Polycab Grew 53% — Its Volumes Grew About 5%
A record quarter built on copper, a margin guide management won't raise, and a INR 2.79 crore dispute that nearly sent a debt-free large-cap into insolvency
POLYCAB.NS · Earnings Call · 2026-10-15
The headline versus the fine print
By every printed measure, Polycab India's Q2 FY2027 was the best quarter in its history. Consolidated revenue rose 53% year-on-year, EBITDA 39%, and profit after tax hit a record INR 9,900 million, up 43%, with net cash of INR 45.2 billion versus INR 29.4 billion a year ago. Joint Managing Director Nikhil Jaisinghani opened with it plainly: “Polycab has delivered its highest ever quarterly and half-yearly revenue and profitability.” — Nikhil Jaisinghani, Managing Director · 2026-10-15 Then the fine print. On the wires and cables volume question, CEO Aditya Nathani said the company grew “overall, volumes have grown by mid to high single digits.” — Aditya Nathani, Chief Executive Officer · 2026-10-15 A 53% revenue print against mid-single-digit volume is not a growth story you can recycle quarter after quarter — it is a realizations story. Copper, up sharply through the first half, is doing much of the heavy lifting. The single biggest keyword attached to this quarter is copper price, and management is candid that they have no view on it: “Everything, we just work on a cost-plus model.” — Aditya Nathani, Chief Executive Officer · 2026-10-15 Cost-plus means the top line is a commodity pass-through, not a franchise expansion. The volume growth line, not the revenue line, is where the actual demand signal lives.The margin guide that refuses to move
Analysts pressed hard on this, and it is the right thing to press. Wires and cables delivered a 14.2% EBITDA margin, consolidated EBITDA margins expanded to 14.4%, and the first half ran near 15% in wires and cables — all comfortably above the 11-13% Project Spring band management keeps repeating through FY2030. Nathani attributes the beat to a confluence of factors: operating leverage, product mix (wires outgrowing cables), channel outgrowing institutional, exports, and premiumisation. That is a real description of business mix. But when pressed on why the long-term number stays put, the answer is essentially 'because it is a CAGR through FY2030' — “We would like to be in that guidance range, I think, till FY 2030, and that's how we continue to maintain our stance.” — Aditya Nathani, Chief Executive Officer · 2026-10-15 Read either way, it is informative. Either management genuinely expects margins to normalize toward the band — which tells you the current level is not the steady state — or the guide is stale and management is choosing conservatism over a re-rating. Investors are being asked to trust a number the company keeps beating.FMEG's 124% — manufactured or traded?
The FMEG segment was the quarter's showpiece: revenue up 124%, an 11th consecutive quarter of industry-leading growth, and EBITDA margin crossing 10% for the first time at 10.1%. The narrative is a FMEG business turnaround with operating leverage and premium mix. But dig into the largest category and the picture softens. Solar drives the growth, and on solar Nathani was unambiguous: “we are only doing inverters in the solar category. That's largely a trading business for us.” — Aditya Nathani, Chief Executive Officer · 2026-10-15 A trading product riding PM Surya Ghar Yojana can scale fast and carry thin, working-capital-light economics. Nothing wrong with it — but it is not the factory-utilization turnaround the segment headline implies, and it is the same reflex to question that applies to the copper-boosted top line.A debt-free large-cap, one bad cheque from CIRP
The most jarring item is buried in the prepared remarks: Polycab spent the quarter fighting an insolvency petition. A INR 2.79 crore commercial dispute with Asier Metals led to an NCLT admission order initiating corporate insolvency resolution. The company appealed to NCLAT, which stayed the order. On the call, CFO Niyant Maru confirmed: “Completed and the order is reserved.” — Niyant Maru, Chief Financial Officer · 2026-10-15 Set that against the scale: INR 45.2 billion of net cash, INR 180 billion of first-half revenue. A rounding error on the balance sheet nearly triggered a process that can strip control from shareholders. This is the tension that doesn't fit the blockbuster narrative — and the reason it matters is structural, not idiosyncratic. It is a reminder of how cheap the trigger is under India's insolvency code, and a tail risk that no amount of operating momentum prices away.Just to give, I think a clarity, I think the entire case has been heard today, and now probably we have to wait for the actual order which has to come.