Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q2 FY 2027 earnings conference call of HDFC Asset Management Company Limited. From the management team, we have with us Mr. Navneet Munot, Mr. Naozad Sirwalla, and Mr. Simal Kanuga. 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 this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Simal Kanuga. Thank you, and over to you, Simal.
Thanks. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Let me begin with a quick overview of the industry. The quarter began positively with Nifty 50 gaining about 2% in July, followed by a modest decline in August and a sharper 6% correction in September. Overall markets ended the quarter down around 5%. Equity-oriented funds attracted net inflows of INR 1.161 trillion during the quarter. September marked the 67th consecutive month of positive equity flows, a remarkable streak dating back to March of 2021. SIPs continued their steady growth, with monthly contributions reaching a new high of INR 325 billion in September, compared with INR 294 billion a year ago and INR 318 billion in June of 2026. During this quarter, contributing SIP accounts crossed 100 million mark, and over the last decade, monthly SIP contributions have multiplied almost 10x .
On fixed income, debt mutual funds recorded net outflows of INR 607 billion, while liquid funds saw net inflows of INR 457 billion. ETFs attracted INR 367 billion. Arbitrage funds garnered inflows of INR 63 billion during the quarter. Turning to our performance. Our quarterly average AUM stood at INR 9.69 trillion, up 10% year-on-year and 4% sequentially. Equity-oriented assets stood at INR 6.51 trillion, representing 67.1% of our AUM, compared with 57.5% for the industry. Within this, actively managed equity AUM grew by 14% year-on-year to INR 6.08 trillion, with a market share of 12.7%. On fixed income, debt AUM stood at INR 1.62 trillion with a 13% market share, while liquid AUM grew 10% year-on-year to INR 860 billion. Our live individual accounts increased to 32 million from 26 million a year ago. Our unique investor base stood at 17.7 million, representing a penetration of 28%.
In other words, 28 out of every 100 mutual fund investors in India invest with us. Over last one year, we have added 3.2 million unique investors, while the industry has added 6.3 million. Our systematic flows comprising of SIPs and STPs, that is systematic transfer plans, stood at INR 48 billion in September, up 6% year-on-year across 19 million transactions. During the quarter, we also launched two new AIFs, a Category 2 equity fund focused on private markets. We are anticipating first close in this quarter and also launched a Category 3 fund investing in listed securities, which achieved first close during the last quarter. We have started managing EPFO for fixed income mandate during the quarter that went by. With that, I now move to financials. Revenue from operations for the quarter was INR 11.7 billion, up 14% year-on-year.
Operating profit was INR 9.1 billion, up 16%, with an operating margin of 36 basis points of AUM. Profit before tax stood at INR 9.8 billion, up 12%. Also, please note that the reported PAT is not directly comparable year-on-year as the September 2025 quarter benefited from INR 468 million reversal of income tax provision, which resulted in additional credit to the tax account and the PAT. That is where I would put a pause. Thank you very much. We can now open it up for questions. Navneet, Naozad, and I are happy to take them. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to 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 question queue assembles. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. First question is from the line of Devesh Agarwal from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead.
Good evening, everyone, and thank you for the opportunity. My first question is on the blended yield. We see a sequential improvement in the yields. Just wanted to understand what are the drivers for this, and also if you can share the asset class yield.
Hi, Devesh. I will share the yields for the quarter. For active equity, our yields were 61 basis points. For overall equity funds, it was 58 basis points. Debt is around 28 basis points, 29 basis points. Liquid, 13 basis points.
What has led to this improvement on a sequential basis? Is it only the asset mix change or something else as well?
Largely asset mix change. It is not like a material movement. It is slightly upwards from previous quarter.
Okay. On the alternate business, we see an increase. I understand a large part of that is the debt mandate that we have won. But two things I would want to know, what is the revenues that we are targeting in this and the pipeline on the alternate? By when we can reach INR 100 crore of revenues from the alternate business and what is the pipeline going forward?
Devesh, you do not give guidance like this, when will we reach a certain amount. All I can say is that beyond mutual funds, now the alternative platform is working as a full stack. This quarter, we launched two new funds on alternative side. First is the HDFC AMC Select Opportunities Fund. This is a Category II fund investing in late-stage venture and early-stage growth companies. We have been in the process of raising money, have seen a very good, encouraging reception from some of the global institution as well as domestic institution investors, family offices and HNIs. Second is the HDFC AMC Emerging Opportunities Fund. This is our first Category III fund, and it has also seen a strong traction and fundraising continues. On the PMS side, you rightly said that a large part of the AUM is on account of the EPFO mandate, which has gone live.
Together with SPFO mandate, it shows the depth of our fixed income capability. Idea is like building a one-stop platform where an investor can stay with HDFC AMC for every need across mutual funds, PMS, AIF, et cetera. On the margins question, AIF is a margin-accretive business, so fees here sit above what we are known as mutual fund equity book in the range of 80 basis points- 90 basis points, depending on the product. Discretionary PMS earns broadly what our equity mutual fund business does. Non-discretionary PMS is a strategic play. Government mandates like EPFO and SPFO, they are highly contested, and the pricing reflects that. We run them for the institutional credibility and capability they build. But those mandates open doors well beyond these mandates. These are highly prestigious, but on all the other part of alternative and PMS, they would be margin accretive.
Right, sir. Sir, one last question. If you see your SIP share, it has always been higher than your equity AUM share. Now, do you think this would continue like this or there is a risk to the share number, market share number or the flow itself, given that some of the newer AMCs are now completing one year and three year of operations, and they would kind of have this now track record of one year and three year, and that the flow can shift to some of the newer AMCs?
Devesh, we have been one of the earliest players to talk about the merits of investing through SIP mode. Much before the whole SIP momentum gathered pace, we have been highly focused on building the SIP book. At every point in time, we have seen this highly competitive industry from number of players perspective. At various points in time, various funds would have done well. But at the same time, I think thanks to the long-term track record of products, the product range, the pedigree, the partnerships that we have built with all the channel partners and the focus that we have on SIP share has been growing, and we remain confident. I think this is one of the biggest area of focus for us, and remain very confident on our SIP book.
Sure, sir. Thank you and all the very best.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Mahek Arora from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hello? Hello.
Yeah.
Go ahead, Ma'am. We heard you.
Yeah. Just one question. If you could tell the share of non-mutual fund revenue in the overall revenue mix, please. Thank you.
It's quite a small number actually. It's not really material.
Got it. Thank you.
As of now.
Thank you. Next question is from line of Raunak Chheda from Orega Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, team. Just one question. This is not apples to apples, but if you were to look at your SIP numbers or the systematic numbers, and you were to compare with the industry number, in the last three quarters, we've seen some dip. Can you just directionally comment, are we losing some share on the systematic flows, especially on SIP, or this is just the STP adjustment?
I must clarify this. Raunak, what we report is systematic transactions.
Yes.
Which combine SIP and STP. The industry number you are comparing it with is SIP only. The two are not like for like. The softness we have noticed has come from STP. And systematic transfer are mostly set up by wealth managers who actively manage when money moves into equity. So they put money in a liquid fund or a money market fund and gradually transfer that to equity. And particularly when markets get choppy, which happened in last couple of months, some of them pause these transfers. And that's a tactical call taken by these investors. If you strip out STP and look at SIP alone, our market share has actually gone up. I repeat, if you strip out STP and look at only the SIPs, our market share has actually gone up. If you look at number of transactions, that will tell you the same story.
Our systematic transactions rose from about 17 million in June to nearly 19 million in September. And if we step back for a moment, monthly systematic transaction book has grown nearly 5x in about five years to around INR 48 billion. And industry, in the same period, would have grown 3x.
Right. No, sir. Thank you for this. We've been long behind your team to just kind of split this number so we could analyze this number better. That's just a request. Hello?
Sure. Yeah. We will
We've noted it.
get that. Yeah, we have noted it. Thank you.
Perfect. Thank you so much. Best of luck.
Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from line of Shreyas Pimple from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity. My first question was on OpEx. This quarter, we have seen quarter-on-quarter decline both in staff cost and non-staff cost. What has been the reason for that, if you can explain, please?
Shreyas, maybe what we can do, if you want, is give an overall perspective on how we are looking at cost. Do you want to do that or you want like a-
Sure
specific cost number? Maybe we can just let Navneet run you through, because I think this is one question that comes to us very often on this whole cost thing, saying that are our costs higher, lower, whatever. I think he will just try and address that from a macro base.
In fact, in this quarter, I thought I will be complimented for a very tight control on cost. But the question of cost, I think we address almost every quarter. Again, let me take a step back and explain how I think about cost and investment in our business. Firstly, let me reiterate something that you have heard from us many times before. We watch every rupee we spend, we watch it very closely. Naozad is often quick to push back even on expenses that I would like to incur. That should give you a sense of the culture we have built around cost discipline. I think when you look at our overall cost base related to the size, scale, complexity of our organization, that discipline is quite evident. But there is another point I have made consistently.
While we are extremely disciplined on cost, we will never shy away from investing in the future of our business. People are very important and so is keep investing in the future. Let me explain how we distinguish between the two. The regular growth in operating expenses, if you look at some of this is like inflation link. Some of it is driven by the growth of business in terms of size and broadly speaking, these are like routine costs that we continuously monitor and manage. The second is the expenditure which I believe that is far more important to understand, which are within the nature of investments we make today to build the capabilities and the capacity that we will need tomorrow. For example, somebody asked about what we are doing on the alternative side.
Between alternative and PMS, when I say alternative, both private equity and private credit, we have got more than 20 investment professionals now. Significantly expanding our capacity on investor servicing, on operations, on the whole sales and then the distribution side, so on and so forth. Same thing is on the international side, where the AUM is not very large, but we are investing upfront because we see a lot of potential in that business. Same thing goes for all our investments on digital technology, and then those capabilities. All of those I take as investment. I told you about the number of people that we have built on the alternative side, but even on the mutual fund side, our team, till a couple of years back, was like 30 professionals. Now number is closer to 40, and this will continue to grow.
We keep thinking that business today is, let's say, 9 lakh crore, 10 lakh crore. It will go to 20 lakh crore, then it will go to 40 lakh crore. We have to constantly invest in people, in technology and in distribution, so on and so forth. Then, of course, the technology where our team of engineers working on AI-led capabilities across major business functions. This is like upfront investment, but in terms of potential cost saving or the potential higher revenues will occur over a period of time. I think when you look at our quarterly cost numbers, would encourage you to look at them through this broader lens. I've always said this, we are not compromising on cost discipline. You have seen in this quarter, and have always seen us maintaining a very tight leash on cost.
At the same time, in a calibrated manner, we continue to invest in future because we don't want to compromise on investing for growth. Does that answer your question?
Yeah. It's very clear. Just wanted to understand how do we think about cost and OpEx growth in that sense. Year on year, of course, we have always maintained operating PBT yields in the range that we always see. How do we think about growth in the cost? That is what I wanted to understand.
I mentioned, I think it's split into two. One is the regular operating expenses that should be inflation linked as the business grows, and in line with the growth in the business, in terms of size and broadly speaking. These are routine costs that we continuously monitor and manage. I mean,
That would be, sir, 60%-70% of the total cost?
We don't split like this is for future and this is for current business. Think about it, the scale of operation that we have managing 16 lakh crore of AUM, 9 lakh crore on the mutual fund side, another 6.5 lakh crore on the PMS side, the capability we are building on alternatives on the international. Look at our website, look at the quality of app that we have got. The entire footprint that we have got, both physical and the digital, and the capabilities that we have put in place. Relative to that, the overall cost is like, really, I think people should be appreciating the way we run our business.
Yeah. I was very surprised positively this quarter.
How should we look at it? One way to look at it is go back and see our history over the last five years, 10 years, how the costs have increased and how conscious we have been of both ensuring that we run a very tight ship, but at the same time, keep investing as markets give us the opportunity to do that.
Point taken, sir. Thank you.
Thank you.
for that answer. Second, just a bookkeeping question. What was the ESOP or non-expense cost, non-cash expense for this quarter?
For this quarter, it is already disclosed. It is about INR 186 million for the quarter. So INR 18.6 crore. It is already as a footnote on page 27.
Sure. My second question was on SIF. Where are we in the process of expanding into SIF? When can we expect new products in that category? Many of the competitors have already been gaining in this space, and they say that it is very lucrative opportunity as such. Where are we in the process there?
It is a category definitely gaining prominence, and some of the funds that have got launched have done well through the period, though it is too short to talk of performance. We have taken our time to set up systems, processes, putting the right people in place. This is a new category. Some of them are complex strategies. We have also hired two senior investment professionals. We have got Ihab Dalwai and Paul Parampreet. We are now well set and you will see a couple of product launches in this space over the next couple of quarters. All the ingredients are in place. I have been working a lot in terms of continuous training of our people on the sales and distribution side. Similarly for our distribution side, and should be able to get our share over the next few quarters.
Got it, sir. As such, the question was on specifically small and mid-cap space. What we have seen in last 5, 6 months is that most of the flows has been anchored towards this space. While we do have a huge and large mid-cap fund, the small-cap fund is comparatively smaller. The flows in those funds have been decent. However, not to the industry leading mark. The point was first, in terms of HDFC AMC, the flows that come into these schemes, how do you see that as a industry? Do you think that these flows will continue to be like that? And how these flows will turn around? What is your outlook on small and mid-cap flows?
First, I think we must give credit to investors for showing a lot of resilience and discipline in the way people are investing. We have seen 2 years of muted returns, but still people not only continuing their SIPs, but even topping up or taking advantage of fall in market. That is positive. On the other side, we see some bit of momentum chasing. Earlier, I mentioned about how money came into silver funds when prices were high, or in some other sector and thematic funds when those themes had done well. At our end, all our fund managers, our large investment specialist team, and everybody on the ground in sales and distribution, they constantly guide our distribution partners as well as investors on focusing on the long term, focusing on asset allocation, focusing on the discipline, and not falling prey to the recency bias.
Particularly on the small and mid, because you made a comment about it, mid cap is very large. Fund size has grown due to long-term performance. In fact, it's our 20th year of the mid cap fund. It's more than INR 1 lakh crore, and I think we take deep pride in what we have delivered over the last two decades. But fund size appears in every fact sheet, and you see it. The market cap of the underlying universe does not, and that is where the misconception starts. What matters is size relative to the opportunity. If you look at, for example, the small cap fund, and some of the people I've heard saying that now it's INR 40,000 crore. But it was 0.5% Of the small cap universe market cap in June 2019, if I remember correctly.
It's still 0.5% Of the market cap universe today. Also, the other thing that we constantly look at, both for our mid cap fund and small cap fund, is the weighted average market cap of that fund vis-à-vis the benchmark and vis-à-vis the category average. Our weighted average market cap in that sits below the category average. Which tells you that size has not pushed us up the curve or narrowed what we can own. Our fund managers feel very comfortable. Investor behavior is something where one is the institution response, the view that we communicate, and second is what investors and distributors prefer. In fact, of late, I've heard some of my fund managers speaking that the large cap valuations have been below long-term average and that's something investors should not ignore.
Also, I think Navneet touched upon the size. Our small cap fund is like. Okay, so one small cap fund is materially larger, but at the second position, third position, it is us and one of the other AMCs. Both of us are at 40. So we are not small even in the small cap category.
I thought he mentioned that your mid and small cap funds are still large.
No, he is also saying that mid cap we are large, but small cap we are small.
That is an opportunity for us to grow. Does that answer your question?
Yeah. Thank you so much, sir. Those were my questions, yeah.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Jaspreet Singh, individual investor. Please go ahead.
Am I audible?
Yes, sir.
Yes, go ahead.
My question is, our passive product portfolio appears to have relatively lower market share compared to other peers. When I also look at our products, we do not have so many products in passive to provide to an investor. How do you look at that? Because if you believe in active to passive shifts in the long term, how are you positioning yourself regarding that? How are you looking to expand your product offerings and all? That is my first question.
We have almost, if I remember correctly, almost 50 products on the passive side across market cap-based indices and smart beta, across plain vanilla indexes versus sector thematic, and across index fund and ETFs, and of course, some of the fund of funds which feed into these ETFs. We have a fairly wide bouquet of products. Of course, we keep looking at the product basket and take a view from our investment team. On the other side, we always assess whether a set of distributors or investors have a certain need for a product, and accordingly, we launch a product. I think we have one of the best in class. Also, I must mention, we have been one of the oldest player in the passive category. Our first index fund was launched in 2003 when hardly people were talking about passive funds.
It has been now 23 years of building this category. We have the full product bouquet.
Actually, just to add, index funds, our market share is very high. I think the only place where you kind of talked about market share, large government of India mandate, which we are not part of, but otherwise our market share is high. Yeah.
Even, sir, retail, some of the peers have more market share than us.
Sir, actually, in index funds where large retail participation is there, we are the second highest in the industry.
My second question is, how are you looking to make HDFC as a one-stop solution and one-stop platform over time, in the long term?
We are a one-stop solution house. I mentioned about the wide bouquet of products we have got on the passive side. Similarly, on the active fund, you would be aware of the SEBI classification and across almost all categories which are permitted to be launched by an asset manager. We have those categories. There could be few funds here and there in the sector and thematic category that we will be launching over a period of time, but otherwise, yeah. There are fewer new categories that have opened up with the recent changes in SEBI classification norms, so for example, a contra fund or life cycle fund, and over a period of time we would be launching that. On the other side, non-mutual funds, we have got a fairly wide bouquet of products on PMS, more discretionary and non-discretionary. On the alternative side, we've got a fund of funds.
We have got now a new private equity venture fund and a private credit fund. Then, of course, on the international side, we have just concluded the NFO of two outbound funds, and we have got a couple of inbound funds. I think it's one of the best-in-class platform where every investor should be able to meet most of their investment needs through one single platform.
And sir, my last question is, what are the areas where we are investing for future?
I think I mentioned earlier, so I wouldn't repeat all of that. But yeah, across newer categories of products and also as the market opens up, SEBI has been, for the last several years, have continuously been coming up with newer categories of products or the opportunities. We launched a REITs passive product. That's a new category that's building up. I talked about the opportunity on the non-mutual fund side. But to be very honest, I see tremendous growth opportunity in our core plain vanilla equity products where we have been a leader for and have got a track record over 30 years.
Does new players present a threat to us? Not
Sorry. No, I think that
I said
the entry of newer players only validates our thesis that industry has a huge growth potential. For us, it is not appropriate to comment on any particular name of firm, but we have a comprehensive platform across active, passive alternatives. We are continuously expanding deep relationship and extremely well-developed distribution network for kind. So we have our strength, and we continue to build on that.
Thank you. [inaudible] , I will request you to come back for a follow-up. A request to all the participants, kindly limit yourself to two questions per participant and rejoin for a follow-up question. Next question is from line of Adivesh, Individual Investor. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Thank you for taking my question. On flows with the mid and small-cap categories outperforming this year, could you give some color on how gross sales and redemptions are trending in your large cap and hybrid schemes compared with the rest of your equity book?
We don't specify flow data category-wise for HDFC AMC.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and one to ask the question. Next question is from line of Saurabh, Individual Investor. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. Am I audible?
Yes, go ahead.
My question is on, last year, you have launched three new schemes, new funds in the GIFT City. Any plan to launch any further funds over this?
Yeah, so continuously been expanding the product bouquet. We have got six funds for inbound investment. That is investment by global investors in India. Recently we have launched two products for outbound, where there is an opportunity for Indian investors to invest globally. One product is a developed market feeder, another is an emerging market feeder. As the market evolves and we see the demand from the investors, we will continue to keep evaluating our product bouquet and come with the right solutions.
Specific numbers will you be able to?
Like how many products we will launch?
How many schemes or funds?
No, we don't think like that. I mentioned earlier that it's a combination of many things, what our investment team believes in. We look at the need of a particular product or a solution from a set of investors or distribution partners and our capability. Accordingly, we do that. These are early days from our GIFT City subsidiary potential. We've launched couple of inbound funds, and have just launched two outbound funds, and we would like to keep growing these strategies.
Okay, sir. Thank you. My second question was on any improvement on capital efficiency, because being the third largest AMC, the return on capital ratios are lesser than the peers. Can you throw some light over this?
That is a function of how much cash we have on our balance sheet. Last three years, the board has distributed all the cash distributable profits that we have generated in the business. Rest of the balance sheet that we actually have has been built over the years from internal accruals after paying dividends for each of the years we are in existence. So that's the function of cash on the balance sheet, which we are using for various investments, including in our AIF platforms.
Okay, sir. Thank you. That was all on my side.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from line of Mayank from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for taking my question. Sir, so if we look at the distribution mix, particularly in the equity AUM, the contribution of direct as a channel has been increasing. Largely given the market volatility, do you see any concern on the stickiness of the direct AUM? Because generally, we have seen that because of handholding, regular AUM has largely higher stickiness. So that was my first question. Secondly, I just wanted to confirm whether the ESOP cost for the whole year stands at around INR 79 crore- INR 80 crore or is there any change there? Yeah.
On the investor behavior and I mean, people keep asking me like, "Are these flows sustainable?" I think many of us in the industry, and I very much include myself and my colleagues in this who have a long experience, have consistently underestimated the maturity and resilience of the Indian retail investors. For years, we have built our assumptions and forecast around the belief that retail investors would slow down or withdraw from equity investing when markets turn challenging. But the Indian investor over the last several years have repeatedly challenged that thesis. I think it is time we acknowledge that the investors have evolved much faster than many of us anticipated. You can clearly see in the SIP flows over the last several years. Ten years back, the monthly flow used to be INR 30 billion, and now we are talking about INR 325 billion.
There has been a consistent increase during this period. We have seen a lot of up and down. I mean, the volatility in the market at various points in time. I think that was your question, whether these investors would continue. I think there is a lot of resilience. The good part of this is structural. Another interesting aspect to look at is if you look at the net flows into equity and hybrid funds and compare that with the SIP flows, a large part of the flows are now coming in the form of SIPs. That gives it more predictability and makes it less volatile. I would say that industry is completely immune to market cycle. I mean, of course, if there is an extended or a sustained bear market for long, we will see in the investor behavior or the resilience will get tested.
But the experience of last few years has taught us that we should be careful not to underestimate the Indian investor.
Got it, sir. Secondly, on that ESOP expenditure, can you just confirm whether the number is closer to INR 79 crore-INR 80 crore for the full year?
The non-cash expense for ESOP cost for the full year FY 2027 would be around INR 79 crore-INR 80 crore.
Got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Next question is from line of Rajit Aggarwal from Nilgiri Advisors. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir. My question is related to the overall market share. I believe there was some discussion at the start of the call and I joined a few minutes late. Is that correct?
Yeah. Please ask.
No. Okay. For the last many quarters now, I think our share has kind of not grown. I mean, the best I think was 11.5%, and in this current quarter it is 11.1%. In the near future as well, there are a lot of other fund houses which are coming up, which are going to launch their scheme, and some of them have really caught the fancy of investors through their own PMSs or AIFs. Do you foresee a scenario where our market share could jump by, let us say, 20 basis points, 30 basis points?
I think we look at longer term. I think on a quarter-on-quarter basis or now even month-on-month basis, I mean, people track the numbers very closely. The market share number get impacted by two things. One is the mark to market, and second is underlying flows. I would not really spend too much time going through all the details. I think we all recognize that in a business like ours, some amount of movement in market share is inevitable and very much part of the journey. For example, in some of the hybrid funds, we have seen some bit of correction in our market share. But we have taken the right steps. Our Balanced Advantage Fund is very large. It has got a great long-term track record, and which is quite enviable.
But some of the other categories like multi-asset fund or aggressive hybrid fund or equity savings, we have taken some steps. We have acted on it and we have reviewed our approach, and in fact, we have brought in an expert fund manager on that, Ihab Dalwai, who has an excellent track record in managing hybrid strategies and he has delivered very strong outcome. From sales and marketing perspective, we are looking at some of those categories and we think there is tremendous potential for us to grow on that. On the competition side, I mentioned earlier that increased competition we perceive positively because it just reflects the expanding investor base. It reflects the rising awareness about mutual fund products across the country. The penetration is still very low, and over a period of time we see tremendous potential for industry to grow.
We have got the best-in-class platform, either from a product perspective, from a distribution network, both physical and digital, and we have a track record. I think six of our strategies go back 30 years+ in terms of performance track record. Another six, seven would be 18 years, 20 years+ . I think very few fund houses, not only in India but in the world, can boast something like that. Then, of course, we have launched many more products through the last couple of years. We remain very confident of our capabilities apart from the strength of the brand and the distribution franchise. Yeah, there is a lot of potential for us to grow. I think these are very early days of financialization of savings in India and we are very well-placed to capture the opportunity.
Well done. Thank you. Thank you for your inputs.
Thank you. Next question is from line of Divij Punjabi from Banyan Tree Advisors. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks. I have two questions. One was, can you speak more about the size of the opportunity that you're seeing on the PEVC side now coming with the launch of the Select Opportunities Fund? So that is question one. The other one is, there was a slight increase in equity yield. Just wanted to confirm, is it because of decline in AUM during the quarter?
Yeah, sure, Divij. First, on the size of opportunity on alternatives, there are many ways to look at it. One way to look at it is the total size of AUM in alternatives, which is like 16 lakh crore across Category I, II and III. For us these are early days. We just made our first foray into Category III fund, you know the industry size. Category II, we had a fund of fund which saw very encouraging response. Money is almost fully committed to 13 general partners and then we have made a couple of co-investments alongside them and have created few opportunities and continuum funds.
Based on that experience and the network that we have built, and the understanding that we have got of investing in that space we have launched a new product, Select Opportunities Fund, which again is seeing very good response from the investors and the private credit fund that we are in the process of doing a final close and have made couple of investments there. We see lot of opportunity but we have mentioned earlier that when it comes to the alternatives this is less about the scale but more about creating a great outcome for the investors. Over a period of time the size of opportunity is very large and we will continue to build our strength. We have the pedigree, we have the network, we have the distribution capability and then we will fully leverage on that to keep building great franchise on that front.
Sure, thanks. On the other question regarding the yields.
I think it is just a marginal increase. You are just talking of yields for the quarter, right? For equity.
Yes. I think there was 1 basis point increase on a sequential basis. Was that-
Divij, your voice is breaking. Can you repeat that once again, please?
Yeah. I think there was 1 basis point increase in equity yield. Was that due to the decline in AUM?
No, not due to decline in AUM. I think it's just a marginal increase product.
Yeah, actually that also depends on which products or what kind of flows and the mark to market changes. Multitude of those factors have led to a marginal increase.
Okay, sure. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from line of [inaudible] from Rewa Private Wealth Managers. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hello? Hello? I'm audible?
Go ahead, sir. You are audible.
Sir, thanks for the opportunity to ask question and my first question would be, your blended equity yield is around 58 basis points, if I am not wrong. Like key peers are something around 67 or something. If that gap is from the product mix like hybrid versus, pure equity or purely on a pricing choice? Or do you see that as your Balanced Advantage Fund is growing, do you expect the yield to be more closer to peers?
Balanced Advantage, our largest. Actually our Balanced Advantage Fund is the largest in the country. Sorry, the question is exactly, can you
Okay, I will repeat the question again.
Yes, please.
Your blended equity yield is around 58 basis points if I'm not wrong and while the key peers are about in 67 basis points. Is that a gap from the-
Sir, are you saying peers or fear? Because there are no peers in 6768. Are you referring to a particular peer? I think there are differential yields at which-
Referring to particular peer.
Yeah. Because there are peers also at 30 basis points. I think there is whole range then. Because of the size of our AUM fund. Yes. So some of our funds are large in size. They have grown very well. So we are the only asset management company which today has three funds, well above the INR 1 lakh crore in terms of AUM. As you know, right? The SEBI formula, as the AUM grows larger
Yeah
the TER keep coming down. So the effectiveness because of that is where we are today.
Okay. Any sort of further guidance towards how you will achieve towards kind of more than 65 basis or something, growing the equity yield much more higher?
Sir, we do not hazard a guess on anything that is in future. I think we have been able to build a strong franchise over time. We will obviously do our best to optimize it to the fullest.
Okay. My next question would be, almost INR 8,700 crore in treasury investment. Has board decided to reconsider anything to do with it, like buyback or any kind of special dividend? What are you expecting to deploy this treasury investment over a piece?
I think I was just mentioning on the previous question. For the last years, the board has declared a dividend which effectively where we have distributed the entire post-tax cash profits that we generate.
Okay.
The balance sheet that we have, currently we are using to give investors seed capital for all our alternate platforms.
Okay.
That's we are currently using the balance sheet to work there.
Okay. I am seeing how much time it will take to distributing the seed capital and all. Any sort of time horizon would be very appreciated for that.
The investment schedule is already disclosed as part of our investor pack. You will see how much it will deploy across different investments. The balance-
This is a continuing process. As we keep seeding new strategies, this will require seed capital.
Okay. It is a continuing process. Got it, sir. Thanks, sir. I do not have any more question left.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from line of K. D. Raj, individual investor. Please go ahead.
Hello, am I audible?
Yes, go ahead.
Yeah. First of all, congratulations for the good set of numbers. Actually, just a follow-up question on the question asked previously. As we could see the net expenses on a quarter-on-quarter basis, it is having a degrowth of approximately 4%. I am excluding the fees and commission part. While on a year-over-year basis, quarterly basis, whatever you are talking about, it is approx 6%. Accordingly also H1, it is approx 16%. Can I get a bit guidance on that, respective to that, anything clarity for that? Any reason specific or something like that? That is the question.
Actually, we had mentioned this in our last quarterly call. There were some CSR expenses which were taken up in the first quarter, and because of that, you are seeing the H1 numbers getting kind of bit skewed. Having said that, sir, we would request you to look at our total cost on an annual basis. If you see the trend, I think Navneet earlier touched upon about the long-term trend and how things have been. We would just request you to, because of the very nature of the business and the kind of certain expenses, we would request you to look at the full-year expenses.
Okay, done. Thank you so much. That is it from my side.
Thank you very much, sir.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as our last question. I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Navneet Munot for closing comments.
Thank you so much, and wish you all the very best for the forthcoming season.
Thank you very much. On behalf of HDFC Asset Management Company Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.