Dear shareholders, good evening. I am Manikandan Gopalakrishnan, the company secretary and compliance officer of the company. A very warm welcome to the 37th annual general meeting of Computer Age Management Services Limited. I would like to take you through the details pertaining to your participation at this meeting. All the members who have joined this meeting are by default placed on mute by the host to avoid any disruption or disturbance arising from the background noise and to ensure smooth and seamless conduct of the meeting. Once we commence the question and answer session, the moderator will sequentially announce the names of the shareholders who have registered with the company. We request the speaker shareholders to limit their speech to three minutes. Upon being called, the moderator will give appropriate access to the concerned shareholder to speak.
Before you commence speaking, please ensure use your headphones so that the narrative is clearly audible to all the participants. Remember to minimize the noise in the background. Ensure that you have a strong Wi-Fi connection and the same is not connected to any other device. Ensure no other background applications are running on the device that you are connecting from. Remember to switch on the video and ensure that you have adequate background lighting at your place. If you are unable to join through video for any reason, we request you to kindly participate through the audio means. If the speaker shareholder has a connectivity problem, we will call on the next speaker to join. Once the connectivity improves, the speaker shareholder may again be called to speak, but only after the entire list of registered shareholders has spoken.
During the meeting, any shareholder facing technical issues may kindly contact the helpline number provided in the notice convening the meeting. There are five resolutions which have been placed for the approval of the shareholders. Four of the resolutions are ordinary business and one is a special business. All the resolutions are ordinary. The Companies Act 2013 and SEBI regulations provide for electronic voting. Accordingly, the company has provided all the members with the facility to cast their votes through remote e-voting system administered by MUFG Intime. The registers as required under the Companies Act 2013 and the ESOP certificate as required under the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Share Based Employee Benefits and Sweat Equity) Regulations, 2021 are open for inspection in electronic mode. Should you wish to inspect, please reach out to me at the email address mentioned in the notice convening the meeting.
The facility to cast the votes at the meeting is available to those members who have not yet cast their votes through remote electronic voting and are participating in this meeting. The voting system will be available during this meeting and for 15 minutes after the completion of the meeting. Thank you for your attention. Now over to Mr. Mehrotra, Chairman of the company, to commence the proceedings of the meeting. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Manikandan. Good evening, shareholders. On behalf of the board, I extend a warm welcome to you for this 37th annual general meeting of the company. This is the fifth annual general meeting of the company being held after the IPO, which is being conducted on OAVM board. I am Dinesh Kumar Mehrotra, Chairman of the Board and Non-Executive, Non-Independent Director of the company, joining the meeting from my home at Mumbai. I'm the Chairman of the Board and the Chairman of the Corporate Social Responsibility and ESG Committee, and a member of the Audit Committee and Nomination and Remuneration Committee. I have been informed by the Company Secretary that the requisite quorum is present. I am now calling the meeting to order. I request the directors who have joined the meeting to introduce themselves before we proceed further. Mr. N.V. Sivakumar, Independent Director.
Greetings to you all, shareholders. I am N.V. Sivakumar, an Independent Director of the company, joining from my son's residence in Mountain View, California. I'm the Chairperson of the Audit Committee. I'm also a member of the Risk Management Committee and Corporate Social Responsibility and ESG Committee. Thank you.
Thank you. Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Rajaram Iyer. Ma'am, please.
I'm Vijayalakshmi Rajaram Iyer, an Independent Director of the company, joining from my residence in Mumbai. I'm the Chairperson of the Nomination Remuneration Committee and also Risk Management Committee. I'm also a member of the Audit Committee and IT Strategic Committee. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Pravin Rao. Mr. Pravin Rao? You are muted.
Afternoon. I am Pravin Udayavara Bhaskar Rao. I'm an Independent Director of the company, joining the meeting from my residence in Bangalore. I'm the Chairperson of the IT Strategy Committee. I'm also a member of the Stakeholders Relationship Committee and Risk Management Committee. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Anuj Kumar.
Mr. S.K. Mohanty also, sir.
Sorry, Mr. S.K. Mohanty. Sorry.
Good afternoon, shareholders. I am Santosh Kumar Mohanty. I'm an independent director of the company. I'm joining this meeting from my residence at Bhubaneswar. I am the chairperson of the Stakeholders Relationship Committee. I'm also a member of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee and the Audit Committee as well. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Mr. Anuj Kumar.
Thank you. Good evening to all the shareholders. My name is Anuj Kumar. I'm the managing director of the company, and I'm attending this meeting from the corporate office in Chennai. I'm a member of three committees, the CSR and ESG Committee, the IT Strategy Committee, and the Stakeholder Relationship Committee. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Mr. Sesharaman Ram Charan.
Thank you. Good evening to all shareholders. I am Sesharaman Ram Charan, the Chief Financial Officer of the company, attending this meeting from our corporate offices in Chennai. Thank you.
Back to you, Mr. Manikandan.
Other participating in the meeting include representative of Messrs. S.R. Batliboi & Associates LLP, chartered accountants, and statutory auditors of the company, and Ms. Chandra, representative of M/s. V. Chandra, secretarial auditor of the company from their offices. Since the physical attendance of the shareholders is dispensed with, requirement of appointing proxies is not applicable. The registers and other documents as required under the Companies Act, 2013 and rules are open for inspection in electronic mode. Since the AGM is being held through audio-visual means and the resolutions forming part of the notice convening this meeting have already been put to vote through the electronic voting, the practice of proposing and seconding of resolutions are not required and will not be followed at this meeting.
Shareholders who are the members of the company on the cutoff date, that is 30th June 2025, have the right to vote pertaining to the resolutions mentioned in the notice. Shareholders who have not cast their votes earlier through remote e-voting can do so during this meeting through remote e-voting facility. I request Mr. D.K. Mehrotra to deliver the chairman's speech.
Thank you, Manikandan. Since the notice, director's report, and other documents have been circulated to the shareholders as part of the annual report, I take them as read. The details of agenda items placed before the shareholders for approval is contained in the notice of the meeting, which is also available on the website of the company. Given that there are no qualifications, observations, adverse remarks, or comments by the statutory auditors in their report on the financial statements for the financial year ended 31st March 2025 or matters which have any adverse effects on the functioning of the company, with your permission, I now take the auditor's report is taken as read. A detailed chairman's message has been circulated as part of the annual report, which you would have pursued. As you would have noticed, this is our fifth AGM after the company has gone public.
The financial year 2024, 2025 has been a landmark for the mutual fund industry. The AUM of the industry stood crossed INR 67.7 lakh crore in March 2025 as compared to INR 55 lakh crore in the previous financial year, thereby reflecting a clear, sustained investor trust and continued market participation across retail and institutional segments. In addition, mark-to-market gains provided a supplementary boost underpinned by positive performance in equity market. SIP inflows reached new highs with yearly contributions. Sorry. Let me come back to you, and let me give you the little picture of what our company has done. Out of the above figures, which I have told about the industry, your company's assets valued INR 45.08 lakh crore as on 31st March 2025, as against INR 37.29 lakh crore in the previous year.
In addition to the mark-to-market gains provided a supplementary boost underpinned by positive performance in equity market, SIP inflows reached new highs, with yearly contributions increasing by 45.24% on year in fiscal 2025 to INR 2.89 lakh crore, reflecting the growing acceptance of the disciplined long-term investing among individuals. Amidst a strong industry background, CAMS remains focused on delivering long-term value to the customers. Our strategy during the year was centered on three more core principles. That is responsible growth, customer-centric innovation, and operational excellence. During the year, your company continued to make progress on its sustainability journey. Initiatives were taken to engage an external agency in assisting the company in fixing a sustainability target, thus showing commitment towards environment, social, and governance.
Your company has met its corporate social responsibility commitment during the year by primarily focusing in the areas of education, healthcare, and environment across the country. On behalf of the board of CAMS, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to our investors, employees, regulators, and shareholders. Your continued trust and support drive our mission to help millions of investors achieve their financial goals through mutual fund investments. I would also like to thank our board of directors for their continued guidance and oversight in upholding the highest levels of integrity. Mr. V. Chandra and Associates practicing company secretaries have been appointed as the scrutinizer to scrutinize the votes cast at this meeting and in the remote e-voting. I'm authorizing the company secretary to file the voting results within two trading days of the conclusion of this meeting with BSE and NSE.
The results will also be uploaded on the website of the company and that of the RTA. I'd like to invite Mr. Anuj Kumar, Managing Director, to deliver his message for the shareholders and make a presentation on the business highlights and for taking the meeting forward. Mr. Anuj Kumar.
Thank you very much, sir. Good evening again, shareholders. I have a presentation to make, which will give you a snapshot of the progress we've made across various fronts in the company. Anish, can you just move to the first chart? From a company perspective, you can see the board of directors. The directors have individually introduced themselves. I would just like to point out that after the exit of the large private equity company, Warburg Pincus, which was a shareholder, we have inducted in the last calendar year. You can see this is Mr. Pravin Rao, Mr. S.K. Mohanty, and Mr. Sivakumar as three prominent industry personalities. Of course, Mr. Mohanty had spent long tenure with the Department of Income Tax and with SEBI. This has further strengthened the board. Mr. Mehrotra and Mrs. Iyer are long tenure directors.
The technology committee, which advises the company on technology and security matters, they continue to remain the same as in the past. Next, please. From a leadership team perspective, you have seen some of these pictures and bios in the past too. It has been our attempt and endeavor to continue to strengthen the leadership team of the company to have a very strong representation in the market and very strong leadership in front of regulators, clients, and of course, our employees. I'm very happy to let you have a glimpse of the team that we've built. Of course, it's a continuous process, I hope to expand this team in the coming months and years.
From a regulation and accredited intermediary perspective, you are aware, of course, that we are a unique enterprise where either the main company or the subsidiaries are governed by all the four financial services regulators. This now continues to expand because in a manner, we have now expanded our operations in Gift City, and therefore part of our operations are governed by IFSCA. From an overall cybersecurity and infrastructure robustness perspective, the NCIIPC also governs us from a broader way. As you know, they are not a single sector regulator but are supposed to monitor and govern the safety, security, and infrastructure practices of large enterprises across sectors, which covers roads, ports, airlines, and the financial services sector.
The overall oversight and governance on the company continues to increase, and this, I'm sure, gives a lot of faith and confidence to the shareholders to see us stand out in front of the significant governance and scrutiny that we face regularly. Next, please. From an FY 2024-2025 perspective, just a quick glance of what we did. We built a very strong win momentum in the company, and you can see that we won six out of the new nine AMC, which is asset management companies, which registered and got licensed. We won almost two-thirds of the new mandates. Launched two of these new licensed companies. One is Angel One and the other is Unifi. Both of them were able to launch their business in the April 2024 to March 2025 time period. We also won our first international MF RTA mandate, which originated in Sri Lanka.
From a team perspective, you know that we've been working very hard to strengthen the talent, both on the frontline and at the top. Very proud and happy to share with you that we've now stretched into recruiting from Grade A institutions, both the IITs and IIMs. We continue to bring in a variety of and depth of talent, including people who are doctorates, not just in the BFSI arena, but in various other arenas as part of a young talent program called FUEL. From an overall cutting-edge next-gen technology perspective, you know that technology is perhaps the biggest differentiator in a business like ours. We had signed up with Google Cloud to build a cloud-native brand-new platform to transform the RTA business. This was done during the year and of course, sometime in June, July.
From then up to the end of the year, there's significant progress which has been made in this area. Gift City, of course, you all heard about the various initiatives taken by the Government of India. We have expanded our presence in Gift City by opening up a new office, which is much larger than the existing office. We service close to 30 clients from Gift City right now. We also formally announced a JV with KFin Technologies for operating MF Central. You know that MF Central is an initiative which was launched in 2021, and from an operations perspective, has been working through independent contracts signed separately by CAMS and KFin Technologies, but this is now being formalized. The JV entity is now fully in place. The board has been appointed. The capital in the company is now being inducted. Next, please.
Overall, from an other business perspective outside of mutual funds, you can see the significant, very deep-rooted success that the company has had. CAMS Pay won close to 100 new deals and mandates across various segments in the financial year. CAMS Pay, which is a payments business, also launched their PG, which is Payment Gateway infrastructure. So far, our licensed business has been payment aggregation or PA, but we've now broadened out into PG. From a CAMS KRA perspective, we continue to beat the rest of the industry in speed of growth, especially in new PAN addition, which is a very standard metric to measure growth. We've therefore gained market share overall. We've also successively transformed the perception and deepened the belief of the overall marketplace and our capabilities.
We are aggressively chasing and have chased fintech partners to be our clients, and therefore we've gone well beyond mutual funds, which was the calling of the business for the first about 10 years of existence. From an insurance and CAMSRep perspective, we are the first and only entity right now to transform overall policyholder experience through Bima Central, which is an all-encompassing platform aimed to give service to customers of all participating entities. We have also accelerated the digitization of policies, which you know is now gaining significant momentum in the last 12- 18 months, and we've crossed 1 crore policies. Also, what is important to note is that LIC, which has so far stayed out of dematerialization of policies, has signed up this year to be part of this.
In a couple of months, they will be actively participating as the integration process gets over. From Alternatives, which is largely AIF-PMS of the work that we have started to do in Gift City, there's been strong sales momentum. We won over 200 mandates of different kinds in the financial year. WealthServ, which continues to be the most popular digital platform for digital onboarding of investors onto both PMSs and AIFs, now has overall 200 installations across the industry. Think360 won mandate from major banks, brokerages, and top-tier credit card companies. They continue to deepen their effort in the AI and ML arena and built a GenAI surveillance system for SEBI, which will be in active production soon. From an account aggregator perspective, we continue to maintain 25% market share in live FIU account in the Indian AA system.
Of course, we also continue to remain the preferred partner in the F&O, which is features and options use case for the stockbroking and stock trading industry. Apart from this, I think a very strong endorsement for the stuff that we do day-to-day, and I'm sure all of you use CAMS services both from an endpoint perspective in our front offices, also from a myCAMS and CAMS Online perspective. This is a mandatory survey whose results you can see on the screen. Almost 96% of polled investors, and there were almost 32,000+ investors, have given a satisfied or very satisfied rating for the quality of service that they have obtained from CAMS. Of course, that does leave a residue of just under 4% who have not given a satisfied or very highly satisfied rating.
We continue to focus on those customers and the issues they face to better the score. You must also be aware that for the last five to six years, the score has continued to go up, including during the COVID years. Next, please. From a thought leadership perspective, this is a matter of pride for the company and for myself. You know that we continue to display feet-forward thought leadership, bringing in new concepts in the market, organizing the data into meaningful industry-level findings which can help the industry grow faster. We released a report on B30 locations in terms of performance in the past years and future potential. This was done at an event done in conjunction with CII. This was done at the 18th CII Mutual Fund Summit, and you can see the panel, including industry luminaries and luminaries from the regulator.
Very senior officials come together to kind of launch this study. Of course, this is available on our website. All of you who are curious about this can access the study. It was very widely covered by a variety of media partners and becomes almost the base study, the basis for drawing key conclusions in this area by various publications and by various media partners. Go to the next. I also wanted to give you a quick glimpse. Of course, it's a busy chart, so don't expect myself to cover each one of these. You've heard of our platform and our products. Of course, we still continue to be treated as an important partner of our services.
Just from a product solutions and platform perspective, you will see just a variety of these, which are largely, of course, relevant to our mutual fund business, but also to our alternatives business and from a much broader perspective across the financial services business, because now there's a large suite of products being offered by Think360 and Fintuple. Very happy and very proud to display this to you. Most of these are products which solve a single problem, but most of them are leaders in their respective segments. I think the important thing is that rather than resting on the laurels of the past, the team has continued to broaden this overall basket and continues to take these products to the market. I'm sure as shareholders, this will give you immense satisfaction to see how well we have managed this entire basket of products. Next, please.
From an overall perspective, both inward-looking and especially from a people and employee perspective, very proud to share with you that while our core themes of automation and technology continue to be the bedrock of our thought process and strategy, we have driven sustained employment and we fostered people development in a variety of ways in the company and in the group. Today we have just over 8,000 employees. Almost 31% of these are women, which shows the significant accent on gender diversity. That's the number of lives that we've been able to transform through sustained effort. We spent over INR 8 crore during the year consolidated from a CSR perspective.
From a CSR perspective, just for the communities, I think our philosophy has been to focus on a count of initiatives which emanate from the areas of education, healthcare, and environment. I'm very happy to share with you that we continue to deepen our effort and produce high-quality results in these areas. You can see, just wanted to illustrate, both from an education and healthcare perspective, how we are changing lives across the country. At one time, we used to be focused mostly in southern India and in the state of Tamil Nadu. Now you can see that in areas like Mumbai, Maharashtra, UP, we have broadened out our overall footprint, and that's very satisfying because we are meaningful spenders in CSR. We are not localized now; we are almost pan-India.
Of course, we will not go to every state, like you're seeing from the base in Tamil Nadu to stretch to far corners of Maharashtra, to stretch to far corners of UP and other areas, including Orissa, it has been very satisfying for the team. The focus on ESG, therefore, continues. You can see just one example. This is in Tamil Nadu, not too far from Chennai, where this state which has had a lot of water accumulation, tanks, ponds, et cetera. A lot of them are weed-infested and therefore not amenable for fishing or drawing of water for household purposes. Through sustained effort and partnership with both NGOs and state and district administration, just one example of a pond having been cleaned and made potable completely.
I think the team has done a great job in doing this in three or four instances in areas around Chennai and, of course, deeper down south around Coimbatore too. That's just one example of how grassroot-level work is being done by the team in the area of ESG. From an awards perspective, I think this was a significant year. You can see CAMS FinServ being awarded the silver award for open banking solutions. We have the CEO of CAMS KRA just below that being felicitated individually and for his work done in CAMS KRA by the BW Businessworld Group. Banking Frontiers and Technoviti came together again to felicitate both CAMS Pay and CAMS FinServ for the excellent work done by them, excellent and foundational work done at the industry level. More awards.
You see at the left a significant, very satisfying felicitation the team had from SEBI. There was an ASSOCHAM award for our insurance business in CAMSRep, IIT Madras CSR awards, TATRA award for both CAMS Pay and CAMSRep, ASSOCHAM's felicitation. I think it was satisfying for a very significant client like Franklin Templeton to acknowledge us as a strategic partner. This, of course, I must say, is a set of the whole but has been very satisfying for the team to be publicly acknowledged for the work they've done over this last one year. Next. From a business financials perspective, I'm sure that you've gone through all these numbers. They are in the annual report, they were advertised, and they've gained a significant coverage. Just want to point out to you the richness of the results last year.
Revenue crossed INR 1,400 crore for the first time, almost mid-20s kind of growth. PBT at INR 6.4 crore was the highest ever. PAT at INR 470 crore grew by about 33%. EBITDA was, for the year, about 46%, INR 6.6+ crore . The return on net worth was 46%. Very satisfying during the year, which was a bumper year, to have declared such results. I am sure, especially for small and individual shareholders, that is satisfying to experience the kind of dividend that we have declared. About 7.5% or INR 72 + per share was what got declared. The last dividend has yet to be paid out and will be paid out as we get shareholder approval.
Again, when you see some of these numbers and we have restricted ourselves to key core financial metrics, you will see that CAMS service funds have grown almost 20%, just short of 20%. From a CAGR perspective in the last five years for AUM, which is a core metric. The AUM-based revenue for the company for MF grew almost 15.8%. Overall revenue, this is also the result of all the foundational work we have done in the non-MF businesses. This has grown about, again, 15% +. Operating EBITDA has improved from 41% - 46% in the last about five years, and PAT has grown significantly. Very satisfying for me, and I am sure you will echo some of the feelings. These are sustained results.
This is not a flash in the pan which happened in a year, but has happened through the sustained effort of the employees, of course, faith of the regulators, the faith and sustained participation by the shareholders by owning the share of the company. Of course, great work done by both employees, partners, vendors, and everyone associated in the ecosystem to get us to results like these. Next, please. What will we continue to drive? You are aware that we want to kind of align ourselves to be the gold standard in the areas of compliance, in the areas of control and cybersecurity. We also want to be sure that we are the best acquirers and nurturers of talent and create a significant depth of expertise. We are very technology-focused today.
If we think there is one action or activity of the management team which can change things for us, that is investment in both technology as what we buy and the talent that we hire, and we have been very focused, and we will continue to be focused on these. From an overall perspective of acquiring businesses from outside or staying interested in other initiatives done outside CAMS, we will make sure that we continue to look for opportunities and bring in companies and enterprises or buy into their equity just to strengthen the overall capability of the company.
These are really, I would say, core themes that we continue to focus on, which is sustaining leadership position in our business, making sure that we are focused on talent, on compliance, controls, risk, security, diversifying from a product perspective, bringing Grade A talent in, and then looking in the environment always to be able to make acquisitions and investments which align with our theme of growing this group. That's all I had in the presentation, of course, and I'm sure that you have access to a lot more detail beyond what I've just spoken through the annual report and stuff that's on our website and other places that you access. I will close the presentation now. I invite the shareholders who registered themselves for asking questions to their opportunity to speak. The moderator will state their names.
We'll unmute them so that they can ask their questions, I will hand over to the moderator now.
Thank you, sir. We now begin the question and answer session. We have the first question from Ms. Lekha Shah. Madam, you are in the panel. Please enable your audio/video and you may ask your question, please. Lekha Ma'am, you may speak now. Lekha Ma'am, you may ask your question. Lekha Ma'am?
Hello.
Yeah.
Am I audible, sir?
Yes, you are audible.
Sorry, sir, I mute me out. Respected chairman, sir, board of directors, my fellow members, good evening and regards to everyone. Myself, Lekha Shah from Mumbai. First of all, I am very much thankful to our company secretary, Manikandan Ji, for extending very good investor services and also sending the AGM notice within time. I found the AGM notice, I am delighted to say it is so beautiful, full of knowledge, and fact and figures in place. Thanks to Anuj , Anish, sir, for such an informative and wonderful presentation. Chairman, sir, your opening remarks were so insightful and comprehensive that you have already addressed everything in my hand. I am proud to be a shareholder of this company. Chairman, sir, I would like to ask few questions. My first question is, what are the company's CapEx plans?
My second question is, how much our PAT in current financial year when you take records of the red herring ? Who are the low-cost producers in industry? My fourth question is, who are the main competitors of our company? Chairman, sir, I have a complaint. I am from Bombay. I am a very old shareholder. From company secretary, I had requested for some annual report. That also is not there, his phone is also not there, nothing is there, sir. Manikandan sir, I am requesting you, please contact me. We are far, you are meeting so late here. I am attending this meeting leaving two-three meetings, sir. Please contact me. Sir, I strongly and wholeheartedly support all the resolutions for today's meeting. Since linking, I love to talk without any problem. Special thanks to Ashish sir and Sarita ma'am. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you, Lekha Ma'am. We have next question from Mr. Kaushik Shankar. Sir, you are in the panel. Please enable your audio/video and you may ask your question, please.
Am I audible, sir?
Yes, you are audible.
Good afternoon. Good evening to respected Chairman, associate directors, and key management personnel. It gives immense pleasure to interact with you once again this year. I am also deeply grateful to our Company Secretary, Mr. Manikandan, for granting me this opportunity. Coming to the agenda of the meeting, I would like to seek clarification. In the light of increasing adoption of AI and automation in the financial services sector, how is CAMS leveraging these technologies to enhance operational efficiency and client servicing. What are the projected cost savings or revenue contribution expected from such initiative in FY 2025, 2026? Before concluding, I would like to share a thought that I believe reflects our company's inspiring journey. A well-managed fund thrives on discipline and clarity, success in life comes from consistency, focus, and courage to adapt, just as CAMS adapt to empower the financial ecosystem every day.
I am personally committed to putting in my best efforts, with organization support, this journey becomes even more meaningful. In that spirit, I once again press for a kind consideration and association in the area of certification audit, including foreign payments, Form 15CB. I sincerely hope that management will extend the opportunity that enables me to remain professionally resilient. I hope Mr. Dinesh Kumar, Mr. Ram Charan, you're listening to us clearly and will engage with me in this area by this year. Lastly, I humbly request the management to consider organizing a plant visit or a CSR initiative visit for speaker shareholders. This would offer us a first-hand view of the impactful work done by our company at the grassroots level and allow us to celebrate the positive change being created through our CSR initiatives.
Additionally, I humbly request the savings from virtual AGM to thoughtfully utilize for shareholders' welfare, perhaps through a small token of appreciation, reinforcing our emotional connection with the company. Thank you all for your time, effort, and continual support. I look forward to engaging with you again next year. I really hope that Mr. Dinesh Kumar, Mr. Ram Charan, will consider my application for working on assignment with the company and enable me to be professionally resilient. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Kaushik. Our next speaker, Mr. Devender Kaur, is currently not present in the panel. I now invite our next question from Mr. Dhruv Jamadar. Sir, you are in the panel. Please enable your audio/video, you may ask your question, please.
Greetings of the day to the respected Chairman and all the board members and stakeholders of my company. My name is Dr. Dhruv Jamadar. Sir, I'm unable to start my video, I suppose.
Yeah.
Please, finish. Greetings of the day to the respected Chairman and all the board members of my company. My name is Dr. Dhruv Jamadar, a proud shareholder and a loyal customer of our company. Firstly, I would like to congratulate each and every stakeholder of my company for performing tremendously well in this particular fiscal year, due to which our company has posted impeccable and robust performance throughout this fiscal year. Certain questions which I would request you to address are, First, with respect to our core business, which type of mutual funds help us in generating the maximum and the minimum margins? As lately in the last couple of months, there have been a shift from equity mutual fund to debt-based mutual fund.
On the other hand, particularly with the entry of Jio, which just garnered around INR 17,200 crore in its maiden NFO, what kind of jump are we expecting from the rise of such competition in the AMC, both on our top line as well as bottom line? Second, with competitive intensity rising up amongst AMC and mutual fund business, which of our business shall be the next pillar of growth, providing us scope of margin and ROCE expansion? Third, with good monsoon, low interest rate cycle, financial awareness, and much more, what are the possible headwinds that we, as a company in the mutual fund as a whole, might face apart from geopolitical tensions that are existing right now? Fourth, with the current and the leader of the space getting denied of issuing the.
With the current and the leader of the space getting denied of issuing and managing the PAN 2.0, can we cater and enter into such kind of government projects? Are we eyeing such projects? Fifth and last, lately, we have enjoyed a high operating leverage, implying the gain from technological advancements and higher volumes, has helped us in generating robust return ratio. With us on expanding spree and high CapEx, will the high and superior return sustain in the coming times? Thank you, sir, for providing this opportunity.
Thank you, Mr. Dhruv. We have next question from Mr. Jasmeet Singh. Sir, you are in the panel. Please enable your audio/video, and you may ask your question, please. Mr. Jasmeet?
Mr. Jasmeet is currently not present in the panel. He has left the meeting. We have next question from Mr. Santosh Saraf. Mr. Santosh, you are in the panel. Please enable your audio and video, and you may ask your question, please.
Hello.
Sir, you are on the panel.
Okay, just a minute. Respected chairman, board members, my fellow shareholders. My name is Santosh Saraf. I am from Kolkata. Hope all you are safe and very good health, sir. Sir, also thanks to all our employees, 8,000 + employees for their hard work. Also, thanks to our employee family for their help as a backbone to our employees, so they can serve us very good service, sir. Sir, in your presentation and in your benefit book, you give full detail of many things my question, sir. Sir, as a habit our, we go for one, two question to ask you, sir. Without not asking questions, sir, we're not satisfied. As at the end of book four, everything was upon at Mukti, as in submitting prizes. What is the ESG rating of our company, sir?
If ESG rating good, how you can utilize it depth, sir? Sir, what is effort you take, made for improve EBITDA multiple, improve debt, net debt to EBITDA, sir? Second, sir, what step you have taken to reduce our expenses like legal, professional, audit fees, also traveling fees, plus out-of-pocket expenses, sir? In the name of out-of-pocket expenses, there is huge amount we have charged, sir. Sir, also I want to know that this is the time of GenAI. How are you utilize GenAI to improve our services, sir, and improve our growth, sir? Sir, I am a distributor under your so many mutual funds, sir. Last year, also I ask and advise you to simply provide the unpaid with third commission details with your statement, sir. This year I write and Mr. Manikandan reply that you should be get from WR such and such, sir.
You think to be sent with statement. Sir, I clarified not a single statement giving the such detail, only Can Fin Homes give the details and reasons. Flag 52, 135, Can Fin Homes never inform, sir. Where is your problem, sir? If you add a single, because now is a digital time, you have much expense, other credit charge, sir. Where is your problem, sir? If you give an excel with monthly statement that your client commission held, reason is 35, by reason KYC, by reason is you as a joint holder, as a distributor, sir. It is better for us. Sir, I request you, please improve your service. You are very good person, sir. I know from 24 years I connected with you, and your Kolkata staff, Mr. Apurba Rai is very nice person, sir.
He always ready to help, due to overload work, he unable to give us time, sir. I request you to increase your officer in the Kolkata office, sir. Mr. Manikandan, you know I am since agent people. After two years, three years, I go to board. Please help me to claim my commission, nearly INR 62,000, nearby commission in my unpaid expenses. Please, sir, provide the detail. I write you these are mutual fund I doing under your scheme. One thing, after end of year, you send a income certificate, we can be check. I'm asking so many times, Give me income tax certificate so can I check. What is the problem, sir? At last, this fourth year, sir, I request you to management and our company secretary kindly help me to claim my commission, so can I utilize at old age, sir.
Also request you, sir, every monthly scheme, you make an excel with detail, with held or unclaimed. See and then we claim, sir. Thank you, hope financial year 2025-2026 will be very good for our company, our staff, and workers, and they could reach for a very healthy, wealthier, prosperous financial 2025, sir. Thanks to sir linking time. Rajiv and Sugriva is very nice person. They always contact with us. Before meeting sir, they call, Sir, you attend the meeting. I request you, in the future, board is busy and hire in time for the busy meeting. Thank you. Ram a. Jai Hind.
Thank you, Mr. Saraf. This is all from the speaker section. We shall return shortly after a break to answer the queries or the questions raised. Thank you.
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Corporate social responsibility is the talk of the town. For CAMS and EFI collaboration is individual social responsibility. Through this collaboration we have branched our efforts into cities of Chennai, Chengalpattu, Tiruvallur, Kanchipuram and Coimbatore district. Pondicherry is a suburb in Western Chennai, just adjacent to this outer ring road. This village should technically be named as Pondicherry because of its multiple water bodies, fresh water bodies. Amidst these brick kilns and large farmlands are these oasis of fresh water that is supporting many, many lives. We present to you the story from three different water bodies in this very belt. The Perumal Kovil ponds, the Kalangya Street ponds and the Koduvalli ponds.
All these three ponds have been dug up, cleaned of garbage, storage capacity increased, embankments strengthened, fencing laid all around to establish legal boundaries and beyond all that, these ponds have been restored scientifically to cater to the local biodiversity. Look at these islands. Look at this embankment. Look at this project innovation with stone crushed, brought and debris dumped to ensure that the embankment is sturdy, stable. Groundwater recharge, a habitat for many lives, and preventing localized flooding are three key responsibilities that these water bodies will now deliver. In Coimbatore, we have developed the two Kovai Vanam. These two urban afforestation projects which started as a seedling, sapling, today are tall, fully grown trees adding to the wind, water and character of Coimbatore. From Coimbatore, let's take you to Chengalpattu.
Within the Chengalpattu Medical College campus, look at this parched land parcel, which is today converted into a new water body. From an absolutely barren land, today it's becoming a storage point for fresh water. This land is now a habitat for many lives. These recharge wells, sedimentary pits, those nesting islands, part of this lake never existed before our intervention. From a flat land to a water wonder, that is how we've converted this portion of land. Similarly, our water body conservation at Karanipet in Kanchipuram in the Oragadam Industrial Estate or our water projects at Panayanthangal, just adjacent to the Chennai Outer Ring Road, all speak volumes of the effort that have been rolled out. This collaboration beyond restoration is also volunteering for India and her environment.
Look at these images of volunteers gathered at an afforestation site in Coimbatore, or these images of people gathering for multiple cleanups. The CAMS's EFI collaboration for India and her environment is hands-on, technology-based, and result-oriented.
In the heart of rural India, where children walk miles each day to reach school, the challenges don't end at the doorstep of the classrooms. The lack of access to skilled educators leaves them struggling for quality education, and traditional teaching methods often fail to keep them engaged. eVidyaloka is bridging this gap, ensuring that no child is left behind in the pursuit of learning. eVidyaloka's digital classroom program empowers children in underserved communities by connecting them with passionate volunteer teachers from across the world.
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Through its online teaching model, students from the remotest villages gain access to high-quality education in their regional language. With live and interactive virtual sessions, the classrooms come alive. These rural students experience learning like never before, leading improved participation and even an increase in overall student enrollment in some schools. The interactive nature of these classes ensures that students remain engaged, ask questions, and develop a deeper understanding of subjects. Subjects like science, mathematics, English, and even artificial intelligence are taught in a way that sparks curiosity and builds understanding. Many students have won accolades for their participation in various national-level competitions and activities of eVidyaloka, showcasing exceptional creativity and innovation. Through the support of CAMS, eVidyaloka's digital education program is now supporting 13 centers across five states and empowering 911 students, supported by 100 voluntary teachers, delivering 40,587 child learning hours in the academic year 2024 -2 025.
With eVidyaloka's intervention, these children are not only attending school, they're experiencing a world of knowledge, breaking barriers, and paving their way to a brighter future. eVidyaloka is committed to making quality education accessible, ensuring that every child, regardless of their location, has the opportunity to learn and grow. With the support of CAMS, eVidyaloka harnesses the power of technology to bring education to government school children, transforming distant dreams into tangible achievements, even in the remotest of villages.
Welcome back. Good evening to all the shareholders. Starting with the answers for the question. First, Ms. Lekha Shah, thank you very much for your kind comments. For your question regarding the CapEx plan for the year. The company CapEx plan for the year, as you know, there's a re-architecture project that is happening. Hence, for the re-architecture, we'll spend around INR 100 crore for the year, and the usual CapEx on servers and storage, we will spend another INR 65 crore. That is the overall CapEx planned for the year. The trade barriers and associated questions, I'll just hand over to our Managing Director, Mr. Anuj Kumar, to start that question.
Mr. Ram Charan has already spoken about the CapEx plans. From a PAT perspective, you know that we've had significant PAT growth in the last year, largely driven by revenue growth. The attempt of the management team is to continuously focus on efficiencies and revenue growth to continue driving this. This will continue to happen. In the past, you've seen that the company has grown EBITDA and PAT at the rate of over 1% every year. I mean, certainly not every year, but we think in the long run, in the next five years, you should expect that kind of increase. From a low-cost products perspective, I think the company is prepared for taking on the market across product categories. Like you've seen that both index funds and passives belong to that category.
While they have grown, the company has displayed the operating efficiencies to be able to manage them effectively. From a competitor perspective, depending upon the segment, there are different competitors. When we see alternatives, those competitors, there are a variety of them. If you want specific names, then companies like Apex, Ascent, Orbis, all of them are domestic competitors. If you see pure MF RTA, Caiman is the only competitor. Depending upon the segment and depending upon the business, these names change. I'm sure if you follow most of the stories in print and electronic media, you will have some assessment of how this works. I'm moving to the next, to the questions asked by Mr. Kaushik. AI, as you know, is a fairly significant and prominent topic today. Finding application across and coverage across.
Of course, some people are hyperbolic about its adoption and impact, and some are more muted. You know that from both AI and ML perspective, self-learning technologies, self-learning bots, small and large language models, we've been at work for over three years now. There is significant adoption of this in our core operations. I think what you will see is that in the next two years, particularly FY 2025/2026 and 2026/2027, this will penetrate even deeper. I don't want to make a specific number calling on what PAT impact and cost impact this will have, but I'll be surprised if this does not impact cost to the extent for between 5%-10% in the next two to three years. We are expecting large efficiencies, large automation, large amount of machine learning and AI kind of taking over from some of the human and repetitive effort.
From a projected cost-saving perspective, like I said, in the coming years, you can expect 5%-10% of the cost to be impacting this. Do you want to take the next one, Mr. Sesharaman?
We have heard the request from Mr. Kaushik for being associated with respect to some certification. We will definitely consider that favorably in the course of the year. Some of our team members will be in touch with him.
From a savings used to give any concessions or tokens to all the shareholders. Of course, you know that our biggest gift to the shareholders is annual dividend paid four times in a year. We think we've never, in recent years, broken the discipline on that. We will continue to do that. Is there anything else that we can do for shareholders? There are no ready ideas or practices, but from a dividend perspective, we will continue to hold the flag and continue to do what we have been doing. I will move to Dr. Dhruv Jamadar's question. From a which mutual fund category generates the highest margin? You're aware of this, that the most intense in terms of transaction and the record keeping generates higher revenues via derivation. They deliver higher margins. Equity mutual funds, SIPs are in that category.
What are we expecting from the entry of Jio? Right now, of course, only the first one has been launched, and this is in the current year, in 2025, 2026. Do remember that it's a very large market. Our own AUMs are now in excess of INR 50 lakh crore. Therefore, for a new client to make a very large difference in the first year, we have to wait for time to tell. Of course, they are a very large, prominent name, and we believe that it is possible for them to certainly be, let's say, 1% of our overall AUM in the first year, maybe between one and 2% in the second year. We will continue watching this closely. Again, it's too early to start making projections on what will be the impact of their entry on our revenue and our profits.
Other competitive businesses outside of mutual funds. I'm sure you've seen that we've been very focused. Of course, it's not easy to drive six or seven businesses outside mutual funds, but you've seen specific speed of growth, margin growth, and focus on the management side, on payments, on KRA and on insurance, certainly those three. Outside of that, AIF has been a stable business for a period of time. The analytics business of Think360 is very dear to us. I think all of these businesses will continue to see management focus. At least two or three of them have the ability to make it big in the markets. Do continue to watch this space along with us as you place your faith in CAMS. What are the possible headwinds for the MF industry? One of the biggest headwinds is certainly behavior of the markets.
Behavior of the markets really predicates behavior of the investors. Of course, in the short term, anything can happen, but typically, investors will follow what markets do. Markets will follow the direction of the earnings. Interest rates, geopolitical situation, growth of earnings, all of these are important parameters which can create headwinds in the industry. You saw some of that in the September to March period. Of course, that risk continues to stay with all of us. On PAN 2.0 and can we participate in large government projects? Far, the attempt of the company has been to be in limited areas, be extremely focused, not try to go everywhere. A lot of these government projects do have a requirement of us having concluded.
If you're bidding for an INR 500 crore project, the requirement can be or will be, but can be, requirement of having done solar projects of the INR 100 crore-INR 200 crore size, having certain kind of IT architecture, being willing to accept certain kind of contractual terms in terms of unlimited liability, et cetera. While these are very attractive projects, do keep in mind that we want to focus our energies and not go everywhere. Of course, we know about this project and how it is turning out. Just so that you know, the requirement in this was execution of large government projects as a required past experience. I'm just looking at the next one.
Will operating leverage sustain.
Will operating leverage sustain, how will CapEx behave? Do remember that CapEx is an important constituent of the business, now, of course, the platform re-architecture program, the CapEx is increasing. I think there was a later question on how much CapEx we are planning. Between the two, this number could be upwards of INR 150 crore, maybe in the range of INR 160 crore-INR 170 crore in the coming year for both of them. Will operating leverage continue to be what it has been? Again, do keep in mind that CapEx is the first thing which happens. It brings in capability, technology, and every other tool and device which will lead to efficiency, which will lead to operating leverage. We are broadly confident that the 1% operating leverage that we've had in the past can continue and will expand. Again, do continue to watch these things closely.
I'm moving on to then questions asked by Mr. Santosh Kumar Saraf. You have spoken about the ESG rating. As you know, ESG ratings are published by different agencies. Right now, I have the ratings of SES, Morningstar, and CRISIL in front of me. SES is very close to 80, Morningstar about 23, CRISIL about 64. Uniformly much better than what the ratings were last year, and I think it's very commendable that these ratings have improved. You saw some of the ESG work in the charts that I showed you. That's how it has been. In terms of EBITDA margins, you saw that EBITDA margins have been upwards of 40%, depending upon the quarter and the year. Between about 43%-46%, I think for the coming year, the current year and the coming years, you can expect margins to be In this range.
Your next question was, what are the steps through which we can reduce legal and professional expenses, audit fees, and OPE? I do want you to keep in mind that, like I had shown and we had shown, that we are governed by four financial service regulators. With IFSC and NCIIPC, that expands to more than four, to the fifth and the sixth. We are a heavily audited company, heavily governed company. We are not expecting that either legal or professional fees or audit fees, these are necessary expenses. They also create a lot of faith in the eyes of both investors and customers of all the means that we are deploying to improve our controls and risk management stance. That is not exactly a place where we are driving economies. I think being heavily audited, the nature of the business will continue.
I spoke about Gen AI, I'm not going to repeat the answer. I trust you would have made a note of what we said. On the facilities for distributors, including giving detailed accounts of brokerage which would have accrued but is not being paid for a certain risk or a certain reason. You also said that the monthly statements are not coming to you. What I'll make sure is, and I think you raised some of these things last year also, what we will certainly make sure, and the company secretary will make sure, that you're spoken to by senior functionaries in these departments so that your doubts and questions are completely addressed. Just so that you know that the accrued but not paid brokerage is available both as a mailback report and through other means on CAMS Online.
Perhaps you're having some difficulty accessing these, and we will make sure that you get to these so that the inconvenience that you've suffered is taken away. This is the end of the formal questions that we had. I hope that all the questions have been answered to the extent and depth and breadth that you were expecting. We come therefore to the conclusion of this 37th annual general meeting of CAMS. I want to take this opportunity to thank each one of you for placing your faith in the company and for being our loyal shareholders and for your continued support. I will now request the chairman to deliver his closing remarks at the closure of this AGM. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Anuj. I thank all the shareholders for your active participation today with us and the constant support for CAMS. With this, the meeting concludes.