Introduction
Incorporated in 1930, company was named aa Enkei Castalloy Limited. Later company’s name was changed to Alicon Castalloy. The term ‘alicon’ is a combination of the words ‘aluminium’ and ‘consortium’. Alicon is a conglomerate that represents a group of companies joining together to establish a huge, trustworthy, and respected institution with vision and enthusiasm. The company is in the industry of producing automobile castings. Customers include Maruti Suzuki Limited, Honda Siel Cars Limited, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto Limited, Hero Honda Motor Industries, and the Honda Scooter and Motorcycle Company. Customers from throughout the world include John Deere, Behr Group, GE, Knorr Bremse, ZF Group, and GWK Group.
The company has a solid 49-year track record, which is enhanced by the 89-year tradition of Illichmann Castalloy.
The company is widely regarded as a pioneer in Low Pressure Die Casting, Gravity Casting, and Sand Casting. Its track record demonstrates regular delivery of high-quality performance goods to major industry leaders in a variety of industries. By regularly pushing the envelope, the company improves component performance and creates new industry standards. It challenges today’s standards with a dedication to innovation in order to build a more inventive and bright future.
The Alicon Group has 13 cutting-edge manufacturing units in four key locations: three in India and one in Slovakia. These industry-leading facilities service both low and large volume runs and are outfitted with equipment from renowned manufacturers like as CNC-Makino, Micron, Hartford, VMC, and EDM.
Aside from its Low Pressure, Gravity, and Sanding Casting units, infrastructure comprises Technology Centres, Quality & Testing Labs, Tool Manufacturing, and Machine Shop Floor Sub-assembly lines.
Today, the company has harnessed its experience accumulated over five decades of automotive excellence to provide a distinctive solution-based approach to private and public sector titans across a wide variety of sectors.
- Automotive
- Locomotive
- Energy
- Aerospace
- Marine
- Agriculture
- Infrastructure
- Medical
- Defence
With a 49-year history, the company is one of India’s major aluminium casting foundries. A devoted group of 3864 individuals demonstrates its significant competence in the sector. With operations in India and Europe, the company has created a worldwide footprint, carefully positioned itself for maximum effect. It has the potential to meet a wide range of customer demands thanks to 13 cutting-edge factories dispersed across four main sites. The company takes pleasure in providing end-to-end customised solutions that are adapted to each client’s individual needs. It has attained a consistent year-on-year Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 20%, demonstrating extraordinary growth. These excellent numbers indicate its dedication to quality as well as its capacity to adapt to an ever-changing industry context. With group revenues exceeding Rs. 1,400 crores, the company maintains its position as an industry leader.
The company has been forged through a valuable collaboration of esteemed entities, each bringing their unique strengths to the table.
- Enkei Corporation, a renowned Japanese manufacturer of wheels for motorcycles and passenger cars, joins the alliance with over 70 years of industry expertise.
- Alicon Castalloy, the largest foundry in India, contributes its extensive track record of 49+ years in providing cost-effective engineering solutions.
- Illichmann Castalloy, a European subsidiary, enhances Alicon’s presence in the US and European markets, further bolstering its global reach.
- Additionally, Silicon Meadows brings its 20+ years of experience in engineering, tool design, and manufacturing, providing invaluable support to the venture.
This rich collaboration forms the foundation of the company, combining the best of industry knowledge and capabilities to drive innovation and deliver exceptional products and services.
Business products
The company’s business is basically divided into three parts such as Automotive, Non Automotive and E-mobility.
Automotive
Some of the most recognisable automotive brands select and rely on Alicon to produce complicated solutions in both large and low volume runs. Passenger vehicle sales climbed 52% year on year for Alicon, while commercial sales increased 59% year on year. During the year, our domestic business contributed 78% of our total revenue.
TWO WHEELERS
Enfield and Alicon have a long history together. Alicon manufactured cylinder heads for Royal Enfield motorbikes and was the sole manufacturer entrusted with producing the complicated cylinders for the new 650cc motorcycles.
KTM is the market leader in the high-end class, and they rely on Alicon to manufacture 100% of their cylinder heads for their 390cc and 590cc motorcycles. They also trusted Alicon to manufacture critical components such as the water pump housing and the wheel hub.
PASSENGER CARS
Maruti contracted Alicon as their first outsourced partner in 1987. Alicon designed components for the legendary 800 and Omni and is thrilled to be associated with India’s first true automobile company.
Honda has relied on Alicon for almost two decades to supply its factories in the United Kingdom, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, and India. Alicon supplies 70% of their cylinder heads across 9 vehicles and 14 variations, demonstrating their trust in Alicon’s capabilities.
COMMERCIAL VEHICLES
Alicon’s hallmark component before expanding out into a wide range of industries was the cylinder head. Over the last five decades, the company has collaborated with the most prominent brands in 2 and 4 wheelers to provide a comprehensive variety of solutions.
The company produced cylinder heads in 13 different alloys and has won the trust of automakers to the point where some commit their prototype development to Alicon. The company’s dominance in the local two-wheeler business is demonstrated by the fact that one in every two motorcycles in India is powered by Alicon cylinder heads.
To sum up company has manufactured Diesel Cylinder Heads for single & multi-cylinders as well as Petrol Cylinder Heads for single & multi-cylinders. Additionally 42% of India’s cylinder heads made by Alicon and 2.2 million bikes use Alicon cylinder heads.
Non Automotive
An insatiable urge for constant improvement inspired Alicon to diversify beyond the automotive sector, forge new partnerships and set new benchmarks in a host of non-automotive sectors.
DEFENCE
The Indian Defence Ministry was in the process of indigenizing the Russian Battle Tank when Alicon invented aluminium alloy wheels that saved 5 tonnes of weight per tank. The tank’s peak speed increased from roughly 30 kmph to 65 kmph. The company is now working on improvements to increase the peak speed to 90 kmph.
Alicon created a ventilator for the T-72 Bridge Layer Tanks to improve cooling. These particular fans were previously produced using Sand Casting until the firm intervened and adopted Low Pressure Die Casting, resulting in significant improvements.
During the quarter Q4FY23 , the company was awarded a tender from the Department of Defence for the supply of battle tank wheels and cylinder heads for heavy-duty defence trucks, for which delivery will begin in the coming quarters.
ENERGY
Components in this industry are typically created via Sand Casting, but Alicon pioneered the use of Gravity Die Casting. This reduced faults and increased consistency, which drew Siemens’ attention. They came to Alicon to have huge quantities of Gravity Die Casting components made. Alicon now produces eight times the initial order amount and is one of Alicon’s largest clients in this industry.
LOCOMOTIVE
Alicon was chosen by the German Railway Ministry to supply components for important braking systems. This is a significant accomplishment because these systems require 0% failure tolerance, which the discriminating Germans expected us to deliver.
E-Mobility
TWO WHEELERS
Ather Energy is creating the country’s first Intelligent Electric Scooter. Alicon manufactures several components for its scooters.
PASSENGER CARS
Alicon created the Li-on large battery enclosure for a European OEM supplier to a really global car giant and e-Mobility leader. The cooling pipes had to be sandwiched in the core and held in place while the component was made in Low Pressure Die Casting – a complicated task that the company solved.
Clients / Companies worked with
Financials
For Q4 FY24
- Total revenues of INR321 crores remained unchanged year on year when compared to the fourth quarter of FY 2022. Furthermore, this was down 12% quarter on quarter from INR361 crores in quarter 3.
- In the fourth quarter of fiscal year ’23, the company’s plants in India and Europe operated at roughly 65% utilisation.
- Gross margins for the quarter were 51.6% in Q4 FY ’23, compared to 50.4% in Q4 FY ’22, a 118 basis point increase. Gross margin was 49.3% in Q3 FY ’23, and the quarter-on-quarter gain in gross margin is 230 basis points, or more than 2%.
- In Q4 FY ’23, EBITDA was INR33 crores with a margin of 10.3%, compared to INR39 crores with a margin of 12.1% in Q4 FY ’22.
- The worldwide business accounted for 21% of overall sales for the quarter and 22% for the fiscal year. Going forward management plans to increase its sale from the exports on account of improved margins.
For the year ended March 23
- Alicon achieved its best-ever annual revenues of INR 1,405 crores in FY ’23, showing a significant 30% year-on-year growth, outperforming industry standards.
- The company also posted a record-high EBITDA of INR 157 crores, marking a 36% increase.
- Profit after tax saw an impressive 113% year-on-year growth, reaching INR 51 crores.
- Alicon’s ROCE improved to 12.7% in FY ’23 from 9.1% in FY ’22.
- The Board of Directors approved an interim dividend of 50%, equating to INR 2.5 per share.
Capex
On the expenditure front, the company spent INR16 crores during the quarter and a total of INR82 crores during FY ’23. Alicon’s net block value addition has improved dramatically from 130% in FY 2021 to 160% in FY 2023. The company anticipates a capital commitment of roughly INR90 crores in FY 2024.
Order Book
Alicon has received new orders of INR1,700 crores in the financial year 2022-23. With this, total order booking has reached INR7,800 crores, which is executable across a seven-year period beginning in 2022-’23 and ending in 2028-’29. In the most recent quarter, Alicon received new orders for carbon-neutral goods from several of its worldwide clients, including Jaguar & Land Rover and Danfoss.
Management’s comments and future outlook
- Management believes that input prices have peaked and will begin to fall in the future.
- Following the company’s highest-ever revenue of INR1,405 crores in FY ’23, Alicon is now ready to push the business to further heights, aiming to produce a revenue of more than INR2,000 crores over a three-year period by FY 2025-26.
- Over the next three to four years, management intends to increase EBITDA margin to 14% through a combination of growth initiatives and cost-cutting measures, with a major focus on improving margins, return ratios, and optimising the working capital cycle.
- In FY ’23, the company was able to reduce its reliance on 2-Wheelers from 41% to 38% while expanding its share of 4-Wheeler business from 49% to 53%, and the company plans to lower its reliance even more in the future because the 2-Wheeler area has very poor margins.
- The top line is expected to expand by 15%, according to management. Also, as indicated by management, they have accounted for price hikes. So the promised 15% increase will mostly come from volume growth, topline growth, and margin improvements via efficiency.
- The company has decreased its product line by 150 pieces, from 490 to 315. As a result, about 175 pieces have been removed from the company’s bucket which as per management should lead to better margins and efficiency.
- Additionally management also plans to decrease its debt by the end of the current FY along with improving its working capital cycle, since at present significant amount of investments have been made in to the inventories, realisations of which are expected to happen over next few quarters.
Sectorial Outlook
The automotive sector is predicted to develop steadily in FY2024, however volume growth may slow due to a large base. Furthermore, an increase in premiumisation would bode good for profitability. The rise in demand for high-end items creates an opportunity for ancillary players to provide value. The advent of new technology, the ongoing release of new goods, the application of new emission and safety standards are all assisting auxiliary players in revitalising their revenue streams. Furthermore, EV adoption is the quickest in Europe, which is expected to benefit Alicon.
Domestic automotive market grew 0.6% year on year in Q4FY23, powered by 13% year on year growth in PV sector. On a year-over-year basis, the CV segment grew by 6.5%. On a year-over-year basis, the 2W category fell by 3%.
In India, the number of EVs sold surged by more than 200% from 3.2 lakh in CY2021 to about 10 lakh vehicles in CY2022. EVs accounted for 1.8% of all cars sold in 2021, but that figure grew to 4.7% in CY2022.
