Core Energy Systems Limited Unlisted Shares

About Company

CORE Energy Systems Limited is a Mumbai-headquartered specialised engineering and EPC company that has been operating since 1997 and was incorporated as a company on 4 June 2004. It serves India's nuclear, defence, aerospace, oil & gas and clean-energy sectors. The company operates three nuclear-grade manufacturing facilities and is certified to ISO 9001, 14001, 45001 and 19443 (a nuclear-sector quality management standard). Its engineering team of 500-plus professionals has delivered over 18 million EPC man-hours.

The following table shows a 10-point analysis of CORE Energy Systems Limited (CESL). We will discuss each point in detail after this table.

Company Overview

CESL's capabilities span Engineering, Procurement & Construction (EPC), Engineered Packaged Systems (EPS), and Operations & Maintenance (O&M). Its clients include NPCIL, BARC, Indian Railways, Adani Group, Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders, Hindustan Shipyard, IOCL, and Reliance Infrastructure.

The company has two wholly owned overseas subsidiaries, Western Core Limited (UK) and Core Energoatom Machiny LLC (Russia), and an associate company, Pompetravaini Core India Private Limited. It also has ventures in Kenya (Core Nishati) and Zambia (Shakti Core).

Challenges in CORE Energy System's Business

The following are the key challenges faced by the company:

• Elongated working capital cycle: The operating cycle stood at 178 days in FY24 (107 days in FY23), driven by collection days of 181, since CESL's clients are mainly government and PSU entities that take longer to release payments, including retention money held until project completion.
• Tender-based, competitive operations: Revenue depends on winning competitively bid tenders, mostly floated by government units, which creates pressure on margins and a risk of non-receipt of contracts.
• Order book concentration: As of the January 2025 rating report, 70% of the unexecuted order book was concentrated in two clients — Tarapur Atomic Power Station (39%) and NPCIL (31%).
• Historically moderate capital structure: Overall gearing was 2.18x and debt/net cash accruals 10.73x as of 31 March 2024, though these metrics have since improved following the September 2024 equity infusion.

Financial Review of CORE Energy Systems

This review is based on Infomerics Valuation and Rating's rating rationale of 14 January 2025, which presents CESL's consolidated audited financials (CESL together with its subsidiaries and associate).

FY24 (year ended 31 March 2024, audited, consolidated)

• Total operating income was ₹113.33 crore, up 5% year-on-year from ₹108.24 crore in FY23. EBITDA rose sharply to ₹15.42 crore (13.60% margin) from ₹2.34 crore (2.16% margin) in FY23, as the company executed higher-margin contracts.
• PAT was ₹5.86 crore (5.06% margin), against ₹1.42 crore (1.28% margin) in FY23. Total debt stood at ₹67.21 crore and tangible net worth at ₹30.90 crore, giving an overall gearing ratio of 2.18x (FY23: 1.95x).
• Interest coverage improved to 3.23x (FY23: 1.02x).

9M FY25 

• The group had achieved revenue of about ₹91 crore, 52% of FY25's projected revenue, with an EBITDA margin of 11.09% for the 8-month period reported.

Capital raise

• In September 2024, promoters diluted their stake, and CESL raised ₹200 crore through private placement. Proceeds were used for working capital, to repay long-term debt, and to prepay optionally convertible preference shares (OCPS) held by the Maharashtra Defence and Aerospace Venture Fund (MDAVF).

Credit rating

• Infomerics upgraded CESL's long-term bank facilities rating to IVR BBB/Stable (from IVR BB+/Stable) and short-term facilities to IVR A3+ (from IVR A4+) in January 2025, citing the equity infusion, healthy order book, and improved profitability. 

Order book

• As of the rating date, the unexecuted order book stood at ₹366.68 crore (about 3.24x FY24 revenue), expected to be executed over 24–36 months.

Recent Developments

Here are some of the recent developments associated with the company:

• February 2026: Tarapur Atomic Power Station Unit-1 (TAPS-1) returned to the national grid after refurbishment; CORE Energy was the contractor for replacing the primary recirculation piping in both TAPS-1 and TAPS-2, per World Nuclear News.
• September 2025: CORE and Flowserve Corporation (USA) signed a technology-transfer agreement in Washington, D.C., for local manufacture of nuclear-grade Primary Coolant Pumps, following the US DOE's grant of specific authorisation to Flowserve under 10 CFR Part 810 — described as the first such US authorisation tied to an Indian collaboration of this kind.
• August 2025: CORE announced a ₹200 crore funding round led by investors Pankaj Prasoon and Ashish Kacholia, to expand infrastructure, manufacturing and R&D (RCD) capabilities and support India's Small Modular Reactor (SMR) and Bharat Modular Reactor (BMR) programmes.
• 2025: CORE won the Innovation Award at the World Nuclear Exhibition (WNE) 2025 in Paris for its Tarapur life-extension work, along with other awards including Safe Tech Awards 2025 (Best MSME Safety Excellence) and the National Safety Council of India Safety Awards 2025 (Service Sector).
• June–July 2026: CESL held an Extraordinary General Meeting (20 July 2026) to approve amendments to its Memorandum of Association (to widen ancillary objects around property acquisition) and to its ESOP Schemes (2023, 2024, 2025), adding clawback/forfeiture provisions tied to confidentiality, data security, and national-security-related breaches.

Quick Summary

CORE Energy Systems is a Mumbai-based, ISO 19443-certified EPC and advanced-manufacturing company with over two decades of track record in India's nuclear, defence, oil & gas, and clean-energy sectors. FY24 saw a marked improvement in revenue and profitability, and a ₹200 crore capital infusion in September 2024 strengthened its balance sheet, leading to a credit rating upgrade. The company's landmark 2025–26 milestones: the Tarapur-1 refurbishment and the first Indian DOE Part 810-linked nuclear technology transfer with Flowserve.

Click here to visit the official website of CORE Energy Systems Limited.