Rishikesh Shah, in conversation with Karunya, shares the journey of HRS Aluglaze as a homegrown player in aluminium glazing, highlighting its integrated design-to-installation model and strong presence in real estate and infrastructure. He outlines growth driven by design-and-build capabilities, geographic expansion, and a focus on building in-house solutions to enhance efficiency and profitability.
Karunya Rao: Hello and welcome to SmallCap Spotlight. I’m Karunya and today we’ll be chatting with the management of HRS Aluglaze, which is a pioneer company in premium aluminium glazing solutions. They deliver innovative, durable and aesthetically superior windows and doors.
So let’s chat with them to find out what exactly is the way forward, how they began and which way are they headed. Joining us today is the company’s promoter and executive director, Mr. Hrishikesh Shah, who will be talking to us about the way forward for the company. Hrishikesh, welcome to SmallCap Spotlight.
Thank you so much. So first things first, I want to understand exactly what is it that HRS Aluglaze does. So if you could start by telling us about your products, who your big clients are, who do you supply to and give a little bit of a background about the company.
Hrishikesh Shah: So to start with, HRS Aluglaze is a homegrown brand started by Rupesh Shah in 2012 and we are into fenestration and fabrication of aluminium and UPVC products. Majorly our clientele is out of the real estate and the infrastructure business. We deal with private real estate developers, government bodies.
We deal with contractors like Tata Projects, PSP, L&T and all. We majorly, to specify more on to the product offerings, we majorly deal into aluminium profile doors, windows, railings, grass railings, curtain wall facades, stone cladings, GFRC works and many more. Along with this, for a lot of clients, we service them with a design and build kind of a model where from the inception of the project, we develop an entire new product for them.
We design them, we get it extruded from well-known extruders, we get it in our premises and then we do all the fabrication and fenestration job and we get it installed and at their project and the entire journey is monitored by our own team only, be it fabrication, be it coating, be it installation, be it logistics, everything.
Karunya Rao: So, the company has been around for a while, Rishikesh. Tell us about your role, what made you join the company, be a part of HRS Aluglaze and how has your journey been so far, how has it shaped up since you’ve been associated with it?
Hrishikesh Shah: Okay, so to answer this question very well, I want to go back more into the history of our company.
HRS Aluglaze as a company got started in 2012 but this journey of fabrication and fenestration industry started way back in 1991 by Mr. Rupesh Shah. There was no such inspiration to start a business, it was only a need to feed ourselves which told him to start a business as early as possible and going forward, he figured out that this particular industry is something he should be in and he started it very well in 1991. Eventually, it just shaped as a private limited company in 2012 by the name of HRS Aluglaze.
When it comes to how is this industry and what is the significant things that Mr. Rupesh Shah has done is this is a quite unorganised industry when it comes to aluminium products and aluminium profile and design and build and everything. He made it very organised when it came to team building, when it came to infrastructure development, when it came to expansion, strategic decisions, time-to-time expansion and looking at it, I figured out that in 2021, I made a decision that I want to be a part of this company as well. Since last four years, I have been an active member and active participant in a very important role for this company.
Since 2012, I have been looking for all the strategic decisions of the company when it comes to expansions, when it comes to new product development, getting new business under the company, territory expansion, product category expansions, doing joint ventures or associations with fellow fabricator partners or associated partners in other cities or other states. When it comes to my role, I am more towards the strategy, team building and expansion part, territory part and I look forward to do the same for this company and build the company way more stronger in the future.
Karunya Rao: So, before we talk more about the company’s growth plans, if you could also help us understand the opportunity in India’s aluminium facade and glazing market.
How big is the market? How big a player are you? What is your share perhaps in this ecosystem?
Hrishikesh Shah: So, to answer this, the market is quite big. The fenestration and fabrication industry is around 50,000 crores in India right now as of 2024 and as I mentioned, it is a quite unorganised market. There are no such big players in the market who are doing thousands of crores in terms of revenue.
When we talk about ourselves, we are one of the strongest and the leading fabricators in the territory of Gujarat. The way we are building ourselves, we are ensuring to be one of the best in the coming few years for the entire nation and as I said, because it is an unorganised market, there is no particular percentage of the market share which I want to specify on but I can surely say that going forward, we would be one of those companies who have all the end-to-end solution, entire supply chain solution and one of the strongest core foundation companies in the entire country. Interesting.
Karunya Rao: Of course, we would be very interested to know how you plan to do that but before, if you could tell us out of the key services and products that you offer to your clients, what is the most profitable or highest margin yielding product and service that you offer and going forward also, do you see that segment giving you enough margins and enough leeway for growth or will you be focussing and expanding into more territories?
Hrishikesh Shah: So, when it comes to profitability, the point I mentioned design and build. Design and build is something which gives us that potential to outshine in comparison to other fabricators present in the market. It is something which is quite profitable when it comes to the conventional fabrication business.
Along with that, the retail market, the way retail market is growing in India, it is way too big. Individual industries and bungalows and factories are building up like anything. They are growing at a very rapid rate, helping us to do more retail projects and I feel whenever we have a good proportion of design and build projects and retail projects, it will help us to grow more into the profits and when I talk about territory expansion, why we do territory expansions? To make the company more creditable, more sustainable, doing and getting more associations and joint ventures with the fellow associate partners.
So, looking forward, I feel that design and build is a good service and business for good profits and retail market, the way it is growing, we are quite bullish on that as well. So, I feel the expansion or the goal is to be in this only, like not only staying towards these two particular fields but many more as well. But these are going to be something which the company is focussing on and we are actively building a team as well and we have the set infrastructure ready already.
So, looking forward to just capitalise it.
Karunya Rao: So, are you making any investments or outlays for the expansion or the growth that you’re looking at or is it all taken care of as of now?
Hrishikesh Shah: So, when it comes to infrastructure or capital investment, everything is taken care of as of now. We have one of the best machineries in the country.
We have an integrated powder coating solution as well. We have our own design and build team as well. We do structural engineering as well.
The only thing which we want to capitalise going forward is we’ll keep on building our teams and expanding on the basis of our teams and going forward, we feel that there is no such capital investment required particularly to grow our business more in the future.
Karunya Rao: Okay, interesting. So, if you could also tell us about what is it that HRS Aluglaze offers or what is it that differentiates you from other facade and glazing companies that are operating within the space?
Hrishikesh Shah: To start with, we are one of those companies who deal both into aluminium profile products and new PVC products as well.
Both of their markets are way too different. Ultimately, it caters the private real estate market and the institutions and the government bodies but the market size for both the businesses are very different. Fortunately, we are servicing clients from both the industries.
So, it is one of the differentiators. Along with that, we have our own powder coating plant. So, it is something which is a backward integration which helps us, the company, to break its time which is being taken by the other outsourced players because majorly when we talk about fabrication and fenestration, major players in the country, they only do the cutting part, the machining part, assembly work, they do the installation, that’s it.
But we have our own powder coating unit which helps us to reduce the time when it comes to deliverables. Along with that, it helps us to improve our efficiency as well because it is something which is being done in-house and it is not being outsourced compared to the other fenestrator or fabricators in the industry. Along with that, as I mentioned previously, we have our own structural engineering team.
We have our own design team. This helps us to build an entire new product line to help service our clients. We do consultations for them.
We do monitoring and observing for the new products as well for many clients. We do build them. We take care of it.
Along with that, as I mentioned, I personally look towards more joint ventures and associations with the fellow players in the market. What we do, what we intend to do is, let’s say we have a very key product in the MS part as well. So whenever we do any facade work, there are GI trays and the MS brackets that are used in the projects.
So what good thing we have done is, we have created a very good association with a local MS fabricator specifying him that these are the quantities we are going to take from you for the entire year and this is how we are going to work with you. So what happens is, it helps us to faster our entire business process because that particular fabricator is only working for us because we are satisfying his needs by giving him as much quantities as required in the entire year. This helps us getting more efficiencies.
It’s like an independent body working for us to have us more detailing and when it comes to client satisfaction, it helps us to tell the client that we have so much of backward integrations and forward integrations happening alongside the company having so many stronger associations in the market. So these are the few points which makes us differ from the other players in the market and this is something which lacks into the market. So this helps us growing more in the future as well and we feel that such associations will keep us to grow more and we look forward to get more associations whenever we go into other markets or other territories as well.
Karunya Rao: Okay, that’s good to know but if we look at more day-to-day and you know more primary challenges like raw material costs which are constantly fluctuating, there’s project delays working capital management. How are you managing these operational challenges at your end?
Hrishikesh Shah: So price fluctuations is something which a lot of people question me most of the time because even in the situation like today, there are war going on, there are no imports and exports happening of the raw material making the prices volatile. Making the prices way more volatile as compared to the way it should be volatile but you know the good part for us is we don’t work on a fixed price model.
So when any of the players work on the fixed price model, when they win a project, their prices are fixed when it comes to raw material like glass or aluminium but when it comes to us, how we take care of our projects is let’s say whenever we win a project, our prices are not fixed. We work on a base price on a Nalco LME price. So let’s say 100 rupees is something which we have agreed on the day of the work order.
It is not a fixed price going forward. Let’s say after three months when we start buying the product, buying the raw material. So at that point of the day, whenever and whatever is the price of that particular commodity is passed to the client, it is there on into our agreement from the very first day and that particular price is approved by the client.
Then we do our buying and we go forward for the execution of the projects and for this our working capital doesn’t hamper because when we work on a fixed price, then we have to buy it by the raw materials as and when the project is won by us. But the way how we work, whenever the execution is required by phase wise, we buy the raw materials parallelly. So it doesn’t hamper our working capital way too much and we work on a very flexible model when it comes to payment cycles.
So let’s say when we win a project, then 10% of that entire project cost is transferred to us. After that, we buy material and we get the other milestone of the payment, which is 20% for buying the raw materials and after buying, whenever it is there in the plant, we can raise that bill for that next 20% after which 60% of the payment is parallel to the execution. The amount of execution we do phase wise, we pass the bills, they are called as RA bills, the amount of the bills we pass, we submit, they pass it and eventually they process the payments and the last 5% is something which remains as the retention fee because in our clauses, it is mentioned that we have to service the client for the first one year after the handover.
So as soon as the first year is over, we get it our retention value. This entire payment cycle helps us to channelise our working capital. It doesn’t give a lot of load to us when it comes to working capital, helping us smooth lining our entire processes and if I talk about the duration, this entire duration of cycle is from 90 to 120 days.
Karunya Rao: Okay, that’s good to know. Could you also talk to us about how the company’s growth trajectory has been in the recent years and especially life after listing, how have things been at your end? If you could give us a glimpse into the recent trajectory. So I would love to answer this question.
It is a quite interesting question. How was the journey after getting listed?
Hrishikesh Shah: So I would say it is a great journey, it is a great feeling when it comes to your company’s getting listed but it comes with a lot of responsibilities. Now your entire business is public, you have to be very sure, you have to be very clear in your head on how you look forward to grow your business, what words you are speaking in the market, what you are talking about, how your business is going to be, the way you win projects, everything, everything is public.
So you have to ensure every single detail that is going in the market is very clear and very crystal clear when it goes to the market and I feel we were responsible, we had been building ourselves since last couple of years for this big achievement and going forward we look towards being more stronger and you know capitalise the entire situation and we feel very proud and recognised being in a situation where we are one of the only few players in the entire country as aluminium fabricators of administration who are listed on stock exchange makes us feel very responsible and strong going forward in the future. And when I talk about the growth trajectories, how the growth was for our company in the past years as you can see it in our exchanges as well, the growth has been fantastic for our company, you know growing from a very small household brand to something very big, we are looking forward for 100 crores of revenue in the coming years from a 5 crore company into a 100 crore company in last few 4-5 years the growth has been fantastic and we look forward to be you know more stronger and more you know clear about how we want to grow more in the future.
Karunya Rao: So can you give us a glimpse of that as well, what is the long-term vision and how are you planning to sustain or rather expand the growth that you’re clocking in?
Hrishikesh Shah: So as I mentioned previously we are looking more towards developing our design and build business, getting our own product solutions, getting our own design solutions, directly catering for the end consumer, breaking the entire supply chain before we used to take products from you know international system suppliers or local extruders but now we are trying to break that system and we want to replace it by getting our own products to the end consumer, helping us to grow our profits as well and our revenue targets as well.
Along with that we are building a very stronger team and we are looking for a good team development and expansion into the north eastern and the eastern part of our country. We are setting up a remote office over there, we have already people hired and we are actively looking at expanding into that particular region of the country and we want to capitalise because we feel that those tier 2 and tier 3 cities are going to be very bullish in the coming years the way the government of India is also bullish on those particular states and we have developed enough team to cater the entire region. We have hired one of the best professionals as well who were into the similar industry since us 20-25 years so like such team expansions are going on as well in the market.
Along with this we are adding few more product lines, few categories so before till now we were not into interior products you know when it comes to fabrication and fenestration we were not doing interior products. Now we have we are working on few synergies, we are trying to build few synergies for the interior part as well and we feel that eventually going forward in the coming next quarters in the coming quarters we are gonna have our own interior products as well helping us to open an absolute new market. So I feel going forward it is going to be a more broader journey, more broader line when it comes to products, when it comes to territories, when it comes to team expanding and the great part one great news is we have started quoting for international clients as well.
We have started like recently we have quoted few projects with a local with a London based company for local projects and for international projects as well. So export is a market which we have started figuring out as well so going forward it is gonna be on this lines where the company looks at expanding as well.
Karunya Rao: Have you identified any more markets where you want to expand your presence going forward?
Hrishikesh Shah: So as of now till you know I could say till 2022-23 we were only into the Gujarat market eventually we started expanding into the southern part as well.
We were into Tamil Nadu and you know Telangana we had done a few projects over there. We have been actively started working in Maharashtra as well. As I mentioned we are expanding into the north eastern in the eastern part.
So over there we will be taking care of entire West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar all the seven sisters. So it is quite of an expansion that the company is looking for because if I go back to if I go back three if I go three years back we are doing only one state. If I talk about today we are doing more than eight to ten states and to be more stronger enough we have got a you know we are trying to build a subsidiary as well in the south region to cater the entire south India to cater even the bigger areas like we are not into Delhi as of now but through that subsidiary we are looking forward to build more into the south market and into the Delhi market as well and fortunately we through that subsidiary we have started quoting for projects in Sri Lanka and Singapore as well.
So the way I can see in the coming few years the company’s presence is going to be entirely national and along with that we look forward to be present somewhere into the middle east market as well and the other neighbouring countries along with that.
Karunya Rao: Okay that’s very heartening to know I’m sure your investors and all the viewers who are also watching and hearing your vision your plans for growth and expansion will also be interested and excited to track how the story unfolds. Thank you once again Rishikesh for joining us here on SmallCap Spotlight and outlining the entire story that is playing out at HRS Aluglaz.
Hrishikesh Shah: Means a lot it was a great experience for me as well and looking forward for many such conversations in the future as well.
Karunya Rao: Likewise thank you once again.
Hrishikesh Shah: Thank you so much.