Steamhouse India Limited is filing a ₹414 Cr IPO. The company runs every one of its seven boilers out of industrial estates packed into a single stretch of coastal Gujarat, Ankleshwar, Panoli, Vapi, Sarigam, Nandesari, and Dahej, and sells the steam through pipes it has laid underground to each customer’s factory gate.
IPO Summary
| Steamhouse India IPO Details | |
|---|---|
| IPO Date | 9th to 11th Sep, 2026 |
| Sale Type | Fresh Issue + OFS |
| Tentative Listing Date | 17th Sep, 2026 |
| Price Band | ₹77 to ₹81 |
| Post Issue M. Cap at ₹81 | ₹2,239 Cr |
| Total Listing Size | ₹414 Cr |
Introduction
You’d never think it, but a textile plant needs steam to run its dyeing vats. A pharmaceutical plant needs steam to run its reactors.
Both could buy a boiler, hire staff to run it, and deal with pollution permits on their own. Or they could buy steam from someone else’s pipe.
Steamhouse India Limited sells that pipe. They are the pioneers of the community boiler system in India, running it since 2014
They’re now going public through an IPO worth ₹414 Cr, consisting of a Fresh Issue of ~₹353 Cr and an Offer for Sale of ~₹61 Cr. Proceeds will go towards repayment of borrowings, expansion of two existing plants, and funding a brand new plant in Dahej, GJ.
The Business Model
Steamhouse runs seven community boilers in Gujarat, generates steam, and delivers it through a dedicated pipeline network to factories that would otherwise have built their own boiler.
It also buys steam from other producers and resells it, trades coal, and has recently begun trading nitrogen.
The problem to solve for Steamhouse is, steam does not travel well. It cools and loses pressure over distance, so it has to be made close to where it is used.
Steamhouse builds its boilers inside industrial clusters and links them to customers through underground pipes, rather than trucking in cylinders or leaving each factory to build its own plant.
Their moat is distribution of industrial gases with minimum pressure and temperature losses, with real-time monitoring using flow meters and mapping installations with assistance of drones.
The company earns revenue in four ways:
- Generation and distribution of steam: Steamhouse burns coal, and non-fossil fuels such as plastic waste and textile chindi, in its boilers and sells the steam from boiling water through its pipes. This is the core business and carries the highest margin.
- Purchase and distribution of steam: The company buys steam made by other producers and resells it through its own pipeline.
- Coal trading: Since Steamhouse already buys coal in bulk for its own boilers, it also trades coal to other parties, including its group company Sanjoo Dyeing and Printing Mills Private Limited.
- Nitrogen trade: Since Feb 2025, Steamhouse began separating nitrogen from air at its Ankleshwar facility and piped it to customers, a delivery method that no other Indian company uses for nitrogen.
Unit Economics (₹ per tonne of Industrial Gas Sold across all product lines)
- Adjusted EBITDA per tonne fell from ₹832 in FY24 to ₹783 in FY26.
- Revenue per tonne went up, from ₹3,550 in FY24 to ₹4,607 in FY26.
- COGS per tonne saw a 160% rise, from ₹2,186 in FY24 to ₹4,607 in FY26.
Operating Metrics
- Pipeline length grew 37.3% over the same two years, to 57,041 metres, well ahead of what current utilisation suggests the business needs today.
- Customer count rose from 125 to 202, but Repeat customer revenue stayed above 88% in every year shown, so the growth in customers has not come from churning through a revolving door of one-time buyers.
- Steam generation still supplies the largest share of revenue, but that share has slipped from 99% in FY24 to 52% in FY26, as coal trading and purchased steam have grown faster. In fact, in two years, coal trading has become more than a quarter of revenue, and Steamhouse doesn’t even mine this coal, it just trades it.
The Financial Stuff
- Revenue grew steadily from ₹292 Cr in FY24 to ₹492 Cr in FY26, a CAGR of ~30%
- Finance Costs of ~₹23 Cr took up ~28% of Adj. EBITDA in FY26. Debt servicing claims a meaningful share of profits, and even Depreciation stood at ₹14 Cr in FY26.
- Profit After Tax grew 24% in FY26, but PAT Margin has held constant since FY24 till FY26.
Peer Comparison
- Steamhouse’s ₹492 Cr is a fraction of Linde’s ₹2,531 Cr and smaller than Ellenbarrie’s ₹342 Cr too, though closer to Ellenbarrie in scale.
- Steamhouse’s 17% EBITDA Margin is roughly half of Linde’s 36% and Ellenbarrie’s 34%. Both peers convert revenue into operating profit at close to double the rate Steamhouse does.
- Steamhouse’s PAT Margin of 7.81% is under a third of Ellenbarrie’s 26.66% and just over a third of Linde’s 21.54%. Faster growth has not yet translated into peer-level profitability.
- Steamhouse’s D/E of 1.57 times sits well above Ellenbarrie’s 0.11 times, and Linde carries net cash rather than net debt. Some of Steamhouse’s higher return on equity is borrowed, not earned.
At an upper band price of ₹81, with an FY26 EPS of 1.71, Steamhouse is trading at a P/E of 47.37, while Linde India trades at a P/E of 96.7, and Ellenbarrie trades at 43.5.
Key Risks
- High Customer concentration: Top 10 customers brought in 48% of FY26 revenue, and the single largest customer alone accounted for 18%.
- One input dominates costs: Coal made up 77% of total purchases in FY26. A jump in coal prices, or a break in coal supply, would squeeze margins directly, since steam cannot be made without fuel.
- Capacity is outrunning demand: Capacity utilisation fell to 42% in FY26, even as the company keeps adding boiler and pipeline capacity, funded partly by this offer. If demand does not catch up, the new capacity may earn poor returns.
- The company has broken environmental rules before: At its Panoli site, Steamhouse ran a boiler on provisional approval before receiving final consent from the Gujarat Pollution Control Board.
- Largest customer is a related party: Sanjoo Dyeing and Printing Mills Private Limited, Steamhouse’s largest customer, is a group company.
Conclusion
Steamhouse has built a real moat: pipelines are costly to duplicate, and connected customers will rarely switch. But debt funds a large share of the balance sheet, and a widening slice of revenue comes from lower margin coal trading rather than the core steam business, and capacity utilisation is falling.
