Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Q4 and FY2025 earnings conference call, hosted by InCred Equities. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Meghna Luthra from InCred Equities. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you, Manu. Good evening, everyone. On behalf of InCred Equities, I welcome all to Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC's fourth quarter FY25 earnings conference call. We have, along with us, Mr. A. Balasubramanian, Managing Director and CEO, along with the senior management of the company. We are thankful to the management for allowing us this opportunity. I would now like to hand it over to Mr. A. Balasubramanian for his opening remarks. Over to you, sir.
Thanks, Meghna, for the introduction. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining today's investors' call. I trust you all had the opportunity to view our earnings presentation, which is available on both the stock case and our website. Let me begin with the economic outlook very quickly and update on the mutual fund industry. The global macroeconomic outlook for the new financial year suggests a continuation of moderate but uneven growth, with projections around 3.3% for the global economy. Inflation is expected to moderate further, with the global headline inflation potentially falling below 4.2%. Key risks still persist, including the geopolitical tensions and potential for increased trade restrictions and macroeconomic volatility stemming from unexpected economic shifts or policy changes. Central banks are expected to remain vigilant, calibrating monetary policy cautiously, especially in the U.S., while fiscal policy will need to focus on long-term stability and growth-enhancing measures.
India's macroeconomic outlook remains strong, with GDP growth projected at about 6.5%. The robust expansion is driven by sustained domestic demand, rising government capital expenditures, and gradual easing of inflation. While global risks, particularly from the U.S. trade policies, could affect exports, India's limited reliance on the external markets provides significant insulation. Inflation is expected to average about 4.1% for the fiscal year. Given the RBI flexibility for potential rate cuts, the fiscal deficit is targeted to decline to about 4.4% of GDP, reinforcing the government's commitment to fiscal consolidation. Overall, India is poised for continued growth, though the global risk and the need for sustained private investment warrants are for monitoring. The recent positive turnaround in the Indian stock market, with indices like the Nifty 50 and Sensex rebounding March 25, faces significant headwinds due to the potential impact of the newly implemented term tariffs.
However, domestic optimism returning from foreign investment, reasonable valuation, and signs of economic recovery provide the necessary support for our market. Additionally, India is actively pursuing a trade deal with the U.S. to secure favorable terms and minimize the potential disruptions, and hopefully it happens soon for the benefit of our economic growth. Moving to the Indian financial mutual fund industry, the quarterly average AUM of mutual fund industry as of March 2025 stood at INR 67.42 lakh crore as compared to INR 51.1 lakh crore as of March 2024, growing by 28% on a year-on-year basis. Due to recent volatility in the equity markets, Q4 FY25 saw a slowdown in equity net sales compared to the previous quarter. Equity net sales for Q4 FY25 were around INR 1,221 crore versus INR 1,621 crore in Q3 FY25.
The total NFO collection for Q4 FY25 also experienced a decline, totaling to about INR 12,500 crore, with INR 8,500 crore coming from equity and the rest of the money coming from fixed income. Mainly, the equity flows have come into the sectoral and thematic funds and small-cap funds, especially the NFO collections. While industry SAP inflows registered at a year-on-year growth of 38%, with the 10 crore accounts contributing to approximately INR 22,900 crore in March 2025, it witnessed a marginal decline on a quarter-on-quarter basis. The total number of mutual fund folios stood around 23.8 crore, with a year-on-year increase of 32%. The individual average AUM for March 2025 grew by about 21% year-on-year from INR 33.31 lakh crore to INR 40.31 lakh crore, and contributed 60% of the total AUM. The B30 cities and average AUM of INR 12.17 lakh crore for March 2025 accounted for 18% of the total mutual fund AUM.
At Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC, I'm pleased to share that we observed positive momentum in sales, driven by improved investment performance and strong on-the-ground level engagement from our sales team. This also resulted in quarter-on-quarter increase in our AUM and market share. As part of our ongoing engagement, this quarter, we also hosted an exclusive event, Vantage Point 2025, which brought together the country's top MFDs. The event was pivotal in strengthening our relationship and fostering deeper collaboration with these key partners in order to increase our engagement as well as market share. It has, in fact, enabled them to better advise their investors with the tailored investment solutions suited to the evolving market dynamics. Our overall average assets under management, including alternate assets, stood at INR 4.06 lakh crore, reflecting a 17% year-on-year growth. Our mutual fund quarterly average AUM reached INR 3.82 lakh crore, growing 15% year-on-year.
The quarterly equity average AUM stood at INR 1.69 lakh crore, growing by 11% year-on-year. Our SAP book for March 2025 stood at INR 1,036 crore, and we added about 5.43 lakh new SAPs in Q4 FY25. Our total investor folio stood at 1.06 crore, with around 27 lakh new folios added during FY25. On the alternate business front, we are continuously enhancing our PMS and AIF offering across both equity and fixed income to better serve the evolving needs of HNIs and family offices. Following the receipt of the ESIC mandate, we commenced management of the debt portfolio, and AUM stood at about INR 7,456 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2025. Consequently, our PMS AIF assets witnessed a year-on-year growth of 268%, rising from INR 3,773 crore to INR 11,333 crore. Additionally, we're also preparing to launch the ABSL Equity Innovation Fund under the PMS category.
Our offshore assets grew by 14%, from INR 10,545 crore to INR 12,070 crore. Under the GIFT City platform, we had our final closure of the ABSL Global Emerging Market Equity Fund under the LRS scheme, with AUM of about $65 million. Fundraising is underway for the India ESG Engagement Fund, ABSL Flexi Cap Fund for inward remittance, and ABSL Global Blue Chip Fund under LRS scheme for outward remittance. Aligned with our vision to scale and passive business, we continue to offer a diverse and performance-driven product to our investors. As of March 2025, our total passive assets reached approximately INR 34,700 crore, with a growing customer base exceeding 11.6 lakh folios. Our current product suite comprises a distinct offering designed to meet varied investment needs of the customers, with a mix of equity and fixed income index funds.
Moving on to the financials, we at ABSL AMC have achieved profit after tax of INR 931 crore in FY2025, which is up 19% year-on-year. For FY2025, our operating revenue is at INR 1,680 crore, up 28% year-on-year, and total revenue is INR 1,986 crore, up 21% year-on-year. Operating profit before tax is at INR 944 crore, up 31% year-on-year, and profit before tax is INR 1,240 crore, up 23% year-on-year. In Q4 FY2024, our operating revenue is at INR 429 crore, up 17% year-on-year. Total revenue is INR 501 crore, up 14% year-on-year. Q4 FY2024 operating profit before tax is at INR 233 crore, up 21% year-on-year, and profit before tax is at INR 305 crore, up 14% year-on-year. We are pleased to announce that the board has proposed a dividend of INR 24 per share, which is up from the last time what we declared for the year FY2025.
With this, I would like to conclude and open the floor for any questions.
Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets only while asking a question. I repeat, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have our first question from the line of Swarnam Mukherjee from BNP Paribas Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi sir, good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity. I have three questions from my side. First, one is on the employee expense part. This quarter, the employee expense had kind of increased sequentially. I wanted to understand what factors drove these expenses and if there was a higher variable payout weighted to this. How do we account for it? Do we do it on a quarterly basis, or is it that we account it on an actual basis in a particular quarter? If you could give some color on that, and how should we think about this number in the upcoming quarters as we move into FY 2026? That is the first question.
Second is on the ESIC mandate that we have gotten, if you could give some details on what would be the realization from that, and is this primarily a debt-oriented mandate that we have largely in mutual funds? If you could highlight that. Thirdly, when I look at your SIP data, I think what I see is that the number of live SIPs have also come off. I just wanted to understand that last year we had kind of significantly increased our share towards the direct channel, particularly the online-oriented channel. Is this leading to some amount of closures in our SIP book, or if you could highlight what the trends are?
Given that SIP flows have also come off from what it was in December, is this, I mean, what is our approach towards that if we would expect this number to kind of now move northwards as market has started to also improve? These will be my questions, sir, and I have a couple of bookkeeping questions which I'll possibly ask after your response.
Thanks, Swarnam Mukherjee. I'll take the second question, which is the ESIC mandate. This is basically a debt-oriented mandate advisory under the portfolio management service. Of course, as you know, these government mandates come with the lowest possible rate. It's a more prestigious mandate for us. While we have been in this market for long and for a variety of reasons, we were not participating in this segment. Given the fact that we have the people who can actually provide the right service to these managing these funds, this year we bid for it and we got qualified, and therefore we won the mandate. Ideally speaking, the amount could be in the range of INR 44 crore-INR 45 crore on the basis of the sharing formula that we have with all others. That's something.
Of course, here we are building it up, and we really believe winning this kind of mandate can only help us expanding this advisory service to many others, both government and private institutions. That is something on the basis which we are on this mandate. I'm happy to share that it's already got the money and started investing in that. As far as the SAP data concerns, I'll leave the exact numbers to Prakash. With respect to the SAPs, while we have been clearly focusing on increasing the SAP, as you would have seen last few quarters, each quarter, we keep improving numbers. We touched almost about INR 1,400 crore kind of SAP number, and then we saw some bit of dip. I think largely on account of two things.
One, of course, during the current quarter, generally we have seen SAP both registrations and the net additions have come down for the industry, and we are also in more aligned with that. Also, given the fact that the STP generally is where money comes in and the power on STP, and during the current volatility period, some of the STP transactions also got stopped. As a result of that, the number shows a little lower. Otherwise, our focus in terms of building SAP, I think it remains paramount to us. Even some of these promotions that we are doing, the subsidy portal plan is SAP that we are going aggressive in terms of promoting it, and the incentivization also is actually set the target, and the incentivization is also large on the basis of that.
In fact, our fund performance is showing an improvement across the major categories. We are also quite confident that SAP, we should start seeing the improvement coming in. Of course, yesterday's background only, I do not want to give the target number, given the fact that it becomes a projection. Otherwise, clear focus is there to build our equity through the SAP. That stays constant. As for the employee expenses concerns, I'll ask Adit.
Mr. Swarnam Mukherjee, actually, employee current we see from quarter-on-quarter basis, it has not increased much. It is only in the same range, 1,627 to 1,628 only. However, we are in the process of building our direct team to 30-40 additional people, but that is not going to actually impact much on the cost part.
Thank you. Sorry, I missed the 1,620 to 1,630 numbers, sir. You must be talking about the overall expenditure. If I have this correctly, the employee expenses have moved up from around INR 88 crore to almost INR 99 crore. I mean, I just wanted to understand that INR 10 crore kind of increase.
Yes, Swarnam Mukherjee, the employee expenses for the quarter-on-quarter has increased by INR 11 crore from INR 88 crore to INR 99 crore, which is largely on account of the bonus provisions and the staff welfare expenses. You wanted to know about the bonus provision. Because it is a formula at the year-end basis, the performance of the entire organization, we make the provision for the bonus, and that has increased a little bit, because of which you can see some increase in the overall employee expenses.
Okay, sir, understood. Then next quarter, it will again kind of normalize a little bit?
Yes, yes, yes. Again, from the next financial year, the new provisions will start. This is the achievement what we will have that time.
Okay. Would you say to build in maybe 10% kind of inflation in the fixed part?
Yeah, I think it helps just give you a sense on these things. Like sir, generally we have the fixed cost plus variable cost, and variable cost is largely linked to the performance of each of the functions, as well as the company's overall functions, overall achievement. Therefore, these provisions will keep changing, and I think wherever, in fact, last quarter was better than the previous quarter. Therefore, as a result of that, we have to make a little higher provision. Otherwise, sometimes it's a good problem to have.
Basically, just to add, actually, there would be some quarter-on-quarter fluctuation, but if you see on year-on-year basis, it's largely in line.
Yeah. Okay, sir, understood. Very helpful. A couple of bookkeeping questions. If you could provide the SIP AUM number and years by the different asset classes, that would be very helpful. Thank you.
Yeah, SIP AUM is INR 75,600 crore.
Swarnam Mukherjee, SIP AUM is INR 75,600 crore.
Okay, sir. If you could give the years by the different asset classes?
Equity is in the range of around 68-69.
No, you won't.
Yield, you won't.
Yield.
Yeah, that is in the range of around 24-25, and liquid is in the range of around 12-13 basis points.
Okay, sir. This is very helpful. Thank you so much, sir, and all the best.
Yeah, thanks.
Thanks, Swarnam Mukherjee.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Prayesh Jain from Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Just a few questions. Firstly, if I look at your yield this quarter, we basically divide the revenue by your MFAUM. That's kind of come off in this quarter. That's primarily because of the share of equity going down or what would you attribute that to? That is first. Secondly, you mentioned in your opening remarks, sir, that the flow momentum has been strong given the fund performance has improved. Could you just help us understand what has been your or directionally, what has been your flow market share, improve market share in the last few months? Thirdly, you had in our earlier interactions on analyst meet, I think you had mentioned about an agency to kind of evaluate the funds and where are we in that process right now? Yeah, those would be my questions. Thanks.
Yeah. I think with respect to the revenue drop, it was largely on account of equity mix. Equity mix has dropped by about 1.5% compared to the previous quarter. As a result of that, equity mix getting reduced, the revenue has dropped. Therefore, the number what you're saying is derived from that. As far as the final performance impact across all over the main categories, right from frontline equity, flexi-cap fund, balanced advantage fund, multi-cap fund, and some of these thematic funds, we are seeing improvement coming in. In fact, our sales on these funds, in fact, we're seeing it today only generally how the numbers are even coming in month of April. These numbers are now getting positive. Normally, the way we have been addressing the last one and a half years, our rate of fall has to come down. That we have witnessed in the last quarter.
The rate of market share loss has been coming down quarter-on-quarter basis. Second, largely performing funds should also come as part of the recommendation list that we are something we are now seeing. Some of our funds which are performing well now are coming as part of the recommendation list in some of these organized channels. In fact, the sales team is also driving five focus products, and all five focus products are in the Q1, Q2, and that is being not only being seen. People are also talking about it in terms of fund performance coming back is something making our partners to contribute more for the AUM success in the current financial year. That is something we are already seeing it. In the last quarter, we are seeing some bit of flows coming into those funds. Last question is around, which is your third question.
Fund flow and market share.
Yeah, that I have mentioned, yeah.
Sorry, could you have another question?
Sir, it was about, yeah, hello. Can you hear me?
Hi, I can hear you.
Yes, I was asking about the consultant that you had hired to improve the to evaluate the funds.
I got you. I got you. No, no, we engaged with Mercer about two years back when Harish Krishnan joined as Head of Equity. We had already initiated a discussion with Mercer to help us to understand the current processes, what are the things need to be improved. In fact, those inputs have been taken by the new Head of Equity and implemented some of the process changes that they implemented in the fund house in terms of tracking of ownership, stock selection, and ownership of stocks, and sizing of those opportunities in the portfolio reflection, and also monitoring the performance very closely. We have also put a target that we should not have any funds which is in Q4, we should try and keep all the funds in Q1, Q2 performance. Not necessarily everything has been Q1.
In fact, 65% of our funds are delivered Q1, Q2 performance for March ending on a one and a half years basis. I think this has come largely on the back of the corporate engagement that we did, which has now been built in as part of the overall process. Of course, in addition to that, whatever sizing that came, the new team, which is not new team, except Harish and one more gentleman we recruited for a smaller mid-cap, along with the other portfolio managers, the restructuring of team from a fund management responsibility point of view, allocating to individuals the portfolio responsibilities, and each and another, of course, have taken it with a lot of enthusiasm to deliver better performance, better engagement. That is something which is reflecting.
This is something which you learned from Mercer's suggestion, as well as the team themselves have derived. In addition to that recommendation, what are the things they need to implement is something which is being driven by our Head of Equity and now is reflecting on both the discipline that they are supposed to maintain on the investment processes, as well as focus on delivering consistent investment performance.
Okay. Just a couple of more questions. One is, where does the ESIC and PMS sit in? Is it in parent or console, standalone or console? Secondly, the other income has seen a significant improvement despite weak equity markets, just because of the debt part or what else is there that is helping the other income improve?
Yeah, that is our precise answer.
Yes, Prayesh, the PMS income is largely, means mainly, into the standalone also and in console also because it's not a separate subsidiary for us. As you rightly pointed out, the increase in other income is largely because of the debt funds. Because of some rate cuts, we had benefit on that, and because of that only, there is an increase in the other income.
Basically, just clarifying, PMS and SIC both sit in standalone and in terms of consolidation also appears in consolidation, right?
Yes.
Yeah. Got it. Thank you so much and all the best.
Part of it is our subsidiary which is not there in the standalone. Yeah.
No, could you clarify that in the sense part of income is booked in standalone and part is booked in subsidiary? How would that happen?
The difference between the standalone and the consolidated is the offshore part. Offshore income.
You need the offshore part.
Yes, yes.
Okay. Got it. Thank you so much.
The subsidiary is included, the PMS is included in that. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Because it is a division, it's not a separate company.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Thanks.
Thanks, Prayesh.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Lalit Dev from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Sir, Prayesh, I have two questions. Firstly, like in the previous quarter, we have highlighted that in some of the focus funds, we are seeing that the market share in net flows were in that range of about 3-4%. We just wanted to understand how has those net sales fared in those particular schemes in the last three to four months. That was my first question. The second question, with respect to the alternative side, last quarter, we had the revenue of about INR 34 crore from the alternate assets. Just wanted to understand how much revenue comes from these alternate assets in full years.
So Lalit.
I just have a second question to answer by Prakash.
Yeah. Lalit, on the alternate side, the revenue is more on the alternate side, is around INR 32-33 crore, same as last quarter, which is mainly because of the volatility in the equity market.
Yeah.
As for the first question concerning Lalit, the focus fund, we are seeing an improved gross sales number, both in terms of daily transaction volume coming in as well as SAPs coming in. We are seeing an uptick in the gross sales volume. That is where we measure that as one of the parameters for measuring the productivity of individuals. Even the team communications focus as well as engagement with the channel partners all around the focus fund. Also, from fund management point of view, they are also very clear, those five focus funds which are agreed between the fund management team and the sales team. Also, he is quite conscious of these funds should grow in size.
These are the funds which deserve to be bigger than what we are today, which is basically front equity, flexi-cap fund, multi-cap fund, balanced advantage fund, and GenX fund among the thematic category. That is something we are seeing gross volume improving. Net sales also fund is improving, but I am sure the continuous engagement can only help in improving both the gross sales number and the net sales number.
Great. Actually, last question is, based on data, what would be the ESOP cost for this quarter and how should we look at for FY26 and FY27?
ESOP cost for this quarter is around INR 1.3 crore. Next year, there will hardly be any ESOP cost because most of the cost has been absorbed now.
Sure. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Mohit Mangal from Centrum Broking Limited. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is that in quarter three, you said that the debt funds actually had an increase in TR. Just wanted to know, in Q4 also, did we increase TR enough in any of our debt schemes or even equity schemes? I mean, if you can just throw any color on that.
No, more or less, whatever increase we have seen in the Q3, it's the same for Q4 also.
Okay. It is basically static, right? Nothing has changed.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Next is basically in terms of the sir saying about the equity innovation fund. If you can just tell me something more about it as to in case of any size or something, that will be helpful.
That comes on the PMS, Mohit. Basically, we have about six, seven products in that, the flagship fund, one focusing on large cap, as well as already we have an innovation fund. We are relaunching one of the innovation funds both under the AIF as well as in the PMS. That is something we will be rolling out this year. In the PMS, we have not been focusing on new fund launches all of last year. Our focus was largely on building the size in the existing fund.
We felt that given the good performance that we have delivered and also given the good capability that we have built in the PMS compared to the competition, there is a merit for us to launch our own fund, which is basically innovation fund companies that invest a lot of money on like R&D, a lot of investment they make on innovation for the future sustainability purpose. Those would be largely the focus areas. That's something we are planning to launch this year.
All right. That's helpful. Just last question in terms of the branch expansion. If I look at 2026 and 2027, any particular plans to expand the branches?
I think the broader vision that we have, Mohit, is create a presence in about 543 locations. That's the broader vision. Today, we have a presence in about 300 locations, out of which 86 roughly is the emerging market location and roughly about 180 are our own branches. Roughly about 50 or 60 is the branches shared with Aditya Birla Capital branches. The idea is actually to keep increasing the emerging market. As the emerging market, the 85 locations, as we start growing, currently we have about 5%, 5.5% market share, sorry, 6% market share that we have in those markets. As we keep increasing the size, we normally convert them to a branch. From there, we will again look for new markets. We identified roughly about 130 markets, emerging markets. We already identified this year being our 30-year operation. Those 30 markets will be present in the emerging market.
In existing markets, we also set a target for each of their locations in the current rolling out of exercise for the coming financial year in terms of expectation from the team. Each branch location, we are keeping a target in terms of improving the market share or improving the ranking in each of the locations. That is something we monitor internally just to ensure these markets are contributing. Our historical market share in the B30 market generally has always been very good. Even today, our B30 contribution is very good. Given the potential, given the brand recall that we have in these markets, we have identified about 30 locations by which we will expand this year. This will be one-man locations.
Okay. Understood. That's helpful. Thank you and wish you all the best.
Yeah.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Madhuka Laddha from Nuvama Wealth Management. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Thank you for taking my question. First, just on the yields part, there seems to be a QOQ sort of pretty sizable decline. I just wanted to get a sense, have our equity yields remained stable? Could you also give us some sense of what is the yield on the alternate and offshore equity and the alternate and other offshore asset classes? For those two asset classes, what is the rough yield that we make there? Second, in this alternate and other offshore segment, there is a pretty good jump in AUM this quarter. I am not sure, maybe I missed this, but if you could help me understand what is driving that growth. Finally, on staff cost, we have seen sort of a 10% growth, sorry, about a 13% growth QOQ basis.
I want to get a sense as to how should we look at it going into next year. For the full year, I believe staff cost is at about INR 365 crore. Even if I were to look at it on a full year basis, maybe you could help us understand what's the fixed cost and variable pay in this, and then what sort of growth should we assume in fixed? Yeah, those would be my questions. Thanks.
On yield question, I'll ask Prakash to answer.
Madhuka, if you see quarter on quarter, there is a marginal decline in the yield, which is mainly because the equity mix has gone down. Okay. From around 47%, we are around 45-46%. That is the main reason for the yields going down because the equity mix has changed.
Otherwise, contribution remained the same.
Contribution is more or less the same. Contribution is same. You spoke about.
Alternate.
Alternate asset. On the PMS and AIF side, we earn around 1% plus. On the offshore side from the GIFT City, again, the yields are in the same line, which is 1% plus. On the overall offshore business, range around 30-40 basis points. Coming to your staff cost question, currently, whatever hike which we have seen in the current quarter is largely, as we have explained previously, because of the year-end bonus provisions and some increase in the staff welfare.
Also, just to add to that, Madhuka, especially this year, we have also built our team, which was budgeted at the beginning of the year in terms of beefing up our direct sales team. We have almost about 80 people working in the direct sales team. That also increased the headcount when it comes to the question of direct, which is again interesting for the business building, in addition to what Prakash mentioned about it. In terms of our alternate asset offshore, we won one mandate. This was in the last quarter, in fact. One of the Canadian pension funds, we won mandate roughly about $52 million. There we are getting some decent contribution. That amount will likely go to a higher number as and when they feel more comfortable putting money in emerging market, especially in India.
That's something we are working. Second is, this quarter, we also added that ESIC mandate, which we have won about three quarters back. Finally, the money started coming in the last quarter. Therefore, the number, when you look at it, shows a 260% increase. Again, we could have shown this separately in Advaitri, but otherwise, it has come under the PMS mandate itself. Therefore, we have to add it to the PMS itself. Otherwise, the PMS and minus, if you take PMS, has remained static, whereas the ESIC mandate has added to the overall AUM growth.
Understood. Understood. You mentioned that the yield for the PMS, AIF, is about 1%. Is that the gross yield, or is that the net yield which is getting accounted for?
Net yield.
Net yield on the revenue.
Net yield, yeah.
Okay. Okay. Understood. Got it, sir. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Abhijit Sakari from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Hey, hi. Good afternoon, everyone. My first question was if you could share what would be the mutual fund revenues for financial year 2025 and a comparable number for last year as well.
For FY2024, it's in the range of around 1,300, and currently, it's in the range of around 1,600.
Okay. Again, on the yield front, if it's possible to give any indication on what's the number on the fresh flow versus the older book?
Give the yield on the fresh versus the old book. On a consolidated versus on an equity, we earn around 60-69 basis points.
Got it.
We generally give another benchmark. I mean, it's mainly even normally new assets come through as cost initially and then get over a period of two to three years adjusted. We normally keep a benchmark. I think the ultimate contribution from equity should be in the range of 670 basis points. That's something we keep as a benchmark. Accordingly, price it. We may probably do intermittent push to improve the overall sales numbers. Whereas the broad principle on a collective basis, that's what we will target.
Got it, sir. The last one, you mentioned about five focused funds. These are frontline, balanced, multi-cap, GenX, and there is one more, right?
Which is a Balanced Advantage Fund. Multi-asset and Balanced Advantage Fund.
Multi-asset. Okay. Got it. Sir, fair to assume that all of these funds are now in a positive net flow zone?
Yes. Yes. Yes. See, the way I see, Abhijit, is I must also admit that all of last year, when you see some kind of redemptions coming in, some of the funds, very few funds were getting in flows on an overall basis. Gross volume is usually always good. In terms of flows, they are getting a bit restricted. That is something that is now, with both gross flows and net sales now improving on these funds backed by performance, communications, narrative, and high level of engagement. In fact, I must mention that last one year, 80% of the funds have been on the benchmark. All these things are now getting recognized, noticed. In fact, some of the segments in which we have a very strong relationship are also coming as part of the recommendation list as well. Therefore, this engagement would only help.
Second, we have kept the five focus products, which is other products there. Anyway, 70% of flows for the industry also comes. That is the way we have kept these five products as a focus product in addition to other thematic products we already identified. Those will be in addition to that.
Got it. This is super helpful, sir. Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Dipanjan Ghosh from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening, sir. Just a few questions from my side. First, I'll start with the data keeping question. If you can give your SIP flows for the quarter and your employee count as of March 31. Now, coming to other questions, while you have mentioned incrementally sales turning positive or net sales turning positive in three of the equity fund categories, just want to understand for fourth quarter directionally, were you in the green or red in terms of overall flows? In terms of the flow market share, when I look at your SIP market share for the month of March, it's a little bit down compared to December marginally.
When you say that directionally, your reduction in market share losses have kind of narrowed down, is that a fair assumption that on the lump sum side, you are seeing relatively better performance, be it on gross sales or lower redemption? The last question is on the cost trend. Obviously, you mentioned that you will be expanding the direct sales team. You have ambitions to further scale up the alternates or the non-MS business out there. Let's say for the next one or two years, how should one think of the overall cost trajectory?
On the first question, SAP book and the same thing.
Dipanjan, the SIP book collection for the quarter is around INR 4,000 crore. Employee count as of March 25 is 1,628.
Yeah. With respect to the SAP book concern, of course, the quarter was, as I mentioned earlier, there was general dip in the number of registrations for the industry. For us also, there was a dip. As I mentioned, the SAPs are somewhat getting canceled this quarter. Generally, the cancel rates were a little higher than the previous quarter. Having said that, anyway, we've been having a big push with respect to the SAPs. The idea is actually to continue to keep that high level of focus. One or two quarters here and there can go here and there. I do not think I should get worried, given the fact that focus on building SAP remains during the volatile period. That is why we are pushing it.
For the longer-term outlook, in fact, this year itself, we had kept a target of INR 1,500 crore SAP for the full year, but we did about INR 1,320 crore. Therefore, we keep a little bit higher aspiration in terms of building the numbers. With the performance improvement coming in, I would also expect online platform also start contributing to the SAP success. That is something will remain a big area of focus. With respect to the last question, which is the one?
Direct team, huh?
Yeah. Direct team. The direct team, right now, we have about 80 people. I think ideas actually have about 100 people in direct. In fact, what we are also doing is the sales team in general and the retail sales team as well as the inside sales team, they do have a main mutual fund target as their main focus area for them. Alternate is one of the additional assets they sell. In fact, we have identified for family offices a person to come on board. We also have a separate team of ICs for building our alternate business. We are also increasing the KR deliverables for the senior RMs across different parts of the market. We are dividing the sales force into a sales team into three parts. Somebody who is like a wealth manager can sell all products.
Somebody who is not a wealth manager but can sell only the mutual fund product. Therefore, accordingly, we are dividing the deliverables for each of the individuals, each of the team and market on basis which will build alternate assets. Again, alternate assets, my own belief, could become one of the big area of focus for two reasons. One is we will launch two products in addition to PMS. PMS is directly linked to the equity, whereas fixed income credit-oriented funds is something with the yields coming down. We believe credit-driven fund could be one of the credit, what we call the performing credit, what we call it. That's something we have set aside some target, and we have been running around. The team has been running around meeting family offices, getting price, including offshore investors. Second is credit-related real estate fund.
Also, so far, the performance has been very good, and now that is also being recognized. Investors are also now willing to accept it. Therefore, the teams that we have built increase the carry weightage for individuals. The remaining focus in terms of high-level engagement is on the basis of targeted engagement with the customers based on their volume share. I think these are the activities that should help in terms of improving the alternate business over the next two to three years. Last but not the least is the offshore side. As I mentioned on the last call, we will be taking Sun Life help to have somebody on the Sun Life board too soon, coming very soon, who could help us open the door in the overseas market to help us reach out to global pension funds for winning some mandates. That also is there in the card.
We will probably be able to give you more details in the second quarter, if not before.
Right. My question was more, does that add up to your cost pressure, be it on sales expansion or kind of scaling up the all?
No. No. No. It is basically optimizing the existing team for delivering higher product, higher numbers.
Got it. One of the questions which I'd ask was net flows for the quarter, was it in the, have it turned into the positive? I mean, is it in the positive category or?
It was a positive for the last quarter. In fact, last quarter, we had a net sales positive both on equity arbitrage fund. That of course was the whole quarter it was there, except the last few days there was an outflow. Again, it came back in the month of April.
Got it. Thank you for all of this.
Yeah.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that would be the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for joining. With this, we conclude our Q4 FY25 earnings call. Do feel free to reach out to our IR Head, Mr. Prakash Bhogale, for any queries. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of InCred Equities, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Bye-bye.