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Even although Shashikanth Suryanarayanan has constructed Sedemac as a hard-nosed entrepreneur who values conventional metrics of a sound enterprise greater than narratives, it’s onerous to take the professor out of him.
(Even brokerages and finance platforms are addressing him as “Professor” of their IPO evaluation.)
In the previous couple of years, he has carved out time from operating the corporate to periodically educate traders on what it takes to construct an IP-based know-how product firm. The $100 million spherical in 2024 got here largely from such traders and was nearly completely a secondary spherical.
Despite important investor curiosity, Sedemac didn’t elevate main capital.
The Rs 1,087 crore IPO at the moment is as soon as once more a proposal on the market (OFS), wherein newer traders, equivalent to A91 and 360 One, amongst others, will promote their shares. An OFS-only IPO just isn’t uncommon as of late. LG Electronics, WeWork, and, previous to that, Hyundai Motors India, raised almost Rs 43,000 crore on the inventory change with out taking any cash into the corporate.
But Suryanarayanan goes to nice lengths to clarify why Sedemac isn’t promoting shares to capitalise itself. In the 9 months of FY26, the corporate reported income of Rs 770 crore, greater than the Rs 658 crore it garnered in FY25. Its income mirror that working leverage is kicking in—at Rs 71 crore in 9M FY26, it’s 51% greater than within the earlier fiscal.
For each further greenback of income, he says, the corporate wants lower than $0.2 of capex and $0.2 of working capital. The firm can generate this from inner accruals. Suryanarayanan believes 20%+ of Ebitda can “easily fund 30–40% growth”. If the corporate grows quicker than that, it’d have to tackle debt. It is aware of the drill; for six years till June 2024, the corporate didn’t elevate any cash.
That’s environment friendly capital use in an automotive electronics enterprise that’s R&D- and capex-heavy. At an annualised ahead FY26 price-to-earnings a number of of 62–63, it’s costlier than Indian opponents equivalent to Sona Comstar (54–56X) and world leaders like Bosch (37X).
In late 2024, when I asked Suryanarayanan why, whilst a non-public firm, he had been holding half-yearly investor calls, he mentioned: “Most individuals don’t imagine in [or understand fresh technology].
