Orient Cables (India) Limited IPO

01At a glance

What the company does: makes networking cables (CAT5, CAT6 and their variants, patch cords, CCTV and coaxial cable), specialty power and optical-fibre cables, harness assemblies and EV charging gun assemblies, at three units at Bhiwadi in Rajasthan (RHP p.216, RHP p.30).

Who pays it: business customers in telecom, broadband, data centres, resellers and government; the top ten were 76.52% of FY26 revenue and the largest 25.75% (RHP p.376). The company says it supplies two of the top three telecom companies by revenue (RHP p.218).

Why it is raising money: ₹915.00 million for machinery, equipment and civil works at the plants, spread over Fiscals 2027 to 2029, and ₹1,555.00 million to repay borrowings in Fiscal 2027 (RHP p.124).

How fast it has grown: revenue from ₹6,577.67 million in FY24 to ₹11,716.54 million in FY26, about 33.5% a year, while profit after tax went from ₹400.69 million to ₹535.61 million, about 15.6% a year (our arithmetic, RHP p.78).

The one thing to understand: growth has not turned into profit or cash. Revenue rose 42.0% in FY26 while profit rose 0.5%, the EBITDA margin fell from 10.17% to 8.23%, and operating cash flow was −₹97.85 million in FY25 and −₹266.44 million in FY26 (our arithmetic, RHP p.78, RHP p.146, RHP p.79).

02The business, in plain words

Orient Cables buys copper, PVC compounds and masterbatches, draws and insulates the copper, and makes finished cable to each customer's specification, along with connectors, patch cords and, recently, harness assemblies and EV charging gun cables (RHP p.216, RHP p.25). It sells to businesses on purchase orders, not long-term contracts (RHP p.27).

A telecom operator, data centre or reseller needs cable to a specification → it places a purchase order with Orient → Orient makes it at Bhiwadi and ships it → Orient keeps the spread between the price and the cost of copper, compound and conversion.

LAN cable manufacture began in 2006 (RHP p.143). The company says it is one of India's top four in networking cables with about 22.9% of that market in Fiscal 2026, on the 1Lattice report it commissioned (RHP p.143). Relationships with the top ten customers average over nine years, and repeat business from the top 50 customers was 93.92% of FY26 revenue (RHP p.218, RHP p.224). Copper is priced off the London Metal Exchange and PVC compound off crude oil; the company says it has generally passed cost increases on (RHP p.26).

Earnings equation: Profit ≈ kilometres of cable sold × (price − copper, compound and conversion cost) − overheads − interest. In FY26 cost of materials consumed was ₹9,583.17 million and finance cost ₹190.95 million against revenue of ₹11,716.54 million (RHP p.78).

03Where the money comes from

Source: RHP p.218; Q1 FY27 is the three months to June 30, 2026 and is not annualised.

Source: RHP p.376, RHP p.27. Revenue does depend on a few customers, and the dependence has deepened: the top ten went from 71.76% of FY24 revenue to 84.00% in the June quarter, and the top ten owed 74.15% of receivables at March 2026 (RHP p.376, RHP p.357). The prospectus does not name the customers, saying consents were not available and the information is commercially sensitive (RHP p.376). Exports go mostly to the Middle East, 8.07% of FY26 revenue (RHP p.27).

04The growth record

Source: RHP p.78, RHP p.79, RHP p.77, RHP p.146.

Return on capital employed was 41.13%, 36.46% and 23.82%; return on equity 37.26%, 34.60% and 25.84%; net working capital 14, 27 and 48 days; the net debt to equity ratio 0.23, 0.63 and 0.94 (RHP p.146).

Our arithmetic: revenue grew about 33.5% a year from FY24 to FY26 and profit after tax about 15.6% a year, while the EBITDA margin fell 71 basis points and the PAT margin from 6.03% to 4.55% (RHP p.78, RHP p.146). Other income was ₹100.18 million in FY26, 13.8% of profit before tax of ₹726.00 million (our arithmetic, RHP p.78).

The three months to June 30, 2026 show ₹4,891.56 million of revenue and ₹327.83 million of profit, at an 11.22% EBITDA margin (RHP p.78, RHP p.146).

05What the growth is made of

Volume and a second product line. Cable production rose from 401,769 kilometres in FY24 to 555,329 in FY26, and installed capacity from 539,661 to 794,976 kilometres, as Unit II expanded (RHP p.30). Networking cables grew from ₹5,490.58 million to ₹9,165.65 million and specialty power and optical-fibre cables from ₹1,087.09 million to ₹2,503.94 million, the latter having fallen in FY25 first (RHP p.218).

The prospectus does not print a realisation per kilometre, so price and mix cannot be separated from volume. What can be seen is that the mix moved: networking cables fell from 87.89% of revenue in FY25 to 78.23% in FY26 and 68.60% in the June quarter, while specialty power and optical fibre rose to 31.23% (RHP p.218). Over the same period the EBITDA margin fell from 10.17% to 8.23% in FY26, then rose to 11.22% in the June quarter (RHP p.146).

06Earnings quality

The item that needs explaining is working capital. Operating profit before working capital changes was ₹1,051.69 million in FY26, but inventories absorbed ₹398.28 million, receivables ₹503.67 million and payables released nothing, taking ₹235.35 million more, so operations used ₹80.02 million before tax and ₹266.44 million after it (RHP p.79). Net working capital went from 14 days in FY24 to 48 days in FY26 and 46 days at June 2026 (RHP p.146). The gap has been funded by borrowing, including a supplier finance arrangement of ₹549.73 million that first appears in FY26 (RHP p.79).

07The balance sheet

At March 2026, non-current borrowings were ₹357.28 million and current borrowings ₹1,984.64 million; cash and cash equivalents were ₹128.94 million and other bank balances ₹3.63 million, so net debt was about ₹2,209.35 million against net worth of ₹2,358.38 million (our arithmetic, RHP p.77). The prospectus states the net debt to equity ratio at 0.94 (RHP p.146). At June 30, 2026 borrowings had risen to ₹2,584.57 million (RHP p.77). Property, plant and equipment was ₹1,892.73 million at March 2026, against ₹563.83 million at March 2024, as the plants were built out (RHP p.77).

Contingent liabilities at June 30, 2026 were bank guarantees of ₹24.73 million and letters of credit of ₹1,009.52 million, against which fixed deposits of ₹73.51 million are held as margin (RHP p.80).

After the issue: ₹1,555.00 million of the fresh issue repays borrowings (RHP p.124), which on the March 2026 figures would leave about ₹786.92 million of borrowings, and net worth would rise from ₹2,358.38 million by the fresh issue proceeds after expenses (our arithmetic, RHP p.77).

08What the money is for

Source: RHP p.123, RHP p.124; the percentages are our arithmetic. The capital expenditure is scheduled ₹30.00 million in Fiscal 2027, ₹500.00 million in Fiscal 2028 and ₹385.00 million in Fiscal 2029; the debt repayment is all in Fiscal 2027 (RHP p.124). General corporate purposes cannot exceed 25% of gross proceeds (RHP p.123). The requirement rests on management estimates and vendor quotations and has not been appraised by any bank or financial institution (RHP p.124).

Into the business ₹3,200.00 million, the fresh issue (RHP p.89). To selling shareholders ₹2,320.00 million, the offer for sale (RHP p.89).

09Who is selling

Source: RHP p.1, RHP p.115. The offer for sale is stated in rupees, not shares, because the price is not fixed (RHP p.1). At the upper band of ₹272 the four would together be offering about 8,529,412 shares (our arithmetic, RHP p.89).

10Promoters

The promoters are Vipul Nagpal, Garima Nagpal, Vardaan Nagpal, Vipul Family Trust and Garima Family Trust (RHP p.1). Promoter and promoter group hold 100.00% of the company before the issue, across seven holders (RHP p.114). The four holders of 1% or more are the two trusts at 35.00% each, Vipul Nagpal at 24.23% and Garima Nagpal at 5.67% (RHP p.115).

Promoter economics: the shares were sub-divided from ₹10 to ₹1 on December 17, 2024, and a bonus of nine shares for every one was allotted on January 6, 2025 (RHP p.144). The weighted average cost of acquisition for the four sellers is ₹0.00 to ₹0.01 a share (RHP p.1). Remuneration rose sharply: Vipul Nagpal was paid ₹2.40 million in FY24, ₹5.91 million in FY25 and ₹13.97 million in FY26; Garima Nagpal ₹2.40 million, ₹3.36 million and ₹4.83 million; Vardaan Nagpal ₹0.67 million, ₹0.92 million and ₹3.10 million (RHP p.82).

Litigation: one tax proceeding is pending against the promoters, for an amount the prospectus records as negligible, and the promoters have brought one criminal proceeding involving ₹228.00 million; no disciplinary action has been taken by SEBI or the stock exchanges in the last five fiscals (RHP p.49).

11Who already owns it

Source: RHP p.114, RHP p.115. There is no outside shareholder and no convertible security outstanding (RHP p.114). At the upper band, promoter and promoter group holding would fall to about 82.2% after the issue (our arithmetic, RHP p.89, RHP p.114).

12What changed just before the IPO

• The company became a public limited company on December 13, 2024, renamed Orient Cables (India) Limited (RHP p.259).
• The face value was sub-divided from ₹10 to ₹1 on December 17, 2024, and a 9:1 bonus allotted on January 6, 2025 (RHP p.144).
• Khandelwal Jain & Co were appointed statutory auditors on September 30, 2024, recorded in the prospectus's table of changes in statutory auditors (RHP p.93).
• Unit III began production in May 2026, taking annualised installed capacity to 895,776 kilometres (RHP p.30).
• A new segment, wire and cable harness assemblies and EV charging gun cable assemblies, first earned revenue in FY26, ₹1.52 million (RHP p.218).
• Specialty power and optical-fibre cable revenue more than doubled in FY26, to ₹2,503.94 million (RHP p.218).
• Imports fell from 37.90% of purchases in FY24 to 7.62% in FY26 (RHP p.26).
• A supplier finance arrangement of ₹549.73 million was drawn in FY26, where there was none before (RHP p.79).
• Promoter remuneration rose from ₹5.47 million in FY24 to ₹21.90 million in FY26 across the three promoters who are key managerial personnel (our arithmetic, RHP p.82).
• Net working capital went from 14 days in FY24 to 48 days in FY26 (RHP p.146).

13Capacity and expansion

Source: RHP p.30. Installed capacity for cables rose from 539,661 kilometres in FY24 to 794,976 in FY26, and on an annualised basis was 895,776 kilometres at June 30, 2026, including 42,000 kilometres at the new Unit III (RHP p.30). Other allied products, keystone jacks, ran at 6.18% of a 5,040,000-piece capacity in FY26 (RHP p.30). The ₹915.00 million of capital expenditure from the issue is for machinery, equipment and civil works at these plants, through Fiscal 2029; the prospectus does not state the kilometres it will add (RHP p.124).

14Market size and industry structure

As claimed: the Indian networking cables market was about ₹35.9 billion in FY26, up from about ₹20.6 billion in FY22, and is projected to reach about ₹84.5 billion by FY31 at about 18.7% a year, the fastest of the cable segments; the fibre-optic cables market was about ₹105.0 billion in FY26. All of this is from the 1Lattice report commissioned and paid for by the company (RHP p.176, RHP p.170).

The part that is addressable: networking cables and specialty power and optical-fibre cables sold to Indian telecom, broadband, data centre and reseller customers, and exports, mostly to the Middle East (RHP p.218, RHP p.27).

What the company is today: ₹11,716.54 million of FY26 revenue, of which ₹9,165.65 million was networking cables (RHP p.218). The commissioned report puts domestic networking revenue at about ₹8.23 billion and the company's share of the networking cables market at about 22.9% in FY26, computed as its networking revenue divided by that market size (RHP p.176, RHP p.211, RHP p.143).

The same commissioned report states the company's revenue grew about 33.45% a year from FY24 to FY26 against about 17.27% for its peers (RHP p.211).

15Competitive position

Source: RHP p.145. The prospectus gives no revenue for the peers in this table, so size cannot be compared from it; the commissioned report says the company's revenue grew faster than the peer average over FY24 to FY26 and that it has the highest return on equity in the set (RHP p.211). What the company sells on is customisation to specification, certifications including BIS 14493 for LAN cables, supply to two of the top three telecom companies, and relationships with its top ten customers averaging over nine years (RHP p.143, RHP p.218).

16Peers the company named

Peers named in the offer document: RR Kabel, Polycab India, Havells India, Finolex Cables, KEI Industries, Paramount Communications, Birla Cable and Sterlite Technologies (RHP p.145).

Source: RHP p.145; P/E at NSE closing prices of September 7, 2026 (RHP p.146). The table also lists Birla Cable at 63.54 times and Sterlite Technologies at 708.38 times (RHP p.145). The peer set spans companies many times the company's size, Polycab and Havells among them, and companies closer to it, Paramount and Birla Cable; the prospectus says the set was chosen on comparable size or comparable business portfolio (RHP p.146).

17Valuation at the issue price

At the upper band of ₹272, the ₹3,200.00 million fresh issue is about 11,764,706 new shares, added to 102,035,000 existing shares (our arithmetic, RHP p.89, RHP p.123):

Source: RHP p.78, RHP p.145, RHP p.146; the arithmetic is ours. At the lower band of ₹258 the market capitalisation is ₹29,525.03 million (our arithmetic, RHP p.89). Enterprise value, with March 2026 net debt of about ₹2,209.35 million, is ₹33,162.87 million (our arithmetic, RHP p.77); ₹1,555.00 million of that debt is to be repaid from the issue (RHP p.124). Against the June 2026 net asset value of ₹26.34 a share the upper band is 10.3 times (our arithmetic, RHP p.145).

The eight peers the prospectus names traded between 26.29 and 708.38 times earnings on September 7, 2026, a median of 47.84 times (our arithmetic, RHP p.145). At the upper band the issue is priced at 57.8 times FY26 profit on the enlarged share count, 21% above that median, and 51.6 times on the prospectus's own diluted earnings per share (our arithmetic, RHP p.145).

18Risks, in plain words

Customers: the top ten were 76.52% of FY26 revenue and 84.00% of the June quarter's, and the largest was 38.54% in that quarter (RHP p.376) → losing one would move revenue by a proportion that cannot be replaced quickly → the top ten also owed 74.15% of receivables at March 2026 (RHP p.357).

Cash: operating cash flow was −₹97.85 million in FY25 and −₹266.44 million in FY26 (RHP p.79) → growth is being funded by borrowing → net working capital went from 14 days to 48 days and borrowings to ₹2,584.57 million by June 2026 (RHP p.146, RHP p.77).

Margin: EBITDA margin fell from 10.17% in FY25 to 8.23% in FY26 while revenue rose 42.0% (RHP p.146) → profit was flat at ₹535.61 million against ₹533.21 million → return on capital employed fell from 36.46% to 23.82% (RHP p.78, RHP p.146).

One location: all three manufacturing units are at Bhiwadi (RHP p.30) → a local disruption stops the whole company → Unit II ran at 65.25% and total cable utilisation at 69.85% in FY26 (RHP p.30).

Raw material: copper is priced off the London Metal Exchange and PVC compound off crude oil, and there are no long-term supplier contracts (RHP p.25, RHP p.26) → a price move hits cost before it can be passed on → the company holds only two to three weeks of raw material inventory (RHP p.25).

Purchase orders, not contracts: sales are governed by purchase orders, some of which allow termination without cause (RHP p.27) → inventory or production already committed can be stranded → the company may also owe liquidated damages for late delivery (RHP p.27).

Issue-specific: ₹2,320.00 million of the offer goes to the promoters and not to the company (RHP p.123), and the deployment of the fresh issue has not been appraised by any bank or financial institution (RHP p.124).

19Litigation and regulatory matters

Source: RHP p.49, RHP p.50; amounts are as claimed or demanded, to the extent quantifiable, not amounts payable. Nothing is pending against the subsidiary, and no disciplinary action has been taken by SEBI or the stock exchanges against the promoters in the last five fiscals (RHP p.49). The prospectus also records that certain challans for forms filed with the Registrar of Companies are not traceable (RHP p.50).

20Related-party transactions

Source: RHP p.81, RHP p.82; the interest total is our arithmetic. Trading with related parties is small: sales of ₹3.42 million and purchases of ₹17.98 million with Orient International in FY25, and ₹0.14 million of sales to Sunlord International in FY26 (RHP p.81). Loans from the promoters and their relatives, on which interest was paid in FY24 and FY25, had stopped by FY26 (RHP p.81).

21What the offer document does not say

The names of the top ten customers are withheld: the prospectus says consents were not available and the information is commercially sensitive. Realisation per kilometre and gross margin by product are not disclosed, so the revenue increase cannot be separated into volume, price and mix. How many kilometres the ₹915.00 million of machinery will add is not stated. The terms of the ₹549.73 million supplier finance arrangement are not set out in the pages read. What the ₹228.00 million criminal proceeding brought by the directors and promoters concerns is not summarised in the pages read. The amount for general corporate purposes and the issue expenses are left blank.

22Five questions for management

1. Why did the EBITDA margin fall from 10.17% to 8.23% in FY26 while revenue rose 42.0%, and what changed in the June quarter to take it to 11.22%?
2. Why did net working capital go from 14 days in FY24 to 48 days in FY26, and what does the ₹549.73 million supplier finance arrangement cost?
3. Who is the customer that was 38.54% of revenue in the June quarter, and on what terms is that business held?
4. How many kilometres will the ₹915.00 million of machinery add, and to which unit?
5. Why did promoter remuneration rise from ₹5.47 million in FY24 to ₹21.90 million in FY26?

24Draft to final: what changed

The fresh issue, the objects and their amounts, ₹915.00 million for machinery and ₹1,555.00 million for debt repayment, and the two book running lead managers, IIFL Capital Services and JM Financial, are the same in both documents (DRHP p.112, RHP p.124, RHP p.9). No pre-IPO placement was undertaken, though the draft reserved the right to make one (RHP p.114).

1Sources and cited facts

This study was read from 1 document the company filed. The 120 figures it cites are listed under the document each came from, with the page and the sentence as printed.