Anchor Offshore Services Limited IPO

01At a glance

What the company does: takes on complete engineering jobs on offshore platforms, rigs, refineries, shipyards and nuclear stations, supplies the critical equipment and spares for them, and provides the specialised crews that install and overhaul them (AP p.4).

Who pays it: exploration and production public-sector undertakings, private oil and gas companies, city gas distributors, the Indian naval forces, public-sector shipbuilders and nuclear power establishments, mostly through tenders. The company states it cannot name its customers because it has not received their consent (AP p.5).

Why it is raising money: up to ₹825.00 million for long-term working capital and up to ₹30.00 million to repay one borrowing in full (AP p.6).

How fast it has grown: revenue from ₹1,179.04 million in FY24 to ₹1,058.27 million in FY26, a fall; profit after tax from a loss of ₹67.09 million to a profit of ₹80.35 million (AP p.7).

The one thing to understand: the largest customer was 75.61% of FY26 revenue and 84.33% of FY24 revenue, and the offer document does not name it (AP p.5).

02The business, in plain words

An offshore platform is a factory standing in the sea. Things on it wear out, need replacing, need modifying, and occasionally need building. Anchor Offshore is the contractor that goes out and does that work, engineering, procurement, fabrication, transport, installation, hook-up and commissioning, under one contract with one point of responsibility.

An oil company needs a package installed or overhauled on a platform → it runs a tender → the company bids, wins, engineers the job, procures the equipment and puts its crew on the platform → it is paid against milestones in the contract.

It runs four lines of business: turnkey engineering projects, supply of critical equipment and spare parts, installation and overhauling support services, and specialised manpower. It treats these as a single segment under Ind AS 108 (AP p.4).

Two facts define the shape of the business. The first is that it owns very little: there is no manufacturing facility, only an in-house fabrication workshop of about 1,000 square metres at Turbhe in Thane, used for light fabrication, overhauling, inspection and storage (AP p.5). The second is that it does not own vessels and depends on its customers to provide the vessels, marine assets and logistics its projects need (AP p.9).

Work has mostly been in India, with past specialised-manpower projects in Azerbaijan and Egypt. It has a subsidiary, Anchor Defence Integrator Private Limited, through which it intends to move into non-lethal weapon systems and naval and aerial defence work (AP p.5).

Earnings equation: Revenue = orders executed in the year × contract value, against a cost that is equipment procured plus crew deployed. Because the work is won by tender and executed to milestones, revenue in any year is the completion of an order book, not a run rate.

03Where the money comes from

Source: AP p.4, certified by the statutory auditors on 9 September 2026.

Turnkey projects have fallen by ₹389.64 million over two years while equipment supply has risen ₹210.75 million and manpower ₹44.53 million. The mix is shifting from executing whole projects towards supplying parts and people into other people's projects.

Source: AP p.5. This is about as concentrated as a revenue base can be: one customer is three-quarters of it, ten are effectively all of it, and the company notes it cannot disclose the names because the customers have not consented. Read from the filing: the concentration has eased slightly, from 84.33% to 75.61% at the top, but only because total revenue fell by more than the largest customer's contribution did.

The counterpart to concentration here is repetition. Repeat customers were 93.60% of FY26 revenue and 99.26% of FY25 revenue (AP p.4). The same few buyers come back.

04The growth record

Source: AP p.7, p.8.

Revenue is 10.2% lower than it was two years ago, a compound decline of 5.3% a year. EBITDA is 3.3 times what it was, and the EBITDA margin rose from 3.10% to 11.37%, 827 basis points, over the same two years. Profit after tax went from a loss of ₹67.09 million to ₹128.86 million and then down to ₹80.35 million. Earnings per share, adjusted for bonus, were ₹(4.69), ₹8.97 and ₹4.78 (AP p.7).

Read from the filing: on the document's own figures this is not a growth record, it is a margin-recovery record on a shrinking top line. Both need explaining and the document explains neither directly, there is no disclosure of what changed in the cost base between a 3.10% and an 11.37% EBITDA margin.

Net worth rose 63% over the two years while borrowings fell 23%, taking the debt-to-equity ratio from 0.34× to 0.16× (AP p.8).

05What the growth is made of

There is no growth to decompose; revenue fell ₹120.77 million between FY24 and FY26. What moved is the composition.

Turnkey projects fell ₹389.64 million, from 86.60% to 59.67% of revenue. Equipment supply rose ₹210.75 million, from 8.75% to 29.66%. Manpower rose ₹44.53 million (AP p.4).

The order-count data explains part of it. The order book held 76 orders at the end of FY24, 64 at the end of FY25 and 52 at the end of FY26, while its value moved from ₹2,686.95 million to ₹2,115.72 million and back to ₹2,595.30 million. Fresh orders added were 54, 64 and 57 across the three years; orders completed were 57, 76 and 69, so the project completion rate rose from 42.86% to 54.29% to 57.02% (AP p.8).

Read from the filing: the company closed more orders than it opened in each of the last two years, so the count fell while the value did not, the remaining orders are larger. Whether the FY26 revenue fall is orders finishing earlier, orders starting later, or a monsoon effect on offshore execution, the document does not say.

The DRHP does not disclose revenue by customer, man-days deployed, or contract value by vertical, so none of the movement above can be separated into volume and price.

06Earnings quality

The line that needs explaining is cash. Across three years the company earned ₹142.12 million and its operations consumed ₹344.26 million, funded by ₹336.17 million of financing inflows. For a contractor billing large public-sector customers against milestones, cash tied up in unbilled work and retention is the usual reason, but the abridged disclosure does not break out contract assets, retention money or unbilled revenue, so the reason cannot be confirmed from what has been read.

The clean audit report is worth stating plainly: there is no qualification and no emphasis of matter on any of the three years (AP p.10).

07The balance sheet

Net worth was ₹1,281.35 million at the end of FY26, against ₹785.95 million two years earlier. Total borrowings were ₹208.31 million, down from ₹302.69 million, giving a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16× (AP p.7, AP p.8).

Equity share capital rose from ₹14.29 million to ₹71.47 million to ₹183.11 million over the three years, which is a bonus-issue history rather than cash raised; net asset value per share, adjusted for bonus, moved from ₹54.99 to ₹74.83 (AP p.7).

The balance-sheet detail, contract assets, retention money, bank guarantees outstanding, contingent liabilities and capital commitments, sits in the restated consolidated financial information, which was not read for this study. That is a gap in this version rather than an absence in the document.

The issue size in rupees is not stated, so a post-issue balance sheet cannot be drawn. One line can be: ₹30.00 million of the net proceeds repays a borrowing in full, which against ₹208.31 million of total borrowings is 14.4% of the debt (AP p.6).

08What the money is for

The offer is a fresh issue of up to 64,00,000 equity shares of ₹10 face value and an offer for sale of up to 6,00,000 equity shares, up to 70,00,000 shares in total (AP p.1).

Source: AP p.6. General corporate purposes are capped at 25% of gross proceeds.

Almost the entire fresh issue is working capital. For a contractor whose operations have consumed ₹344.26 million of cash over three years while billing customers who pay against milestones, that is a coherent use, and it is the use the document states.

Into the business the fresh issue, up to 64,00,000 shares. To selling shareholders the offer for sale, up to 6,00,000 shares, 8.6% of the offer by share count.

The company states it will receive no proceeds from the offer for sale (AP p.6). At DRHP stage the offer for sale is a share count, not an amount, so it cannot be priced here.

One procedural fact belongs in this section. The offer is being made under Regulation 6(2) of the SEBI ICDR Regulations because the company does not meet the requirements of Regulation 6(1)(b), the profitability and net-tangible-asset track record route (AP p.1). Regulation 6(2) requires that at least 75% of the offer be allotted to qualified institutional buyers.

09Who is selling

Source: AP p.1, certified by the statutory auditors on 15 September 2026.

Both sellers are promoters and both are offering 3,00,000 shares against holdings of 1,08,92,832 and 21,44,020 respectively, 2.8% and 14.0% of what each holds. The third promoter, Sujata N Chanillo, is offering nothing. No outside investor is selling.

10Promoters

Three promoters, one family, holding 1,44,44,202 equity shares between them, 78.89% of pre-offer capital (AP p.6).

Narothamdas Chanillo, 68, is chairman and whole-time director and holds 59.49%. Sujata N Chanillo, 64, is a whole-time director and holds 7.69%. Siddesh N Chanillo, 37, is managing director and holds 11.71% (AP p.6). The board is completed by three independent directors, Naresh Kumar Sharma, Alisha Lambay and Deepak Satpal Jaggi. Laxmi N Jain is chief financial officer and Ashwini Shashi Bhushan Dubey company secretary (AP p.10).

The company states more than three decades of experience in turnkey engineering projects, with ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018 certifications that let it meet tender pre-qualification criteria (AP p.5).

Promoter economics. In the last twelve months Narothamdas Chanillo acquired 66,04,787 shares at a weighted average of ₹6.18 each; Sujata N Chanillo acquired 7,03,675 and Siddesh N Chanillo 10,72,010, both at nil cost because those came under a bonus issue (AP p.10). Across all shares transacted, the weighted average cost of acquisition was ₹4.14 over three years, ₹4.06 over eighteen months and ₹6.18 over one year. The document notes that in the last three years the promoters acquired shares through transfers by way of gift and transmission, at nil cost (AP p.11).

Pay. Remuneration to the three promoters rose from ₹15.22 million in FY24 to ₹22.14 million in FY25 and ₹25.65 million in FY26 (DRHP p.312).

Litigation. Nothing is outstanding by or against the promoters, no criminal, tax, statutory or material civil proceeding, and no disciplinary action by SEBI or the stock exchanges in the last five years (AP p.11).

11Who already owns it

Source: AP p.7, on the beneficiary position statement dated 11 September 2026.

Outside the family the largest holder by some way is Anirudh Mohta at 7.27%. The rest of the named list is individuals between 0.40% and 1.06%, plus SB Opportunities Fund I at 0.71%, the only institution named (AP p.7). The document does not state, in the abridged summary, when any of them came in or at what price.

This is a judgement, not a disclosure: on the full 64,00,000 fresh shares, post-offer capital would be 2,47,10,648 shares; the three promoters, after offering 6,00,000, would hold about 56.03%; and the offer would be about 28.33% of the enlarged capital.

12What changed just before the IPO

• Revenue fell 24.4% in FY26, from ₹1,399.89 million to ₹1,058.27 million (AP p.7).
• The EBITDA margin nearly quadrupled over two years, from 3.10% to 11.37%, while revenue fell (AP p.8).
• Equity share capital went from ₹14.29 million to ₹183.11 million across FY24 to FY26, through bonus issues (AP p.7).
• A promoter acquired 66,04,787 shares in the last year at a weighted average of ₹6.18, and two others received 17,75,685 shares at nil cost under a bonus issue (AP p.10).
• The order count fell from 76 to 52 over two years while order value rose from ₹2,115.72 million to ₹2,595.30 million in the last year (AP p.8).
• The project completion rate rose from 42.86% to 57.02% across the three years (AP p.8).
• Borrowings were cut 31% in FY26, from ₹302.69 million to ₹208.31 million, while financing activities brought in ₹197.89 million (AP p.7).
• A defence subsidiary was set up. Anchor Defence Integrator Private Limited is named as the vehicle for a planned move into non-lethal weapon systems and naval and aerial defence (AP p.5).
• Three independent directors were appointed to constitute the board for listing (AP p.10).
• Two bonus issues. Four shares for every one held were allotted on 31 March 2025, and one for every one held on 23 March 2026, the second being the last allotment before the offer (DRHP p.106, DRHP p.102).
• Receivable days rose from 121 in FY24 to 111 in FY25 and 187 in FY26 (DRHP p.51).
• No pre-IPO placement is contemplated (DRHP p.94). The company became a public limited company in September 2004 (DRHP p.245).

13Capacity and expansion

This is not a capacity business, and the document says so: the company operates no manufacturing facility (AP p.5).

Source: AP p.5, AP p.9.

The constraint on this business is therefore not tonnes but two other things: qualified crews, which the document names as a risk, and access to specialised offshore vessels, which it does not own and intends to secure through consortium arrangements when bidding for high-value offshore work (AP p.5, AP p.9).

Nothing in the issue funds capacity. The whole of the fresh issue, apart from one small repayment, is working capital (AP p.6).

14Market size and industry structure

As claimed. The industry chapter relies on a report by Infomerics Analytics and Research Private Limited, commissioned for this offer document. It describes offshore engineering and construction as the infrastructure behind hydrocarbon exploration, production and transport and emerging offshore renewables, covering engineering, procurement, fabrication, transportation, installation, hook-up and commissioning, and characterises the sector as capital intensive, technologically complex and dependent on specialised vessels and strict international safety and quality standards (AP p.6).

The part that is addressable. This company bids Indian tenders, mostly from public-sector oil and gas, naval and nuclear buyers, and does not own vessels. Global offshore construction is not its market; Indian offshore brownfield and maintenance work reachable without owning marine assets is. The abridged summary does not size that.

What the company is today. Revenue of ₹1,058.27 million in FY26 against a market the summary does not quantify, so no share can be computed from what has been read.

The industry figures above are from a report commissioned by the issuer, and are labelled as such.

15Competitive position

The document names one listed peer, Lakshya Powertech Limited, and the comparison is set out in section 15.

What it gives as the basis for winning work is a set of pre-qualification credentials rather than a cost or technology claim: over three decades of turnkey project experience, the three ISO certifications that satisfy tender criteria, the ability to take single-point responsibility across four verticals, an order book across those verticals, the in-house workshop that reduces dependence on third-party fabrication yards, and long-standing original-equipment-manufacturer relationships (AP p.5).

Read from the filing: in a tender business the binding constraint is usually eligibility, not price, and every strength the company lists is an eligibility claim. What the document does not give is the number of bidders it typically faces, its tender win rate, or the margin difference between work won competitively and work from repeat customers.

One structural point is stated plainly in the risk factors and is worth repeating here: the company does not own vessels and depends on customers for them (AP p.9). Against a competitor that owns marine assets, that is a different business.

16Peers the company named

Peer named in the offer document: Lakshya Powertech Limited (DRHP p.141).

Source: DRHP p.144, certified by the statutory auditors on 4 September 2026, peer figures consolidated from annual reports filed with the exchanges for the year ended 31 March 2026.

The company also prints the peer's market data: a share price of ₹82.30 on 20 August 2026, earnings per share of ₹9.94, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.28× and net asset value of ₹101.20 per share. With one peer, the stated industry high, low and average price-to-earnings ratio are all 8.28× (DRHP p.140, p.141).

Two things follow. A one-name peer set gives a range of zero width, so the "industry average" here is one company's multiple on one day. And the peer's order book is 4.5 times this company's on a third of the number of orders, so the two run different project sizes even though their EBITDA margins are within 30 basis points of each other.

17Risks, in plain words

Customers. One customer was 75.61% of FY26 revenue, the top three 87.50%, the top ten 97.44% (AP p.5). The document does not name any of them, so a reader cannot assess the buyer's own capital-expenditure cycle. A reduction in that one relationship has no offset anywhere in the revenue base.

Business model. Most revenue comes from competitive tenders with government undertakings, so the company must re-qualify and re-win to stand still (AP p.8). Delay or failure to meet contract standards exposes it to liquidated damages, invocation of bank guarantees and termination (AP p.8).

Sector. The majority of revenue comes from oil and gas projects, so the revenue base moves with that sector's capital spending (AP p.8). Within it, turnkey projects were 59.67% of FY26 revenue, so one vertical still dominates (AP p.4).

Order book. ₹2,172.42 million as at 30 June 2026, which the document itself says may not represent future results because orders can be delayed, truncated, modified or cancelled and notices of award may be withdrawn (AP p.8).

Operations. The work is hazardous, on platforms and in the high seas, with operational, environmental, health and safety exposure (AP p.9). Offshore execution is disrupted by the monsoon, which postpones or prolongs project cycles (AP p.9).

Assets. The company owns no vessels and depends on customers to provide them, so a delay in vessel availability is a delay in its revenue (AP p.9).

Financial. Operating cash flow was negative in each of the last three years, ₹344.26 million in total, against ₹142.12 million of cumulative profit (AP p.7).

Issue-specific. The offer is being made under Regulation 6(2) because the company does not meet the profitability and net-tangible-asset route under Regulation 6(1)(b) (AP p.1). It reported a loss of ₹67.09 million in FY24.

18Litigation and regulatory matters

Source: AP p.10 and AP p.11, as at the date of the DRHP, determined under the company's materiality policy and to the extent quantifiable.

Fifty tax proceedings against the company aggregate ₹0.92 million between them, which is an average of about ₹18,000 each, read from the filing, these are routine assessment and demand matters rather than a single large dispute. The larger amounts run the other way: ₹49.71 million in matters the company has brought, and ₹27.92 million in a civil matter brought by a non-promoter director.

Nothing at all is outstanding involving the promoters, and there has been no SEBI or exchange disciplinary action against them in five years.

19Related-party transactions

Not read for this study. The abridged prospectus carries no related-party summary, and the related-party note in the restated consolidated financial information was not reached. This is a gap in this version of the study rather than a finding about the company, and it will be filled at the red herring prospectus stage, as will the balance-sheet detail noted in section 06.

20What the offer document does not say

• No customer is named, and the company states why: it has not received their consent (AP p.5). For a business where one buyer is 75.61% of revenue, that is the largest single unknown in the document.
• No explanation for the FY26 revenue fall of 24.4%.
• No explanation for the margin rise from 3.10% to 11.37% in two years.
• No breakdown of the order book by vertical, customer or expected execution period, beyond its count and value.
• No contract assets, retention money or unbilled revenue in the abridged summary, for a business whose cash is evidently tied up in exactly those.
• No tender win rate, bid count, or number of competitors typically faced.
• No man-days or crew numbers, for a business one of whose four verticals is supplying people.
• No price band, lot size or offer dates, which is normal at DRHP stage.

21Five questions for management

1. Revenue fell 24.4% in FY26 while the EBITDA margin rose from 8.32% to 11.37%. Which orders did not execute in FY26, and did the margin rise because those orders were the low-margin ones?
2. One customer has been between 75% and 85% of revenue for three years. How long is the current contract with that customer, and what proportion of the ₹2,172.42 million order book at 30 June 2026 is theirs?
3. Operating cash flow has been negative for three years totalling ₹344.26 million. How much of that is retention money and unbilled work on completed milestones, and what is the average collection period from the largest customer?
4. Turnkey projects fell from 86.60% to 59.67% of revenue while equipment supply rose to 29.66%. Is that a deliberate change of mix, or the consequence of which tenders were won?
5. The company does not own vessels. In how many of the last three years did vessel availability delay a project, and what would a consortium arrangement for assured vessel access cost?

2Sources and cited facts

This study was read from 2 documents the company filed. The 92 figures it cites are listed under the document each came from, with the page and the sentence as printed.