Computer Age Management Services Limited (543232) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Dear shareholders, good evening. I'm Manikandan Gopalakrishnan, the Company Secretary and Compliance Officer of the company. A very warm welcome to the 37th Annual General Meeting of Computer Age Management Services Limited. I would like to take you through the details pertaining to your participation at this meeting. All the members who have joined this meeting are by default placed on mute by the host to avoid any disruption or disturbance arising from the background noise and to ensure smooth and seamless conduct of the meeting. Once we commence the question-and-answer session, the moderator will sequentially announce the names of the shareholders who have registered with the company. We request the speaker shareholders to limit their speech to 3 minutes. Upon being called, the moderator will give appropriate access to the concerned shareholder to speak. Before you commence speaking, please ensure use your headphone so that the narrative is clearly audible to all the participants. Remember, to minimize the noise in the background, ensure that you have a strong Wi-Fi connection and the same is not connected to any other device. Ensure no other background applications are running on the device that you are connecting from. Remember to switch on the video and ensure that you have adequate background lighting at your place. If you are unable to join through video for any reasons, we request you to kindly participate through the audio means. If the speaker shareholder has a connectivity problem, we will call on the next speaker to join. Once the connectivity improves, the speaker shareholder may again be called to speak, but only after the entire list of registered shareholders have spoken. During the meeting, any shareholder facing technical issues may kindly contact the helpline number provided in the notice convening the meeting. There are 5 resolutions, which have been placed for the approval of the shareholders. Four of the resolutions are ordinary business and one is a special business. All the resolutions are ordinary. The Companies Act 2013 and SEBI regulations provide for electronic voting. Accordingly, the company has provided all the members with the facility to cast their votes through remote e-voting system administered by MUFG in time. The registers, as required under the Companies Act 2013 under the ESOP certificate as required under the Securities and Exchange Board of India, Share-based Employee Benefits and Sweat Equity Regulations 2021, are open for inspection in electronic mode. Should you wish to inspect, please reach out to me at the e-mail address mentioned in the notice convening the meeting. The facility to cast the votes at the meeting is available to those members who have not yet cast their votes through remote electronic voting and are participating in this meeting. The voting system will be available during this meeting and for 15 minutes after the completion of the meeting. Thank you for your attention. Now over to Mr. Mehrotra, Chairman of the company, to commence the proceedings of the meeting. Over to you, sir.

Thank you, Manikandan. Good evening, shareholders. On behalf of the Board, I extend a warm welcome to you for this 37th Annual General Meeting of the company. This is the fifth Annual General Meeting of the company being held after the IPO, which is being conducted on OAVM mode. I'm Dinesh Kumar Mehrotra, Chairman of the Board and Non-Executive Non-Independent Director of the company, joining the meeting from my home at Mumbai. I'm the Chairman of the Board and the Chairman of the Corporate Social Responsibility and ESG Committee and a member of the Audit Committee and Nomination and Remuneration Committee. I've been informed by the Company Secretary that the requisite quorum is present, and I'm now calling the meeting to order. I request the directors who have joined the meeting to introduce themselves before we proceed further. Mr. N. V. Sivakumar, Independent Director.

Yes, greetings to you all shareholders. I'm N.V. Sivakumar, an Independent Director of the company, joining from my son's residence in Mountain View, California. I'm the Chairperson of the Audit Committee. I'm also a member of the Risk Management Committee and Corporate Social Responsibility and ESG Committee. Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Vijayalakshmi Rajaram Iyer. Ma'am, please.

I'm Vijayalakshmi Rajaram Iyer, an Independent Director of the company, joining from my residence in Mumbai. I'm the Chairperson of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee and also Risk Management Committee. I'm also a member of the Audit Committee and IT Strategy Committee. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Pravin Rao.

I'm Pravin Udhyavara Bhadya Rao. I'm an Independent Director of the company, joining the meeting from my residence in Bangalore. I'm the Chairperson of the IT Strategy Committee. I'm also a member of the Stakeholders Relationship Committee and Risk Management Committee. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Anuj Kumar.

Mr. S.K. Mohanty also, sir.

Sorry. Mr. S.K. Mohanty. Sorry.

Good afternoon, shareholders. I'm Santosh Kumar Mohanty. I'm an Independent Director of the company. I'm joining this meeting from my residence at Bhubaneswar. I'm the Chairperson of the Stakeholders Relationship Committee. I'm also a member of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee and the Audit Committee as well. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Mr. Anuj Kumar.

Thank you. Good evening to all the shareholders. My name is Anuj Kumar. I'm the Managing Director of the company, and I'm attending this meeting from the corporate office in Chennai. I'm a member of 3 committees: the CSR and ESG Committee, the IT Strategy Committee and the Stakeholder Relationship Committee. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Mr. Ram Charan?

Thank you. Good evening to all shareholders. I 'm Sesharaman Ram Charan, the Chief Financial Officer of the company, attending this meeting from our corporate offices in Chennai. Thank you.

Back to Mr. Manikandan.

Yes. Other participating in the meeting include representative of Messrs. S.R. Batliboi and Associates LLP, Chartered Accountants and Statutory Auditors of the company; and Ms. Chandra, representative of Messrs B. Chandra, Secretarial Auditor of the company from their offices. Since the physical attendance of the shareholders is dispensed with, the requirement of appointing proxies is not applicable. The registers and other documents as required under the Companies Act 2013 and rules are open for inspection in electronic mode. Since the AGM is being held through audiovisual means and the resolutions forming part of the notice convening this meeting have already been put to vote through the electronic voting, the practice of proposing and seconding of resolutions are not required and will not be followed at this meeting. Shareholders who are the members of the company on the cutoff date, that is 30th June 2025, have the right to vote pertaining to the resolutions mentioned in the notice. Shareholders who have not cast their votes earlier through remote e-voting can do so during this meeting through remote e-voting facility. Now I request Mr. D.K. Mehrotra to deliver the Chairman's speech.

Thank you, Manikandan. Since the notice, directors' report and other documents have been circulated to the shareholders as part of the annual report, I'll take them as read. The details of the agenda items placed before the shareholders for approval is contained in the notice of the meeting, which is also available on the website of the company. Given that there are no qualifications, observations, adverse remarks or comments by the statutory auditors in their report on the financial statements for the financial year ended 31st March 2025, or matters which have any adverse effects on the functioning of the company, with your permission, and I will take -- the auditor's report is taken as read. A detailed Chairman's message has been circulated as part of the annual report, which you would have pursued. As you would have noticed, this is our fifth AGM after the company has gone public. The financial year '24-'25 has been a landmark for the mutual fund industry. The AUM of the industry stood -- crossed INR 67.7 lakh crores in March 2025 as compared to INR 55 lakh crores in the previous financial year, thereby reflecting a clear sustained investor trust and continued market participation across retail and institutional segments. In addition, mark-to-market gains provided a supplementary boost underpinned by positive performance in equity market. SIP inflows reached new highs with yearly contributions -- sorry. Let me come back to you, and let me give you a little picture of what our company has done. Out of the above figures, which I have told about the industry, your company serviced assets valued INR 45.08 lakh crores as on 31st March '25 as against INR 37.29 lakh crores in the previous year. In addition to the mark-to-market gains provided a supplementary boost underpinned by positive performance in equity market, SIP inflows reached new highs with yearly contributions increasing by 45.24% on year in fiscal 2025 to INR 2.89 lakh crores, reflecting the growing acceptance of the disciplined long-term investing among individuals. Amidst a strong industry background, CAMS remained focused on delivering long-term value to the customers. Our strategy during the year was centered on 3 core principles that is responsible growth, customer-centric innovation and operational excellence. During the year, your company continued to make progress on its sustainability journey. Initiatives were taken to engage an external agency in assisting the company in fixing a sustainability target, thus showing commitment towards environment, social and governance, ESG report of the business. Your company has met its corporate social responsibility commitments during the year by primarily focusing in the areas of education, health care and environment across the country. On behalf of the Board of CAMS, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to our investors, employees, regulators and shareholders. Your continued trust and support drive our mission to help millions of investors achieve their financial and social goals through mutual fund investments. I would also like to thank our Board of Directors for their continued guidance and oversight in upholding the highest levels of integrity. Mr. B. Chandra & Associates, Practicing Company Secretaries, has been appointed as the scrutinizer to scrutinize the votes cast at this meeting and in the remote e-voting. I'm authorizing the Company Secretary to file the voting results within 2 trading days of the conclusion of this meeting with BSE and NSE. The results will also be uploaded on the website of the company and that of the RTA. Now I request -- I'd like to invite Mr. Anuj Kumar, Managing Director, to deliver his message for the shareholders and make a presentation on the business highlights and for taking the meeting forward. Mr. Anuj Kumar.

Thank you very much, sir. Good evening, again, shareholders. I have a presentation to make, which will give you a snapshot of the progress we've made across various fronts in the company. Anish, can you just move to the first [ slide ]. So from a company perspective, you can see the Board of Directors. The directors have individually introduced themselves. I would just like to point out that after the exit of the large private equity company, Warburg Pincus, which was the shareholder, we have inducted in the last calendar year. And you can see this is Mr. Pravin Rao, Mr. S.K. Mohanty and Mr. Sivakumar as 3 prominent industry personalities. Of course, Mr. Mohanty had spent a long tenure with the Department of Income Tax and with SEBI. So this has further strengthened the Board. Mr. Mehrotra and Mrs. Iyer are long tenured directors. And the Technology Committee, which advises the company on technology and security matters, they continue to remain the same as in the past. Next, please. From a leadership team perspective, you have seen some of these pictures and bios in the past, too. It has been our attempt and endeavor to continue to strengthen the leadership team of the company to have a very strong representation in the market and a very strong leadership in front of regulators, clients and of course, our employees and very happy to let you have a glimpse of the team that we've built. Of course, it's a continuous process, and I hope to expand this team in the coming months and years. From a regulation and accredited intermediary perspective, you are aware, of course, that we are a unique enterprise, where either the main company or the subsidiaries are governed by all the 4 financial services regulators. This now continues to expand because in a manner, we have now expanded our operations in GIFT city. And therefore, part of our operations are governed by IFSCA. And then from an overall cybersecurity and infrastructure robustness perspective, the NCIIPC also governs us from a broader way. As you know, they are not a single sector regulator, but are supposed to monitor and govern the safety, security and infrastructure practices of large enterprises across sectors, which covers roads, ports, airlines and the financial services sector. So the overall oversight and governance on the company continues to increase. And this, I'm sure, gives a lot of faith and confidence to the shareholders to see us stand out in front of the significant governance and scrutiny that we face regularly. Next, please. From an FY '24, '25 perspective, just a quick glance of what we did. We've built a very strong win momentum in the company. And you can see that we won 6 out of the new 9 AMC, which is asset management companies, which registered and got licensed. We won almost 2/3 of the new mandates. Launched 2 of these new licensed companies, one is AngelOne and the other is Unifi. Both of them were able to launch their business in the April '24 to March '25 time period. We also won our first international MF RTA mandate, which originated in Sri Lanka. From a team perspective, you know that we've been working very hard to strengthen the talent, both at the front line and at the top, and very proud and happy to share with you that we have now stretched into recruiting from Grade A institutions, both the IITs and IIMs. And we continue to bring in a variety of -- and depth of talent, including people who are doctorates not just in the BFSI arena, but in various other arenas as part of a young talent program called FuEL. From an overall cutting-edge next-gen technology perspective, you know that technology is one of the biggest -- perhaps the biggest differentiator in a business like ours. We had signed up with Google Cloud to build a cloud-native brand-new platform to transform the RTA business. This was done during the year and of course, sometime in June, July. And from then up to the end of the year, there's significant progress, which has been made in this area. GIFT city, of course, you all have heard about the various initiatives taken by the Government of India. We have expanded our presence in GIFT city by opening up a new office, which is much larger than the existing office. And we service close to 30 clients from GIFT city right now. We also formally announced a JV with KFintech for operating MF Central. You know that MF Central is an initiative which was launched in 2021. And from an operations perspective, has been working through independent contracts signed separately by CAMS and KFin, but this is now being formalized. The JV entity is now fully in place. The Board has been appointed. The capital in the company is now being inducted. Next please. Overall, from an other business perspective outside of mutual funds, you can see the significant, very deep-rooted success that the company has had. CAMSPay won close to 100 new deals and mandates across various segments in the financial year. CAMSPay, which is a payments business, also launched their [ PG ] which is Payment Gateway Infrastructure. So far, our license business has been payment aggregation, or PA, but we have now broadened out into PG. From a CAMSKRA perspective, we continue to beat the rest of the industry in speed of growth, especially new PAN addition, which is a very standard metric to measure growth, and we've, therefore, gained market share overall. We've also successively transformed the perception and deepened the belief of the overall marketplace and our capabilities. So we are aggressively chasing and have chased fintech partners to be our clients, and therefore, we've gone well beyond mutual funds, which is the calling of the business for the first about 10 years of existence. From an insurance and CAMS repository perspective, we are the first and only entity right now to transform overall policyholder experience through Bima Central, which is an all-encompassing platform aimed to give service to all participating -- to customers of all participating entities. We have also accelerated digitization of policies, which you know is now gaining significant momentum in the last 12 to 18 months, and we've crossed 1 crore policies. Also, what is important to note is that LIC which had so far stayed out of dematerialization of policies has signed up this year to be part of this. And I think in a couple of months, they will be actively participating as the integration process gets over. From alternatives, which is largely AIF, PMS and the work that we have started to do in GIFT city, there's been strong sales momentum. We won over 200 mandates of different kinds in the financial year, and WealthServ, which continues to be the most popular platform -- digital platform for digital onboarding of investors onto both PMSes and AIFs now has overall 200 installations across the industry. Think360 won mandate from major banks, brokerages and top-tier credit card companies. They continue to deepen their effort and -- in the AI and ML arena and built a Gen AI surveillance system for SEBI, which will be in active production soon. And from an account aggregator perspective, we continue to maintain 25% market share in a live FIU count in the Indian AA system. Of course, we also continue to remain the preferred partner in the F&O, which is futures and options use case for the stock broking and stock trading industry. Apart from this, I think a very strong endorsement for the stuff that we do day-to-day. And I'm sure all of you use CAMS services, both from an endpoint perspective in our front offices, also from myCAMS and camonline perspective, this is a mandatory survey whose results you can see on the screen. Almost 96% of polled investors, and there were almost 32,000-plus investors have given a satisfied or very satisfied rating for the quality of service that they have obtained from CAMS. Of course, that does leave a residue of just under 4% who have not given a satisfied or very highly satisfied rating. And we continue to focus on those customers and the issues they have faced to better the score. You must also be aware that for the last 5 to 6 years, the score has continued to go up, including during the COVID years. Next, please. From a thought leadership perspective, this is a matter of pride for the company and for myself. And you know that we continue to display feet forward thought leadership, bringing in new concepts in the market, organizing the data into meaningful industry-level findings, which can help the industry grow faster. We released a report on B30 locations in terms of performance in the past years and future potential. This was done at an event done in conjunction with CII. This is done at the 18th CII Mutual Fund Summit, and you can see the panel including industry luminaries and luminaries from the regulator, very senior officials come together to kind of launch this study. And of course, this is available on our website. All of you who are curious about this can access the study. It was very widely covered by a variety of media partners and becomes almost the base study, the kind of the basis for drawing key conclusions in this area by various publications and by various media partners. Go to the next. I also wanted to give you a quick glimpse. Of course, it's a busy chart, so don't expect myself to cover each one of these. But you've heard of our platform and our products. Of course, we still continue to be treated as an important part of our services. But just from a product solutions and platform perspective, you will see just a variety of these, which are largely, of course, relevant to our mutual fund business, but also to our alternatives business. And from a much broader perspective, across the financial services business because now there's a large suite of products being offered by Think360 and Fintuple, very happy and very proud to display this to you. Most of these are products which solve a single problem, but most of them are leaders in their respective segments. And I think the important thing is that rather than resting on the laurels of the past, the team has continued to broaden this overall basket and continues to take these products to the market. And I'm sure as shareholders, this will give you immense satisfaction to see how well we have managed this entire basket of products. Next, please. From an overall perspective, both inward-looking and especially from a people and employee perspective, very proud to share with you that while our core themes of automation and technology continue to be the bedrock of our thought process and strategy, we have driven sustained employment, and we fostered people development in a variety of ways in the company and in the group. Today, we have just over 8,000 employees, almost 31% of these are women, which shows the significant accent on gender diversity. There's a large number of CSR beneficiaries. So that's the number of lives that we've been able to transform through sustained effort. We spent over INR 8 crores during the year, consolidated from a CSR perspective. And again, from a CSR perspective, just for the communities, I think our philosophy has been to focus, to focus on account of initiatives, which emanate from the areas of education, health care and environment. And I'm very happy to share with you that we continue to deepen our effort and produce high-quality results in these areas. You can see, just wanted to illustrate both from an education and health care perspective, how we are changing lives across the country. At one time, we used to be focused mostly in Southern India and in the state of Tamil Nadu. But now you can see that in areas like Mumbai, Maharashtra, U.P., we have broadened out our overall footprint, and that's very satisfying because we are meaningful spenders in CSR. And we are not localized now. We are almost pan-India. Of course, we will not go to every state, but like you're seeing from the base in Tamil Nadu to stretch to far corners of Maharashtra, to stretch to far corners of U.P. and other areas, including Orissa, it has been very satisfying for the team. The focus on ESG, therefore, continues. You can see just one example. This is in Tamil Nadu, not too far from Chennai, where this is a state which has had a lot of water accumulation in tanks, ponds, et cetera. A lot of them are weed infested, and therefore, not amenable for fishing or drawing of water for household purposes. But through sustained effort and partnership with both NGOs and state and district administration, just one example of a pond having been cleaned and made potable completely. I think the team has done a great job in doing this in 3 or 4 instances in areas around Chennai and of course, deeper down South around Coimbatore too. So that's just one example of how grassroot level work is being done by the team in the area of ESG. From an awards perspective, I think this was a significant year. You can see CAMSfinserv being awarded the Silver Award for open banking solutions. We have the CEO of CAMSKRA just below that, being felicitated individually and for his work done in CAMSKRA by the Business World Group. And Banking Frontiers and Technology came together again to facilitate both CAMSPay and CAMSfinServ for the excellent work done by them, excellent and foundational work done at the industry level. More awards. You see at the left, a significant, very satisfying felicitation the team had from SEBI. There was an ASSOCHAM award for our insurance business in CAMSRep IIT Madras CSR awards. TATVA award for both CAMSPay and CAMSRep ASSOCHAM's felicitation. And I think it was satisfying for a very significant client like Franklin Templeton to acknowledge us as a strategic partner. This, of course, I must say, is a set of the whole, but has been very satisfying for the team to be publicly acknowledged for the work they've done over this last 1 year. Next. From a business financials perspective, I'm sure that you've gone through all these numbers. They are in the annual report. They were advertised, and this is -- they've gained significant coverage. But I just want to point out to you the results last year. Revenue crossed INR 1,400 crores for the first time, almost mid-20s kind of growth. PBT at INR 624 crores (sic) [ INR 624.4 crores ] was the highest ever. PAT at INR 470 crores (sic) [ INR 470.2 crores ] grew by about 33%. EBITDA was for the year about 46%, INR 656 crores plus. And then the return on net worth was 46%. Very satisfying during the year, which was a bumper year to have declared such results. And I'm sure, especially for small and individual shareholders, it is satisfying to experience the kind of dividend that we've declared, so about 725% or INR 72-plus per share was what got declared. The last dividend has yet to be paid out and will be paid out as we get shareholder approval. And again, when you see some of these numbers, and we've restricted ourselves to key core financial metrics, you will see that CAMS Serviced funds have grown almost 20%, just short of 20% from a CAGR perspective in the last 5 years for AUM, which is a core metric. The AUM-based revenue for the company for MF grew almost 15.8%. But overall revenue, and this is also the result of all the foundational work we have done in the non-MF businesses. This has grown about, again, 15% plus. Operating EBITDA has improved from 41% to 46% in the last about 5 years and PAT has grown significantly. So very satisfying for me, and I'm sure you will echo similar feelings. And these are sustained results. There's not a flash in the pan, which happened in a year, but has happened through the sustained effort of the employees, of course, faith of the regulators, the faith and sustained participation by the shareholders by owning the share of the company and of course, a great work done by both employees, partners, vendors and everyone associated in the ecosystem to get us to results like these. Next, please. What will we continue to drive? You're aware that we want to kind of align ourselves to be the gold standard in the areas of compliance, in the areas of control and cybersecurity. We also want to be sure that we are the best acquirers and nurturers of talent and create a significant depth of expertise. We are very, very technology focused today. If you think there is one action or activity of the management team, which can change things for us, that is investment in both technology as what we buy and the talent that we hire, and we've been very focused and we'll continue to be focused on these. From an overall perspective of acquiring businesses from outside or staying interested in other initiatives done outside CAMS, we will make sure that we continue to look for opportunities and bring in companies and enterprises or buying into their equity just to strengthen the overall capability of the company. So these are really, I would say, core themes that we continue to focus on, which is sustaining leadership position in our business, making sure that we are focused on talent, on compliance, controls, risk, security, diversifying from a product perspective, bringing grade A talent in and then looking in the environment always to be able to make acquisitions and investments, which align with the theme of growing this group. That's all I had in the presentation, of course. And I'm sure that you have access to a lot more detail beyond what I've just spoken through the annual report and stuff that's on the -- on our website and other places that you access. I will close the presentation now. I invite the shareholders who have registered themselves for asking questions to their opportunity to speak. The moderator will state their names, will unmute them so that they can ask their questions. And I will hand over to the moderator now.

[Operator Instructions] We have the first question from Ms. Lekha Shah. [Operator Instructions]

Hello. Am I audible, sir?

Yes, ma'am, you are audible.

Respected Chairman, sir, Board of Directors and my fellow inmates, good evening and regards to everyone. Myself, Lekha Shah, from Mumbai. First of all, I'm very much thankful to our Company Secretary, Manikandan ji, for extending good investor services and also sending the AGM notice within time. I found the AGM notice and I'm delighted to say it's so beautiful, full of colors and facts and figures in place. Thank you Anish ji, Anish sir for such an informative and wonderful presentation. Chairman sir, your opening remarks were so insightful and comprehensive that you have already addressed everything in my hand. I'm proud to be a shareholder of this company. Chairman sir, I would like to ask few questions. My first question is, what are company's CapEx plans? My second question is, how much of our PAT is current financial year will effect because of the trade war? Who are the low-cost producers in industry? My fourth question is, who are the main competitors of our company? Chairman sir, [Foreign Language] I strongly and consciously support all the resolutions for today's meeting. [indiscernible] (035:27) allowed to talking without any problem. [Foreign Language].

Thank you, Lekha, ma'am. We have next question from Mr. Kaushik Sahukar. [Operator Instructions].

Am I audible, sir?

Yes, you are audible.

Good afternoon, good evening to respected Chairman, esteemed Directors and key management personnel. It gives me immense pleasure to interact with you once again this year. I'm also deeply grateful to our Company Secretary, Mr. Manikandan for granting me this opportunity. Coming to the agenda of the meeting, I would like to seek a clarification. In the light of increasing adoption of AI and automation in the financial sector -- service sector, how is CAMS leveraging these technologies to enhance operational efficiency and client servicing? And what are the projected cost saving or revenue contribution expected from such initiative in FY '25, '26? Before concluding, I would like to share a thought that I believe reflects our company's inspiring journey. Like a well-managed fund thrives on discipline and clarity, success in life comes from consistency, focus and courage to adapt just as CAMS adapts to empower the financial ecosystem every day. I'm personally committed to putting in my best efforts, but with the organization support, the journey becomes even more meaningful. In that spirit, I once again request for a kind consideration and association in the area of certification audit, including foreign payments, Form CB. I sincerely hope that management will extend opportunity that enables me to remain professionally resilient. I hope Mr. Dinesh Kumar, Mr. Ram Charan you will listen to our plea and will engage with me in this area by this year. Lastly, I kindly request the management to consider organizing a branch visit or a CSR initiative visit for speaker shareholders. This would offer us a first hand view of the impactful done -- work done by our company at the grassroot level, and allow us to celebrate the positive change being created through our CSR initiative. Additionally, I humbly request that savings from virtual AGM to thoughtfully utilize for shareholders' welfare, perhaps through a small token of appreciation, reinforcing our emotional connection with the company. Thank you all for your time, efforts and continued support. I look forward to engaging with you again next year. And I really hope that Mr. Dinesh Kumar, Mr. Ram Charan will consider my application for working on assignment with the company, and enable me to be professionally resilient. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Kaushik. Our next speaker, Mr. [ Davinder Kaur ] is currently not present in the panel. So I now invite our next question from Mr. [ Dharav Jamadar ].

Greetings of the day to the respected Chairman, all the Board members and stakeholders of my company. My name is Dr. Dharav Jamadar. Sir, I'm unable to start my video, I suppose. Yes, greetings of the day to the respected Chairman and all the Board members of my company. My name is Dr. Dharav Jamadar, a proud shareholder and a loyal customer of our company. Firstly, I would like to congratulate each and every stakeholder of my company for performing tremendously well in this particular fiscal year due to which our company has posted impeccable and robust performance throughout this fiscal year. Sir, certain questions which I would request you to address are: first, with respect to our core business, which type of mutual funds help us in generating the maximum and the minimum margins as lately in the last couple of months, there have been a shift from equity mutual fund to debt-based mutual fund? Also, on the other hand, particularly with the entry of Jio, we just garnered around INR 17,200 crores in its maiden NFO. What kind of jump are we expecting from the rise of such competition in the AMC, both on our top line as well as bottom line? Second, with competitive intensity rising up amongst AMC and mutual fund business, which of our business shall be the next pillar of growth, providing a scope of margin and ROCE expansion? Third, with good monsoon, low interest rate cycle, financial awareness and much more, what are the possible headwinds that we are, as a company in the mutual fund as a whole might face apart from geopolitical tensions that are existing right now? Fourth, with the current and we being -- with the current and the leader of the space getting denied of issuing the -- sorry, with the current and the leader of the space getting denied of issuing and managing the PAN 2.0, can we cater and enter into such kind of government projects? Are we eyeing such projects? Fifth and last, lately, we have enjoyed a high operating leverage, implying a gain from technological advancements and higher volumes has helped us in generating robust return ratio. But with us on expanding spree and high CapEx, will there be any -- will the high and superior return sustain in the coming times?

We have next question from Mr. Jasmeet Singh. Mr. Jasmeet? Mr. Jasmeet is currently not present in the panel. He has left the meeting. We have next question from Mr. Santosh Saraf.

Hello?

Sir, you are audible.

Okay. Respected Chairman, Board members and my fellow shareholders, my name is Santosh Kumar Saraf. I'm from Kolkata. Hope all of you are safe and very good, sir. Sir, also thanks to all our employees, 8,000-plus employees for their hard work. Also thanks to our employee family for their help as a backbone to our employee so they can serve us very good service, sir. Sir, in your presentation and in your balance sheet book, you give full detail of many of things, my questions, sir. But sir, as a habit or we go for one, two questions to ask you, sir. Without not asking questions, sir, we're not satisfy. At the end of food, everything was [Foreign Language]. So sir, I'm -- what is the ESG rating of our company, sir. If ESG rating good, how you can utilize net debt, sir? Sir, what is the effort you've taken -- made for improved EBITDA -- multiply -- improve debt -- net debt to EBITDA, sir? Second, sir, what step you have taken to reduce our expenses like legal, professional audit fees, [indiscernible] fees plus out-of-pocket expenses, sir. Because in the name of out-of-pocket expenses, there is huge amount we have charged, sir. Sir, also want to know that this is the time of Gen AI. So how are you utilize Gen AI to improve our services sir -- improve our growth, sir. Sir, I'm a distributor under your so many mutual funds, sir. Last year also I asked and advised you to please provide the unpaid -- the third commission details with your statement, sir. This year I write and Mr. Manikandan replied, you should get from [indiscernible] such and such, sir. Also [indiscernible] with the statement. But sir, I clarify not a single statement giving such a detail only can give the details and reasons, 52 -- with the Slide 52, 135 but never informed, sir. So what is -- where is your problem, sir? If you add a single because now is a digital time. You have not expressed other pages charges. So where is the problem, sir? If you give bit monthly statement that your client commission [indiscernible] by region KYC, by region [indiscernible] joint holder as a distributor is better for us. So sir, I request you please improve your services. You are a very good person, sir. I know you are from 24 years, I connected with you. And [indiscernible] very nice person, sir. He always ready to help, but due to overload work, he is unable to give us time, sir. If you -- I request to increase your officers in the Kolkata office, sir. Mr. Manikandan, you know I'm aged people. After 2 years, 3 years I go to God. So please help me to claim my commission. There is [ INR 62,000 ] near about commission in my unpaid asset. So please sir provide the details. I write you these are mutual fund under your scheme, which -- or sir, one thing, after end of year, you send the income certificate, so we can be checked. I asked him so many times, give me income tax certificate, so can I check what is the problem, sir. And last due to old age I request you, to management and our Company Secretary kindly help me to claim my commission so can be -- I utilize at old age, sir. And also request every monthly scheme, make an Excel with detail which helps unclaimed, we can see and can be claimed, sir. Thank you for and hope financial year '25, '26 will be very good for our company, our staff and workers. And wish for a very healthy, wealthy and prosperous financial '25, sir. Also thanks, sir, link in time. [ Rajiv ] and sir, [ Giridhar ] very nice person. They always contact with me sir before meeting start, they call, sir, you attend the meeting. I request you, in the future [indiscernible].

Thank you, Mr. Saraf. This is all from the speaker section. We shall rejoin shortly after the break to answer the queries or questions raised. Thank you. [Break]

Welcome back. Good evening to all the shareholders. Starting with the answers for the question. First, Mrs. Lekha Shah, thank you very much for your kind comments. And for your question regarding the CapEx plan for the year, the company CapEx plan for the year, as you know, there's a re-architecture project that is happening. And hence, for the re-architecture, we'll spend around INR 100 crores for the year. And the usual CapEx on servers and storage, we will spend another INR 65 crores. So that is the overall CapEx planned for the year. The trade barriers and associated questions, I will just hand over to our Managing Director, Mr. Anuj Kumar, to kind of start that question.

So Mr. Ram Charan has already spoken about the CapEx plans. From a PAT perspective, you know that we've had significant PAT growth in the last year, largely driven by revenue growth. And the attempt of the management team is to continuously focus on efficiencies and revenue growth to continue driving this. So this will continue to happen. In the past, you've seen that the company has grown EBITDA and PAT at the rate of about 1% every year. And I mean, certainly not every year, but we think in the long run, in the next 5 years, you should expect that kind of increase. From a low-cost products perspective, I think the company is prepared for taking on the market across product categories, like you've seen that both index funds and passives belong to that category. And while they have grown, the company has displayed the operating efficiencies to be able to manage them effectively. From a competitor perspective, depending upon the segment, there are different competitors. When we see alternatives, those competitors, there are a variety of them. If you want specific names, then companies like Apex, Ascent, Orbis, KFin, all of them are domestic competitors. If you see pure MF RTA, KFin is the only competitor. So depending upon the segment and depending upon the business, these names change. But I'm sure if you follow most of the stories in print and electronic media, you will have some assessment of how this works. I'm moving to the next to the questions asked by Mr. Kaushik. AI, as you know, is a fairly significant and prominent topic today, finding application across and coverage across. Of course, some people are hyperbolic about its adoption and impact and some are more muted. You know that from both AI and ML perspective, self-learning technologies, self-learning bots, small and large language models, We've been at work for over 3 years now. There is significant adoption of this in our core operations. But I think what you will see is that in the next 2 years, particularly FY '25, '26 and '26, '27, this will penetrate even deeper. I don't want to make a specific number calling on what PAT impact and cost impact this will have. But I'll be surprised if this does not impact cost to the extent about -- between 5% to 10% in the next 2 to 3 years. So we are expecting large efficiencies, large automation, large amount of machine learning and AI kind of taking over from some of the human and repetitive effort. From a projected cost saving perspective, like I said, in the coming years, you can expect 5% to 10% of the cost to be impacting this. Do you want to take the next one, this 15CB?

Yes. We have heard the request from Mr. Kaushik for being associated with respect to some certification. We will definitely consider that favorably in the course of the year. Some of my team members will be in touch with him.

From a savings used to give any concessions or tokens to all the shareholders. Of course, you know that our biggest give to the shareholders is annual dividend paid 4 times in a year. And we think we've never, in recent years, broken the discipline on that. We will continue to do that. Is there anything else that we can do for shareholders? There are no ready ideas or practices. But from a dividend perspective, we will continue to hold the flag and continue to do what we have been doing. I will move to Dr. Dharav Jamadar's question. From a -- which mutual fund category generates the highest margin? You're aware of this, that the most intense in terms of transaction and recordkeeping generates higher revenues, by derivation, they deliver higher margins. Equity mutual funds, SIPs are in that category. What are we expecting from the entry of Jio? Right now, of course, only the first fund has been launched, and this is in the current year in '25, '26. Do remember that it's a very large market. Our own AUMs are now in excess of INR 50 lakh crore. And therefore, for a new client to make a very large difference in the first year, we have to wait for time to tell. But of course, they are a very large prominent name. And we believe that it is possible for them to certainly be, let's say, 1% of our overall AUM in the first year, maybe between 1% and 2% in the second year. So we will continue watching this closely. Again, it's too early to start making projections on what will be the impact of their entry on our revenue and our profits. Other competitive businesses outside of mutual funds, I'm sure you've seen that we've been very focused. Of course, it's not easy to drive 6 or 7 businesses outside mutual funds, but you've seen specific speed of growth, margin growth and focus on the management side on payments, on KRA and on insurance, certainly those 3. Outside of that, AIF has been a stable business for a period of time. The analytics business of Think360 is very dear to us. So I think all of these businesses will continue to see management focus and at least 2 or 3 of them have the ability to make it big in the markets. Do continue to watch this space along with us as you place your faith in CAMS. What are the possible headwinds for the MF industry? One of the biggest headwinds is certainly behavior of the markets. Behavior of the markets only predicates behavior of the investors. Of course, in the short term, anything can happen, but typically, investors will follow what markets do. Markets will follow the direction of the earnings. But interest rates, geopolitical situation, growth of earnings, all of these are important parameters, which can create headwinds in the industry. You saw some of that in the September to March period. And of course, that risk continues to stay with all of us. On PAN 2.0 and can we participate in large government projects? So far, the attempt of the company has been to be in limited areas, be extremely focused, not try to go everywhere. A lot of these government projects do have a requirement of us having concluded. So if you're bidding for a INR 500 crore project, the requirement can be or will be, but can be, requirement of having done similar projects at the INR 100 crores to INR 200 crores size, having a certain kind of a IT architecture, being willing to accept certain kind of contractual terms in terms of unlimited liability, et cetera. So while these are very attractive projects, do keep in mind that we want to focus our energies and not go everywhere. Of course, we know about this project and how it is turning out, just so that the requirement in this was execution of large government projects as a required past experience. I'm just looking at the next one. Will operating leverage sustain and how will CapEx behave? Do remember that CapEx is an important constituent of the business. And now, of course, with the platform re-architecture program, the CapEx is increasing. I think there was a later question on how much CapEx we are planning. Between the two, this number could be upwards of INR 150 crores, maybe in the range of INR 160 crores to INR 170 crores in the coming year for both of them. Will operating leverage continue to be what it has been? Again, do keep in mind that CapEx is the first thing which happens. It brings in capability, technology and every other tool and device, which will lead to efficiency, which will lead to operating leverage. We are broadly confident that the 1% operating leverage that we've had in the past can continue and will expand. And again, do continue to watch these things closely. I'm moving on to then questions asked by Mr. Santosh Kumar Saraf. And you have spoken about the ESG rating. As you know, ESG ratings are published by different agencies. Right now, I have the ratings from SES, Morningstar and CRISIL in front of me. SES is very close to 80, Morningstar about 23, CRISIL about 64, uniformly much better than what the ratings were last year, and I think it's very commendable that these ratings have improved. You saw some of the ESG work in the charts that I showed you. So that's how it has been. In terms of EBITDA margins, you saw that EBITDA margins have been upwards of 40% depending upon the quarter and the year, between about 43% to 46%, I think for the coming year. For the current year and the coming years, you can expect margins to be in this range. What are the steps -- your next question was, what are the steps through which we can reduce legal and professional expenses, audit fees and OP? I do want you to keep in mind that like I had shown and we had shown that we are governed by 4 financial service regulators with IFSCA and NCIIPC that expands to more than fourth, to the fifth and the sixth. We are a heavily audited company, heavily governed company. So we are not expecting that either legal or professional fees or audit fees, these are unnecessary expenses. They also create a lot of faith in the eyes of both investors and customers of all the means that we are deploying to improve our controls and risk management stance. So that is not exactly a place where we are driving economies. I think being heavily audited as a nature of the business will continue. I spoke about Gen AI, so I'm not going to repeat the answer. And I trust you would have made note of what we said. On the facilities for distributors, including giving detailed accounts of brokerage, which would have accrued, but is not being paid for a certain risk or a certain reason. And then you also said that the monthly statements are not coming to you. What I'll make sure is, and I think you raised some of these things last year also, what we will certainly make sure and the Company Secretary will make sure that you've spoken to by senior functionaries in these departments so that your doubts and questions are completely laid addressed. Just so that you know that the accrued, but not paid brokerage is available both as a mail back report and through other means on camsonline. But perhaps you're having some difficulty accessing these, and we will make sure that you get to these so that the inconvenience that you have suffered is taken away. This is the end of the formal questions that we had. I hope that all the questions have been answered to the extent and depth and breadth that you were expecting. We come, therefore, to the conclusion of this 37th Annual General Meeting of CAMS. I want to take this opportunity to thank each one of you for placing your faith in the company and for being our loyal shareholders and for your continued support. I will now request the Chairman to kind of deliver his closing remarks at the closure of this AGM. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Anuj. I thank all the shareholders for your active participation by faith in us and the constant support for CAMS. With this, the meeting concludes.