Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to IndiGrid Infrastructure Trust Q4 and FY 2026 earnings conference call hosted by Axis Capital. As a reminder, all participants line will be in a 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 the 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 Mr. Rohan Gheewala from Axis Capital. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good evening, and welcome to the Q4 earnings call for IndiGrid Infrastructure Trust. Today from the management we have with us Mr. Harsh Shah, Managing Director; Ms. Meghna Pandit, Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Sanil, Chief Operating Officer. We will begin the call with the opening remarks from the management, after which we'll have the forum open for an interactive Q&A session. I now hand over the call to the management. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining our quarterly call. As we have done before, I'll start with the presentation and me, Meghna, and Sanil will take you through the quarterly performance and the forecast, and subsequently, we'll take question and answer. On slide three, we'd like to reiterate our vision is to become the most admired yield vehicle in Asia, while we focus on a focused business model, value accretive growth, predictable distribution, and follow an optimal capital structure. As we stand today in our slide four, our assets under management are approximately INR 33,815 crores. We are spread across 20 states and two union territories with 94 different revenue-generating elements. We own about 55 lines spreading across 9,700 circuit kilometers and 18 substations passing 32,000 MVA of capacity.
We also own 1.5 GW peak of solar and average residual contract life or contract is 25.3 years in transmission. Many of them are BOOM projects. Solar about 10 years and BESS about 11.5 years. On BESS front, we have approximately 2.5 GWh of capacity at different stages of development, including two projects totaling about 440 MWh commission. Taking you through the quarterly update on slide number six. We welcome Mr. Gautam Mehra as an Additional Independent Director on board of Investment Manager. Mr. Mehra comes with over four decades of invaluable experience across taxation, regulatory and asset management businesses. He was an erstwhile partner at PwC and also is a member of Hybrid Securities Advisory Committee at SEBI.
We commissioned Gujarat BESS Private Limited, GBPL, which is 180 MW by 360 MWh rated capacity. This plant is located in Gujarat. GBPL is one of India's largest standalone utility-scale BESS project at any single location. We also commissioned NRSS project's regulated tariff project during the quarter and was awarded three more RTM projects under the UPAV scheme with a cumulative value of about INR 165 crore at expansion. We also consummated acquisition of Gadag Transmission Limited from ReNew, which is approximately 187 km of line and 1,500 MVA of capacity transmitting renewable energy power from Karnataka. As far as the financial performance goes, our operating revenue stands at INR 874 crore. It is up 9.5% year-over-year, primarily by adding new projects in the portfolio through the year.
Our revenue growth translated into operational EBITDA growing by similar 8.5% year-on-year and we were at INR 782 crores with a margin of 89%. FY 2016 full year financial performance, the operating revenue was INR 3,311 crores, up 3%, and operating EBITDA at INR 298 crores, approximately 90% EBITDA margin and a growth of 2.4%. Our AUM and net debt to AUM at the end of the fiscal is INR 33,800 crores and leverage at about 57.6% respectively. Collection for the quarter four have been great at 102% for transmission and 97% for solar assets.
Distribution performance, we delivered our DPU as committed at INR 4.4 a unit for the quarter, finishing the year with INR 16 as guided. For FY 2027, we have guided the DPU amount at INR 16.48 a unit, which will be about INR 4.12 a quarter, which is a growth of 3% year-on-year. Our weighted average availability of transmission assets at 99.54% and solar CUF stands at approximately 24.2%. With all this, we'll be continuing to deliver superior total returns, sustainable increase in DPU and stable operations. Going to slide seven, which is the industry update. I'm sure, all of you have read about that India is serving one of the highest peak demands in this quarter at 245 GWh.
The highest one that it served was 256 on April 25 in this quarter, which is crossing the previous high of 2026. Overall installed capacity will stand at 533 gigawatt, of which 51% is from RE. The installed capacity and RE's contribution year back was around 46.3%. While this, we think it's just the beginning, and it's clearly mentioned in CEA's transmission and resource adequacy plan that CEA has increased the energy transition goal by targeting integration of 900 GW of non-fossil fuel by 2035, 2036. We are talking about doubling our goals in next 10 years. Also, NMP has been launched, and there has been some activity around it, so we will continue to monitor if there are opportunities for IndiGrid to participate.
If you go to the next slide. We think that there are few strategic pillars which is driving the market in power transmission and renewable energy. First is the scale of the opportunity. We feel it is a multi-decade transmission opportunity. Considering the requirement of energy independence, energy security, and energy affordability, we feel that transmission plays a very crucial role in ensuring that renewable energy, which is at grid parity, is delivered at the right place at the right time. We feel the transmission sector is underinvested and will continue to offer great opportunity for expansion in the coming decade. In addition, there is going to be a rising need for energy storage. While we have taken a leadership in independent battery storage plant in the country, we believe we'll be one of the largest in the coming year.
We are concerned about the incremental capacity which is bidded out at unviable tariff. We do hope that eventually the need for energy storage is so much that the bidding will become rational and there will be opportunity for viable projects to come in full.
[Execution].
Execution is the moat, I think, as we see gradually it's shifting from cost of capital-driven to execution capability-driven market. We are seeing project execution, land access, and transmission connectivity becoming key differentiators. RE ambitions will drive growth. Certainly, as I mentioned before, it is important for India to ensure energy security and safety. We do feel that there will be great impetus on renewable energy investment and therefore grid investments. NMP 2.0, there is more and more recognition for InvIT structures and unit-led capital recycling. We are expecting that there is going to be more and more assets available in the market and we will be continuing to watch as we grow. In the next slide, as we can see, there is a high bidding activity in transmission and BESS sector.
At a high level, we are looking at active bids of over INR 2 lakh crore of transmission bids. Just to put things in perspective, this is almost equivalent to what happened in last 10 years. We are seeing massive amount of requirement of grid getting approved to ensure that grid gets ready for the energy transition led by renewable energy projects. We participate in most of these projects and hope that eventually we will get a fair share at reasonable returns. Coming to slide 10, for quarter four operating performance, I would just invite my colleague Sanil to take you through the operating performance for the business.
Thank you, Harsh, and good afternoon to everyone. We continue to maintain superior availability and performance. With respect to the safety updates, we had one loss time incident where there was a technician who suffered minor burns on his hand when working on a panel. With respect to the performance, the power transmission business had a weighted average availability based on asset revenues of 99.54. We had some planned outages in the quarter. The solar generation was at 603 million units at 24.2 CUF. The battery storage project at KBPL, that is in Delhi, it had a weighted average availability of 98.55%, much beyond the required as per the service agreements. With respect to the reliability of the assets, the trips per lines stood at 0.1.
Majority of the trips happened due to various weather-related incidents, thunderstorm, et cetera. The substation trips per element was at 0.01, well in control. The solar availability or the plant availability was 98.2%. We had a couple of failures of inverter strings and some cable theft, et cetera, which happened at various locations. If you look at this graph, the availability of all the assets were beyond normal except RSTCPL, that is Raichur Sholapur, and GPTL. These were mainly due to the planned outages of RSTCPL for rectification of insulator failures as well as in the GPTL, we had a failure of one reactor which led to a slight reduction in the availability. Coming to the right-hand side table, you can see that the key indicators are all within control.
Number of trips per line at point one. Training man-hour as well, around 15,800. Lost time incident, 1, like I explained earlier. Unsafe conditions reporting, strong. Near-miss reports also were done, as well as, their corrective and preventive actions were taken up. The generation was at 603 million units with a plant availability of 98.2 and CUF of 24.2. That's all from my side. May I hand over to Meghna to take up the next slide?
Sure. Thanks, Sanil. Hi, good evening, everyone. I'm on slide number 11 on the Q4 and FY 2026 financial performance. The left-hand side table talks about the reported financial performance for the quarter and for the year. The reported financial performance includes accounting basis on service concession, which are for under construction projects. Under the BOOT structure, a tariff asset is typically capitalized during the under construction period. Basis percentage completion and revenue is then recognized periodically, progressively then eliminated the concession accounting over the life of the operational tenure. Essentially, the reported financial performance is in line with accounting Ind AS 115 and we've shown the operational financial performance that you see in the table on the right-hand side.
On the operational revenue performance, you can see that the revenue has grown by 9.5% on Q4 FY 2026 over Q4 FY 2025 from INR 798 crore-INR 874 crore. Year-over-year growth stands at about 3.1% from INR 3,212 crore-INR 3,311 crore. This is on the back of the acquisition that we did during the year as well as the operationalization of certain RTM projects and the under construction projects. The operational EBITDA for the quarter stood at INR 782 crore, which is 8.5% increase over Q4 FY 2025. Year-over-year increase is about 2.4% from INR 2,913 crore-INR 2,982 crore.
NDCF generated during Q4 FY 2026 stands at about INR 405 crores, which is a marginally dipped number by 6.7% over Q4 FY 2025. That's basis certain working capital movements which happened during the quarter. Similar impact was also seen on a year-over-year performance, wherein there is a minor dip in the NDCF by 1.3% from INR 1,400 crores to INR 1,382 crores. The DPU per unit, as guided is INR 4 for Q4 FY 2026 and in line with the guidance provided for FY 2026 of INR 16. Both the charts below provide Q4 FY 2026 performance contribution of the operational asset as well as the service concession accounting revenue, as well as for FY 2026.
Moving to slide number 12, which talks about the Q4 and fiscal year 2026 collection and receivable profile, which continued to be very healthy. Left-hand side graph talks about the transmission assets, which clocked in 102% of collections in Q4 FY 2026, with days sales outstanding at 37 compared to 38 days in Q4 FY 2025. On the solar assets, the collection stood at 97% in Q4 FY 2026 compared to 89% in Q4 FY 2025, and the receivables days stood at 37%, significant improvement compared to 48 days in Q4 FY 2025. Moving on to slide number 13, which talks about the distribution update.
The distribution per unit of INR 4 for Q4 FY 2026 is contributed by interest, dividend, capital repayment, and other income, which will be the record date for which is 19th of May 2026, and the distribution date will be tentatively on or before 26th May 2026. The outstanding units Q4 FY 2026 stands at INR 95.26 crores, which is higher than INR 83.46 compared to last quarter in the last fiscal year. This is the dilution that we did on the back of the preferential issue and the institutional placement. The NAV per unit for Q4 FY 2026 stood at INR 148.24, compared to INR 144.11 on the back of movements in the WACC as well as the asset acquisitions that happened.
With the Q4 distribution, INR 117.32 per unit, amounting to INR 76.48 billion, has been distributed to the investors since listing. If you look at the right-hand side graph, which talks about what has been the annual distribution trend over the last five, six years, as targeted, we have ensured that the CAGR for the DPU is about 5.4% from 2023 to 2027, including INR 16.48, which is the guidance for FY 2027, a YoY increase of about 3%. Moving on to slide number 14, which talks about the consolidated EBITDA to NDCF waterfall. Starting from the EBITDA generated at the SPV level at about INR 985 crores.
Adjusting for all the working capital movements, the CapEx related movement, investment in the under construction projects and the tax. The NDCF consolidated at SPV level is about INR 854 crores. After that, adjusting for largely the finance cost at IGT and the extra working capital movements and tax movements. The total NDCF generated at IndiGrid trust level is at INR 405 crores, out of which the distribution for the quarter at INR 4 stands at INR 381 crores, with which about INR 24 crores was added to the NDCF reserve during the quarter. With that, the NDCF reserve as on 31st March 2026 stands at about INR 544 crores, more than about one and a half quarters of distribution, which is part of this NDCF reserve balance.
Moving on to slide number 15, which talks about the balance sheet strength of IndiGrid. As you're all aware, IndiGrid is AAA rated by CRISIL-ICRA India Ratings with an average cost of debt of about 7.4%. Almost 90% of the total gross borrowing of INR 210 billion is on a fixed-term basis with the leverage ratio at 57.6% and very healthy interest coverage ratio of 2.08x . Including a cash balance of about INR 18.14 billion, which includes the DSRA balance as well as the NDCF reserve. Coming to the gross borrowing, it is fairly well distributed across all classes of debt investors.
71% is across NCDs, and about 29% is across bank loans, all of which are subscribed by various investors, including mutual funds, banks, financial institutions, corporate trusts. Loans are also subscribed by public and private sector banks put together. If you look at the graph at the bottom of the chart, that talks about the refinancing schedule for IndiGrid from 2027 onwards. As you can see, it is well diversified and termed out borrowing profile, where we've ensured that not more than 10-12% of gross borrowing doesn't come up for refinancing in any particular year, so that we avoid any bunching up of debt maturities in any particular year. Moving on to slide number 16, which talks about the total returns to the investors.
Total returns being a combination of DPU and the price change. As you can see that IndiGrid has delivered about to absolute total return of 183% since the time we got listed in 2017, which translates into an annualized return of about 7.13%. Which compared to the risk adjustment which is depicted by the beta, is very close to 0.08, which compared to both pure debt indices as well as pure equity indices, we can see that IndiGrid has delivered superior risk-adjusted returns, and we continue to do so. Moving on to the business outlook from here on. Our portfolio strategy remains consistent, wherein we focus on maintaining stable operations for ensuring predictable and sustainable distribution on the back of value-accretive acquisitions.
Since the last few years on the greenfield development, we are taking strides. In that we are ensuring that our focus on the execution on the augmentation work which we have received through the RTM projects, as well as the transmission and battery energy projects that we have won, get executed on time along with EnerGrid. In addition to that, there are a lot more synergistic greenfield opportunities which are coming up, which we will look to participate in through EnerGrid. Similarly, deliver on the DPU guidance of INR 16.48 per unit for FY 2027 on the back of these acquisitions, greenfield development and disciplined capital deployment.
Balance sheet strength again continues to be a focus area to ensure that we optimize on the interest cost and elongate the tenor profile with respect to any refinancing as well as any upcoming acquisitions. Asset management continues to be a very important pillar for us, where we ensure that we sustain minimum 99.5% availability across the portfolio. In addition to that, look at strengthening self-reliant O&M capabilities to ensure how we are able to maintain sustainable performance. Similarly, uphold world-class EHS and ESG practices as well. Industry stewardship again continues to be a focus area both across the electricity sector as well as on the regulations developed for InvITs across the industry. With this, I'll just take a pause here, and we can move to the question and answer session for the quarter. Thank you.
Thank you, ma'am. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin with 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 remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Our first question comes from the line of Rashmika from Rika Enterprises. Please go ahead.
Yes.
Hello. I have two questions for you. My first question is: In Finland, they have perfected a technology whereby electricity is directly transmitted to households without using any wires, through the air. What happens if the technology becomes globally adopted and India also starts transmitting electricity through the air without using any wires? What happens to our business then? What happens to our business model then? That is my first question.
This is a [hoax]. As of now, there is no proven viable technology that exists to transfer electricity without conductors. There have been experimental projects for decades in Finland, in New Zealand, in many parts of the world. However, none of them have even reached a small critical mass. This, in our mind, is a dream. Even if it was to happen, our contracts are take or pay, we will get paid till the end of the life. Subsequently, what happens, we will see. As you can see that even renewable energy is generated today at two and a half rupees, INR 3. For almost six, seven years at a commercial scale, a country is still running majority on coal.
For any new technology, even though it is viable, for any country of our scale, takes two, three decades to really adopt that technology at scale. First, we do not think that such technology exists except in research paper and photographs.
Second, if at all by magic if this technology comes into place, it's gonna take a few decades before it can be implemented.
My second question is, this year you have announced a just 3% increase in guidance to 16.48 for FY 2027. Usually, we normally announce a 5%-6% increase in guidance. Why has the guidance been so low this year? When will we go back to the usual norm of 5%-6% increase in guidance? Why is the guidance so low, only 3% this year? When will we go back to the normal 5%-6% increase in guidance? That is my second question.
Team, I guess you're on mute. Please unmute and speak. Thank you.
Thank you. To answer your second question, we have historically done 3%-5%, sometimes more, sometimes less. We are operating in a band, the growth is completely dependent on the opportunities that we see, how the business is performing, what kind of growth opportunities do we see. Once we increase the guidance, we want to be comfortable and sure that that incremental guidance continues for a reasonable period of time. Therefore, we take that decision every year and give you a guidance. If there is an additional cash flow available for some year, we increase higher. When we are sure that that cash flow is sustainable for longer period, we increase that.
Where we think that, you know, if we increase it too much, it is gonna be difficult to sustain, we come back to a lower bank. It is purely reflective of how we are seeing the business and operating cash flows which are going to be sustainable. At the end of the day, this is not a bond, right? It is based on what business is performing and how we are seeing the growth in cash flows, and based on that we guide. I would say 3%-5% is in a reasonable range. We are still in the range.
Okay. Thank you. That is it from me. Keep up the good work. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management will be able to address all the question from the participant, we request you to kindly limit your question to three question per participant. If you have a follow-up question, you may rejoin the queue. Our next question come from the line of Deep Vakil from Bandhan AMC. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Your voice is breaking, Deep.
Okay. Am I audible, sir, now? Better? Hello?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah. Sir, two questions, one on the NAV part. Currently we are at 148, and we are expecting around INR 7,500 crore-INR 8,000 crore of under construction projects which will be commissioned in around, what, 12- 14 months' time. Do we see some significant increase in our NAV by the end of this year?
Yeah, I cannot predict NAV, right? NAV has two factors. One is the projects that get commissioned and will reach to the NAV as the new projects are acquired. On the other hand, there is debt, there is asset value, there is beta, there is risk-free rate, you know. There are many variables of NAV.
Yeah, yeah.
We do not control all of them, so it is impossible for us to predict NAV.
I mean, my question revolved at when will it be broadly added into our AUM. I mean, once it gets commissioned, we'll add it in our AUM, right?
We see over a period of 12- 24 months, we will see different assets getting added. Each asset has a separate concession agreement, separate timeline of commissioning, so, and separate acquisition date. All the projects that we currently have will have, in next 12- 24 months, we should see them getting added.
Sure, sir. Sir, I appreciate that you have added the DPU accretive acquisition slide, which you have been guiding that you will add in the last quarter, which is slide 19. Just one question on that. I mean, 16.48, just wanted to ask, it is considering our under construction pipeline of INR 7,500 crore-INR 8,000 crore of, I mean, that getting added to our AUM pool. I mean, it considers that under construction assets distribution as well?
Yes. As you can see in phase five, the yellow curve.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That's already showing acquisitions plus greenfield plus augmentation.
Okay. At broadly, can we interpret it in this way that till FY 2031 or 2032, INR 16.48 can be maintained without acquiring anything additional?
I think that is the right way to look at it.
Sure. Sir, one last thing. Do we have a broader guidance of DPU breakup? As in I've been seeing that, we have interest around 60%-65% of our total DPU, and balance is dividend and capital repayment. Broadly, should we expect that trend to continue?
You know, it's impossible for us to give you that guidance because, you know, we have over 30 SPVs. And we have to follow the accounting and CBDT norms around that. You know, depending on which SPV has more cash, less cash, the dividend principal and interest ratios keep changing, right? It's difficult for us to guide, but broadly we feel it will remain in a similar range. You know, it's impossible for us to predict accurately. That's why we keep disclosing quarter-on-quarter, depending on which SPV has generated cash. It's directionally it will remain similar, but difficult to predict and give you an exact projection.
Sure, sir. Thank you. I was broadly asking from a taxation standpoint, but I think this helps. Thank you and all the best, sir.
Thanks.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one. Reminder to all the participant, if you would like to ask a question, you may press star and one. Our next question come from the line of Nimish Rathore from SSR Charitable Foundation. Please go ahead. Nimish, you may please proceed ahead with your question. Nimish Rathore, you may please proceed ahead with your question. As there's no response, we'll move forward to the next participant. Next question come from the line of Nimish, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask this question. I hope I'm audible.
Yes.
Yes. Yes. I just, I'm a happy investor of IndiGrid since 2020. Just wanted to congratulate the team and just wanted to request you to throw some light on the growth outlook of IndiGrid in coming decade and the scope of IndiGrid in the power sector distribution business in coming decade. Thank you.
Thank you. I think, as I said earlier in the beginning, we are seeing unprecedented need for energy independence and energy security for the country, which is driving a lot of investment in renewable energy, which requires a lot of investment in grid and battery storage. By that rationale, we do see a continuous need for next 10 years for investment in transmission and battery storage. Overall market size, we feel in next 10 years will easily cross INR 9 lakh crores-INR 10 lakh crores of CapEx. How much of that comes in bidding route, et cetera, is for the details as we go. As I mentioned, we are clearly seeing a pipeline currently of over INR 2 lakh crores. Subsequently I'm sure more projects and more pipeline will come.
We are fairly confident that there is sizable amount of investment is going to take place, and we feel comfortable in terms of our capabilities as well as our shareholder base to be able to leverage that and, you know, participate in this growth. We are confident that there'll be opportunities for us to, you know, acquire more projects, win more projects and really grow.
Thank you. Thank you, Harsh Shah. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Navneet from Savla Family Office. Please go ahead.
Hello. I have a question with regards to, recently there were a lot of fast breeder reactors in nuclear power which have been commissioned. Do you think that IndiGrid will have some kind of future in nuclear power as well, going forward? Is the transmission for that different from what it is for another renewable assets?
To answer your second question first, transmission is exactly same. One of our asset is already evacuating power from a nuclear power project in Rajasthan. It's a dedicated transmission line for nuclear power. Having said so, we do not have any plans of getting into small breeder reactor or any kind of nuclear energy at this point in time. I think, both in terms of technical expertise as well as complexities and, we are far away from any of that, so I do not think we will be getting into generation of nuclear power anytime soon. Transmission, as I mentioned, it's the same lines that work. There's no different technology. As and when expansion takes place for that grid, we would be looking to participate.
Sir, secondly, like, just wanted to know that what is the current NAV for the assets as of the 31st March? How do we interpret NAV addition going forward? I heard that on a call you were saying that you wanted to.
Yeah.
The assets which were value accretive. DPU accreted. I'm assuming that is in line with our increasing our NAV also.
That's right.
Is there a particular process which you will have in mind while how do you evaluate whether a particular asset?
Yeah.
is going to be value and NAV accreted?
One is how do we evaluate, second is how as investors you can check. I'll go to the second first. While we are disclosing the NAV of INR 148.24, the computation of NAV of how the assets are getting added, as well as each SPV's individual valuation report is going to be there in our half-yearly reports, right, of that we circulate. Therefore one can tally that let's say, for example, March 31st, the NAV is INR 148.24, what is the each asset's valuation in crores, minus the debt, minus any other adjustments, plus cash, divided by number of units. That computation is a very simple model that one can build. Very simple Excel, not even a model.
Then you can compare quarter-on-quarter how the valuation has changed. That's the best way to calculate. We obviously run before run models to see that when we add this project, how much is going to be accretion in NAV terms of valuation of this asset minus the debt that we fund with. But you also have the same data available once you acquire it. It's a very simple slide or a file that one can build to keep track of it.
Yeah. Sorry, I think my question was not on how to calculate the NAV. My question was that how do we know whether the particular asset which we are adding is actually going to be additive to the NAV?
You keep the assumptions in the Excel same. Just add the cash flows of the fair market value of the asset that we have bought at minus the debt we have funded with should give you the accretion of that asset.
Okay. Okay. Understood.
That's how we calculate.
Thanks. All right. All right. Thank you, sir. I'll get back with you.
Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of [Nimish Rathore ] from SSR Charitable Foundation. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, Harsh and team. As always, the numbers remain very impressive. Couple of questions. The first 1 is on battery energy storage. BESS, we are one of, probably one of the pioneers to get into it, and we already have run a particular BESS in Delhi for one year now. Harsh, would love to understand from you, what is the learn-lessons that you have learned in terms of return on capital employed? Is it comparable to what we would typically earn from a transmission line when it is bought out? That's question one. The question two is, originates from the number where NDCF generated has reduced in this quarter, although the operational revenue has gone up.
I heard Meghna mentioning that there were some working capital transactions, and I presume this was the amount which was largely used up for our assets under construction. You know, that brings me to probably an important question on whether so far our business model was always a hedge against the business cycle. You would buy out an asset and rent it out and earn a rental on it. Probably for the first time, we are venturing out into taking risks and building an asset rather than buying it out. Would love to understand going forward, what's going to be your thinking on this particular aspect. Thank you.
Sure. Thanks. To answer your first question on Battery Energy Storage, we have now two plants which are functioning. The first plant has over one year of performance, and the second plant has just about couple of months, three months of performance now. I think both of them, we are very happy with the performance of both technology OEMs that we have worked with, and the output as well as the cost has been pretty much what we had envisaged at the time of conception of this project. In terms of return, it depends. I think both these projects we won at a time when there was no competition or rather less competition. Subsequently, we executed it well. The market supported in terms of reducing BESS prices at that point in time.
Therefore, we had projects which had very good returns, which is substantially higher than what we would have earned in any other projects. Third, for us, return or IRR, DPU accretion matters more. We think whether it's transmission or BESS, we are okay to earn similar returns as long as the counterparties are same or similar. In our BESS projects we have earned higher returns owing to the fact that we were early and therefore we had better opportunities. On the next question, partly you're right, we are carrying interest burden on the amount that we have invested in projects, and as they come to fruition, the NDCF will show.
We are aware of that risk. The SEBI allows us to put in approximately 10% of our AUM in under construction assets. Investing under construction at a development stage offers many advantages to us. One, it allows us to control the quality, allows us to control the returns that we earn on that project, and allows us predictability of asset acquisition. With that in mind, we had ventured into this three years ago, 3.5 years ago. This is not the first time. Till now, we have commissioned four projects. Two transmission and substations and two battery storage projects, all of it on our own. We started with an INR 200 crore asset. Went to INR 100 crore and another INR 700 crore that we commissioned now.
There is sufficient experience within the team to expand on this space. Having said so, we are well within the 10% that SEBI allows us. Our numbers are very smaller than 10%. By that virtue the impact on NDCF also remains limited. Therefore we consistently evaluate that how much do we invest and how much time we will have to carry the interest on that investment while delivering 16.48 or any other DPU that we are guided. That already takes into account such, I would say investment cost. That is one of the reason that when they commission, they give us ability to increase as well.
Got the point. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Vishal Sarda from Mavis Growth Advisors. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon, Harsh and team. Am I audible?
Yes.
Yeah. Hi. I have a basic question that SEBI has allowed REITs to be Real Estate Investment Trust to be counted as part of equity allocation. Consequently, in the last one odd year, a lot of mutual funds have increased their REIT allocations. Is the InvIT lobby also pressing SEBI to be counted as part of equity investments? If yes, what's the status on that?
See, I mean, I wouldn't use lobby and such words. I think we do work with SEBI and other stakeholders to put appropriate qualifications for InvITs. The proposal was to consider both InvITs and REITs as equity. There was a public consultation that was done by SEBI, I think last year. Based on that public consultation and views that SEBI received from variety of stakeholders, starting from REITs, InvITs, mutual funds, market participants, you know, private REITs, private InvITs. Then SEBI finally decided that the goal is to ensure that more participation happens in InvITs and REITs. They felt that REITs as a business model is more equity-like, and therefore they want to start with REIT classification as equity.
They will see the experience over a couple of years, and based on that, they'll do another consultation at some point in time based on requirement for InvITs, if all the InvITs really want to do that. They'll take that up later. It is also a fact that in REITs there is only public REITs, right?
All the listed REITs are unanimous in their view that how it should be looked at. On InvIT space, it's a mix. There are a few public and there are many more private.
Typically the private InvITs would refrain from calling itself equity because it has issues with who can invest, who cannot invest, et cetera. Now, as you would have seen, many of the private InvITs are also getting into public InvIT space.
I'm sure in a couple of years' time there'll be more public InvITs. There'll be better experience of equity being listed.
That's something which, at that time we will go and, you know, work with regulators and request them to consider again. Having said so, you know, while benefit of equity is, I don't see material benefits, honestly. We already render equity taxation. We are listed on both exchanges. We are fairly well-traded. While Indian, I'll say index fund is not able to include us without equity classification.
Honestly, the regulators will take cue that foreign funds or foreign indexes are already included. IndiGrid is part of FTSE index, as we see, and it got included in last year.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Based on that, we saw a lot of passive flows coming in of huge index fund providers.
I think eventually market forces will take shape and the regulator will recognize that global investors do look at this as equity, and therefore India should follow. We're hoping in next couple of years it will fall in line.
Thank you for the explanation. My concern is coming from another small point, which is an addendum to this. Brokers don't accept integrated margin, while they're accepting REIT as margin. I am one of the earliest investors because I have been invested since IPO.
Yeah.
A very big liquidity issue in our books, that we can't use IndiGrid margin. We intend never to sell it. Hopefully the way you guys are executing.
Yes.
Flabbergasted with the way you've executed, and thank you for that very much. That margin funding requirement is something which we can't satisfy with IndiGrid. Any light on that, it's good to know.
You know, this has come before as well. I mean, we are not usually aware about how the market participants work. SEBI does consider units as security. Now, from margin funding perspective, I think the classification of security is important. I'm not sure if there are other criteria. Once it is security, I think it is no law not to lend against that. It is just market practice. I think once few large players will start doing it'll follow. I mean, we are little to implement and honestly, a regulator won't even consider a view that allow margin funding because I'm sure you know it's kind of looked down upon within the regulatory circle. I'm not sure if, first I'm not sure if law stops new margin funding. It's market practice.
Second is, you know, we I don't think that it's looked at favorably by a regulator. It's difficult for us to represent because we are not a party over there. Maybe some investors group needs to go.
Yeah, I got your point. Thank you very much for the explanation and all the very best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question come from the line of Deep Vakil from Bandhan AMC. Please go ahead.
Hello. Sir, just one follow-up on the question that an earlier participant had asked, I mean, regarding the under construction risk point that you were making. The under construction assets, sir, are under EnerGrid, right? Technically, IndiGrid doesn't have that interest rate risk on its books. Can you please throw some light here?
Yeah. We invest in EnerGrid asset about one-third equity required. If whatever equity we invested in that, right? On that we have to pay interest, right? Because we are borrowing. While we have cash, but effectively, if we didn't invest, we would have repaid that cash, debt, right? Accordingly, interest burden will be lesser. In an indirect manner, that is the cost of carry, if I can say, for such investment. We do invest in projects in EnerGrid, and that is how we are passing the expertise and getting a confirmed sale to us.
Got it, Sir. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question come from the line of Shagun, Individual Investor. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir. Sir, the board meeting had an agenda of fundraising. Could you please clarify if you're leaning towards more equity dilution or is it through debt?
You know, we raised two issuances in last six months. At this point in time, there is no direct immediate placement in mind for equity. We take approval, we plan to take approval every year in the quarter four board meeting from now on, which allows us to be little more agile, because most of the time when we have to take, have to raise capital, whether it's institutional placement or preference issue or anything else, calling another board meeting and shareholder meeting becomes, you know, an additional step which exposes us to more price risk. We decided from this year that every year we'll take, you know, approximately INR 2,000 crores of approval upfront.
Depending on whether we see new assets coming in, and if we have to raise equity, we'll be able to be a little more nimble and agile on that. That's why we are taking a preemptive approval. At this point in time, there is no immediate placement issue that we foresee on any equity.
Okay. Thank you, sir.
Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. With that, we conclude today's conference call. On behalf of Axis Capital, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.