Warren Tea Limited

Consumer Defensive — Farm Products · BSE

₹43.44+₹0.03 (+0.07%)

DalalBaazaar Score

38 / 100

🔴 Weak

Verdict

CAUTION

Risk

Very High

Driven by moderate debt load, negative free cash flow, the company is currently loss-making.

In simple words: The company is currently losing money. Cash generation is currently the main factor to watch.

Decision support, not a buy or sell call.

As of 18 Oct 2026, 7:03 pm

Understanding the Business

Company site ↗

The 60-second version of Warren Tea Limited — what it does, how it earns, and who it competes with, before any of the numbers below.

What does this company do?

Warren Tea Limited engages in the retail consumer marketing of teas in India. It also exports tea to CIS, Eastern Europe, and Gulf countries. The company was founded in 1850 and is based in Kolkata, India.

IndustryFarm Products

SectorConsumer Defensive

Employees12

Who are its competitors?

The closest listed comparisons in its industry are HINDUSTAN UNILEVER LTD., ITC LTD, NESTLE INDIA LIMITED, BRITANNIA INDUSTRIES LTD. These are the companies its valuation and returns are measured against elsewhere in this report.

Compared side by side in Peers ↓

What is its competitive advantage?Little sign of one

Returns on capital of -3.7% are at or below what the capital likely costs. That is the financial pattern of a business competing largely on price, where advantage has to come from execution rather than position.

Peer median ROE51.0%

DalalBaazaar Score

38/ 100

Weak

Weighted across six categories. Every point is explained below.

✗ ROCE of -3.7% is below 10% — capital is not working hard
✗ ROCE has fallen by 29.6 points — returns are eroding
✗ The business is lossmaking at the net level

Quality vs. Valuation

Company Quality

37/ 100

Weak

How good the business is, ignoring the share price entirely.

Valuation

36/ 100

Expensive

What you are being asked to pay, ignoring how good the business is.

Weak on business quality and not cheap enough to compensate.

vs. its own history

Not enough price and earnings history

vs. sector peers

Not enough peers with a usable P/E

vs. generic bands

N/A

No P/E — the company is lossmaking

EV/EBITDA

—

PEG

—

What's Good / What's Bad

🟢 What's Going Well1

Debt is being paid down
Total debt is down 17% over 3 years.

🔴 What Needs Attention1

Return on capital is falling
ROCE has declined from 25.9% to -3.7% — often a sign of competition or overexpansion.

Red Flags

4 items require attention · 3 high · 1 watch

🔴Thin interest coverageFinancial
Operating profit covers interest only -26.1x — little room if earnings dip.
🔴Free cash flow negative for 4 yearsFinancial
The business has not covered its capital spending from operations for several years running, which has to be funded externally.
🔴The company is lossmakingFinancial
Net profit of -₹2 Cr in the latest reported year.
🟡Interest coverage is deterioratingFinancial
Cover has fallen from 10.9x to -26.1x.

Investment Thesis

🟢 Bull CaseWhat could make this work?

Deleveraging frees up earnings
Debt is down 17% over 3 years. Every rupee of interest not paid drops to the bottom line, so profit can grow even if revenue does not.

🔴 Bear CaseWhat could go wrong?

Earnings are hard to forecast
Profit has swung sharply from year to year, so any single year — good or bad — is a weak guide to the next. Cyclical earnings deserve lower multiples for that reason.
Size brings its own risk
Micro Cap businesses are thinly traded, so exits are harder in a falling market and single events move the price more than they would for a larger company.
Several serious flags at once
3 high-severity checks triggered. Individually each has an explanation; together they raise the chance that something structural is wrong rather than a one-off.

🟡 Key Things to WatchMeasurable tripwires, set against where this company stands today

1Free cash flow remains positive✗ -₹4 Cr
Profit that never becomes cash eventually stops being profit.
2Interest cover stays above 3x✗ -26.1x
How much operating profit can fall before interest stops being comfortably covered.
3ROCE stays above 8%✗ -3.7%
Falling returns on capital are usually competition arriving, and show up here before they reach the margin.

Investment Checklist

3 / 10 checks passed

✗ Strong return on equity (ROE ≥ 15%)
✗ Strong return on capital employed (ROCE ≥ 15%)
✗ Healthy net margin (≥ 10%)
✗ Generates positive free cash flow
✗ Manageable leverage (Debt/Equity < 1.0)
✓ Adequate short-term liquidity (Current Ratio ≥ 1.0)
✗ Profit growing year-over-year
✓ Not trading at an extreme valuation (P/E < 40x)
✓ Not buying right at the 52-week high
✗ Short-term technical trend isn't bearish

Price history

Quick Metrics

1 good · 4 neutral · 6 weak

Market Cap

₹52 Cr

Micro Cap

Smaller company — thin liquidity and deep drawdowns are normal here

P/E (Trailing)

Not meaningful

Loss-making

Earnings are negative, so a P/E multiple can't be read here

P/B Ratio

0.54x

Reasonable

Reasonable against the company's book value

EPS (TTM)

₹-2.89

Loss-making

Negative earnings per share — the business is losing money

ROE

-2.5%

Weak

Weak capital efficiency

ROCE

-3.7%

Weak

Low return on total capital employed

Debt/Equity

1.50x

Moderate

Moderate leverage

Revenue Growth (YoY)

Not available

No data

Source didn't return this field

Profit Growth (YoY)

-236.6%

Falling

Profits are shrinking

Dividend Yield

None

No dividend yield reported — usually means no payout, but verify if one was recently initiated

Free Cash Flow

-₹4 Cr

Cash burning

Spending more cash than the operations bring in

More Metrics

Operating Margin

0.0%

Weak

Thin margins leave little room for error

Net Margin

0.0%

Weak

Very little revenue reaches the bottom line

Current Ratio

2.90

Comfortable

Healthy short-term liquidity

Beta (vs Nifty)

0.30

Defensive

Steadier than the market

52W Range Position

50%

Mid-range

Technical Snapshot

SMA 20 / SMA 50

44.4 / 45.9

Bearish alignment (short < long)

Price vs SMA 200

Below

Long-term downtrend

RSI (14)

39.6

Neutral momentum

Financial Trend (4-Year)

Metric	FY23	FY24	FY25	FY26	3Y CAGR
EBITDA	-₹21 Cr	-₹1 Cr	₹1 Cr	-₹2 Cr	—
PAT (Net Profit)	-₹4 Cr	₹0 Cr	₹2 Cr	-₹2 Cr	—
EPS	₹-3.04	₹0.24	₹1.47	₹-2.01	—
ROE	-4.0%	0.3%	1.8%	-2.5%	—
ROCE	25.9%	-0.2%	1.6%	-3.7%	—
Total Debt	₹2 Cr	₹2 Cr	₹2 Cr	₹1 Cr	-6.1%
Free Cash Flow	-₹64 Cr	-₹5 Cr	-₹10 Cr	-₹4 Cr	—

🟢 ROE has risen from -4.0% to -2.5% over 3 years (+1.4 pts).

🔴 ROCE has fallen from 25.9% to -3.7% over 3 years (-29.6 pts).

🟢 Total Debt has shrunk at 6.1% a year over 3 years.

Balance Sheet & Cash Flow — FY2026

Total Assets

₹106 Cr

Total Liabilities

₹10 Cr

Cash & Equivalents

₹0 Cr

Operating Cash Flow

-₹3 Cr

Capex

-₹0 Cr

Shareholding (proxy)

Institutional Holding

0.0%

Insider Holding

82.5%

Corporate Actions

Ex-Dividend Date

30 Jul 2003

Peer Comparison

Company	P/E	ROE
HINDUSTAN UNILEVER LTD.	42.5x	21.5%
ITC LTD	16.6x	27.4%
NESTLE INDIA LIMITED	59.8x	79.9%
BRITANNIA INDUSTRIES LTD	44.1x	51.0%

Recent News

2 mixed4 general

James Warren Tea Q1 FY27 Results: Revenue, PAT & Key Highlights

Univest, 10 AugResults

🟡Mixed / dependsA results event. The figures on this page update once the new statements reach the data feed, which usually lags the announcement.

52 Week Low Shares BSE | 52 Week Low Today | Shares Trading 52 Week Low BSE

Livemint, 16 Oct

Warren Tea shareholders approve amalgamation with Maple Hotels

scanx.trade, 18 Jun

NEAGI Stock Price and Chart — NSE:NEAGI

TradingView, 21 Apr

James Warren Tea closes trading window ahead of Q1FY27 results

scanx.trade, 19 JunResults

🟡Mixed / dependsA results event. The figures on this page update once the new statements reach the data feed, which usually lags the announcement.

Tea Estates Penny Stocks in India 2027: 5 Picks

Univest, 17 Sept

Watch Items

Cross-check against the company's latest quarterly filing / investor presentation before acting.
1 metric couldn't be retrieved for this stock — this is more common for smaller or thinly-covered listings.

DalalBaazaar Thesis

MiddlingFinancial Health · Growth · Valuation

WeakBusiness Quality · Profitability · Risk

Points for each in the Score ↑

Weak on the fundamentals

Poor scores on business quality without a price low enough to compensate. There is no obvious argument for owning this over a stronger company at a similar valuation. 3 high-severity red flags sit above this conclusion and should be read first.

3 of 3 tripwires tripped — Free cash flow remains positive; Interest cover stays above 3x; ROCE stays above 8% · see Key things to watch ↑