INOX Wind delivered a strong performance in the third quarter, achieving its highest-ever earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA).

The company’s EBITDA margin for the quarter improved to 22.7% from 18.4% in the same period last year. In the second quarter, INOX had guided for annualized EBITDA margin of 15%.

Devansh Jain, Executive Director of INOXGFL Group, said the company is on track to beat its margin guidance substantially.

He also reaffirmed the company’s execution guidance of 800 megawatts (MW) for 2024-25 and 1,200 MW for 2025-26 (FY26), with the possibility of further upgrades next year.

The company, which has a current market capitalisation of ₹21,043.23 crore, has seen its shares gain more than 20% over the last year.

These are the edited excerpts of the interview.

Q: Were there any announcements in the Budget which impact you positively or negatively?

A: It is a very forward-looking Budget. And they have been very clear about the National Clean Manufacturing mission. So they have reiterated their commitment to setting up a very large domestic ecosystem for wind turbines, solar, green hydrogen, and electrolysers, and that shuts out a lot of the noise which has been created over the past couple of weeks around the US President’s statements around renewable energy. In any case, on the wind side, we are fully domestically focused. So we are looking forward to a very strong renewable outlay as we move forward.

Q: A very strong third quarter for you, especially in terms of operating margins. Can these margins be sustained? What is the margin outlook for the rest of 2024-25 (FY25), where will you end 2024-25 at and what is the targeted margins for 2025-26 (FY26)?

A: It has been another strong performance with 190 megawatts (MW) this quarter. It has been the highest-ever earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) impact for the October-December 2024 quarter (Q3FY25) in the company’s history.

Having said that, I have been fairly clear in saying that we maintain our 800-megawatt guidance for this year and a 1200-megawatt guidance for next year with the caveat that we could further upgrade it for next year.

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We had given out a margin guidance which we had upgraded twice over the past three or four quarters. And, I don’t think we wanted to just keep revising our margin guidance every quarter and just make it a normal affair. So effectively, we didn’t want to give out any specific indicator for the January-March 2025 quarter (Q4FY25) but we are on track to beat our margin for 2024-25 substantially.

And it is just common sense for people to be able to extrapolate and see where we are headed for 2024-25.

For 2025-26 (FY26) our current margins, which we have guided for 17% plus with the caveat that we would further upgrade as we move forward. The fact is, we are adding a lot of new things to the portfolio. One we are internalising all our train requirements, which start ramping up from quarter four.

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We also have a transformer manufacturing line, which is going live in the January-March 2025 quarter and these, along with some of the new products, which we are launching next year. A lot of these should aid our margins further as we move forward. This is besides the fact that within the group, we have now launched INOX solar, which is only going to lead to more and more opportunities for INOX Wind by partnering and taking part in many of the hybrid tenders, this increases visibility and profitability from our engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) arm and the operations and maintenance (O&M) arm, which is under INOX.

For the full interview, watch the accompanying video

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