Altman Z″
Needs current assets and current liabilities.
A plain-language read of the business, how it actually earns, where the edge is, and the economics of every reported segment — taken from the annual report and investor presentation, not a one-line industry label.
Trading at 21.6x earnings against its own median of 21.9x: 0.0 standard deviations below its usual range. This compares the company with its own history, not with other companies.
How to read this: Price shows the closing price with its 50-day (amber) and 200-day (grey) averages; bars at the bottom are daily volume, green on up days and red on down days; dashed lines mark the 52-week high and low. vs Nifty 50 starts both at 100 so you can see which did better over the period. P/E shows what the market paid for each rupee of profit, inside the band it usually trades in. Drawdown shows how far below its best price the share has been. Hover anywhere for the numbers on that day.
The three to six things that actually matter about this company, each with the exact filing and note it came from — never a fact without the context that makes it meaningful.
What the numbers mean when read together — computed from the filings, not a score.
Operating cash is only 4% of profit, and operating cash has been negative in 5 of the last 5 years — this is a pattern, not a one-off timing gap.
Why this reading: Flagged because the shortfall is persistent (5 weak years), material, and unexplained by a single year of working-capital movement.
Latest operating cash ₹-2 cr vs trailing profit ₹-46 cr. A repeated gap between profit and cash points to structural earnings quality issues rather than benign timing.
Free cash flow is negative — the business consumes more than it generates once capex is paid. Fine if it is deliberate growth investment; a problem if it is structural.
Why this reading: Noted with caution — worth watching, but not yet conclusive on its own. Business has ups and downs; one soft reading is not a verdict.
Latest free cash flow ₹-6 cr, negative in 5 of 5 years. Check whether the burn funds expansion (dark stores, plants, ports) or merely sustains operations.
Net margin improved from -13.4% to -9% year-on-year — the business is keeping more of each rupee.
Why this reading: A positive signal in the numbers, shown for balance alongside the concerns.
Quarter net margin -9% vs -13.4% four quarters earlier. Expansion from operating leverage is healthy; verify it is not a one-off gain.
Every score below is calculated here from the reported numbers — none of it is asserted. Open the notebook at the foot of the section to see each formula with this company's figures in it.
Needs current assets and current liabilities.
Piotroski F-Score — fundamental momentum — Joseph Piotroski, University of Chicago, 2000, in a study of whether accounting signals could improve returns among cheap stocks.
Nine yes-or-no tests across profitability, leverage and operating efficiency. Each pass scores one. It asks a narrow question: is this business getting better or worse on its own terms, year over year?
How to read it7 or more suggests improving fundamentals; 3 or fewer suggests deterioration. It measures direction, not quality — a weak company improving can score higher than a strong one holding steady.
Where it failsA single year of comparison, so one unusual year distorts it. Says nothing about valuation, competitive position or management. Piotroski designed it to rank already-cheap stocks, not to judge a company in isolation.
Needs trade receivables, current assets, other expenses.
Accruals are -7.8% of assets. Free cash flow negative in 5 of 5 years.
DuPont decomposition — Devised inside the DuPont Corporation in the 1920s and still the standard way to read a return on equity.
Splits return on equity into its three sources, so the same headline number can be traced to very different businesses.
How to read itA 20% ROE built on margin and turnover is a different proposition from a 20% ROE built on 3× leverage. The first survives a downturn; the second amplifies it.
Where it failsA single year. Negative equity makes it meaningless. Leverage is structural for lenders, so the third term carries no signal there.
Capital is going in far faster than revenue is coming out. For a business mid-build that is expected — the test is whether it converts.
cumulative operating cash flow ÷ cumulative net profit
₹-513 cr ÷ ₹-858 cr, over 5 years
0.60×
Below 1.0 and persistent means profit is being recognised before the cash arrives.(net profit − operating cash flow) ÷ average total assets
(₹-46 − ₹-2) cr ÷ average assets
-7.8%
Negative means cash exceeded profit — the healthier reading. Positive above ~10% is where accruals start to dominate earnings.net margin × asset turnover × leverage
-9.0% × 0.89 × 5.61
-45.1%
Splits ROE into whether returns come from operations or from borrowing.EBIT ÷ finance cost
₹-36 cr ÷ ₹2 cr
-18.00×
How many times operating profit covers the interest bill.borrowings ÷ net worth
₹20 cr ÷ ₹102 cr
0.20×
Read against the sector — infrastructure carries more than software.growth in fixed assets + CWIP, against growth in revenue
capital +174% vs revenue +-6%, FY2022 to FY2026
180pp gap
Money going in far faster than revenue coming out. For an incubator this is expected — the test is whether it eventually converts.Needs more balance-sheet detail (only 3 of 6 flags testable).
NOPAT over equity plus debt less cash, at a notional 25% tax. Incremental ROIC is the return on money put in since then — the number that decides whether growth creates value or consumes it.
Return on invested capital, and incremental ROIC — Standard in corporate finance; the incremental form was popularised by Michael Mauboussin as the test of whether growth creates value.
ROIC measures what the business earns on all the capital it employs — equity plus debt, less cash. Incremental ROIC asks a sharper question: what has it earned on the money put in since a chosen year?
How to read itROIC comfortably above the cost of capital — call it 11–13% in India — means growth compounds. Below it, growth consumes. Incremental below headline means recent investment is earning less than the legacy business.
Where it failsDistorted in the year of a large acquisition. Understated for companies mid-build, where capital is deployed but capacity has not yet been commissioned — an incubator will look poor until it does not.
Read downward. Cash can cover EBITDA and still not survive capex — the third rung is where a capital-hungry business shows itself.
The earnings quality ladder — Not a named model — the standard sequence an analyst walks when testing whether reported profit is real.
Three ratios read in order, each stricter than the last.
How to read itRead downward. Each rung failing where the one above passed tells you exactly where the cash is going.
Where it failsA single year of heavy capex depresses the third rung legitimately. Judge it across a cycle.
Against a policy rate near 6%, most sound Indian corporates borrow between 7% and 10%.
Cost of debt — Interest expense over average borrowings — the effective rate the company actually pays.
What the lenders charge, which is a market verdict on credit quality that no rating agency delay affects.
How to read itAgainst a policy rate near 6%, most sound Indian corporates borrow between 7% and 10%. Read the direction over years as much as the level.
Where it failsUnderstated where a large share of interest is capitalised into projects under construction. Not meaningful for lenders, where interest is cost of goods.
Some figures appear twice on this page with different values. That is not an error — they sit on different bases. The live feed reports a rolling twelve months; everything computed here comes from the last audited statements. Both are shown so you can see which is which.
Where the two disagree, every model, screen and ratio computed on this page uses the filed figure, because the rest of the page is on that basis.
Models that need these lines are withheld rather than estimated: net worth, current assets, current liabilities, trade receivables, inventory, net block. Nothing on this page is back-solved from a figure the company did not publish.
Each framework below is a set of stated, mechanical criteria from published work, run against this company's own filed numbers. Passing or failing a screen is not a verdict — different frameworks disagree by design, and that disagreement is itself informative.
Benjamin Graham's stated criteria for a defensive stock, applied to the filed numbers. A company failing several is not disqualified — Graham designed these to be deliberately strict.
Two ratios only: what the business earns on its capital, and what you pay for those earnings. Designed to be ranked across a universe rather than read in isolation.
The fundamental half of William O'Neil's framework. The market and leadership components are judgement calls and are not scored here.
The characteristics long-term holders commonly look for: cash-backed earnings, high returns on capital, and debt that never forces a decision.
Median of the companies we hold in the same sector (Capital Goods). Every figure on both sides is the live feed's trailing twelve months, so the two are measured the same way whatever depth of extraction this company has had. A number only means something next to something else — expensive against the market and cheap against peers are different facts.
Bars are revenue; the line is net margin. Revenue rising while the line falls is the shape worth noticing.
Operating cash first, then what the business spent and raised.
One year is a snapshot. These are the two lines that matter across a cycle.
Rising debtor or inventory days against flat sales is the earliest visible sign of stress.
Set your own assumptions and watch the numbers move. A scenario calculator — the outputs are the arithmetic of your inputs.
One canonical set of figures — the same numbers used everywhere else on this page and on the screener.
How the register has moved over recent quarters — the direction matters more than the level.
Promoter held steady from 65.42% to 65.42% across these quarters.
FII trimmed from 10.36% to 7.82% across these quarters.
MF rose from 0.50% to 1.31% across these quarters.
Other rose from 23.72% to 25.45% across these quarters.
Where cash gets stuck. A rising inventory or debtor line against flat sales is the earliest sign of trouble in the numbers.
| Measure | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Debtor days
How long customers take to pay | 9 | 8 | 31 | 25 | 16 |
| Cash conversion cycle
Debtor + inventory − payable days | 9 | 8 | 31 | 25 | 16 |
| Working capital days | -32 | -40 | 2 | -147 | -51 |
| ROCE %
Return on capital employed | — | -149.0% | — | -96.0% | -15.0% |
What this sector is read on: Order inflow, Order book, Book to bill, Execution rate, Unbilled revenue, Customer advances, Government share of book, Working capital days. These come from the filings, not the market feed, and appear here once a quarter is read.
Read using the Capital goods and EPC framework (from the listed sector). Primary valuation lens: P/E against order book quality.
Read more closely in this sector: Unbilled revenue growing faster than billed receivables · Order inflow against execution · Bank guarantees outstanding growing faster than the order book · Liquidated damages or cost overruns disclosed.
The shape of the business over time (annual) — read the direction, not the single print.
| Line | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue from operations | 472 | 540 | 380 | 395 | 510 |
| Other income | 39 | 24 | 1 | -62 | 27 |
| Depreciation | 50 | 20 | 8 | 11 | 13 |
| Finance cost | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Profit before tax | -126 | -507 | -46 | -121 | -38 |
| Net profit (owners) | -125 | -510 | -51 | -126 | -46 |
| EPS (₹) | -508.93 | -12.84 | -1.46 | -3.50 | -1.35 |
Exceptional items, total income and EBITDA are read from the filed statements.
| Metric | Sep 2024 | Sep 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 181 | 244 |
| Other Income | -68 | 7 |
| Expenses | 215 | 263 |
| Depreciation | 4 | 8 |
| Finance cost | 1 | 1 |
| Profit before tax | -108 | -19 |
| Net Profit | -110 | -22 |
| EPS | -2.85 | -0.66 |
| Item | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equity Capital | 0 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 45 |
| Reserves | 519 | 118 | -169 | 87 | 57 |
| Borrowings | 0 | 0 | 16 | 16 | 20 |
| Net block | 104 | 94 | 99 | 251 | 258 |
| CWIP | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 |
| Investments | 161 | 0 | 6 | 19 | 31 |
| Total Assets | 795 | 608 | 410 | 554 | 572 |
| Line | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash from operations | -91 | -338 | -55 | -27 | -2 |
| Cash from investing | 141 | 238 | -33 | -103 | 18 |
| Cash from financing | -4 | 93 | 69 | 127 | -6 |
| Free cash flow | -104 | -346 | -56 | -35 | -6 |
| Net change in cash | 45 | -8 | -18 | -3 | 10 |
Cash from operations is the number profit has to answer to. Free cash flow is what remains after the business pays for its own growth.
The part no one reads: the auditor's opinion, the contingent liabilities buried in the notes, the covenants, and the claims in the deck placed beside the figures that test them.
Where analysts pressed management on the earnings call, and exactly how management answered — the questions that were hardest to answer are usually the ones that matter.
These are coverage counts, not ratings. Each one asks a fixed set of questions of the filings and reports how many the company answered. A company that discloses nothing counts nothing here — that is a statement about the disclosure, not about the business.
The same read, applied to the companies this one competes with.
Action Construction Equipment Ltd. reported revenue of ₹244 cr for July to September 2025, +34.8% on the year and — on the quarter.
Operating profit (EBITDA) was −₹18.0 cr, a margin of −7.4%, +1,141 bps on the year and — on the quarter.
The net loss was ₹22.0 cr, with earnings per share of −₹0.66.
Capital goods and EPC revenue follows project execution, which makes quarters uneven; the order book and new orders tell more about the year than one quarter does. The quarterly statements do not carry the order book, new orders and working capital; those come with the filing read.
Written from the quarterly statements. The filing read adds the balance sheet and cash flow filed with this quarter, the auditor's review, segment results, one-off items line by line and what management said on the call.
No check fired. That is a statement about the checks below, not a verdict on the company.
Could not run on this quarter: Headline vs core profit, Other income carrying profit, Exceptional items that recur, Finance cost rising, Cash behind the profit, Receivables against sales, Inventory against sales, Borrowing while holding cash, Auditor's review or audit report, IPO money used as stated, Related-party transactions, Exits, postponements, restatements, Promoter pledges and allotments, Earlier promises against delivery, When the results were filed. Most need the filing read (balance sheet, cash flow, auditor, disclosures).
Net profit a year ago, each driver's change, and net profit now. Blue added profit, red took it away.
This quarter's filing carries a balance sheet and a cash flow statement. The cash, receivables and borrowing checks run once the filing read is in.
| Q2 FY25 | Q2 FY26 | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | ₹181 cr | ₹244 cr |
| YoY | — | +35% |
| EBITDA margin | −18.8% | −7.4% |
| Other income, % of PBT | — | — |
| Exceptional items | — | — |
| Tax rate | — | — |
| Net profit | −₹110 cr | −₹22.0 cr |
| YoY | — | — |
| Core profit YoY | — | — |
| EPS | −₹2.85 | −₹0.66 |
| Flags | · | ✓ |
Each quarter is read with the same rules. Balance-sheet and cash checks run on half-year and annual quarters; filing-read checks run where a read exists.