Why:
- Profits: the earnings jump is mostly accounting shape, not better trading. FY2025's profit tripled on a closing-inventory credit that its own MD&A names as the cause, plus depreciation and interest running off a fleet that is 84.5% written down; over the last 23 months ₹23.5 crore of reported profit was matched by ₹24.4 crore flowing into receivables and inventory, so the improvement produced no cash (T1).
- Moat: every business line runs on someone else's permission. The genset and vehicle dealerships are revocable, the telecom work is subcontracted from OEMs that can in-source it, and equipment hire has no entry barriers; no competitor, market share or measured segment edge appears anywhere in the filing (T1).
- Trust: the pricing chapter overstates earnings per share 4.6 times by using pre-bonus share counts beside the correct post-bonus figure in its own notes, and the one sized opportunity it claims, a ₹4,000 crore Delhi-NCR generator-retrofit pool, has no basis in the regulations or any outside source (T1, UNVERIFIED).
Valuation at the band
| Floor ₹46 (T1) | Cap ₹48 (T1) | |
|---|---|---|
| Bid window | 28 August to 1 September 2026 | |
| Bid lot | 3,000 shares | |
| Fresh issue proceeds | ₹32 cr | ₹33 cr |
| Post-issue shares | 2,08,22,282 | 2,08,22,282 |
| Market capitalisation | ₹96 cr | ₹100 cr |
| P/E on FY2025 profit | 9.9x | 10.4x |
| P/E (illustrative, ex the FY2025 closing-inventory credit) | 94x | 98x |
| EV/EBITDA (reported net debt) | 5.7x | 5.9x |
| Promoter holding after | 58.0% | 58.0% |
The filing names no comparable listed company, so there is no issuer peer table to compare these multiples against; its own price-justification page uses pre-bonus earnings per share that overstate the number 4.6 times. The price does not move the verdict either way.
The story
A Delhi-NCR equipment-and-services house: concrete-pump and equipment hire, telecom field services for equipment makers, and genset and vehicle dealerships. Reported profit rose from ₹2.2 crore to an annualised ₹15 crore in three years on flat revenue, and most of that rise dissolves under inspection into an inventory credit and old assets finishing their depreciation.
What this business is
Paluck hires out concrete pumps, transit mixers and construction equipment to cement and infrastructure companies, provides installation and maintenance field services to telecom equipment makers such as ZTE and Nokia, and holds dealerships for Kirloskar gensets and two-wheeler and commercial vehicles, with workshops attached. Revenue has been roughly flat at ₹100 crore for three years. The customer list is concentrated but improving: the top ten fell from 66% to 45% of revenue.
The fleet that earns the hire revenue is 84.5% depreciated, and the company has spent almost nothing replacing it: capex was ₹1.2 crore over three years against ₹13.7 crore of depreciation. The IPO's main object buys one concrete batching plant and transit mixers, which restarts the depreciation the profit growth was built on.
Easy or difficult business? Run-of-the-mill. Hiring out equipment, dealership retail and subcontracted field work are all competitive trades with no product of Paluck's own; the filing's own risk factors say the dealerships are discretionary and the telecom work can be taken back in-house.
Key numbers
| ₹ cr | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 92.3 | 100.7 | 102.8 |
| Revenue growth % | n/a | 9.2 | 2.1 |
| Gross margin % | 30.5 | 24.9 | 31.0 |
| EBITDA | 14.8 | 13.3 | 19.0 |
| EBITDA margin % | 16.1 | 13.2 | 18.5 |
| PAT | 2.2 | 3.4 | 9.6 |
| PAT growth % | n/a | 57.6 | 180.6 |
The eleven months to February 2026 show revenue of ₹105 crore and profit of ₹13.8 crore. Profit grew while revenue did not because costs fell: 58% of the two-year pre-tax rise is depreciation and interest running off, and FY2025's operating margin contains a ₹11.5 crore closing-inventory credit its own MD&A names as the driver. Strip that credit and FY2025 pre-tax profit is below FY2024's.
| Segment, ₹ cr | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automobile and engineering services | 44.2 | 44.6 | 46.8 |
| Auto and engineering growth % | n/a | 0.9 | 4.9 |
| Logistics and equipment rental | 48.1 | 56.1 | 56.0 |
| Logistics and rental growth % | n/a | 16.7 | -0.2 |
The stub period's segment split is a fixed 51/49 allocation of company totals, not a measurement, so no segment margin can be read from it.
Scorecard
| Block | Rating | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Right to win | FAIL | Nothing defends any line. Dealerships are revocable at the principal's discretion, telecom work is subcontracted and in-sourceable, equipment hire has no barriers, and the filing names no competitor and claims no share anywhere. The one segment presented as improving turns out to be an allocation artefact: the stub segment note splits every line 51/49 by formula, so its 23% margin is arithmetic, not trading. |
| Industry and TAM | MARGINAL | Four real demand pools (infra capex, telecom rollout, NCR gensets, dealership retail) and no ceiling at this size, but no defensible place in any of them; the only sized claim did not survive checking. |
| Financial momentum | FAIL | Flat revenue for three years; the profit surge is an inventory credit plus cost runoff and converted to no cash. |
| Risks, governance, RPTs | MARGINAL | No extraction, promoters lend ₹5.3 crore interest-free; but lender defaults, a bounced ₹5.2 crore cheque, PF and GST chronically late including after the DRHP, and FY23-24 audits qualified. |
| Promoter and cap table | MARGINAL | Clean share count and everything locked; against that, one promoter sold 18.7% of his own stock at book value weeks around the IPO resolutions, to buyers the filing leaves unclear. |
| Offer structure | PASS | 100% fresh, no selling shareholders, real capex quotations from unrelated vendors, honest working-capital arithmetic once recomputed. |
Watch out for
- A ₹5.2 crore cheque to a lender was stopped in May 2025 and a criminal complaint under section 138 is pending (T1). This happened inside the window reporting 30% return on net worth.
- The promoter share sales at ₹23 (book value, half the last outside mark) straddle the board and shareholder resolutions approving the IPO, and the filing gives four inconsistent accounts of where part of the shares went (T1).
- The IPO's capex restarts ₹3 crore a year of depreciation in the flat-revenue segment whose cost runoff produced most of the profit growth (T1).
The offer
- Raising up to ₹33 crore at the cap, entirely a fresh issue; nobody sells (T1).
- For a concrete batching plant and transit mixers (₹10 crore), working capital (₹10 crore), repayment of ₹3.1 crore of bank and NBFC debt, and general corporate purposes.
- Implied valuation ₹96 to ₹100 crore, from the table above.
- Promoters hold 86.6% before the offer and 58.0% after, diluted only by the fresh issue; their ₹5.3 crore of interest-free loans to the company stay in (T1).
Initial assessment from the RHP only, with no outside verification beyond the price band and offer dates, which come from the BSE public records, and a bounded outside check on the generator-retrofit claim, tiered where cited. Numbers carry source tiers: (T1) the filing's audited sections, (T3) press or commissioned sources, UNVERIFIED where nothing supports them. Not a recommendation. The valuation section states what the announced band implies and is not a view on whether that price is right.