NILE Ltd

Price story Before the numbers, the tape. A stock price moves through four repeating seasons: a flat base (stage 1), an advance (2), a top (3), a decline (4). Where the price sits in that cycle frames everything below.

NILE Ltd trades at ₹1,552, in a confirmed uptrend and 11 weeks into that stage. That is −9.8% against its own 200-day average. It sits at 28% of a 52-week range of ₹1,375 to ₹2,006. On relative strength it is currently behind the NIFTY 500 on a trailing-13-week view (1 week and counting).

Today the stock is in a confirmed uptrend — week 11 of stage 2, confirmed. At ₹1,552 it trades −9.8% versus its 200-day average and sits at 28% of its 52-week range (₹1,375–₹2,006).

Against the market, two honest reads. Cumulative: over the last 10.4 years the stock moved +860% while the NIFTY 500 moved +280% — ahead of the index over the full window. Recent form: on a trailing-13-week view the stock is currently behind (1 week and counting; last ahead the week of 2026-07-31) — the ribbon below is that same metric, week by week.

What would end the trend, mechanically: two Friday closes in a row below the 200-day line. That is the exit rule — no debates.

Story check

NILE Ltd's story is not scored yet against the markers our research file set on 31 May 2026. Where it sits in its own cycle: Not stated in the research file. Still open: AREML self-supply could compress NILE's anchor order book by up to 25-30%. Our fortnightly research layers last read it on 22 August 2026.

Our read, 31 May 2026. A near-debt-free lead recycler at 10x earnings, but the anchor customer is building its own recycling plant — volume ceiling risk before lithium optionality matures.

What is proven. A near-debt-free lead recycler at 10x earnings, but the anchor customer is building its own recycling plant — volume ceiling risk before lithium optionality matures.

What is not proven yet. AREML self-supply could compress NILE's anchor order book by up to 25-30%.

🚨 Layer 1 read, 22 August 2026 — DROP. Sales grew 14% but operating profit halved — the lead spread collapsed, so a cheap multiple sits on falling earnings. In the June 2026 quarter revenue rose 14.4% to Rs281 Cr while operating profit fell 52% to Rs10.6 Cr, an operating margin of 3.77% — the worst of the last twelve quarters and below the 4-9% range the timeline itself describes as this business's normal band. That is not a lost customer: the timeline's own volume test asked for at least Rs180 Cr of quarterly revenue as proof that Amara Raja's new in-house plant is not eating the order book, and Rs281 Cr clears it easily. It is the gap between scrap-lead cost and refined-lead price, which the company cannot control [C004 shows the full-year margin was only 7% even in the good year]. With trailing profit already down from Rs55 Cr to Rs48 Cr, a…

What would change Layer 1’s mind. This one has a precise, dated trigger, taken straight from the timeline's own milestone M3 and sharpened: the September 2026 quarter. If operating margin comes in below 5% for a SECOND consecutive quarter, the two-quarter structural-deterioration test the thesis set for itself is met and this becomes a DROP, not a low-ranked keep. If instead margin recovers to 6% or better on revenue holding above Rs250 Cr, the June print was a one-quarter lead-spread squeeze, the engine is intact, and the…

The test written in advance. Amara Raja backward integration (structural volume ceiling) — Amara Raja backward integration (structural volume ceiling) AREML volume off-take from NILE in H1 FY27 vs H1 FY26 by the next result.

The test written in advance. Commodity margin fragility (LME lead price) — Commodity margin fragility (LME lead price) LME lead price vs quarterly OPM trend by the next result.

The test written in advance. Competitor pressure from Gravita India — Competitor pressure from Gravita India Gravita's disclosed market share gains from AREML by the next result.

What the company does. FY26 PAT ₹55 Cr on revenue ₹1,041 Cr — EPS ₹184, up 52% YoY from ₹121 — at PE 10x the stock is at the 50th percentile of its own 10-year range, suggesting neither trough nor peak. Two Andhra Pradesh plants at 70-75% utilization of 120,000 TPA combined capacity supply >80% of output to Amara Raja Batteries, whose own 150,000 TPA Tamil Nadu recycling plant reached phase-1 operation in late 2024. Nile Li-Cycle Pvt Ltd (₹60 Cr two-phase lithium-ion pilot) targets first commercial year FY27; until proven at scale, this is optionality, not earnings.

Lever 14 · A bigger market to sell into — BUILDING. India's BWM Rules mandate 70% recovery by FY25 and 90% by FY27 — informal recyclers face crackdowns, channeling scrap to licensed operators like NILE. What proves it keeps working: Regulatory Tailwind: Battery Waste Management Rules 2022. It stops working if AREML volume off-take from NILE in H1 FY27 vs H1 FY26.

Lever 12 · New product launch — BUILDING. ₹60 Cr two-phase Li-Cycle subsidiary targets first commercial year FY27; Phase 2 commissioning date unconfirmed as of May 2026. What proves it keeps working: Lithium-Ion Recycling Optionality (Nile Li-Cycle Pvt Ltd). It stops working if AREML volume off-take from NILE in H1 FY27 vs H1 FY26.

Lever 1 · Operating leverage — BUILDING. 70-75% utilization of 120,000 TPA means revenue growth to ~₹1,300+ Cr is achievable without capex — but only if volumes hold. What proves it keeps working: Operating Leverage from Capacity Utilization Headroom. It stops working if AREML volume off-take from NILE in H1 FY27 vs H1 FY26.

Sources: our stock research file (31 May 2026) · quarterly results through Jun 26. The story check is re-scored every results season; the record below never changes.

Revenue Revenue is the top line: everything the company billed its customers in the period.

NILE Ltd reported ₹281 Cr of revenue in the Jun 26 quarter, +14.4% year on year. That is the 4th straight quarter of year-on-year growth. Over 6 years it has compounded at 9.8% a year. The last full year, FY26, came in at ₹1,041 Cr. The last four reported quarters add to ₹1,076 Cr.

Why this happened. Battery Waste Management Rules 2022 require companies selling batteries to meet extended producer responsibility (EPR) targets. Unorganized recyclers operating without proper licenses are being squeezed out, potentially improving raw material availability for licensed formal players like NILE with ISO 9001:2015 certification and Ramky Enviro partnerships for waste disposal.

FY26 revenue came in at ₹1,041 Cr (+13.2% on the year), capping 6 years at 9.8% compound. The latest quarter (Jun 26) printed ₹281 Cr, +14.4% year on year — the 4th consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth.

Pace check: the last four quarters averaged +17.4% growth against the decade's 9.8% — the current year is running faster than its own long-run rate.

Acceleration check: trailing-twelve-month revenue grew +17.0% over the last 4 quarters against +8.0%/yr over the last 8 — accelerating; TTM profit +12.0% vs +18.9%/yr — rolling over.

FY26-Q4. revenue ₹230 Cr and profit ₹14 Cr as reported.

FY27-Q1. revenue ₹281 Cr and profit ₹8 Cr as reported.

Why-sources: our stock research file (31 May 2026) and the company’s own results for those quarters.

Operating margin Operating margin is what is left of every ₹100 of sales after running the business, before interest and tax. It is the cleanest read on pricing power and cost control.

NILE Ltd's operating margin is 3.8% in the Jun 26 quarter, −5.3 percentage points against the same quarter a year ago. That is the widest this company has ever printed on a full-year basis. Across 7 fiscal years the operating margin has ranged 3.6% to 7.0%. The current quarter sits inside that band.

Why this happened. Two plants running at 70-75% utilization leave room for volume growth without additional capital investment. Revenue reached ₹1,041 Cr in FY26 at these utilization levels. If the AREML backward integration risk does not fully materialize and new customers are added (Exide, exports), incremental volume drops to EBIT at high conversion given fixed-cost structure.

The latest quarter's operating margin is 3.8%, −5.3 pp against the same quarter a year ago. Across 7 fiscal years the operating margin has ranged 3.6%–7.0%, and FY26's 7.0% is the top of that band — a record year.

🚨 Why the margin moved: operating margin went −5.3 pp year on year while gross margin went −3.7 pp — the loss came mostly from the gross line: input costs and pricing.

Worth repeating from the valuation section: cheap against its own history on record margins is not the same thing as cheap — a record margin flatters every ratio built on top of it.

FY26-Q4. revenue ₹230 Cr and profit ₹14 Cr as reported.

FY27-Q1. revenue ₹281 Cr and profit ₹8 Cr as reported.

Why-sources: our stock research file (31 May 2026) and the company’s own results for those quarters.

Net profit Net profit is what survives every cost, interest and tax — the number EPS, dividends and book value all grow from.

NILE Ltd earned ₹8.1 Cr of net profit in the Jun 26 quarter, −45.4% year on year. Full-year FY26 profit was ₹55.0 Cr. The 6-year compound rate is 30.8%. That is 2.9% of the quarter's revenue. The same quarter a year earlier earned ₹14.9 Cr.

Jun 26 profit was ₹8.1 Cr, −45.4% year on year. On the full year, FY26 printed ₹55.0 Cr (+52.8%), and the 6-year compound rate is 30.8%.

🚨 Why profit moved: revenue contributed +14.4% and the margin −5.3 pp — the quarter was revenue-led despite a thinner margin.

Pace comparison, last four quarters: profit +20.3% vs revenue +17.4%. Profit and revenue are moving roughly in step.

FY26-Q4. revenue ₹230 Cr and profit ₹14 Cr as reported.

FY27-Q1. revenue ₹281 Cr and profit ₹8 Cr as reported.

Why-sources: our stock research file (31 May 2026) and the company’s own results for those quarters.

Cash flow — the router The P&L says what was earned; the cash-flow statement says what actually arrived. Operating cash flow (CFO) against profit is the cleanest lie detector in the accounts.

Over the last 3 fiscal years 88% of NILE Ltd's reported profit arrived as operating cash — the cash follows the profit. In FY26 that was ₹83.0 Cr of operating cash against ₹55.0 Cr of profit. After ₹16.0 Cr of capital spending, ₹67.0 Cr was left as free cash.

FY26: operating cash of ₹83.0 Cr against reported profit of ₹55.0 Cr, leaving free cash of ₹67.0 Cr after ₹16.0 Cr of capital spending. Across the last 3 fiscal years the conversion rate is 88% of profit.

Cash-flow readings here are annual — that is the resolution our series carries, so this section moves once a year.

Why conversion sits at 88%: the cash cycle tightened 48 days between FY21 and FY26 — cash that used to wait in the cycle now reaches the bank sooner.

Router verdict: the bigger cash user is investment — capital spending ran 4.5× depreciation over three years, so the next section's job is to check what that build-out is buying.

Where the cash goes Working capital is the cash tied up between paying suppliers and getting paid: debtor days (customers owe), inventory days (stock waits), and the cash conversion cycle (the whole loop, in days of sales).

NILE Ltd's cash conversion cycle runs 75 days in FY26, down from 123 days in FY21. Capital spending ran ₹50.0 Cr over the last 3 years. At FY26 sales of ₹1,041 Cr each day of that cycle holds about ₹2.9 Cr, so roughly ₹214 Cr sits inside the business at any moment.

FY26: debtors at 30 days, inventory at 47 days — roughly 1.5 months of stock waiting to sell; that is where the cash sits while it waits — for a full cycle of 75 days, tighter than FY21's 123.

The full loop: cash goes out to suppliers and production on day 0; stock waits 47 days to sell; customers pay about 30 days after that; and suppliers themselves are paid at 1 days — netting out to the 75-day cycle.

In money terms: at FY26 sales of ₹1,041 Cr, each day of the cycle holds about ₹2.9 Cr — so the 75-day loop keeps roughly ₹214 Cr sitting inside the business at any moment.

On the investment side: capital spending of ₹50.0 Cr over the last 3 fiscal years against ₹11.0 Cr of depreciation — the company is building well ahead of wear-and-tear. Capital work-in-progress stands at ₹25.0 Cr (FY26) — capacity paid for but not yet earning.

The synthesis: the cash is going into capacity, not disappearing into the cycle — the question becomes whether the new capacity earns.

Return on capital Return on capital employed (ROCE) is the profit the whole business earns on all the money in it — equity and debt together. It is the single best test of whether growth creates value or just size.

NILE Ltd earns a ROCE of 25% in FY26. That is up from a trough of 12% in FY21. Return on invested capital clears the cost of that capital by +6.3 percentage points, so growth here adds value rather than only size. The wiring behind it is 5.3% net margin on 2.94× asset turns.

FY26 ROCE is 25%, recovered from a FY21 trough of 12% — the full ladder below shows the fall and the climb, undoctored.

Why the return is what it is — the wiring (FY26): 5.3% net margin × 2.94× asset turns × 1.12× balance-sheet leverage ≈ 17.5% on equity. Margin does its share; leverage is modest — this is an earned return, not a borrowed one.

The capstone test — ROIC − WACC: 18.3% − 12.0% = a +6.3 pp spread. The 12.0% is a standing assumption for the cost of capital in India, not a per-stock estimate — read the sign and the size of the spread, not the decimals. A spread this wide means every rupee reinvested creates more than a rupee of value — the engine compounds.

Debt Debt-to-equity says how much of the business is funded by borrowings; interest cover says how many times operating profit pays the interest bill. Low and high, respectively, is the safe corner.

NILE Ltd carries ₹12.0 Cr of borrowings against ₹316 Cr of equity in FY26, a debt-to-equity of 0.04. Operating profit covers the interest bill 39×. Over 5 years borrowings went from ₹51.0 Cr to ₹12.0 Cr. Capital spending ran ₹50.0 Cr across the last 3 of those years.

FY26: borrowings of ₹12.0 Cr against equity of ₹316 Cr — a debt-to-equity of 0.04. Operating profit covers the interest bill 39×. Over 5 years borrowings went from ₹51.0 Cr to ₹12.0 Cr while capital spending ran ₹50.0 Cr in just the last 3 — the build-out is being paid for out of cash, not debt.

Ownership Who owns the stock, quarter by quarter: promoters (the controlling owners), foreign and domestic institutions, and the public. Steady accumulation by people close to the numbers is a signal; a quiet register is also an answer.

No holder of NILE Ltd moved a full percentage point over the last two years — the register is quiet. Promoters moved +0.0 points over the same window, to 50.4%. The register is read on the four disclosed classes only; nothing is inferred between filings.

The register over the last two years — Domestic institutions: +0.3 points over 8 quarters to 0.3%; Promoters: +0.0 points over 8 quarters to 50.4%; Foreign institutions: +0.0 points over 8 quarters to 0.2%.

Safety line The Z-score estimates how far a company sits from balance-sheet distress — above roughly 3 is safe, below roughly 1.8 is the danger zone. It was built for manufacturers, so it is not applied to banks and lenders.

NILE Ltd: the Z-score is not available for this stock, so we say so rather than invent one. It is a distance-to-distress estimate from the balance sheet, not a forecast of failure. The debt, cash-flow and return sections above carry the balance-sheet evidence this page does hold, and each of them states its own reporting date.

The safety line in one sentence: the Z-score is not available for this stock, so we say so rather than invent one.

Valuation P/E is the price of ₹1 of annual profit: how many rupees the market pays for each rupee the company earns in a year.

NILE Ltd trades at 9.6× P/E, mid-range by its own standards (45th percentile). Its long-run median P/E is 9.8×, measured across 6.5 years of weekly readings. This places the multiple against the stock’s own record, and says nothing about what the business is worth.

Today's P/E of 9.6× is mid-range by its own standards (45th percentile), against a long-run median of 9.8× measured over 6.5 years of weekly readings. This is a comparison against the stock's own history — not a claim about what it is worth.

One caveat before moving on: margins are the best this company has ever printed — cheap against its own history on record margins is not the same thing as cheap. If profitability mean-reverts, today's multiple is higher than it looks.

Why the multiple sits where it does: over the past year annual EPS moved +52.1% against a −25.8% price move — earnings outran the price, pushing the multiple DOWN its own range.

The price move, decomposed: over 5y, of the +17.7%/yr price move, ~+28.7%/yr came from earnings growth and ~−11.0 pp from the multiple (compressing). The split is the honest approximate (price return minus earnings growth); it makes the rally itself visible instead of hiding it behind the percentile.

Put together: the multiple is unremarkable against its own past, so the story rests on the earnings line underneath it, not the multiple.

What the price assumes This reading works the multiple backwards. It asks one question: what yearly rate of profit growth is a buyer at the market price already paying for? The number is the growth rate that makes eleven years of profit — six years growing, then five fading — add up to that day's market price, once each year is discounted at 11% a year.

Solved at its 27 August 2026 price, NILE Ltd was paying for profit growth of about 2.5% a year. Profit itself has compounded 30.8% a year over the past 6 years. Today the market pays 9.6× P/E, the 45th percentile of its own 7-year range.

What the two numbers say together. The multiple is unremarkable against its own past, and the growth the price is paying for is below what this company has actually delivered.

How to hold this number: it is a reading of one day's price, taken on 27 August 2026, not a running figure — every other number on this page, the multiple included, is read off the live quote as of 11 September 2026. A higher price is paying for more growth and a lower price for less, so it moves whenever the price does, and this page does not restate it between measurements.

Stage: Mixed Every business sits somewhere on a fundamental arc, and this page names the spot before anything else. The last twelve quarters of revenue, profit and EPS growth — plus the return the business earns on its capital — are read as curves: Deteriorating (the curves are falling), Turning around (a trough has just formed and the last few quarters lift off it), Improving (the climb off the trough is sustained), Consistent (steadily positive with healthy returns), Topping out (still high but decelerating from the peak). When the curves genuinely disagree the read is Mixed; too little history is No read. CAGR (compound annual growth rate) is the smooth yearly pace that turns the starting value into the latest one — the fairest way to compare growth across different time spans. Read the columns together: if the 1-year number towers over the 10-year, recent growth is running hotter than the long-run trend. A dash means that window is not held, or the base year was a loss (where a growth rate is not meaningful).

NILE Ltd reads as mixed on its fundamental arc. Mixed — growth is normalizing off a hyper-growth base: profit growth has eased from +51.7% at its peak to +12.0% but is still expanding, ROCE lifting at 25.0%. The read is built from 8 quarters across 4 curves, on partial evidence.

Why it matters: when the curves disagree, the per-curve reads above matter more than any single verdict.

Return readings here are annual, not quarterly — read as level and direction only; they can confirm the growth curves but never drive the stage on their own.

A partial read: at least one curve is short, or the returns curve is not the computed quarterly series — hold the stage word a little more loosely.

4-Factor Sector Score

55.5/100 — rank 3 of 9 in Recycling · 81% evidence confidence

NILE Ltd scores 55.5 out of 100 against the 9 companies it is compared with in Recycling, ranking 3. Balanced evidence: keep at normal research priority and require another comparable period before raising conviction.

The four contributions add to the total exactly: 17.5 + 16.3 + 11.5 + 10.2 = 55.5. This is the SAME number shown on the sector comparison — it is computed once, for the whole peer set, and read here.

What would change it: The read weakens if profit growth turns negative or margin improvement reverses while sector-relative strength deteriorates.

Frequently asked questions