Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Firstsource Solutions Limited Q3 FY23 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines are in the listen-only mode, and there will be 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 telephone. Please note that the conference is being recorded. I'll hand the conference over to Mr. Ankur Maheshwari from First source Solutions Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thanks, Sister. Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us for the quarter ended December 31st, 2022 earnings call for First source. On this call, Vipul Khanna, MD & CEO, and Dinesh Jain, CFO, will provide an overview of the company's performance followed by Q&A. Do note that the reserve fact sheet and the presentation have been emailed to you, and you can also view this on the website www.firstsource.com. Before we begin the call, please note that some of the matters we will discuss on this call, including our business outlook, are forward-looking and as such are subject to known and unknown risks. These uncertainties and risks are included, but not limited to, what we have mentioned in our prospects and the reports that are available on our website. That said, I now turn the call over to Vipul Khanna to begin his presentation.
Thanks, Ankur. Good morning, good evening, everyone. Welcome, and thanks for joining us today. I'm pleased to share that our revenue and operating margin for Q3 were in line with our expectations. This quarter our revenue was nearly flat with 0.3% decrease growth year-on-year in constant currency and came in at INR 15,029 million or $160 million. Organic revenue, excluding the impact from mortgages and acquisitions, grew by 18.6% year-on-year in constant currency. Our credit ratios have improved hundredth over Q2 and came in at 9.4%. In Q3, we realized other income of INR 358 million due to the write back of the variable consideration linked to the Commonwealth Bank acquisition and a structured contract in our mortgage business.
The variable payoff threshold was not met due to the adverse market conditions across the mortgage and collection business. In EPS, we grew by 17.2% year-on-year and came in at INR 255. As we come towards the end of the year, we are narrowing our guidance range. We now expect revenue growth of -2% to -1%. Excluding mortgage and acquisition, we expect growth of 12.5% to 13.5%. We expect operating margin to land in the range of 9.25% to 9.5% for this fiscal year. We are on time to hit a normalized margin range in Fiscal four from the revenue growth and the impact of our YTD year-to-date cost actions coming through.
I'd like to reiterate that this year has been an outlier due to drastic changes in the broader macroeconomic environment made it difficult for us to predict accurate outcomes for our business. As we look forward to wrapping up this year and planning for the next, I continue to strongly believe that our business is very well positioned to capitalize on the growth opportunities in the medium- and long-term. Our strategy has been and will be sharply focused on, one, growth in our chosen verticals where we see decent flexibility, systematic client acquisition, and by growing our presence through this route. Two, strategic diversification within the BPO vertical and continued growth into the select subsegments of tech through Convivia and Tek with the overall goal of becoming a lifestyle digital studio and driving the next phase of our growth.
Three, we're using our digital tools and services to create more cost efficiency for both our clients and us with our digital-first and digital-now approach. For instance, we've launched a managed services concept for automation, which is being received by our clients. This is an all-inclusive solution from licensing to delivery and maintaining of automation, and all the way to making automation sustainable within an enterprise. With the global economy battling recession worries, we expect accelerated adoption of proven deliverers of digital, outsourcing and offshoring via client ecosystem, thereby leveraging business and growth opportunities. Let me give you some industry commentary. Our BPO vertical grew -10.1% year-on-year and -13.1% in constant currency. Excluding mortgages and acquisitions, our BPO segment has grown by 20% year-on-year in constant currency. The mortgage market remains subdued along expected lines.
This business segment contracted by another 0.7% in Q3. We continue to believe that this market has just been affected by the unprecedented growth from this year. Our housing demand is still strong, and despite the mortgage industry's focus on cost cuts, a large gap in profitability remains. In calendar 2023, our mortgage industry has the unenviable task of bringing costs down further while prioritizing the right investments into growth. Continue to be uniquely positioned to drive the shared growth with our clients. Our implement capability, broad client access, and timeless passion for the customer solutions, service, intention, and default enable us to customize and provide delivery locally as well as globally. Against this, the pipeline continues to get really positive results with good closure in this quarter.
Having said that, the mortgage segment contributed only about 20% of FC revenue and will be between 8.5%-9% into four from a peak of 31% into one of in five Q2. Any further sharp movements in this business are unlikely to have material impact on our overall business. In the collection segment, recovery remains on track, but the pace is still picking its way up. Overall, U.S. charge-off delinquencies were 13%-2.08% versus 1.85% in the last quarter. Charge-offs were 18 2.02% versus 1.86% in the last quarter. These are still lower than historical averages despite rising interest, high inflation, and high outstanding debt balance for our customers.
This is primarily due to the still very low unemployment rate and the strong saving balances in the U.S. that we've seen in the past 40 years. With the U.S. economy slowing down and delinquencies expected to rise, we are seeing increased market activity and the clients need for capacity planning. Our deal by client for collection is at its highest, and possibly the most important sign has been across different industry segments. In this quarter, we added 7 new clients across FinTech, healthcare finance, and communications. Diversifying beyond credit card and BSS has been our focus in the last 18-24 months, and we are pleased with this outcome.
The strong portfolio of early late-stage and late-stage legal in collection facilitated by our market-leading digital collection platform and a strong win momentum this year so position us strongly to harness the likely volume growth over the coming quarters. While our early-stage segment has witnessed steady ups before the last few quarters, we are now focused on entering the growth muscle of our legal collection segment. As we mentioned before, legal collection operates with a lag from the early stage debt, and it's still finding its bottom with a lower early stage debt in the COVID cycle. As we start to see the upstate in delinquencies and charge-offs across our client ecosystem, we are ensuring that our legal collection business is ready to capitalize on the growth momentum as and when it starts to go through three legal cycles.
I had shared that dealing with B2B has been a consistent priority for me and pleased with the progress we continue to make in our B2B BSS, CMT, and the diversity of portfolio. B2B BSS continues to deliver strong growth. With a recent meaningful win, we now have four partnerships with another top 10 mutual bank in the USA. The demand environment, pipeline activity, and digital adoption remain strong despite the political uncertainty and tough economic conditions. As BSS clients shift gears into growth potential, we see more opportunities, especially for digital, on the East Coast and offshore regions. We expect this momentum to continue into the next year as we also focus on new contracts for more opportunities to deliver. Our healthcare segment continues to grow consistently at 24% year-on-year in current currency and constant exchange rates.
The rate of growth has slowed down due to some of the wind delays that we talked about earlier. Although the sales cycles are lengthened, the deal access remains strong. We continue to execute on our strategy to focus on top end head count, grow our distilling capability, and create B2B solutions for the mid-market with time. In the medium term, growth will be driven by vendor consolidation, acceleration of digital interventions across the care through client admin value chain, and provider adoption of B2B solutions. With the completion of The Banyan DI-TAP team last year, we are seeing meaningful traction. We have been selected by another top 10 Medicare health plan for building their membership admin platform. This is our second DI-TAP deal and we will be partnering with product companies to deliver this solution.
Once again, because of our unique capabilities that helps us win against larger, direct players. On the provider segment, there hasn't been a meaningful change in the outlook. We get a direction from the U.S. administration where the public health emergency provision on compulsory Medicaid enrollment ends in April, and the respective state governments can make individual decisions on when and how to meet this requirement. As the states start to roll off the group reimbursement, we expect demand for Medicaid redetermination services to come. We continue to develop a digital solution to capitalize on this demand as we signed up our first major client for this offering. Actually, costs continue to come under the price and height in the membership costs, changing the buying cycle in our core trade day on our claim and other admin services.
Longer term, this should lead to more upsourcing and offshoring value for us. Our CMT business has delivered another strong quarter. This quarter, we grew 14.8% year-on-year and 17.5% in constant currency. We continue to witness steady growth from our top clients across our product and service line with a two to one cross-selling. I'm pleased with the progress we are making in our U.S. CMP business and the momentum we are witnessing, particularly in the tech segment. Our U.S. CMP segment has grown by 60% year-on-year in constant currency. We launched our IDEA services, which stands for Insights, Design, Experience, and Advisory, leveraging our deep customer service experience to address the market opportunities in designing digital CX and of course through ongoing run resourcing. We've added four new clients this quarter, including two Fortune 500.
Our focus on segments such as FinTech and data integrity for machine learning delivered strong results. A few months ago, a global education testing player engaged us with a consulting assignment to design their customer journey and an operating model for their contact center. That engagement has now evolved into a large-scale build and run of their CX organization with the charter of improving their CX and increasing their market share. This was initially an IDEA engagement. As we plan for the next year, our UK CMT will provide a strong anchor for the U.S. CMP platform to build its footprint for the company's growth rate. We had a clean tail end of the fiscal year. Since then, we've keenly doused the team of 22,000+ associates with depth up in design and science, and have helped profit the unprecedented time in the market history.
We had to take some hard calls on our costs to create a more efficient operating structure. The momentum we have established in a non-market difficult has been a strong proof. With that, I'll hand over the call to Dinesh to cover detailed growth of CMP. Dinesh.
Thank you, Vipul. The financial performance for Q3 FY23, revenue for the Q3 came in at INR 15,049 million or $183 million, which implies a year-on-year growth of 2.8% in rupee term and flat in constant currency term. On the margin front, operating margin came in at INR 1,409 million or 9.6% of revenue for the quarter, implying a year-on-year margin decline of 267 basis points. Profit after tax came in at INR 1,479 million or 10.5% of the revenue for the Q3 FY23, a year-on-year margin improvement of 124 basis points. Our recent acquisition of StoneHill and ARSI did not meet the revenue target at the end of burn-out years, which have closed in December this year.
This has resulted in other income of INR 279 million in Q3. No further contingent consideration is payable on these acquisitions. We also have a contingent payout. I'll start with the last item, which is our recent acquisition of StoneHill and ARSI did not meet the revenue target at the end of the earn-out period. This has resulted in other income of INR 279 million in our quarter fee. No further contingent consideration is payable on these acquisitions. We also have contingent payouts to our mortgage client as part of our option purchase agreement closed last year. This is the current visibility of the revenues against the target. The liabilities have been fair value this quarter, and that has resulted into other income of INR 319 million in this quarter. We also came in at 61 days versus 56 days last quarter.
During Q3 FY23, we have generated INR 800 million of cash from operation. Our free cash flow was INR 653 million after adjusting for CapEx of INR 137 million. We also have a closing cash balance, including investment, stood at INR 1,927 million. Due to higher DSO this quarter, operating cash flow and free cash flow are lower in Q3 and will get normalized in Q4. Debt net is standing at INR 4,891 million or $71.2 million as of December 31, 2022 versus INR 6,055 million or $74.4 million as of September 30, 2022. Tax rate for this quarter was around 14%. We expect FY23 should be within the range of 16%-17%.
On our Forex hedging, we have coverage of GBP 38 million for the next 12 months with average rate of 101.12 per pound and coverage of $68.5 million with average rate of 82.6 per INR. On our Forex hedging, we have coverage of GBP 15.8 million for the 12 to 24 months with average of 102.9 per pound and coverage of $9 million with average rate of INR 83.9 for a dollar. In addition to these forward, we are also taking some of the option on these forward to better our realization rates. I'm pleased to announce also that board has recommended an interim dividend of INR 3.5 per share or 35% for the financial year.
Total payable expected on account of this is going to be around INR 62,439 million. With this, I will hand over to moderator for the Q&A.
Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may please press star and one on your touchtone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the questions are assembled.
We have the first question from the line of Mohit Jain from Anand Rathi. Please go ahead.
Just two questions. First on the market, because so many thoughts were on the table, if you guys are seeing, say, over the last two months or so. You could share some outlook connected on the market specifically. Second is on margins. Margins clearly look price important. What kind of recurring margins are you looking at? Is there any one-time costs that we should be aware of from a push statement?
Hi, Mohit. Your voice is a little unclear, so I'll repeat your question. One was around the mortgage volume outlook in the last few months and the next few months. The second was on margins. What's the outlook and is there any one-time costs to build into that?
Correct.
Yeah.
Correct. Yes.
Okay. I think mortgage volumes continue to be soft, right? Mortgage volumes are low. Customer finds, you know, whatever, reductions they had told us over the last several months, some of them continue to kind of factor. The interest rates looks like interest rates peaked and they've been coming down for the past several weeks now. Even you saw yesterday's announcement was at 35 basis points by the Fed for rate increase, which is lowest we've been since March. Generally the market sees that, this should start to bring some of the buyers back into the market, especially as we come to the spring season and schools, et cetera, et cetera, start. Some volumes to come there.
From what we've seen thus far, and potentially up to the end of this quarter, you know, we expect to see some peak volumes in the mortgage business. In fact, we do expect our revenue for Q4 for mortgage will be lower than Q3. On the margin side of things, I think we made strong gains with the cost structure and the actions we've done. We do expect that by Q4 we'll come back to our you know the last year average between 11.5%-12% on a run rate basis. That should be a good base for us going into Q4.
Can you repeat the margin outlook? You're saying so we will be back to last year average?
We should be compared to a run rate of between 11.5%-12% odd percent.
Okay. This will be the same base for FY22?
Yeah.
Okay. Great, sir. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Dipesh Mehta from Emkay Global Financial Services. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Dipesh Mehta. Couple of questions. First of all, the guidance, just to get your sense about what the guidance implies from QOQ growth perspective for Q4. Second related question is just what is your sense about confidence on maintaining and sustaining QOQ growth trajectory into calendar 2023. If you can provide some perspective considering all the markets in the business, how one should look QOQ growth trajectory calendar 2023. Are we confident now of flat case or declining phase is over for us and QOQ we should improve entering into calendar 2023? Third question is about BFS. BFS segment margin is much weaker than what we used to operate thus far. Mortgages played some role. If you can provide considering now mortgage weakness is largely behind, how one should look at recovery in that margin? Thanks.
Okay. Sorry, Dipesh, your first question was guidance for Q4 growth, what does it imply, in terms of QOQ, quarter-on-quarter? Huh?
Yeah, yeah. I said, yes, the QOQ growth, what it implies.
Okay, got it. Yeah. look, based on the slide guidance which we issued, we think that implies some 1%-5% QOQ quarter-on-quarter growth. We do realize it's a little bit of a broad band, but you know, it's a quarter where we historically see seasonality coming in from a collections business. plus given the continued sort of situation we have in our mortgage and support in the collections business, we think this is the right number to have at this stage. In terms of calendar 2023, calendar 2023. Okay. Calendar 2023, if you're talking about the future, we are kind of right in the middle of the budget cycle and have gathered data from the market and our teams. We will come back.
At this stage, given the fact that while we do expect mortgage will decline in Q4, we expect decent growth to continue in our year-up. You know, collections obviously will be stronger given the seasonality that we typically see from the tax season. Overall, we think we feel good about what we forecasted in terms of QOQ growth delivered to the revised margin. On the margin for BFS, clearly, as you highlighted, mortgages taken a heavy toll on the margins when all through the year our sort of cost lagged the revenue declines. You know, we have taken some pretty hard action across the cost structure, whether it's head count, overhead, equipment, et cetera, et cetera. We also had some impact from the margins of our RT acquisition.
They were lower than us when we acquired, and we had shared that. We expected their revenue to decline. The decline has been more than we anticipated because of the macro conditions. That has also taken pressure on the margins because theirs is a more fixed cost business. Once the volume comes back from the legal collections, we should see good gains on the margin collections. The dates were having heavy daggers on our margin throughout this year. You know, otherwise the core collection does not. There's the collection and UK BFS have delivered strong growth and some of the cost pressures that we saw in UK from labor costs and fulfillment, we seem to have come kind of closing a par with that. That's what gives us confidence in the margins for future.
Does that kind of give you colors on the canvas?
Yeah. It helps. Maybe we can get more clarity once we finish the year.
Thank you.
Thanks, Dipesh.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shraddha from Asian Markets Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Congrats to you on a good quarter. couple of questions. Within mortgage, what is the current mix of origination and servicing? do we also do the home equity within mortgage?
The mix of origination to servicing is now closer to 35, 65. 35 origination, 65. Almost one is to two between origination and servicing. We've seen some downward pressure on servicing as well, right? As clients have pulled back and some of the onshore to offshore stuff randomization has happened. Some of our clients have started the home equity line, and we are supporting in that as they start and build it forward. Yes, we have some early start in that home equity segment.
Yeah. Just one of our competitors was talking about, you know, downside that we could be seeing there, mortgage home equity portfolio because most of the harm that had to happen in origination is already done. Are we of the same view that origination decline probably would now get stalled and we would see more of servicing decline in the mortgage portfolio?
I would think that sure the refi activity has obviously come down very, very drastically. There is still some purchase activity which will go for two quarters in rest to the high interest rates. The market expects that if interest rates stabilize and kind of stay below the 5.5, between the 5-5.5 range, then we'll start to see a pick up in the home purchase market, especially in hot geographies like Salt Lake, which is, right, some of those other markets, some of the graduate sector. Over time through this calendar, we should see a return of the origination volumes to purchase but as much to refi. Home equity, home equity I think is a smaller business, right? We'll see how that plays out for the consumer.
The servicing business I think has declined for us this year. I don't expect any more decline, significant decline on that from where we are. Because whatever cost actions clients will take, they've taken the first wave of cost actions. Now, in fact some of them are looking for, like, how do I get out of it, and there's more offshoring and there's more structural solutions rather than just tactical answers. This stage I don't expect any significant decline in the coming year from servicing portfolio. Keep in mind, as I said, overall, the portfolio is now down to about, 8% to 9% of our overall business.
Right. The other question is, this time around the small improvement in margin start was mainly led by SG&A coming down. The gross margin, this is actually still down 150 sequentially. When we say that we expect 4Q margins to revert to, you know, last year average quarterly run rate, do we expect that to be led by improvement in gross margins or do you expect further cut off in SG&A that will help margins in next quarters as well?
Obviously we've kept a very tight and very judicious line on our SGA, both for run SGA and for growth SGA. Our gross margins obviously continue to be impacted by one, key reduction, and two, the change in mix as well because in mortgage, the bigger chunk of the reductions happen in the more higher margin offshore portfolio rather than as much onshore. It's the mix of sort of location also which has played a part. You've seen that our onshore percentage has gone up. Our onshore percentage has gone up just by reduction. Like, not that we've consciously chosen that business, it's just that offshore has reduced more. That kind of put pressure on the margins. As we go into Q4, I think it will help to have higher revenue.
It will help to have the more profitable collection business kind of press kick in. I don't see disproportionate action between the right portion SG&A coming into the next quarter. We're confident of sort of keeping our 11.5% in run rate for next quarter.
All right. Thanks. Just one question if I can squeeze in. The other operating income has come off quite significantly. Is it mostly with the forex loss or is there something else in this?
It's not a Forex loss, but as the rate has moved up, the automatically your forward rates become lower. The realization will be gone into the revenue line itself than being as an operating line. There is no loss on a forward book, the realization remain the same as the forwards which we talked in the last quarter.
Okay. Sure. Thanks and all the best for future quarters.
Thanks, Shraddha.
Thank you. Reminder to all the participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Prabhu Dasari from Prabhudas Lilladher. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. I just had a couple of questions. The first one being, do we see any challenge in recovering the receivables on the client side, considering the increase in receivables this quarter? Any steps or anything of that sort?
No, there is nothing there on that front. Basically, the receivables quarter due to higher holidays, we also have. Our process is to take client sign-off before billing. Unbilled is also high slightly, but we have most of the money which is overdue in December has been collected in January. Already we have collected.
Understood. The second question being, is the other income of INR 309 million related to BasePoint acquisition?
That's right. That's the option at event which we have to part with that one of the clients, yeah.
If that is the case, see, the expense has been recorded as an exceptional item in March 2021 quarter. The gains currently are showing in other income instead of exceptional items. I mean, why is it, why is there a change in representation?
No, it's two different things. I think at that time the transaction amount was very high and as well the exception called out. Now with the fair value accounting, all the fair value adjustment has to go through other income. There is nothing with that sort of it. It was exception, it should be exception. Not that way. It's purely the way the accounting has to be done. It has to be accounted. Fair value adjustment has to be in other income.
We do not foresee any other gains apart from whatever we have seen or any other losses apart from whatever we have seen.
As of today with the fair valuation which we did, we see this is the amount going to be. It may be a small adjustment may happen in Q4. I don't see the bigger amounts coming. These are all the transaction closed.
Okay. That's it from me. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sachin Kasera from Swan Investments. Please go ahead.
Hi. on this, previous query, you mentioned that you're guiding for 1%-5%. Are you only in the month of January, 1 month is only going to close up. You still expect such high volatility in the remaining two months to guide for such a large range of 1%-5% for Q4?
Yeah, look, as I mentioned, you know, collections is coming off very unusual period, right? Very uncharacteristic how collection has behaved in the last 18 months post all the COVID interventions which government has done and personal finances have gone through. Historically it's high. We don't know how that will play out. One, we are, you know, watching it and keeping it at range from collections. Especially now our collection portfolio is also bigger after the DB collections acquisition. It's a much bigger share of our overall revenue than just our core collection business. Two, some of the deals that we have closed from the previous quarters, we are kind of waiting to see, we're waiting to see how the closures and implementations can pick up to see how much revenue we're able to bill to book against that.
Those are the two factors which have come into it. QOQ, it kind of operates like that. If you look at it, that's why we have taken the call to reduce our range and go into -2% to -1% for the entire year, as well as for the non-mortgage, non-acquisition range.
Sure. Second question is, I looked at your operating expense. It has reduced from INR 344 crore to INR 310 crore. Is it mainly because we have rationalized our expenses as we are facing revenue pressure or is this sustainable number sometimes?
Sorry, Sachin, could you repeat? What line item did you say was it?
It was on the operating expense. It reduced from INR 344 crores in Q2 to INR 310 crores in Q3. Is there some one-off impact or is there some rationalization and is it sustainable?
I think, Sachin, the operating expense is also one of the component on our collection business, the legal collection business. As the revenue dropped, that one expense line item is lower. As well as we could talk about the cost actions which we took taken in Q1 and Q2. That has been rectifying now. I think some part will be sustainable, some part depends on the revenue growth, they may increase.
Of the total cost reduction we have seen, Sachin, give us some sense. Just give me broadly how much was related to revenue decline and how much was related to the action that you had taken internally?
It should be around 70/30. 70/30. 70% is almost with the, like, cost action. 30% is still linked to the revenue.
Is this one of the reasons why we are guiding for a sharp improvement in Q4 margin on managed FPO we have discussed then?
I think we did talk that I think all the flexibility actions take six-nine months. There are cost actions which have been effective. Were effective in Q3. There are some more waiting in Q4. I think that we are going to have higher revenue side. Automatically margin profile will improve in Q4.
Sure. Any of these actions are not which will impact our long-term growth aspirations or investments for growth.
I think especially the mortgage businesses have the excess capacities and you've seen the sharp credit downturn which has taken place. We don't see that these are actions are going to impact any of the revenue growth side of it. It is more of a cost which was excess lying, which we have taken.
Sure. Just.
Sachin, just to add to that.
Sure.
Look, we've taken a judicious call, kept a sharp eye on our operating expenses and our SGA. Clearly we've had to do some trade-offs. I'll give you an example. Our digital collection business is a growing business, right? We seem to grow. We continued our investment and we build the platform on the roadmap. The provider was soft. We took some calls to reduce the technology expense and further build on that platform, right? We had to do some trade-offs given the revenue environment that we faced. As growth picks up, we'll kind of reflect some of those expenses. We took some calls that critical growth investments, we did not optimize them.
Sure. The next question for you was on the net debt side. Nine months we have seen a good reduction there. What are your thoughts going forward in FY24 and FY25? You would like to reduce it further, or would you rather use the cash flows for growth or maybe higher payouts?
I think, such as the working capital is the only debt which we have. We don't really have any long-term debt which we have taken. The payouts that you've already seen, so we're gonna pay around INR 248 crore as a dividend, this quarter. Continue to the cash generation, it puts in for a growth for sure, and what has been left out is always being adjusting to the working capital lines.
Sure. Just one question for Vipul. This is the acquisitions which we have done, what has been our experience and our learnings? You said majority of them have not been in line. What are our key learnings and how do we intend to improve on them when we do any further acquisitions in the future?
No, great question. Look, both these investments were on our strategy that while mortgage and collection are cyclical businesses, we were conscious with pursuing leadership in those segments, right? Legal collections extended our collections outreach from early risk history with Bizible so that we can offer end-to-end for our clients. To that extent, it did kind of give us valuable visibility. Likewise, the TSG acquisition extended our value chain from origination and servicing of the QC and DD as well, quality control and due diligence as well, which targets the capital markets and gives access to the mid-market segment. That was the business case. The core hypothesis has played out.
However, timing of those acquisitions, one could argue that once the market sort of softened significantly after that, we were also impacted, potentially more impacted than we anticipated. To that extent, I think the structuring of our deal worked that we did not have to pay the variable consideration. Now, obviously, it did play, it did cause more challenges to our forecasting through the years, right? And, we kind of guided you on sort of how you had to take guidance down twice earlier this year. This has contributed to that. I think learnings is about timing. Learnings is about really thinking through the worst case in terms of the economic environment on that.
So I think the purchases are still valid, and I think they will absolutely play out in the medium to long term. It leaves some forecast in how we kind of bake that into our numbers and kind of build our business planning on that. That is something that we need to kind of do much better on that. You know, overall, I think some of the other strategies that I've identified, I mentioned to you earlier, is beside these businesses, we now need to build a portfolio of less cyclical businesses. That will be our task in going forward, is how do we bulk up some of the capabilities in that part as well.
Great. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Before we take the next question, a reminder to all the participants. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one now. The next question is from the line of P.P. Rajesh from Canyon Capital Advisors. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. My question with you was that, what is your guidance for FY24? You made some comments earlier about that, which I missed.
Right. Rajesh, no, we haven't offered any FY24 guidance yet. We did give closed guidance for FY23. FY24, we are in the middle of the budgeting and planning process. As usual, when we come back in end April, early May to keep the results, is when we'll give guidance for next year. Directionally, I would say that the demand environment is good. Demand environment is good. Some of the businesses like mortgage, collections and providers which faced headwinds in FY23, those headwinds will ease off. That'll kind of remain, remove some of the friction that we've seen in the growth in those businesses. While our Europe and our healthcare businesses, they continue to operate in good demand environment, as well as CMG. That should continue in good stead.
Got it. Thank you. That's all I have.
Thank you.
All right. Thank you.
There is a follow-up question from the line of Dipesh Mehta from Emkay Global Financial Services. Go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Couple of questions. Just wanted to understand about healthcare business. The growth trajectory seems to be softer than maybe we expected at the beginning of year. If you can provide some sense what played out across payer and provider business. Second question is about the top line growth. Efficiency is doing well for last couple of quarters. If you can provide some sense about the sustainability of this growth trajectory and what is driving it. One question is about the new service which we mentioned IDEA. If you can give some sense about what we exactly try to do and what will be the market potential you see. Last question is on M&A.
Do we plan to do let's say M&A in near future, maybe next four quarters or you largely believe in our organic businesses where the focus lies and M&A will be maybe incrementally but not in near future? Yes.
Just let me see. Healthcare business, why softer? Look, HPHS has been on a strong growth trajectory last two or three years. I feel also we have had good wins. One reason that the growth has been softer than we anticipated at the start of the year is mostly being delayed. Now that we've opened eight of the top 10 health plans, these are very big mature buyers. They have sophisticated buying processes. They are into a third or fourth generation contracts. Their evaluation process tends to be longer and definitely longer than the vendor sort of articulate and guide in the buying motions and where they'll end up.
Even after decision-making, because they are usually vendor consolidation or vendor switching, typically the implementation cycles are longer than if you were doing like a search engine or an organic sort of transition of sorts. I think that's played a big role in terms of the delays in booking of the revenue. That's the one reason. Second, the trust of our business has moved into digital intakes and BPaaS. These are longer implementation cycles. The volumes that incrementally come to you shall be dependent on some of the technology implementations. That's kind of the second factor that kind of played out. Overall, I still feel very good about the healthcare business. The market is very strong, not as much impacted by macro factors. Now we have established complete share. We have a clear strategy.
I still feel good about the long-term prospects of this business. Provider, we play in a very narrow segment, and that segment was disproportionately impacted. Actually, the eligibility business was disproportionately impacted by PHE and the fact that the PHE made Medicaid enrollment compulsory, right? If the states want to get this federal funding, they had to compulsorily enroll people in Medicaid. You saw some of the data from Q that the Medicaid enrollments through COVID went up by like something like 27%. This is all mostly automatic enrollment. That impacted our volumes. Now that we finally start to see that in the coming fiscal April onwards, states in a staggered manner will get off PHE. We expect some amount of normalcy as well as demand for the Medicaid redetermination services coming up.
Provider has been broken through the years, largely impacted by PHE and the fact that we play in a narrow segment, and we are focused on broadening that capability. It's a little bit of a build cycle that we're going through. We haven't seen meaningful results yet. It's something we are focused with to make sure our goal field or the play field in which we operate in provider is broader, right. That's the first question. Second was on our large client. Yes, we've seen a good strong year. We've grown across their product lines, their service lines. As we look into the future, I think, one, the U.K. labor market continues to be tight and expensive. We've seen in the last couple of quarters a strong growth offshore, which is good for margins.
As we see more of that continuing through in the future, it will have some amount of onshore revenue cannibalization because it's lower yield but higher margin. That is one factor which will play out, I think, as we go into the next year on the large account. Overall, the fact that they are also grappling in a competitive market, in a different economic situation where people need more support in some of those claimants, as they launch new programs and new initiatives to deal with that, we play a integral part in that, which makes both of us pretty happy and confident about the future of the relationship. The IDEA is more a very focused consulting offering that we have launched to help clients design customer experiences.
Since there's so much of the digital, contact centers, taking those operating business learnings, translating into a structured design and consulting framework, take it to clients. It won't be a massive revenue, but it's kind of because of the peers. First clear strategy, like the example that I gave of the, of that company, where through a consulting engagement, we identified opportunity, and then we won that opportunity competitively and that will give us ongoing sort of outsourcing revenue. It's kind of the routine that's probably played out amongst most of the players where you use it as a capable player. Yeah. Consulting targets interesting offerings to open up, you know, get inside the tent and then sort of, win some business. Last question was M&A. I think obviously we've taken some learnings, right?
We've taken some time to consolidate these acquisitions. They've had some impact on our financials, which I think we mostly worked through as we come into Q4 and go into next year. We obviously have our defined strategy of building adjacent capabilities in healthcare, some capabilities in CMP, you know, some capabilities in parts of the BSS business. We continue to absolutely evaluate both organic and inorganic sort of opportunities there. At this point, there is no conscious or a policy decision to do or not do one of those. We'll continue to keep those plans and look for the right opportunity and build our learnings from our labs too, as we go forward.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thanks.
That was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Vipul Khanna for closing remarks. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. Thank you everyone for your continued engagement. Really enjoy your questions and the deep understanding of how we are about our business and the insights you're questioning to ask. We feel good about Q3. We feel good about coming into Q4, and I look forward to coming back in April, May and giving you an update on Q4 as well as guidance for the next year. Thank you for your time and interest. Have a great day ahead.
Thank you everyone.
Thank you, sir. On behalf of Firstsource Solutions Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.