S&W Renewable Q2: PAT ₹16.8 Cr vs year-ago loss, revenue -13% YoY, margins stay thin

Sterling and Wilson Renewable Energy's consolidated Q2 FY27 print looks like a turnaround on the surface — profit after tax of ₹16.8 Cr against a ₹477.6 Cr loss a year ago — but the swing is almost entirely a base effect. Q2 FY26 absorbed a ₹580.1 Cr exceptional charge below the operating line; this quarter carries none. Strip that out and pre-exceptional PBT fell to ₹16.8 Cr from ₹76.7 Cr a year ago (-78%), and an adjusted year-ago PAT of roughly ₹102.5 Cr (reported -₹477.6 Cr plus the ₹580.1 Cr add-back) against this quarter's ₹16.8 Cr works out to an adjusted YoY decline of about 84%. Revenue also fell, down 12.6% YoY to ₹1,527.5 Cr and 3.9% QoQ from ₹1,590.1 Cr. On an adjusted basis this is a weak quarter, not a recovery. Margins compressed sequentially: consolidated net margin fell to 1.1% from 3.3% in Q1 FY27, even as it improved from -25.7% a year ago (the exceptional-item quarter). EPC segment gross margin — revenue less construction materials and direct project costs — held at roughly 9.2%, inside the 8-10% band management guided for FY27, so core EPC execution economics are intact even as absolute profit stays thin. O&M revenue came in at ₹183.9 Cr for H1 FY27, an annualised run-rate of roughly ₹368 Cr that still trails the ₹400-450 Cr full-year range management guided, though running well ahead of FY26's ₹268 Cr. Against the pre-result preview we published, the print lands in line: expected revenue of ₹1,500-1,650 Cr (actual ₹1,527.5 Cr) and gross margin of 9-11% (actual ~9.2%) both fell inside the flagged range, and the "watch for a swing" call on EBITDA/PAT resolved positive. We could not source a fresh street consensus specific to this print; the FY27 consensus figures on file (revenue ₹86.4 Cr, EPS ₹12.50) are inconsistent with the company's actual revenue scale and look like a data error, so vsStreet rests on the preview range rather than a formal consensus. Against management's own guidance, the quarter actually confirms what was flagged on the last call — a Q2 slowdown ahead of an H2 ramp — and revenue softened as expected while EPC margin stayed in-band. What it does do is raise the bar for H2: H1 FY27 consolidated revenue of ₹3,117.6 Cr is down about 11.2% YoY against H1 FY26's ₹3,510.2 Cr, so hitting even the low end of the already-trimmed 10-15% ex-Reliance full-year growth guidance now needs an unusually sharp H2 recovery. The quarter's other developments — a ₹27.72 Cr tax demand received September 22, a new arbitration initiated against OEG Inc., and ~₹985 Cr of fresh orders won in India and South Africa — round out a period where order intake stayed healthy (building on the record ~₹13,000 Cr UOV flagged last quarter) even as execution and profitability stayed under pressure. No company press release was available to cross-check management's own framing of the quarter.