Confident of achieving 43% gross margins in next few quarters, says SH Kelkar & Co’s Kedar Vaze

SH Kelkar & Co revenues are up 30 percent and profits are up 176 percent in the third quarter of the financial year 2020-21.

Kedar Vaze, Group CEO of the company, said that demand across sectors has normalised and he expects it to continue going forward.

“We have seen across the sectors normalisation of demand. Some sectors that were slow in the beginning of the year, have started to catch up. We see a normal demand up tick and going forward good, robust, and solid recovery is there and a good consumption pattern,” he said in an interview to CNBC-TV18.

He said that the company is confident of achieving 43 percent gross margins in the next few quarters.

“Despite the temporary surge in global market on some of the raw materials, we have maintained a good inventory management and cost optimisation to continue to register good EBITDA growth and good profitability. Our guidance for 43% ballpark gross margin continues in the future. We are very confident to achieve this over the next few quarters,” he said.

Vaze said that the company is facing issues with respect to containers. However, he said that the company has a high amount of inventory and hence it is protected in near term.

On debt, he said that they are looking at bringing down debt by Rs 35 crore per quarter.