TIL Limited

Quick verdict scorecard

Scores are analyst views; the reasoning is in the Final Verdict tab.

What the company is, in plain English

TIL is an 80-year-old Kolkata maker of mobile cranes (rough-terrain and truck cranes), port equipment (Hyster-TIL reach stackers that lift shipping containers) and military handling vehicles such as missile-loading cranes. It nearly died between FY20 and FY23: revenue fell from ₹439 cr to ₹44 cr, banks declared it a bad loan and took it to insolvency court. In January 2024 Sunil Chaturvedi’s Gainwell group (the Caterpillar dealer for North and East India, which had itself been carved out of TIL in 2016) bought control, settled the banks at a 35% haircut and restarted the factories. Revenue is back to ₹323 cr, about half of it defence, and in May 2026 TIL bought 60% of Tulip Compression (CNG compressor packages) from the promoter’s own company. The business has not yet earned a profit from operations: every rupee of recovery so far has been paid for with new shares and new debt.

Analyst notes — the read before the data

What actually happened. TIL is a rescue, and the rescue worked in the narrow sense: the plants run, the principals (Manitowoc, Hyster) came back, the Army and Air Force are taking deliveries, and revenue went from ₹44 cr to ₹323 cr in two years. What has not happened is the second half of a turnaround, where the business starts paying for itself. Operating cash flow was –₹83 cr, –₹131 cr and –₹88 cr in FY24, FY25 and FY26: ₹302 cr burned in three years. Over roughly the same window the company raised ₹328 cr of equity and added ₹210 cr of debt. The recovery has been bought, not earned.

The profit numbers flatter. The ₹254 cr FY24 profit was the bank settlement gain and write-backs. FY25’s ₹3 cr profit and “11.7% EBITDA margin” included ₹27.8 cr of other income, about ₹23 cr of it provision reversals that management itself said would not recur. Strip that out and FY25 EBITDA was ₹12–14 cr; FY26 was ₹4–6 cr against ₹47 cr of interest. In May 2025 management said break-even was ₹310–315 cr of revenue. FY26 delivered ₹323 cr and a ₹31 cr loss.

Working capital is the real disease. Debtor days went from 156 to 239 in FY26 and the cash conversion cycle is 372 days. Half the revenue is defence, where the buyer is slow, picks the lowest bidder, and must approve every component change, so cost reduction on that half lags. Management’s own words on the August 2026 call were that the working-capital cycle “looks stressed”. A business growing at 2.5% should not need ₹98 cr of extra borrowing in a year.

What the market is pricing. At ₹242 the company is valued at about ₹2,000 cr: 5.3x trailing sales, about 7.4x post-rights book, and roughly 125x trailing operating profit. Action Construction Equipment, which earns 18% EBITDA margins, ₹425 cr of profit and 40% RoCE, trades near 4.3x sales. The price already assumes management’s aspiration (triple the turnover, 15–16% margins in five to seven years) comes true. Those targets replaced an earlier set (₹800–1,000 cr in three to four years) that were quietly lengthened after one year.

What tempers the enthusiasm further. Three things. First, credibility: of roughly a dozen specific promises made on the May 2025 call (strong FY26 growth, sustained 11.7% margin, pick-and-carry cranes by Q3 FY26, exports from FY26, a ₹150 cr QIP to cut debt, Snorkel adding ₹200 cr by FY28), almost none landed on time, and Snorkel has disappeared from the decks. Second, related-party flow: within a month of the April 2026 rights issue bringing in ₹150 cr “for debt repayment and working capital”, TIL paid ₹119 cr to the promoter’s own Gainwell Commosales for 60% of Tulip, at about 8.8x Tulip’s book value, approved by a vote in which only 12.3% of shares participated. The promoter itself took up only about 14% of its rights entitlement. Third, the covenant sheet on the 11.9% bonds required ₹475 cr of FY26 revenue, a profit, and fund-based debt under ₹300 cr; all three were missed on reported numbers and nothing public says whether waivers were given. Those bonds (₹37.7 cr outstanding) mature on 16 November 2026.

What amplifies it. There is a real asset here. TIL claims about 50% of India’s rough-terrain crane market and 38–40% of reach stackers, has defence qualifications that take years to earn, and owns a Kharagpur plant running at 30–35% utilisation with 150 acres spare, so growth to ₹700–750 cr needs almost no capex. Net worth went from ₹111 cr to ₹272 cr after the rights issue. Tulip brings a ₹328 cr order book and 10% margins. If the pick-and-carry CarryKing 515 works commercially, it opens a 13,000-unit-a-year market where TIL has nothing today. And the August 2026 call was noticeably more candid than earlier ones, which is usually a good sign.

How to read the rest of this report. Watch four things: (1) whether operating cash flow turns positive in FY27, (2) debtor days moving toward the 60–75 day target, (3) what happens to borrowings after the rights money, and (4) any further cash moving between TIL and Gainwell entities. Until at least the first two show up in reported numbers, this is a story stock priced as if the story were finished. Analyst View

Product lines

Model count: “70+ models including defence” (Aug 2026 deck) against “over 49” (Nov 2024 deck).

How they make it

• Process: in-house fabrication of booms, chassis and structures from high-tensile steel, machining, painting, assembly and load testing. Management says fabrication is 100% in-house and rejects the “kit assembly” charge.
• Key bought-out inputs: engines (Cummins; the reach-stacker engine is not made in India), transmissions and gearboxes (imported, Europe), axles, hydraulic cylinders (now localised with Wipro and others), special steel (earlier Sweden, now Tata Steel and JSW/Jindal), tyres.
• Raw material cost: 64.5% of revenue in FY25, 63.9% in FY26. Gross margin 40.7% in Q1 FY27 (32.3% in Q1 FY26).
• Contribution over material cost: up to ~50% on defence; 30–40% on non-defence, as low as 25% in volume segments (May 2025 call).
• Inventory policy: 90–120 days of key raw materials because of long import lead times.

Facilities

Unit capacity is not disclosed. Warehouses at Dankuni (ERP/WMS, May 2024), Taratala and Kharagpur. Regional offices: Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi. Management says existing plants support ₹700–750 cr of turnover with only ₹5–10 cr of “bridging” capex.

Customers, distribution and exports

• Named customers: Indian Army, Indian Air Force, Bharat Dynamics, BEL, BEML, ONGC, Coal India, NTPC, CONCOR, Reliance, Tata Steel, Adani. Tulip sells to city gas distributors (IGL, MGL and others).
• Concentration: top 10 customers ≈ 62% of FY25 revenue (Letter of Offer).
• Go-to-market: direct sales to institutional, PSU and defence buyers; a newer retail push in reach stackers. Rental and leasing planned later. Branch and support-centre counts: Not Available.
• Exports: historically 10+ countries. No export revenue disclosed in any document. “Back in exports from FY26” (May 2025) had not happened by Aug 2026. Tulip has begun exporting to Nigeria.

USP — what makes TIL hard to replace Analyst View

• Defence qualification and a long delivery record on missile-handling platforms; any component change needs customer approval, which protects the incumbent as much as it slows cost-cutting.
• The only domestic maker with scale in rough-terrain cranes, plus the Hyster and Manitowoc technology links.
• A 3,200-machine installed base to sell parts and service into.
• Spare capacity and land already paid for.
• What it does not have: pricing power against Chinese imports in truck and crawler cranes, where rivals offer one- to two-year credit TIL says it will not match.

Revenue mix — what is disclosed

Two segments from Q1 FY27 onward

Tulip supplied 33% of consolidated revenue and 54% of EBITDA in a part-quarter. Q2 FY27 will be its first full quarter. Tulip’s historical growth is 20–40% a year and management targets 14–15% EBITDA medium term.

Where the growth and the pressure are Analyst View

• Fastest grower: aftermarket (from negligible to ~₹56 cr) and, by consolidation, Tulip. Both carry better margins than new machines.
• Largest and lumpiest: defence. High contribution margin, slow cash, order-by-order. The CONCOR reach-stacker order (25 units, ₹66.75 cr) was described by the CMD as one-off, the first in about a decade.
• Under pressure: truck cranes (Chinese imports) and anything with heavy import content when the rupee weakens.
• Management’s stated focus: defence order build, aftermarket to 40–45% of revenue, retail reach stackers, pick-and-carry entry, and scaling Tulip (stake to 74%).

Annual P&L — consolidated, ₹ cr

Source: Screener consolidated. Annual gross profit is not available for FY22–FY26; quarterly gross margin from the decks was 32.3% (Q1 FY26), 39.2% (Q4 FY26) and 40.7% (Q1 FY27).

Last nine quarters — consolidated, ₹ cr

Source: Screener. Screener nets exceptional charges into other income (Q4 FY26: ₹0.60 cr income less ₹5.58 cr exceptional; Q1 FY27: ₹0.32 cr less ₹0.42 cr). The company’s own Q1 FY27 deck shows PAT of –₹5.45 cr and EBITDA of ₹7.32 cr; the gap to Screener is classification.

How the company presents it — standalone, ₹ cr

The company’s EBITDA includes other income. In FY25 that inflated the margin from about 4% to 11.7%.

One-time items

Growth and margin analysis

• Organic vs inorganic: FY25 and FY26 were entirely organic. From Q1 FY27 Tulip adds roughly ₹280 cr a year of acquired revenue; standalone growth in Q1 FY27 was +25%.
• Volume vs price: FY25 growth was volume (58 to 242 machines). FY26 machine sales rose 4%; unit volume was not disclosed.
• Why FY26 margins fell: other income halved, employee cost rose 24%, finance cost rose 59% to ₹46.3 cr, a weaker rupee and freight raised material cost, and higher-margin orders slipped out of Q4 (management and Infomerics).
• Margin swings by quarter: 9–12% in fourth quarters when defence deliveries bunch, near zero otherwise. Management expects this for another 6–8 quarters.

Balance sheet — consolidated, ₹ cr

Source: Screener. Goodwill: none reported before the Tulip acquisition; purchase accounting for Tulip (₹119 cr paid for 60% of a company with ₹22.5 cr net worth) will add goodwill or intangibles from Q1 FY27. Rupee splits of inventory, receivables, payables and long- vs short-term debt sit in the FY26 annual report, which BSE would not serve to automated download. Cash at Mar-26 ≈ ₹14.5 cr; current ratio 1.07; quick ratio 0.52 (StockAnalysis).

Cash flow — consolidated, ₹ cr

Why cash is negative while profit hovers near zero. FY24: the ₹305 cr gain was non-cash, while the cash part of the settlement went out. FY25: revenue grew 4.7x and needed inventory and receivables (other assets +₹112 cr on ₹3 cr of profit). FY26: debtor days stretched from 156 to 239, other assets rose another ₹163 cr, and ₹47 cr of interest was paid on a loss. A large Air Force order delivered in the last ten days of March 2026 explains part of the year-end receivable spike (CMD).

Working capital

Source: Screener. Infomerics computes it differently: working-capital cycle 149 days (FY25) → 268 days (FY26); debtor days 100 → 197; inventory days 153 → 178. Both show the same direction. Management’s target is debtor days of 60–75.

Debt structure and credit rating

BBB- is the lowest investment grade and rests explicitly on Gainwell group support; a weaker Gainwell credit profile is a stated downgrade trigger. Lender names are in an annexure not read; Axis Bank was banker to the rights issue. Promoter loans exist separately from bank debt (Letter of Offer); the amount is not available. Pre-2024 default-grade ratings from other agencies were not retrieved.

NCD covenants versus FY26 reported numbers

Neither Infomerics nor the company reports a breach, waiver or test result. The Letter of Offer admitted lender consents for the rights issue had not been received at 20 March 2026.

Equity dilution — share-count history

• 2026 rights subscription: 140.59% per the basis-of-allotment advertisement (1,943 applications for 1.70 cr shares). One aggregator shows 0.91x; the advertisement is preferred.
• Promoter took 12,09,176 shares, about 14% of its ~84.8 lakh entitlement. That is why its stake fell from 70.12% to 61.30% (63.25% by paid-up value).
• If 65,323 shares were forfeited, about 99.5% of the call money (≈ ₹49.6 cr) was paid Est..
• A ₹150 cr QIP approved in 2025 was never done. No ESOP scheme, buyback or bonus found.
• The 2024 rights issue at ₹10 par, when the stock traded above ₹200, handed existing holders (mostly the promoter) 4.9 cr shares for ₹49 cr.

Promoter

Sunil Kumar Chaturvedi, Chairman & Managing Director. Chartered Accountant (1985), then about 20 years in the Indian Administrative Service. Executive Director and COO of Bharat Forge for about five years. Became MD & CEO of Tractors India Pvt Ltd (TIL’s then Caterpillar-dealership subsidiary) on 1 January 2014, led its management buy-out from TIL in 2016, and renamed it Gainwell Commosales. Also CMD of Indocrest Transportation, director of BF-NTPC Energy Systems and Captiva Energy Solutions, and an independent director of Vesuvius India since 2024. No controversy specific to him was found; the fraud classification, FIR and SEBI order relate to TIL under its previous owners.

On the August 2026 call he said he is not yet giving TIL half his time and intends 40–50% from the next quarter.

Group plan: about ₹1,000 cr of investment (≈ ₹450 cr done by May 2025, of which ₹120 cr into TIL) and US$1 bn of group revenue in about five years. The CMD wants group manufacturing “as unified as possible” and did not rule out a future combination with TIL.

Board of directors

Appointment dates and tenure for directors other than the CMD: Not Available (annual report not retrievable). Key managers: CFO Kanhaiya Gupta (CA/CS/CWA; ex-Rashmi Metaliks, ACC, IFB); Company Secretary Chandrani Chatterjee; CHRO Shamita Nandi; Chief Growth & Technology Officer Pinaki Niyogy; Head of Sales & Aftermarket Arvind Rishi (ex-Cummins, Gainwell); Head of Naval Defence P.S. Vombatkere (ex-Navy). Senior exits since 2024: none found.

Shareholding trend, %

• Pledge: none found, but not positively confirmed. The NCD covenant caps promoter encumbrance at 14%. 1,12,46,592 promoter shares (22.25%) are locked in (Trendlyne).
• Institutions arrived with the rights issue: FII + DII went from 0.8% to 6.4%. Singularity Equity Fund I (Madhusudan Kela) bought 5 lakh shares in a bulk deal.
• Other bulk deals: Salgurn Merchants sold 10,98,453 shares at ₹215.82 average; QE Securities traded ~8 lakh shares both ways on 29 Jul 2026 (intraday, not an exit).
• Public holders above 1%: Not Available.
• Former promoters: the Mazumder family held 56.3% until December 2023; their shares had been frozen by the exchanges in 2022. Indocrest appears to have acquired that block alongside the preferential allotment (price not available). They are now declassified.

Related-party transactions

Regulatory and legal record

Value-chain map

Market position

TIL is a specialist, not a scale player. It leads one niche (rough-terrain cranes, a market of hundreds of units a year), is a strong number in reach stackers, and is absent from the one large-volume crane category, pick-and-carry (13,000–14,000 units a year, about 90% held by Action Construction Equipment and Escorts Kubota). In larger truck, crawler and all-terrain cranes (about 1,000+ units a year) Chinese makers — Sany, XCMG, Zoomlion — dominate, and TIL’s truck-crane share collapsed from 95%+ to under 5% in a decade. ACE claims 63%+ of India’s overall mobile-crane market.

Peer comparison

Peer prices are September 2026 readings from StockAnalysis (ACE 18 Sep, Escorts 28 Sep, BEML 17 Sep, Ajax 11 Sep); TIL at 5 Oct 2026. EBITDA margin and RoE for Escorts and BEML are from older Screener snapshots and are indicative. EV/EBITDA for peers: Not Available; TIL ≈ 125x on TTM operating profit Est.. Sany India, Kalmar, Konecranes, Godrej, KION/Voltas and Toyota are unlisted or divisions; comparable financials not available.

TIL against each peer Analyst View

Porter’s five forces

Moat durability Analyst View: narrow but real in defence and aftermarket; essentially absent in commercial cranes. The industry is consolidated at the top (ACE) and fragmented by imports beneath it.

Risk register

Litigation and tax demands

• Aggregate litigation against the company ₹106.52 cr: one criminal, 25 tax, one regulatory (Letter of Offer, March 2026).
• GST: ₹32.91 cr demand including penalty and interest, before the GST Appellate Tribunal.
• Contingent liabilities at March 2025: about ₹54 cr of tax matters plus ₹30 cr of bank guarantees; ₹44.8 cr of entry-tax/VAT exposure was extinguished in FY26 for ₹5.58 cr.
• Technology-obsolescence risk is low in cranes; emission-norm transitions (BS-V / CEV-V) are the main product-compliance cost.

Quarter by quarter

Analyst questions that reveal the concerns

Guidance versus outcome — the credibility check

Recurring themes and contradictions Analyst View

• Each weak quarter pointed to the next half for improvement; the improvement that arrived was in revenue, not profit.
• “Order book” sometimes means firm orders and sometimes firm orders plus pipeline. Infomerics reports ₹340 cr at 31 Jan 2026 and ₹222 cr at 30 Apr 2026; the company’s deck shows ₹116.7 cr firm at 31 Mar 2026.
• The CONCOR order is variously ₹66.75 cr, ~₹78 cr and ~₹97 cr; defence wins ~₹88 cr or ~₹110 cr; an ~₹80 cr truck-crane order appears in one deck and not the next.
• Rough-terrain market share: 70–80% (May 2025) versus ~50% (2026).
• Tone has moved from triumphant to expansive to defensive to candid. The candour is new and worth crediting; the numbers have yet to follow.

Order book and visibility

• Coverage: standalone firm orders = 0.65x FY26 revenue; consolidated ₹539 cr ≈ 0.9x the combined FY26 revenue of TIL and Tulip (~₹600 cr) Est..
• Execution cycle: the book usually clears within about nine months; retail reach stackers 2–3 months; defence 2–3+ quarters. Infomerics says 12–18 months.
• Implied FY26 order inflow: ≈ ₹360 cr (opening ~80, closing ~117, revenue 323), a book-to-bill of about 1.1x Est.. The company does not disclose book-to-bill.
• “Pipeline” is L1 positions, bids submitted, expected tenders and enquiries — not contracted.

Management guidance and consensus

Valuation

Scenarios are illustrative arithmetic, not forecasts or price targets. Peer multiples are on the Competitive Position tab: ACE 4.3x sales and 33.5x earnings; Ajax 3.2x and 29.8x; BEML 3.7x; Escorts Kubota 2.6x.

Base case — most likely over 12–18 months Analyst View

Consolidated revenue rises sharply in FY27 because Tulip is consolidated for nearly eleven months, to somewhere around ₹650–750 cr, with standalone TIL growing 15–25%. Blended EBITDA margins settle in the 6–8% range, lumpy by quarter. Interest falls somewhat after the rights money but the company remains near break-even at the net level. Working capital improves slowly. The NCD is refinanced with group support. One more capital raise or a further Tulip stake purchase from the promoter is likely. On those numbers the stock has little fundamental support at 5x sales, and returns depend on sentiment toward defence names rather than on earnings.

How to read this list

All sources were accessed between 6 and 8 October 2026. Company filings and decks were read directly where marked; some were read through secondary summaries. Figures tagged Fact trace to a source below, Est. are calculated here, and Analyst View are the analyst’s assessment.

Company filings, presentations and transcripts

Financial databases

Credit ratings

Capital raising and corporate actions

Promoter and group

News and trade press

Peers

What could not be obtained

• FY24–FY26 annual reports in full — BSE refused automated download. Missing as a result: rupee split of inventory, receivables and payables; long- vs short-term debt; related-party amounts beyond Tulip; verbatim audit qualifications; secretarial audit remarks; director appointment dates and pay.
• Quartr and FMP — both connectors declined on the current subscription plans, so no data came from them.
• Infomerics rationales of 16 Mar 2026 and 1 Jul 2025, and the lender-wise annexure.
• The 8 October 2026 forfeiture filing — only its listing title was seen.
• CARE monitoring agency report on rights-issue proceeds (30 Jun 2026).
• Not found anywhere: product-wise revenue, FY26 unit volumes, export revenue, post-rights debt, promoter loan amounts, pledge confirmation, public holders above 1%, broker coverage, pre-2024 rating history, ICEMA data, the sale price of the Caterpillar dealership in 2016.

Where sources disagree