Synopsis:- Fresh purchase orders worth approximately Rs. 18.52 crore from BHEL and Indian Railways have pushed Cranex Limited’s total order book past Rs. 100 crore, sending the stock sharply higher even as the company’s persistently stretched receivables and a qualified audit opinion on its FY26 results remain points investors will want to weigh.
A New Delhi-listed crane manufacturer’s shares surged on June 22 after the company disclosed a fresh batch of purchase orders for EOT cranes and related products. The orders, aggregating to approximately Rs. 18.52 crore, were received from Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited and Indian Railways for workshop infrastructure projects. The disclosure, filed under Regulation 30 of the SEBI Listing Regulations, noted that with these additions, the company’s total order book has now crossed Rs. 100 crore.
With a market capitalisation of Rs. 54.05 crore, the shares of Cranex Limited were trading at Rs. 82.27 per share, up 8.97 percent from its previous closing price of Rs. 75.50 apiece. It is trading at a P/E of 27.36.
Order Update
The fresh orders break down into four separate purchase orders. BHEL-Yamuna Nagar placed an order for two double-girder EOT cranes above 100 tonnes for the 1×800 MW Yamuna Nagar thermal power plant, valued at approximately Rs. 8.14 crore, with execution due by August 12, 2027. BHEL-Mahagenco Koradi placed a similar order for two double-girder EOT cranes above 100 tonnes for the 2×660 MW Mahagenco Koradi thermal power plant, also valued at approximately Rs. 8.48 crore and due by the same date.
Eastern Railway’s Kanchrapara division ordered two 5-tonne EOT cranes worth approximately Rs. 0.80 crore, due by March 20, 2027, while Indian Railways’ Banaras Locomotive Works in Varanasi ordered two more 5-tonne EOT cranes worth approximately Rs. 1.11 crore, due by June 20, 2027. The company confirmed none of the four orders involve promoter-group interest or qualify as related-party transactions.
Against FY26 standalone sales of Rs. 55.37 crore, the fresh order batch alone amounts to roughly 33.5 percent of one year’s revenue, and the company’s order book crossing Rs. 100 crore represents close to two years of revenue coverage at the current run rate. The filing also flagged that the existing order book carries work from BEML tied to railway projects, including the Vande Bharat programme, alongside defence-sector projects across India both of which point to a customer base concentrated in public-sector infrastructure and railway modernisation rather than private industrial capex.
Working Capital and Earnings Quality
Cranex’s order momentum needs to be read alongside a balance sheet that has carried persistent strain for years. Debtor days stood at 240.8 in FY26, up from 227.8 in FY25, continuing a pattern that has kept receivables above 150 days in nine of the last twelve fiscal years. The cash conversion cycle came in at 231 days for FY26, and working capital days have risen from roughly 27 days in FY24 to 114.6 days in FY26 as the company’s revenue base and order execution have scaled up.
Cash from operating activity was negative Rs. 1.23 crore in FY26, continuing a run of operating cash outflows in nine of the past twelve years, while operating profit for the same year was a positive Rs. 4.54 crore a gap that means reported operating profitability is not translating into cash collection from the business. Free cash flow was also negative, at Rs. 1.81 crore for FY26.
A separate item worth flagging directly: the company’s board, at its May 29, 2026 meeting approving the FY26 audited results, disclosed that auditors issued a qualified opinion on those results. The nature of the qualification was not detailed in the order-related filing reviewed here, and would need to be checked against the full audited financial statements before drawing conclusions, but a qualified opinion on annual results is a material disclosure in its own right and sits alongside the receivables and cash-flow pattern as a reason for caution even as the order book expands.
On the growth side, Cranex’s five-year sales growth has been a modest 9.2 percent, though profit growth has picked up more sharply, with net profit rising from Rs. 1.52 crore in FY24 to Rs. 1.95 crore in FY25 and Rs. 2.41 crore in FY26, aided by operating margin expansion from under 5 percent in FY24 to over 8 percent in FY26. Return on equity, however, remains low at 9.39 percent for the latest year, and the company has not paid a dividend despite reporting profits across the period shown.
Business Overview
Cranex Limited, incorporated in 1973, manufactures cranes and construction equipment including electric overhead travelling cranes, gantry cranes, elevators and escalators. For FY26, the company reported standalone sales of Rs. 55.37 crore and net profit of Rs. 2.41 crore, with return on capital employed at 10.4 percent. Promoter holding stood at 47.7 percent as of the latest available shareholding data.
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