Aequs pays Rs 15.75 crore for drone JV shares, owes Rs 29.25 crore more in a year

Aequs Limited, which makes precision parts for aircraft makers inside large factory clusters, said on October 9, 2026 it paid Rs 15.75 crore for new shares in its drone joint venture Ajna Aerospace & Defence . The partly-paid rights allotment leaves a further Rs 29.25 crore to be paid within a year, keeping Ajna as a joint venture while Aequs chases defence drones alongside its loss-making core .

Aequs pays one-third now and owes two-thirds within a year

Aequs received 45,00,000 partly paid-up shares at Rs 100 each, with Rs 35 paid on allotment . The balance of Rs 65 per share will be called in one or more calls within 12 months from October 09, 2026 .

The consideration is in cash and no government approval was needed . The filing says there will be no change in percentage shareholding and Ajna will continue as a joint venture . Ajna is a related party as a joint venture, with promoter interest only to the extent of shares held and a nominee director .

Source: .

Ajna is months old with almost no sales yet

Ajna Aerospace & Defence Private Limited was incorporated on October 22, 2025 . It makes Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Unmanned Aircraft Systems, meaning pilotless aircraft, with related subsystems, payloads, software and hardware for defence, security, industrial and civilian use . Its work also covers sourcing drone designs from overseas owners, developing its own designs, and building, testing, marketing and selling drones in India and abroad .

Source: .

Aequs says the money is for capital expenditure, operational expenditure and other general corporate and business requirements of Ajna .

Aequs keeps one-third with Accel and Vagus as partners

Ajna is an equal joint venture between Aequs, Accel India and Vagus Defence, with the joint venture agreement signed in January 2026 . The July presentation includes 33% of Ajna when it shows revenue and EBITDA with proportionate joint venture share, which matches a three-way split . The same deck describes the venture as a tie-up with Accel India Fund and Vagus to set up Ajna Aerospace to focus on UAV manufacturing .

Core business is growing fast but still losing money

The quarter ended June 30, 2026 was described as a strong start, with growth led by Aerospace and Consumer scale-up . Headline profit lagged because Consumer Electronics operating costs were expensed after commercial operations began, while other income fell from an unusually high Q4 .

Source: .

The sequential improvement looks better on a like-for-like basis. The Q4 loss included an exceptional gain of Rs 9 crore, so the adjusted Q4 loss was Rs 63.1 crore against the Rs 53.2 crore loss in Q1 .

Segment performance explains the mix. Aerospace stayed profitable while Consumer losses narrowed as volumes built .

Source: .

Aerospace EBITDA fell sequentially because Q4 had large foreign exchange-led other income, while Consumer loss narrowed by about 24% on higher volumes at similar utilisation .

Cash buffer covers the near-term call but capex is heavy

Closing cash gives context for the Rs 29.25 crore future call .

Source: .

Operating cash was negative on higher working capital for the ramp, with net working capital at 125 days and net debt to equity at 0.34 times . For FY27 management guided total capex of about Rs 660 crore, with possible acceleration in Aerospace offset by savings in Consumer . It also committed about Rs 1,900 crore over 10 years for the Hosur engine and landing gear ecosystem including joint venture investments . Stated milestones are Consumer EBITDA breakeven by Q4 FY27 and consolidated profit after tax breakeven by H1 FY28 .

Drones stretch plane-parts factories into complete systems

Aequs calls itself the only engineering-led, vertically integrated precision manufacturer within a single special economic zone, operating three such ecosystems in India . Aerospace gave 81% of Q1 FY27 revenue, with the Belagavi cluster combining machining, forging, surface treatment and assembly in one zone . Management said its aerospace focus remains scaling with customer build rates, moving awarded parts into serial production and selectively expanding into aero-engine and landing gear adjacencies .

In February 2026 management framed drones as a step up that chain, saying it wants to be more of a system-level contributor in Indian defence through the Accel and Vagus partnership for UAV design and manufacturing .

Plan is to license first, design own drones later

The June Investor Day deck lays out Ajna as an end-to-end UAV play for IP sourcing, licensing and integration that leverages Aequs precision engineering and assembly .

• Phase 1 in FY27 to FY28 is to license battle-proven platforms and run trials in India .
• Phase 2 in FY28 to FY29 is to begin deliveries to the armed forces and build four indigenous cores internally .
• Phase 3 from FY30 is own-design platforms with minimum foreign dependency .

The four cores that fit every platform are Vision, Communication, Flight Computing and Autonomy and Sensor Fusion . The deck frames the context as a USD 2,200 crore capital acquisition pool with about USD 1,650.00 crore reserved for domestic players, growing 20 to 30% a year .

Core order book gives the base for new bets

Committed aerospace demand was at a record in Q1 .

Source: .

The book crossed USD 100 crore after a 13% sequential rise . Aequs added 86 new parts to reach 5,740 parts, signed long-term agreements with two new aerostructures Tier-1 customers, and signed its first contract for fully assembled Airbus A320 wheels with Safran Landing Systems to be built end-to-end in Belagavi .

---

Sources

1. 1 Aequs Limited ("Company") has informed the Exchange about investment made in Ajna Aerospace & Defence Private Limited, a Joint Venture of the Company.
2. 2 Aequs Ltd - 544634 - Announcement under Regulation 30 (LODR)-Investor Presentation
3. 3 Investor presentation, 2026-07-29
4. 4 Earnings-call transcript, 2026-08-04
5. 5 Earnings-call transcript, Feb 2026