Coromandel Engineering Company is one of India’s oldest construction firms, founded in 1947 and operating for more than seven decades - but it is now a company in the middle of a complete reset. For most of its life it belonged to the Murugappa Group, until a family arrangement in late 2023 led to the entire 73% promoter stake being sold to the Accord Group, bringing new owners, a new board, and a fresh mandate. The recurring approach is to be a “one-stop shop” that bundles design, civil construction, electrical, sanitary and air-conditioning work under a single contract, so clients deal with one party from architecture to handover. # Business segments A single construction engine that earns its fees project by project - EPC contracting is the whole business, with a small property-development sideline folded inside it. ## 1. EPC contracting: building for a fee, one project at a time **The company is a hired builder - it wins contracts, procures steel and cement, deploys subcontractors and labour, and gets paid as work progresses, carrying no finished-goods inventory of its own.** - **Paid by the milestone, not the sale** - revenue is recognised on the percentage-of-completion method, meaning the company books income in step with the physical progress of a project, synchronised to billing schedules agreed with the client. For fixed-unit-rate jobs, it measures the work done and raises a bill; retention money held back by the client is disclosed as part of contract proceeds. - **Materials and subcontractors eat most of the rupee** - in a typical year, the cost of materials consumed plus subcontract expenses accounts for roughly four-fifths of revenue (79% in FY24, rising to 90% in FY21), so the company’s margin depends on how tightly it buys inputs and manages its subcontracted workforce. - **Price-escalation risk is pushed back to the client** - contracts include escalation clauses tied to base prices for key inputs such as cement and steel, so a spike in commodity costs does not automatically squeeze the company. The company states it has no material commodity or foreign-exchange exposure that requires hedging. - **Labour lives next to the site** - the company maintains labour camps on or close to its projects, which helps it retain trained workers and reduces the disruption caused by migration, a perennial problem in Indian construction. It also keeps a pre-qualified panel of subcontractors and constantly evaluates their quality. - **The order book is the forward visibility** - as of 1 April 2025, the company had an unexecuted order book of roughly ₹254 crore (₹25,398 lakhs), against an estimated total contract value of about ₹272 crore, giving a snapshot of work already won but yet to be built. A year earlier the comparable unexecuted book was far smaller, at about ₹38 crore, reflecting the lumpy nature of contract wins. ## 2. Property development: a vestigial sideline inside the construction engine **The company holds the legal ability to buy, develop and sell land and buildings, but this activity has shrunk to near zero in practice - it is a legacy capability, not a separate profit centre.** - **A real-estate licence that is barely used** - the memorandum allows the company to act as a developer, builder, town planner and agent for buying, selling or leasing land and flats. In FY24, revenue from property development was nil, down from ₹70 lakh the year before. - **Inventory is being wound down** - the company held a property-development inventory in Coimbatore that it was liquidating as far back as FY21, and there is no evidence of fresh land purchases or new project launches in recent filings. - **Revenue recognition mirrors construction** - when a property is sold, the company uses the percentage-of-completion method based on costs incurred relative to total estimated project costs, and borrowing costs tied to unsold units are inventoried until the sale happens. # Group structure and partners **The company changed hands entirely in late 2023 and now operates as a standalone entity under the Accord Group, with no subsidiaries or joint ventures.** - **A clean-break acquisition** - on 29 December 2023, four acquirers led by Mr Sundeep Anand Jegath Rakshagan and entities of the Accord Group bought 73.28% of the company from 51 Murugappa-family sellers for ₹32.9 crore in cash, at ₹13.50 per share. The transaction was part of a family arrangement to resolve disputes following the death of the late M V Murugappan. - **The new promoters** - post-acquisition, the four shareholders crossing 5% are Mr Sundeep Anand Jegath Rakshagan (25.3%), Accord Distillers and Brewers (19.4%), Teyro Labs (14.7%) and Jam Hotels and Resorts (13.9%). A preferential issue approved in February 2025 will raise roughly ₹27 crore and modestly increase their stakes. - **No subsidiaries, no associates** - the company has no subsidiary, joint venture or associate as of the latest filings, though in June 2025 the board approved an investment of up to ₹1 crore to become a partner in MPT Constructions, a small real-estate firm in Theni, Tamil Nadu, for joint-venture construction projects. - **A balance-sheet reset preceded the sale** - cumulative preference shares of ₹28.36 crore that had been issued to promoters were fully extinguished via an NCLT order in May 2023, which brought the company’s net worth back into positive territory (₹3.47 crore as of March 2024) before the new owners took over.