SSWL Q2 FY27: consolidated PAT jumps 229% YoY as margins expand, revenue up 61%

Steel Strips Wheels' consolidated Q2 FY27 (quarter ended September 30, 2026) print is led by profitability, not just topline: consolidated PAT of ₹116.95 Cr is up 229.3% YoY (from ₹35.52 Cr) and 68.4% QoQ, well ahead of revenue growth of 60.8% YoY (₹1,929.92 Cr vs ₹1,200.57 Cr) and 27.8% QoQ. Standalone tells the same story (PAT ₹118.78 Cr, +234% YoY). There were no exceptional items in the current, year-ago or sequential columns, so the growth is organic rather than one-off-driven. The PAT outrunning revenue is a margin story: consolidated NPM more than doubled to 6.06% (from 2.96% a year ago, 4.60% last quarter) and operating margin expanded to ~12.2% from 9.29% YoY and 10.79% QoQ. The expansion sits almost entirely on fixed-cost leverage rather than input costs — employee expense fell to 6.9% of revenue (from 8.68% YoY) and other expenses to 14.0% (from 17.5% YoY), even as the materials-cost ratio held roughly flat; depreciation rose 42.6% YoY on new capacity but was absorbed by the volume gain. This comfortably beats management's own FY27 guidance of 15-20% PAT growth and ~20% revenue growth to ₹6,000 Cr standalone turnover (set on the July 2026 concall): H1 FY27 standalone PAT of ₹190.29 Cr is already 94% of all of FY26's full-year PAT, and H1 diluted EPS of ₹11.83 sits close to the Street's full-year FY27 consensus EPS of ₹13.40 cited in pre-result coverage — a number that will likely need upgrading. Our pre-result preview flagged PAT growth of ~25-35% YoY as the expectation; the actual +229% print is far outside that band. The print came alongside two other board actions: a ₹1,400 Cr greenfield facility approved for Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (alloy wheels, steel wheels and hot-stamping, phased over 60 months) and an interim dividend of ₹1.50/share. The company had also flagged a record monthly sales turnover for September 2026 ahead of this result, consistent with the quarter's revenue acceleration. No management press release accompanied this filing, so there is no verbatim commentary to reconcile beyond the board's concurrent actions (new VP Finance hire, board reconstitution after a director's cessation, and continued promoter-linked share purchases through late September). Going into H2 FY27, the question is whether this pace of operating leverage holds as the new ₹1,400 Cr greenfield capex — on top of the previously flagged alloy-wheel push to 6.2 million units by FY27 — phases in; higher depreciation and funding costs typically precede volume payoff. The September 2026 record-sales month suggests near-term momentum is intact, but the scale of this quarter's YoY jump (PAT nearly 3.3x) is partly a soft-base effect from a weak year-ago quarter, worth watching as H2 comparisons normalize.