Nippon Life India Asset Management Limited (NAM-INDIA.BO) Q3 FY2026 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Nippon Life India Asset Management Limited Q3 FY '26 Earnings Conference Call hosted by InCred Equities. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Meghna Luthra from InCred Equities. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.

Thank you, Iqra, and good evening to everyone. On behalf of InCred Equities, I welcome you all to Nippon Life Asset Management's Third Quarter FY '26 Earnings Conference Call. We have along with us Mr. Sundeep Sikka, Executive Director and CEO. We are thankful to the management for allowing us this opportunity. I would now like to hand it over to Mr. Sundeep sir for his opening remarks. Over to you, sir.

Thanks a lot. Good evening, and welcome to our Q3 FY '26 earnings conference call. We have with us our CFO, Parag; CBO, Saugata Chatterjee; New Asset Class Head, Andrew Holland; Deputy CFO, Amol Bilagi; CDO, Arpan Saha; Head ETF, Arun Sundaresan; and Deputy Head AIF, Aashwin Dugal; and Matsui-san, nominee of Nippon Life Japan. I would like to share key highlights of our performance and post that, I will hand over to Parag to speak in greater detail on the recent industry trends as well as our performance, post which we will move to Q&A. Coming to the key highlights, I would like to start by mentioning that during this quarter, NAM India crossed the milestone of INR 8 trillion of total AUM and INR 7 trillion of mutual fund AUM. Further, NAM India achieved its highest ever quarterly operating profit at INR 4.58 billion as well as profit after tax of INR 4.04 billion. NAM India is also the fastest-growing AMC in the top 10 AMCs in Q3 FY '26 as well as 9 months FY '26. This led to a continued increase in our overall AUM market share. We had the highest increase in AUM share in the industry in Q3 FY '26 and 9 months FY '26. Our market share at 8.65% is our highest since 2019. More importantly, both equity sales, market share and SIP market share remained well above our equity AUM market share with both being in high single digit for the quarter. Lastly, on our AI subsidiary, our Board of Directors in their meeting on November 13, 2025, authorized the company to enter into a strategic collaboration with DWS Group, a leading European asset management company, wherein DWS intends to acquire a minority stake up to 40% in Nippon Life India Asset Management Limited by subscribing to fresh issuance of equity shares. Further, as part of wider collaboration, NAM India and DWS will also work closely in other areas, including passive investment products and global distribution. Now I will hand over the call to Parag for further details on the industry trends and our performance.

Good evening. Thanks, Sundeep. Let me start with the markets. Equity market in Q3 FY '26 witnessed a pickup from prior quarter levels. The Nifty increased by 6.2% quarter-on-quarter. The Nifty Mid-Cap Index increased by 5.9% quarter-on-quarter, while the Nifty Small Cap Index was flat quarter-on-quarter. The repo rate decreased by 25 basis to 5.25%, while the 10-year G-Sec increased by 1 basis quarter-on-quarter to 6.59%. Coming to data on the mutual fund industry. Industry quarterly average AUM grew by 18% Y-o-Y and 5% quarter-on-quarter in Q3 FY '26 to INR 81 trillion. The share of equity in overall AUM increased marginally quarter-on-quarter, ending at 57% for Q3 FY '26. Now moving to industry flows. The equity category, excluding index and arbitrage, witnessed a gross inflows of INR 2.54 trillion and net inflows of INR 1.11 trillion. Both gross inflows and net inflows were lower quarter-on-quarter. Categories with the highest inflows were flexi cap, multi-asset allocation and mid-cap funds. The fixed income category that is debt and liquid witnessed a net inflow of INR 17 million in the quarter after a net inflow in the prior quarter. The ETF category had a net inflow of INR 522 billion. Moving on to the SIP. Industry SIP contribution for the quarter was INR 900 billion, up 17% year-on-year and 5% quarter-on-quarter. Monthly SIP flows in December 2025 stood at INR 310 billion, an all-time high. Further contributing SIP folios increased by INR 5.4 million, that is 6% higher to INR 97.9 million for December 2025 over September 2025. At the end of the quarter, unique investor in mutual fund industry increased to INR 59 million, that is an increase of 12% year-on-year. Now moving to our business performance. We closed the quarter with a total asset under management of INR 8.16 trillion. This includes mutual funds, managed accounts, offshore funds and GIFT City. Our mutual fund quarterly average AUM grew 23% year-on-year and 7% quarter-on-quarter to reach INR 7.01 trillion. We were the fastest-growing AMC in the top 10 in Q3 FY '26 and 9-month FY '26 and had the highest increase in quarterly average AUM market share among all AMCs. I would now like to share a few key highlights for the quarter. Starting with the market share, our market share increased 35 basis year-on-year and 14 basis quarter-on-quarter to 8.65%. Our equity market share increased 11 basis year-on-year and was stable quarter-on-quarter at 7.13%. We achieved a high single-digit market share in net sales in the equity and hybrid segment in Q3 FY '26. However, excluding NFO, our market share would be in double digits. We continue to have the largest investor base in the mutual fund industry with 22.7 million unique investors. We are humbled to have over 1 in 3 investors -- mutual investor invest with us. I would also like to touch upon some important aspect of our systematic book. I'm happy to share that there has been a continued momentum in our systematic flows. Our monthly systematic book rose by 12% year-on-year and 3% quarter-on-quarter to INR 37.6 billion for December 2025. This resulted in an annualized systematic book of INR 451 billion. SIP market share stood at 9.82% for December 2025. Moving on briefly to ETF segment. We continue to be one of the largest ETF players with AUM of INR 2.09 trillion and a market share of 20.31%, which increased by 220 basis year-on-year. Our share in the industry ETF folios is 48%. We also have 51% share of ETF volume on the NSE and BSE. Our ETF's average daily volume across key funds remain far higher than the rest of the industry. The industry continued to witness a surge in gold and silver ETF volumes in the quarter. Combined AUM in these 2 ETFs for the Nippon Mutual Fund was INR 688 billion as of December 2025, up 54% quarter-on-quarter. Subsequently, the combined AUM in these 2 funds has crossed INR 1 trillion in January 2026. Our gold ETF was amongst the top 15 globally in terms of inflow in 2025. Moving on to our digital franchise. Our digital purchase transaction and new SIP registration rose to 4.32 million in Q3 FY '26, up 6% year-on-year. We had our highest ever monthly transaction in December 2025 at 1.56 million. Digital business contributed 77% of the total new purchase transaction Q3 FY '26. Nippon Mutual Fund unified digital ecosystem continues to serve a multitude of digital native investors, meeting their ever-growing needs by providing best-in-class digital experience across their preferred touch points. Now I would like to briefly update you on our subsidiaries and GIFT City. Starting off with AIF. Under Nippon India AIF, we offer Category 2 and Category 3 AIFs and have raised cumulative commitments of INR 89.2 billion across various schemes, up 28% year-on-year. In Q3 FY '26, we raised INR 2 billion on commitment across various asset class. Fundraising in current -- is currently underway for 2 of our listed equity AIFs, one private credit and direct VC fund. We achieved our largest fundraise to date with our maiden private credit fund, Nippon India Credit Opportunity Fund, that is NICO-1, which is now fully drawn down and deployed. Based on the success of the first fund, we have now launched the second series, NICO-2. On the offshore fund, AUM grew 7% in 9 months FY '26 to INR 162 billion, with major inflows coming in from various geographies in Asia and Europe. Moving to GIFT City, as stated previously, we currently have 2 feeder funds, namely Nippon India ETF Nifty 50 BeES GIFT and Nippon India Large Cap Fund GIFT. The AUM of these 2 funds grew 35% quarter-on-quarter to USD 41 million. Now on to our financial performance. For Q3 FY '26, revenue stood at INR 7.05 billion, up 20% year-on-year and 7% quarter-on-quarter. Other income stood at INR 0.75% -- INR 0.75 billion, up 3.9x year-on-year and 1x quarter-on-quarter. Operating expenses stood at INR 2.48 billion, up 17% year-on-year and 4% quarter-on-quarter. Excluding impact of the new labor code, operating expenses grew 14% year-on-year and 1% quarter-on-quarter. Operating profit stood at INR 4.58 billion, up 22% year-on-year and 9% quarter-on-quarter. Profit after tax stood at INR 4.04 billion, up 37% year-on-year and 17% quarter-on-quarter. For 9 months FY '26, operating profit grew by 20% year-on-year. Profit after tax grew by 16% year-on-year. With this, I would like to conclude my remarks and open the floor for questions.

I think before we open the floor for questions, I just wanted to clarify. I think in my opening address, I think what I mentioned over the DWS, the 40% stake will be taken in the Nippon Life India AIF Company. Just wanted to clarify that. Thank you. I think the floor is open for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Lalit Mohan Deo from Equirus Securities.

Sir, I have 2 questions. Firstly, on this -- could you give us the -- so we have seen some sharp growth in gold and silver ETF. Could you also give us a share in terms of the top line? Like how much of the revenues do come from that -- these 2 ETF segments? And also one bookkeeping question, like could you spell out the segment-wise yields in equity, debt, liquid and ETFs? And lastly, we are seeing some moderation in the market share on monthly SIP flows. So anything material to read over there?

Parag, take these questions.

Sure. So Lalit, on the yields part, the yields for equity is around 53 per basis, 53% -- 0.53%, so 53 basis. Debt is 25 basis, ETF is 20 basis and overall yield is 37 basis. We don't specifically give the asset class-wise fees and their contribution to revenue. But as you rightly said, our overall gold and silver pie in the overall AUM has increased. So it has impacted increase in the overall revenue also.

On the point of the SIP market, there's a slight dip in the market share. So like it was mentioned in the opening speech, there has been a volatility, which is there in the equity market. And if one has seen the [ AMFI ] data, the flows in SIPs and the flows in the equity schemes are now narrowing down to certain categories. There is one category called flexi cap, which is a very large category in the MF industry, which is where there's a lot of SIPs coming in. We are working towards building our market share in that particular category or any other alternate category to take care of these. But else, we are -- our SIP debt flows are consistently moving around, barring these few aberrations during the course of the quarter.

Lalit, you want to ask more questions?

No, no. That was it.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Prayesh Jain from Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

Congrats on a good set of numbers. Firstly, just probably a naive question here. But when you gold ETFs and silver ETFs basically purchase, what nature of gold and silver in them?

As per SEBI regulation, it is all backed by physical asset class.

And you cannot take any exposure to derivatives on this?

No, we cannot. No, no.

Not only we, SEBI does not allow for any SEBI registered ETF.

Okay. Okay. Got that. Sorry. The other question was on -- if I look at the cost and particularly, the overall cost for us has been quite moderate in this quarter. Happy to see that. But what's the kind of driving force behind the moderation in other expenses on a sequential basis in this quarter? Was there any one-offs in the previous quarter, which have not come in, in this quarter?

No, Prayesh, there is nothing specific. The cost is more or less line in even last quarter. There are small dip, which is there, but there is nothing to read in this business after [indiscernible].

We at times continue with the discretionary spends depending on the market conditions, branding, technology, various things. But I think you cannot -- I mean, I would not like you to see it as any directional thing if it's come down. I think it's just -- I think it's in line with our overall planning.

Correct.

Yes. I think you've mentioned the guidance of 15% growth in overall expenses. That should sustain for next year also?

Yes, it should.

And structurally, how do you think passive as a segment, right? And it's been growing very strongly, right? So from a contribution of profit perspective or some understanding as to given the scale that you, Nippon AMC has on the passive side, which is not linked to EPFO. There's a massive size out there, right? Some understanding as to what is the contribution that comes into the profit? Like you mentioned the yield is on the ETFs, but what's the kind of cost against it? Or how do we kind of size the profitability against this category? And that's been growing at a very fast pace.

So I think we'll break it in 2 parts, I think your question. One is the profitability and how do you see from a future point of view. I think from our point of view, the way we see is, I think in the Indian context, both active and passive will continue to grow at a very strong pace. And these are totally 2 different verticals. I mean it is not one is cannibalizing the other. These are 2 different set of investors who are -- I mean, there are investors who would like to go for passive. There are investors who would like to go for active. I think, yes, we are in a very strong and a dominant position where both as far as active and passive, I think we have a very strong track -- a long track record and also trusted by millions of investors. I want to also give you another way to look at the specifics for the ETF business. Unlike mutual fund business, ETF business globally, the top 2, 3 players always have the lion's share because, I mean, unlike a mutual fund where an investor typically likes to diversify in 2, 3 different schemes. Here, the underlying is the same. And typically for us, because we have -- as we talk today, more than 56 lakh investors, more investors means more liquidity, more trading and it's chicken and egg. And that's exactly the reason I think if you see -- you talked about gold and ETF earlier, someone asked this question, the fact that between gold and silver ETF, we are almost 35%, 40% of the entire industry. So I think we'll continue. I think we believe this is -- this does not have any much additional cost. This is a scale game. And this is not a business which can be replicated very easily. Again, I repeat, globally, country after country, the top 3, 4 players will have 80%, 90%, then you'll have a long tail with 2%, 3%, 4%. So that is one. I think on the yields, Parag?

Yes, so Prayesh, the yields are -- the blended yield for ETF is around 20 basis. And so it's a very, very profitable business to run. And the cost is very lean and the new increase in the AUM doesn't really require to have a higher cost element. So it's a very profitable business.

The next question is from the line of Mohit Mangal from Centrum.

Congratulations on a good set of numbers. My first question is towards the SIF strategy. First of all, how do you intend to take it forward? And now it is a 6-member team, so how will the economics work in terms of yield and profitability?

So I think as you rightly mentioned, I think we have a team led by Andrew Holland, I think, and we are very, very bullish and excited about SIF. We believe it has just started over the last 3, 4 months ever since the scheme has started, which are about INR 3,000 crores, INR 4,000 crores have been collected. But this is -- and if I was to go back, it's like starting of the mutual industry because for this segment, the segment which is the HNI segment, we have the accredited investors, we believe this will become a very, very important and a critical area. And from our point of view, I think we will continue investing as a 6-member team today. I think we are, at this point of time, also back testing, getting a risk management ready. I think we believe this will be a very important segment. If I was to look at, I think, what you talked about, the earlier question I was to go a separate vertical of ETF and passive was discussed. I think I believe when we will be discussing 5 or 10 years down the line, SIF will be a separate business vertical and we'll be discussing that in that much detail.

Yes. But do you think that over the same medium term, say, next 2 to 3 years, we'll have decent yields on these businesses? Or do you think it will be a little on a lower side?

I think it depends on different players how they want to approach it. Somebody may want to do it for AUM. They want to do at lower yields. We are very clear. I think we would like to add value to the investors and do it at higher yields. So we do not want to run it like a liquid fund. We do not want to run it like a passive fund. I mean this is a specialized product. We clearly see. I mean, if you can add value to the investor, the investor will be willing to pay. So our strategy for SIF will be not AUM, but more profitability.

Understood. This is very clear. Secondly, in terms of growth, I think -- I mean, we had a very, very solid growth, I mean, led by equity and debt. But I think the liquid has kind of disappointed. So do you think that is a concern? Or will it bounce back in Q4?

I think I'll rephrase the word disappointed to -- yes, it was a little lower. But definitely, I think you'll see this. It's a temporary thing keeps happening at times. I don't think so you should, I think, read too much into it. I think overall, as a company, it's a portfolio, there will be at times, there could be a particular scheme or asset class, which may underperform for one particular quarter. But I don't -- I'll request you not to read too much into it.

Understood. The last question is towards the performance. I think we have been in top quartile, say, over a longer period of time, greater than 3 years. But I think in some of the schemes, our short-term performance has been a little weaker. So are we coming out with any strategies to improve that? Or do you think that it will become more clear maybe next 3 to 6 months down the line?

I think even as we talk today, almost 2/3 of our equities funds are in the top 2 quartile over 1 year bucket. Definitely, we continuously keep monitoring our equity/debt performance very closely. However, we have to also differentiate between noise and sound because I think what you have to see is last 1 year, market has been volatile, has not moved in any particular direction. And certain themes may not have played out the way we expected. But is it basically a reason for us to panic or try to change the portfolio? The answer is no. We stick to our conviction. So I think this 1 or 2 quarters plus or minus does not matter. I think -- so effectively, we are not going to be taking much -- a lot of extreme steps, but we continue monitoring the schemes very closely.

The next question is from the line of Ankit Bihani from Nomura.

Congrats on a good set of numbers. So my question is on the yield part. So the yield has held up quite well on a Q-o-Q basis, while we have seen a substantial growth in the lower-yielding ETF space also. So what has led to that? And the second is, have you done any assessment on the new SEBI regulations and what could be the impact?

So the yield on ETF is mainly driven by the gold and silver commodities ETF, which has been little helping the yield to grow on the ETF side and which is resulting in the overall increase in the yield because the ETF as a pie is increasing in the overall AUM. So that has been helping to improve the overall yield on ETFs. I think on the SEBI regulation, even SEBI regulation, I think so the regulator has been consistently taking steps in the interest of industry and the investors. And this is, I think, so one of the steps in same direction. Coming to specific, the removal of the pie basis, exit load will surely have some impact on the overall industry equity-oriented AUM. And even the revision in TER slab will have some impact on the sort of bigger scheme. But on the smaller scheme, it will see some benefit. Lastly, the brokerage on the cash transaction was reduced to 6 basis against 12 basis. But the average brokerage used to be in the range of around 8, 8.5 basis on cash transaction. So there is no much dip on that side. So I think so this will not have a major thing to read currently. Anything which comes on as an impact, we'll have to look at how we will adjust or do it in our financial, how to do pass on or anything.

And I guess also to add to what Parag mentioned, I think over the last 2, 3 years, as I've always mentioned, irrespective, it's not the regulator, whether it's a regulatory push, whether it should be the investor demand, one needs to be mentally prepared that I think the yields can come down by a few 1 or 2 basis points year after year. And that is the direction I think will keep moving. Whatever the reason, I think the idea is how do you build up efficiency in the company to absorb that.

Agreed, yes. And just a follow-up. So on the ETF space, so what I could understand, the yields are higher on the gold ETF side. Could you give a number? I think 30, 35 bps would be a fair assumption?

I think blended is 20, Parag just mentioned.

20 basis.

20 basis point...

But what would be for the gold, silver ETFs?

So gold is around -- you can check in DTRs. DTR is a public document. Gold is around 60 basis and silver is around 30-odd basis.

Okay. 60 for gold and 30 for silver.

The next question is from the line of Rahul Kumar from Vaikarya Fund.

Just one question. Actually, can you help us understand the trends on the net flows on your small cap funds?

Yes. See, the small cap fund, as you know that it's been now almost 2 years, we have stopped taking lump sum investment. We were very clear that at that point in time, the market was getting more heated. And I think we were right to have arrested more flows in this fund. As we speak, we'll continue to be in that camp. Like you have heard Parag saying that last year also, the small gap index did have a negative return. The valuations are still stretched though the -- there is some news flow or noise about small caps getting rightly valued. But we are in the camp of still observing the valuation movement from here on. The earnings trajectory also is going to be something which we are going to decide very minutely from here on. So maybe at this point in time, we are still -- we still believe that flows into these funds should be through SIP. We have not yet seen any sort of negative net flows in this fund. This fund continues to be net sales positive. But yes, directionally, the inflows are going down because lump sums we don't accept in this fund.

Okay. Okay. And I think on flexi cap, you mentioned that you seem to be seeing a strong traction, correct? And over there, it seems that you're trying to improve here. Just can you help us understand on that fund as well?

Yes. So if you go back to history, the flexi-cap category in the industry is a new category, which was approved by SEBI. And that's when many of the multi-cap funds or the large and mid-cap funds, which were having a flexi sort of a strategy got migrated into the flexi-cap category. And that's the reason why this category became big. We were late starters, that's in 2021, we launched our fund. And it's a 5-year product at this point in time. The mid and small-cap correction, which has happened has impacted -- does impact the fund performance in the near term. Hence, what we are looking at is that how do we bring in more stability into this performance and that should lead us to start getting more market share in the flexi-cap category. So that's the -- that's where we stand at this point in time. So for sure, money flow and SIPs are moving into this category. As we also should know that the flexi-cap categories in the industry are more large cap oriented. We want to be true blue flexi cap. Hence, sometimes near-term performance might impact the near-term return. But we will stick to our mandate of being true blue flexi cap.

The next question is from the line of Abhijeet Sakhare from Kotak Securities.

My first question was, is it possible to indicate or give some sense of what would be your flow market share in gold and silver ETFs?

It will be approximately 30%, yes.

Got it. And like in terms of yields, what I saw from AMFI disclosures is that the yields on the gold and silver ETFs, if I kind of combine that book, is probably better than what you get on your equity book. So the question here was that as we look into the next few quarters, do we get a sense that it's possible that our yields kind of inch upwards or could remain flat even while the overall AUM keeps growing?

Again, we won't be able to do a futuristic thing, but the only thing specific to ETF, I can share with you, I think higher liquidity. I think when there is a higher liquidity, it allows you, it adds value to the investor by low tracking at a low impact cost and allows you or gives you the question to charge higher. That's the only thing I can share with you at this point of time. Which way it will go, we do not know, but because the mix will keep changing. But the only thing -- I mean, generally, when we talk of ETFs, and I'm not sticking to gold or this thing, liquidity helps you -- I mean, helps the investor get a lower impact cost, the tracking error -- lower tracking error. And these 2 things put together, if you get it right, I think it allows you the capability to charge higher. Whether you charge or not is a different thing, but it allows you to charge higher. And you are not forced to play a game of lowering the expenses to garner AUM.

Got it. So is it fair to assume that your like price-to-NAV gap or the tracking errors would be like one of the best in these 2 categories?

Very much.

Okay. Got it. And then on the OpEx, did I hear this number correctly that for next year, we are looking at somewhere close to 15% headline growth in overall OpEx?

We've been consistently saying, I think we can look at expense growth of about 15% plus/minus 1%, 2%. That's what we've already said.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Meghna Luthra from InCred Equities.

Sir, I just wanted your thoughts around the SIP movement. Do you think it has any correlation of the slowdown in thematic and sectoral scheme? Or general market sentiment, this broad market sentiment is what it is following? Do we see that the pace of SIP flows will now stagnate or plateau at these levels?

I think I would -- it will be very difficult to predict that. It will depend on basically -- see, what we have seen in past is, I think it depends on which segment you're catering to. When you look at the segment, which is basically SIPs, which are, let's take INR 20,000, INR 50,000 and above, I think they are more vulnerable to market conditions compared to very small retail ticket size, they are not as much vulnerable. So I think we continue -- our focus continues to be on very small ticket size. That is one. Having said that, whenever -- I think it's not a thematic or this -- if investors over a longer period of time see, over 2, 3 years' time, I think the returns are not there, they can -- sentiment point of view, there can definitely be a slowdown. I'm not saying it will go negative, but I think growth can slow down for sure. If it's over a longer period of time, investors see negative growth or no growth in the portfolio.

Got it. So on the ticket size, what would be our average ticket size on the SIP, on SIP?

For us, I think 75% of SIPs by value are less than INR 10,000.

Okay. So that's very granular. Got it. And sir, again, a similar question on the offshore fund. Is there -- how do you think that the book will move going forward? I know it is difficult to give guidance, but any sentiments or color on that?

No. I think broadly, I think I would -- I've mentioned in the past also, I think clearly, we would have expected offshore contribution to be higher than own. It's taken a little more time. It's a little binary. Unlike SIF, when we talk, I think when you are doing -- whether you'll get 100,000 SIP or 90,000 SIP or 110,000, SIP, I mean, it's very easy to predict that could be plus/minus 10% variation. But these -- majority of these businesses are very, very institutional deals, mandates. It will be difficult to predict which direction we'll go. But all I can share with you, I think I shared in the last meet also that there is a lot of work in progress that is going on. We -- clearly, a lot of work going on in Japan. I think we launched the first NISA scheme in Japan, I think the India scheme under NISA regulation in Japan. As I mentioned in my speech earlier, our AIF is getting into a JV with DWS. Again, the idea will be to get more global flow into India. So this is, again, continuous work in progress. It will be very difficult to give a guidance on this. But very clearly, in the last few years also, even U.S.-INR depreciation has also gone against us. But I think there's a lot of work in progress you would see over the next 2, 3 years. I think more positive numbers on this compared to what we have seen in the last 5 years.

Okay. Got it. That's very helpful. And sir, on this deal, do you think -- I mean, I know it's a small, I mean, proportion of the whole book. But can you give more color on this on the transaction? When is it likely or anything?

I think at this point in time, we will not as shared with the stock exchange on 13th of November. I think it is our intention to -- it's a nonbinding, I think, agreement we have got into DWS. I think as and when there is further update, I think we'll be coming back to you, surely.

Okay, sir. And lastly on -- can you please guide on the ESOP expense, what it was this quarter? And how do we look at it going forward?

Yes. So ESOP expense for this quarter was around INR 11 crores. And for next year, of the current ESOP scheme, we are expecting ESOP expense of around INR 26 crores for the next financial year.

The next question is from the line of Mohit Mangal from Centrum.

Just one question. So last quarter, you've said that you have been successful in rationalizing distributor commission across 4 equity schemes, which covered around 60% of total equity AUM. Any further, I mean, developments in this quarter?

I think it will be very difficult -- directionally, we'll keep moving in that direction. I think quarter-by-quarter, number of schemes will be very difficult to share with you. But directionally, as Parag mentioned, I think even with respect to the SEBI changes, the new regulation, we'll try to mitigate any impact on us by either absorbing getting -- either by getting better efficiency or passing on. I think we'll continue working on those lines.

Ladies and gentlemen, we now come to the end of this earnings call. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing remarks. Sorry, sir, we have one more question. It is from the line of Gaurav Jani from PL Capital.

Sir, just 2 quick questions. You mentioned the ESOP charge for the quarter to be about INR 11 crore. The notes to accounts mentioned it's about INR 6 crore. So where is the difference, please, if you can explain?

So the INR 6 crores pertains to the new ESOP scheme, which was granted in the current financial year and INR 11 crores is the overall ESOP expense, including the new scheme and the old scheme.

Okay. Understood. That's clear. Secondly, I had a question on the labor code impact, right, incrementally. So this quarter, we have taken the onetime. By how much would the staff cost increase? Or how should we kind of look at that?

So the labor code impact, it's a onetime changes to the gratuity. There are still -- some clarification is still awaited. So we'll do an equal, if anything, in the March quarter. But the onetime impact is on the gratuity changes on the basic and definition of wages, which has been notified, which has been taken in the financials.

So as of now, sir, no incremental material impact seems to be there?

No, for the gratuity at least, we have worked out on the -- as per the law.

Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take this as the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing remarks.

Thank you, everybody, for joining this call. If you have any questions, if you need some inputs, you can reach out to our IR, Arash, and he can help you to answer the questions. Thank you, and goodbye.

Thank you very much. That concludes this conference call. Thank you all for joining us today, and you may now disconnect your lines.