Why:
- The year being sold is weaker than it looks. FY2026 revenue grew 6% on aluminium prices while physical output fell 4%, in a year the market leader Apar grew volumes 9% (T1, T2). Strip the year's one-off tax write-back, first-time cost capitalisation and derivative gains and operating profit fell like-for-like by 6% to 11% (T1).
- Profit does not become cash, and part of the debt is out of sight. Three years of ₹371 crore of profit produced ₹18 crore of operating cash, a third of the receivable book is over six months old with no added provision, and ₹595 crore of interest-bearing supplier credit sits outside the reported debt line, putting true leverage near 4x EBITDA before this IPO repays some of it (T1).
- The family runs a same-size listed competitor. The promoter's brother runs Laser Power and Infra, the half of this business demerged in 2019: same products, same customers, same city, listed six weeks before this offer, absent from the filing's peer table, with no non-compete anywhere (T1, T2). A family firm also supplies 12% of raw material at subsidised rates the listed company cannot get, on terms the filing calls both cheaper-than-ours and arm's-length (T1).
Valuation at the band
| Floor ₹78 (T1) | Cap ₹82 (T1) | |
|---|---|---|
| Bid window | 27 to 31 August 2026 | |
| Bid lot | 182 shares | |
| Fresh shares | 64,102,564 | 60,975,610 |
| Post-issue shares | 307,680,660 | 304,553,706 |
| Market capitalisation | ₹2,400 cr | ₹2,497 cr |
| P/E on FY2026 profit | 15.0x | 15.6x |
| P/E excluding the year's one-off gains | 17.5x | 18.2x |
| EV/EBITDA (net debt as reported) | 11.3x | 11.7x |
| EV/EBITDA (illustrative, net of the ₹337 cr earmarked repayment) | 9.9x | 10.3x |
| Promoter and family holding after | 70.8% | 72.0% |
Against the filing's own peer table (19.81x to 108.66x, average 48.55x) the offer is priced below the cheapest peer, and it also sits below the 19.8x at which the promoter family's sibling company listed six weeks earlier (T1, T3). The price does not move the verdict: the six ratings judge the business, not the tag.
The story
A buyer gets a Kolkata conductor and cable maker riding India's power-grid build-out. The conductor line went from 17% to 36% of revenue in two years and now earns a visibly higher conversion spread per tonne, sold increasingly to private transmission builders rather than state utilities. Around it sit a projects arm with a record ₹3,150 crore order book, a balance sheet that has run on supplier credit, and a family that kept an identical twin of this business outside the listing.
What this business is
Lumino makes aluminium conductors (the bare wires strung on transmission towers) and power cables at a single Howrah plant of 40,000 tonnes a year, and separately builds power distribution and substation projects for state utilities as a turnkey contractor. Manufacturing is now 70% of revenue and growing; the projects arm is being deliberately shrunk toward better-margin work. Customers moved sharply in two years: government fell from 86% to 53% of revenue as private transmission companies took its conductors (T1).
Money is made two ways: a conversion spread over the aluminium price on every tonne of product, and contract margins on projects. The metal cost passes through most contracts, so the real product business is the spread, and that spread rose 64% per kilogram over two years, which is genuine mix improvement, not inflation (T1).
Easy or difficult business? Run-of-the-mill with a hard-to-earn edge. Making standard conductors is competitive tender work against rivals five to ten times larger; the difficulty worth paying for is premium products and utility approvals, where Lumino shows progress but no proven volume share. The projects business is ordinary EPC contracting won mainly on price (T1).
Key numbers
| ₹ cr | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 1,407 | 1,918 | 2,041 |
| Revenue growth % | n/a | 36.3 | 6.4 |
| EBITDA | 145 | 223 | 239 |
| EBITDA margin % | 10.3 | 11.6 | 11.7 |
| PAT | 87 | 125 | 160 |
| PAT growth % | n/a | 43.9 | 28.4 |
| Cash from operations | 101 | -239 | 156 |
FY2026 profit grew 28% on 6% revenue growth, and most of that gap is not operating: a ₹12 crore entry-tax write-back, ₹27 crore of derivative gains in other income, first-time capitalisation of construction interest, and tax credits. Like-for-like, operating profit fell. The FY2026 cash figure also leans on a re-presentation: supplier-credit movements the company itself classified as borrowings until this filing now sit inside operating cash (T1).
| Segment, ₹ cr | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing | 923 | 1,246 | 1,423 |
| Manufacturing growth % | n/a | 35.0 | 14.2 |
| Projects (EPC) | 484 | 672 | 618 |
| Projects growth % | n/a | 38.8 | -8.1 |
Manufacturing growth in FY2026 was price and mix on falling tonnage; the projects decline is described as deliberate selectivity, and its margin did improve (T1).
Scorecard
| Block | Rating | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Right to win | MARGINAL | The conversion spread per tonne rose 64% in two years against pass-through contracts that would keep it flat, eleven high-voltage projects are genuinely in execution, and private customers tripled their buying: real capability. But volumes fell in a year the market leader grew 9%, the one verifiable project win was taken by bidding 9% below the next bidder, and the flagship new plant is funded outside this IPO entirely. Real skill, no proven share win, price-led project wins. |
| Industry and TAM | PASS | India is in a verified transmission capex boom and Lumino holds about 3% of a conductor market growing double digits. Runway is not the constraint; the cautions are a flat distribution-capex outlook and a manufacturing order book that shrank while EPC filled the headline. |
| Financial momentum | MARGINAL | Two strong years, then an FY2026 whose reported growth is one-offs over a like-for-like decline, 5% three-year cash conversion, and leverage near 4x once supplier credit is counted. Against that, a certified July 2026 table shows debt down 23% before any IPO money, and the order book at a record. Genuinely mixed, one step from bad. |
| Risks, governance, RPTs | MARGINAL | No findings against anyone and disclosure is detailed. But raw material runs through a family firm on a subsidy with an undisclosed markup, an official inquiry into alleged corrupt tender practices has sat unanswered for three years in the company's core product line, and the promoter's guarantees tie this company's loan covenants to his brother's. |
| Promoter and cap table | PASS | Clean mechanics: no pledge, no options overhang, zero dividends taken, promoter pay cut while profits rose, modest selling at a below-peer price. The standing caution is the family structure itself: the twin company next door. |
| Offer structure | MARGINAL | Two-thirds of the fresh money repays revolving working-capital debt, which genuinely transforms the balance sheet, but only 3% buys any new asset, the growth capex sits outside the offer, and a quarter of the raise is unnamed general purposes. Even crediting the full interest saving, the offer dilutes earnings per share by 8 to 10%. |
Watch out for
- The next quarter decides the argument. The filing carries no stub period: five months are dark in the year the trend turned. If FY2027 shows falling tonnage again while Apar grows, the share-loss reading wins; if volumes and the July deleveraging hold, the borderline flips (T1).
- An open inquiry points at the core business. A Registrar of Companies inquiry alleges corrupt practices and non-certified material in a 220 kV government tender; the filing separately markets a 220 kV project in the same state as its flagship credential and never connects the two. No response from the regulator in three years, no finding either (T1).
- The supplier-credit machine. ₹595 crore of bank-funded supplier credit sits outside reported debt, and the cash-flow statement was voluntarily re-presented this filing in a way that flatters operating cash. The repaid limits survive and can be redrawn (T1).
- The high-voltage order book is won on price. Substations the company has barely built before are 45% of its project backlog, and its one public win came in 9% below the next of seven bidders. Revenue there is more certain than margin (T1, T3).
- Watch the brother's company. Laser Power and Infra bids for the same customers with the same products and answers to nobody in this listing. Any drift of people, orders or margin between the two houses is invisible from outside (T1, T2).
The offer
- Raising ₹700 crore at the band: ₹500 crore of fresh shares plus ₹200 crore sold by the two promoter brothers running the company, who part with 15% and 7% of their own holdings (T1).
- For repaying ₹337 crore of working-capital borrowings and ₹15 crore of plant machinery; the remaining quarter is general corporate money with no named use (T1).
- Implied valuation ₹2,400 to ₹2,497 crore, as in the table above.
- Promoters and family hold 100% before the offer and about 71 to 72% after (T1).
Initial assessment of the Red Herring Prospectus dated 20 August 2026 under the orchestrated process; the offer opens 27 August and closes 31 August 2026. No outside verification beyond the price band and offer dates, which come from the exchanges' public records and agreeing independent trackers, and named secondary checks of peer volume disclosures, rating records and the sibling company's filings, marked where used. Numbers carry source tiers: (T1) the filing's audited sections and exchange-filed peer disclosures, (T2) exchange data and rating agencies, (T3) the issuer-commissioned industry chapter and press. Not a recommendation. The valuation section states what the announced band implies and is not a view on whether that price is right.