Q2 25/26

Oct 17, 2025

Summary

H1 FY26 revenue rose 15% YoY to INR 522 crore and PAT rose 33% to INR 104 crore. Broking, NBFC and advisory growth was complemented by new AMC products and branch expansion plans.

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Choice International Limited Q2 and H1 FY26 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Forum Gosher from Adfactors PR. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am. Good evening, everyone. On behalf of Choice International, I would like to welcome you all to the earnings conference call for Q2 and H1 FY26. I would like to mention that the earnings presentation has been uploaded on the exchanges and the company website, so you can access it as we take you through the opening remarks on the call. Joining us today from the management of Choice International Limited are Mr. Arun Poddar, Group CEO, Mr. Ajay Kejriwal, Executive Director, and Mr. Ayush Sharma, Head of Investor Relations. We will begin the call with brief opening remarks from the management, followed by a Q&A session. Please note that certain statements made during this call may be forward-looking in nature. Such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results or our projections to differ materially from those statements. Choice International will not be in any way responsible for any actions taken based on such statements, and undertakes no obligations to publicly update these forward-looking statements. I would like to hand over the call to Mr. Arun Poddar for his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Thank you, Aashvi. Good evening, everyone, and a warm welcome to our Q2 and H1 FY26 earning conference call. It is a pleasure to have you all with us today. The first half of FY26 has been marked by continuing economic resilience driven by strong domestic consumption, healthy investment activity, and steady government expenditure. The inflation trajectory remained favorable, supported by effective GST reforms, while liquidity condition and the external sector performance stayed stable. Financial market too have reflected this underlying strength and confidence. Against this macroeconomic backdrop, we remain focused on driving sustainable growth across all our businesses in the second half of the year. FY26 has been a year of steady progress so far, with Choice delivering another strong performance in Q2 and H1 FY26. The first half showcased consistent growth across all business segments, reflecting our disciplined execution, operational excellence, and the customer first approach. For H1 FY26, Choice reported revenue of INR 522 crore and a PAT of INR 104 crore, reaffirming the strength of our diversified business model. During the quarter, we also strengthened our investment banking division by successfully completing five new IPOs, raising INR 990 crore for clients and further enhancing our presence in the capital market. The group also achieved two key milestones that further enhanced our diversified financial service presence. Choice AMC Private Limited, our wholly owned subsidiary, received the final SEBI approval to operate as an asset management company for Choice Mutual Fund, marking the group's formal entry into the investment management space. Leveraging its pan-India reach and tech-led distribution, Choice Mutual Fund aimed to bridge the gap between traditional advice and the modern investment solution. In addition, Choice Consultancy Services Private Limited secured project mandate worth INR 140 crore across sectors such as housing, agriculture, MSME, and urban planning, highlighting its position as a trusted partner for high impact development initiative nationwide. As we move forward into the second half of FY26, our focus remains on deepening client engagement and exploring new growth opportunities to enhance efficiency and service delivery. With our team effort and a clear strategy, we aim to deliver consistent value to our stakeholder in the months ahead. Our broking and distribution business contributing 59% to total revenue, has continued to show the strong growth. Total client asset under management in our stock broking segment reaches INR 57,600 crore for Q2 FY26, reflecting a YOY growth of 25%, while AUM for our wealth product rose to INR 4,807 crore. It's up 327% YOY. The number of demat account grows to 1,205,000, a YOY increase of 29% supported by our onboarding capabilities, consistent client engagement, and a wide range of product offering. Moving on to the insurance distribution business, it continued to grow steadily, driven by an expanding distribution network and higher digital adoption among the clients. During the quarter, insurance premium reaches INR 66 crore, up 2% YOY with 68,896 policies sold. Turning to our NBFC business, which contributes 15%, we continue to support MSME and the retail borrower across semi-urban and rural India with a disciplined risk management approach. At the end of H1 26, our total loan book stood INR 716 crore, with the retail segment contribute INR 536 crore. Asset quality remains healthy with NNPA at 2.79% as on September 30, 25. By combining our Choice Money app with our physical branch network, we have improved customer accessibility and operational efficiency, enabling steady and prudent growth of our lending portfolio. Our advisory business contributing 26% of total revenue in this quarter, continues to build its strong execution capabilities. The advisory order book stood at INR 666 crore at the end of this quarter, reflecting our domain expertise and effective on-ground delivery. During this period, Choice Consultancy Service secured several significant mandates, further reinforcing our leadership across multiple sectors in India. In our investment banking business, we remain focused on assisting corporate with their capital raising needs, drawing our own, our execution experience and sector expertise. So far, we have successfully completed 12 IPO transactions, while 27 mandates are currently in progress with a tentative fundraising pipeline exceeding INR 7,000 crore. A key strength of Choice continues to be our Choice Business Associates network, now over 63,000, helping us expand our reach across India. Technology remains central to our growth, with in-house team enhancing platforms like Choice FinX, Choice Money and Choice Connect to ensure seamless clients and partner experience. Supported by 211 branches, 59 project offices and our tax specialists, we are effectively serving our expanding and diverse client base nationwide. As we look forward, our priority will be strengthening our businesses, explore new opportunities and continuing delivering meaningful outcomes for our stakeholders. I will now hand over to Ayush Sharma, our Head of Investor Relations, who will walk you through the financial performance of the quarter. Over to Ayush Sharma. Thank you. Thank you very much, Arun sir. While, Arun sir has already shared a comprehensive overview of our business vertical, I will now take you through our financial performance for Q2 and H1 FY26. For Q2 FY26, Choice reported a consolidated revenue of INR 284 crore, reflecting a healthy YOY growth of 14%. EBITDA for the quarter stood at INR 99 crore with margins improving to 34.84%, demonstrating our continual focus on operational efficiency. PAT for the quarter came in at INR 56 crore, resulting in a PAT margin of 19.87% and a YOY growth of 22%. For H1 FY26, the company recorded total revenue of INR 522 crore, which is up by 15% on YOY basis. EBITDA for the first half reached to INR 186 crore with margins at 35.59%, while PAT stood at INR 104 crore, reflecting a YOY increase of 33%. This performance underscores our consistent execution across all businesses and the strength of our scalable operating model. Looking at our business segments, the broking and distribution vertical reported Q2 revenue of INR 161 crore with PBT at INR 43 crore. The growth reflects both increased client participation and higher assets under management across our stockbroking and wealth businesses. In our NBFC segment, Q2 revenue was INR 43 crore with PBT at INR 4 crore. The combination of digital platforms and our physical network continue to enhance reach and operational efficiency. Asset quality in this segment remains stable. Our advisory business delivered Q2 revenue of INR 79 crore and PBT of INR 28 crore, driven by strong order execution across sectors, supported by strong order book and high quality execution reinforces our position as a trusted advisor across multiple sectors in India. With that, I would now like to open the floor for Q&A. Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Bimal Panchal from Bimal Panchal & Associates. Please go ahead. Hello. Yes, sir. Good afternoon. At the outset, our highest congratulations for a superb performance and very good optimism you have given in this opening speech. I do not have much questions, but I just wanted to know what is the scope of this Choice Consultancy Services. You have got INR 140 crores of orders. What is your scope of activities in these INR 140 crores? What we are going to do? Thank you, sir. Thank you for joining in. Basically, in Choice Consultancy, there are various advisory services, largely concentrated towards the government clients, where we assist governments in execution of various infrastructure and non-infrastructure projects. There are projects where we assist various state governments in developing the MSME sector for the state. For example, government has engaged Choice Consultancy Services to conduct financial awareness programs across states for the MSME sector specifically on how the MSMEs can take the benefit of various government schemes, which are specifically aligned towards the credit availability to the MSMEs and various subsidies which are being made available by the government to the MSMEs. We conduct such programs across states, and we conduct this financial awareness drive where we invite the MSMEs, where we train them on various credit schemes as well as subsidy schemes available to the MSMEs specifically from the state as well as the central government, and then assist them in obtaining those services as well. This is one of the example of a project. There are another projects of project management units also, where government executes large programs across states as well as multi-state programs are also conducted by the central government. We act as the project management unit for those larger programs and provide the complete handholding to the government with the monthly, weekly, quarterly updates on the projects and ensuring the timely completion of those projects. These are the kind of projects which we conduct along with the government across India. Okay. Thank you, sir. One more, sir, for Choice AMC, what is the likely date of launching our mutual funds? What kind of a scheme that we are going to, all kind of mutual schemes or some hedge fund or passive funds, what kind of a scope we are going to launch? In Q3, we are launching Gold ETF, and the date for the first NFO is 24th of October 2025. In the next quarter, we are planning to go for Silver ETF, and in FY 2027, we will come up with the passive strategies as well as active strategies, both. That is the way forward on the timelines. Obviously, these timelines are subject to various market factors and the regulatory approvals which are required. Okay, right. Thank you very much, sir. I wish all the best. Thanks. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. The next question comes from the line of Rahul Sharma with Finvesh. Please go ahead. Hello, am I audible? Yes, Rahulji, you are audible. Yeah. Hi. I just want to know what is your vision for the AMC business that we have recently got the license for, and how are we planning to enter the market with already established players? A follow-up question to that, can you just elaborate on the strategy further? What kind of AUM are you targeting for from the Gold ETF this year? I request Ajay, sir, to take up this question, please. Yeah. Good evening. As per the target of the Gold ETF, initially, we are targeting in NFO at least around INR 200 crore in the NFO. Then as the market grows and we penetrate to the branch network and digital marketing channels, we will expand these tools during the coming. Okay, sir. Thank you so much. That was it from my side. Okay. Thank you, Rahulji. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Umesh Shah from Moneywisers. Please go ahead. Yeah. I hope I'm audible. Yes. Yes, sir, you're audible. Yeah. I had one question on the insurance business. If I see your presentation in the corporate vertical, we have seen a decline YOY of 31%. Any reason could you give? Corporate business is with limited number of clients, and there has been one contract which we could not renew during the quarter, because of which there we have seen a decline. But on an overall strategy perspective, when we look our pipeline for the further corporate policies which we are going to issue and where we are at the advanced phase, we are very much confident that we will fill this gap in the Q3 FY26 in the corporate insurance. Okay. In the NBFC business also, a slight drop in NIMs has been observed. Is this NIMs margin maintainable for the full year? On the NBFC, the NIM has slightly dropped, largely because we have not been doing the unsecured loans where a higher rate of interest is earned. Largely, our focus is on the secured loan portfolio, which has lower rate of interest. Because of it, there has been a slight reduction. However, we are hopeful that we will be able to maintain 10, 11% kind of NIM numbers in the medium-term timelines. Right, sir. One final question, sir. The revenue per branch for H1, if you could give some color. We have the revenue numbers, and we have the branches numbers as well. It is a simple division. I do not have that number handy with me. Okay. But- Right. Okay. Since you, in your presentation, mentioned that we are going to open 100 new branches by end of FY 2026, where are we currently standing after H1, and how is it going forward, the pipeline? Specifically on the broking business, we have opened 35 branches during this particular half of the year, and we are very much on track to complete the 100 new branches target for this remaining half of the year. I mean, the 100 total for this financial year. Yeah. Okay, sir. Thank you, and all the best. Thanks a lot. The next question comes from the line of Jayshree Bajaj with Trinetra Asset Managers. Please go ahead. Good afternoon, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. My question is, the company secured new strategic projects worth INR 1,303 million in Quarter One of FY 2026, including the MahaSTRIDE program in Maharashtra and mandates for TSCS competition in Bihar and Karnataka. What is the anticipated revenue recognition timeline for these specific projects, and how will they enhance future recurring business? Okay. On an average, these projects have the timeline of 24 to 36 months. This revenue will be staggered over the 24 to 30 months timeline, where the majority. All these projects have a mixed kind of invoicing pattern, where we are eligible to raise some amount as monthly invoicing and some are milestone-based invoicing. However, the complete project cycle is of 24 to 30 months, where these will be completed and complete revenue will be recognized as revenue in our profit and loss account. Moreover, on the pipeline perspective, we have already bid on multiple similar projects where we are expecting the outcomes of tenders during Q3. We are hopeful that we will keep on adding to our overall order book during this quarter and the next quarter as well. Okay, thank you, sir. That is all from my side. Thank you. Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Shreyans, an individual investor. Please go ahead. Hi, everyone. Congrats on the quarter. My question was on the brokerage front. From an industry perspective, what more could get worse from here? Say, weekly expiry ending could be one. What else could go wrong? We also saw Nithin Kamath also voicing his concerns on the same. If you could also highlight what the corresponding impact on Choice can be. Okay. So from the Choice's perspective first, we are largely onto retail segment. And specifically in the retail, we have a higher cash contribution instead of derivatives contribution when we compare ourselves to the industry numbers. And because of which we do not foresee a major impact of the regulatory changes. Of course, there are certain impact in the overall industry, and we will also face certain headwinds. But however, we are very much confident that we will be at a better position compared to the industry while looking at our business model. And just as a follow-up there, what else do you think could get bad from here, from an industry perspective? Sorry, Shreyans, could you repeat the question? I could not get the question. From an industry perspective, what else could go wrong from here? We don't foresee anything going wrong from here. It's only a positive upward trend which we foresee from here. Got it. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Mandira with Investo. Please go ahead. Thank you for the opportunity, sir. My question is, the NBFC business is growing very rapidly. How are they managing collection when entire industry is suffering? Thank you, Mandira. In the NBFC specifically, we have a dedicated in-house collections team. Our business is also on the physical model where we have the physical branches. We source the clients through physical branches channel only. Therefore, it is inevitable that we have a physical collections team as well on the ground, which is completely in-house, where we keep a close track with the investors to ensure the timely collections. There are various initiatives which we have taken, which includes the pre-EMI calling and awareness calling to the customers which starts 3 days in advance from the EMI due date to make sure that the customer is aware that EMI is going to hit, and he maintains the balance in their bank account. These are the kind of initiatives which we are taking to ensure the timely collections in the NBFC business. Got it, sir. How are they different compared to other players? There are various initiatives where we don't have any physical kind of movement of papers except the original property papers. Everything is done through a digital journey, which is helping us in keeping our operating costs low compared to other companies at our size, which is something which is different. Secondly, our customer segment is that where in truest sense, we are doing the financial inclusion where people are having low documented income proofs and low access to the credit. Because of that, we separate ourselves from the other companies in the market. That was helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Mandira. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Shruti Sharma, an individual investor. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. So I have two questions. First is, what is the vision with respect to demerging the broking entity? Thank you, Shruti. Shruti, currently, we do not have any immediate plans to demerge the broking business. It is going to continue as a subsidiary of Choice International in the medium term from here. Okay. My next question is, which locations do we intend to expand in this year? Are we looking at new acquisitions? On the expansion phase, we have already discussed that branch expansion is one of the targets. On the acquisition also, we are open to discuss opportunities with various other players in the industry who want to consolidate with Choice. Right now also, we are actively in discussion with a couple of such companies. Okay. Thank you so much, sir. That's all from my side. Thanks, Shruti. Thank you. Participants, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one. The next question is from the line of Sana Jain, an individual investor. Please go ahead. Hello. Hi, sir. Hi, Sana. I just have two questions. First, how are you all planning to phase out the passive and active strategy launches in FY 2027? Yeah. I will request Sajeev sir to take over this question, please. Yeah. On the passive strategy, first, we are targeting the passive strategies only. Once we are settled down with passive in the next one year, so FY 2027, we will start with active also. But initial phase through, we are going with passive only. Okay. The second one was, when do you expect the AMC business to break even? We see expected not more than 3 years. In 2-3 years, we will come on the break even. Okay, great. Great, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. A reminder to all participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question to the management, you may press star and one. As there are no further questions from the participants, I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for their closing comments. Thank you for joining us today. The first half of FY26 has been steady, and we remain focused on sustaining this progress while serving our customer and strengthening our operations. We appreciate your continuing interest in Choice International, and look forward to connecting with you again next quarter. Wishing you a very good day and a very happy and prosperous Diwali to all of you. Thank you. Thank you. On behalf of Choice International Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.