Acme Solar CEO Rules Out Any Asset Monetisation In The Near Future

Acme Solar Holdings' Chief Executive Officer Nikhil Dhingra asserted that the company is not looking at monetising any assets in the near future because it does not need any more funds following its successful IPO.

For the September quarter of the current fiscal, the renewable energy company had reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 15.3 crore, down 60.39% year-on-year compared to Rs 38.63 crore in the year-ago period.

The newly-listed company’s revenue from operations also dropped 19.71% YoY to Rs 259.59 crore in the second quarter against Rs 323.32 crore in the year-ago period. Ebitda margin had dipped to 85% as against 89.6% in the year-ago quarter.

In the investor presentation released on Nov. 25, the company had stated that its Ebitda margin had contracted on account of allocation towards a lower asset base due to 369-megawatt asset monetisation in the second half of the last fiscal.

Talking to NDTV Profit on the company’s September quarter results, Dhingra said that one has to compare the revenue on a “like-to like-basis” with the assets that were operational last year against those that are operational this year.

“So, Rs 168 odd crore of revenue came from the assets, which were sold in the H2 of FY24. Adjusted for those assets, our revenue and Ebitda both are up by 5% to 7%,” he said.

The solar and wind power producer is not planning any further capital mobilisation in the near future, following its recent IPO, said the top executive, who also pointed out that the company had monteised assets in the second half of FY24.

“There is no asset monetisation now, because historically we have done asset monetisation. We have recently raised Rs 2,400 crore of primary capital. So, in terms of the equity raise, we are done for a fair bit of time,” he said. The company would not see any asset monetisation “going forward”, Gandhi added.

The Acme Solar CEO believes that the second half of the ongoing financial year may be better than the first half since there is no monsoon.

“Typically H2 is slightly higher than H1 because there is no monsoon, which happens in Q2. On a conservative basis, it will be at least equal to H1. And, of course, it can be slightly higher as well,” he said.

Gandhi noted that the company had added 1,200 MW of capacity in October across four plants, taking the total capacity to 2,500 MW.

“In the next quarter or so, we will do another 450 MW of solar, and we have a 150-MW of wind, which is being done in two phases of 50 megawatt and 100 MW. About 600 MW of projects are coming up around FY25 (end) and maybe one quarter around that,” he revealed.

“In terms of the next two years, we have around 4,200 megawatt of capacity (addition planned), which will come up until FY27,” Dhingra added.

On Tuesday, shares of Acme Solar Holdings Ltd. dropped as much as 7.44% to hit an intraday low of Rs 238.8 apiece, on the NSE following the announcement of its muted results for Q2. However, the renewable energy stock recovered some of the losses to settle at Rs 256.6 apiece, down 0.54%, on the NSE compared to a 0.11% drop in the benchmark Nifty 50.