Greetings and welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Intellect Design Arena Limited financial results for the Q4 and the full- year of fiscal years 2021, 2022, ending 31st March 2022. The investor presentation and the press release has been sent to all of you, and is also available on our website. Our leadership team is present on this call to discuss the results. We have with us today Mr. Arun Jain, Chairman and Managing Director. Mr. Prabal Basu Roy, Advisor to the Chairman and Director on the Corporate Board. Mr. Manish Maakan, CEO of iGTB. Mr. Rajesh Saxena, CEO of IGCB. Mr. Banesh Prabhu, CEO of Intellect SEEC. Mr. T.V. Sinha, CEO of IRTM. Mr. Venkateswarlu Saranu, CFO, and Mr. Andrew England, full-time director.
Besides, there are some other senior members of the Intellect management team who are also present in the call. Mr. Arun Jain will brief you on the results and this will be followed by Q&A. This will be replied to by the senior members of our management team.
Thank you, Praveen. Good afternoon, everybody, and good evening. It's a great pleasure for me to announce the result. I think we performed very well during this year of crossing 25% growth. We initially designed that growth for 20% and we finally achieved 25% of the revenue growth. Our PAT growth comes to 33%, so cash collection is all-time high and our cash balance is all-time high of INR 558 crore. All our financial metrics is good. Our market presence is good. The kind of deals we are winning is good. Our acceptance and early investment which we made in our cloud technology, those are delivering great results to us. We have a cloud revenue growth of over 112% during the year.
I will just summarize my points as presentation deck is there. We talk about it that we accelerate digital transformation journey. We are maximum amount of dollars are spent in the industry. I'll say there are 7 elements which went very well in this quarter. Really we've. I said, it's a fantastic year for all of us at Intellect. It's giving me great expectation for going forward to all of us. First of all, the cloud. When we say 4 exponential technology, 5 platform, 12 products, that's our whole asset base. It used to be 4 platform when I talked to you during the technology day in December. We added one more platform which went live. This is a trade and supply chain finance technology upgrade platform. This is a platform normally sitting on legacy platform.
One of the large deals which we announced two years back in Singapore was around this platform. This platform has been launched on a cloud, which makes it five platforms. The cloud growth of 112%, or if I look at it, annualized growth of this quarter of close to INR 119 crore, that amounts to $60 million of a run rate cloud business. Which is achieved in just three years of our entry into the cloud space. Organically $60 million to be achieved in cloud business is a phenomenal success to Intellect and management teams, Manish, Rajesh, everybody who contributed in building or Banesh, building this cloud-related business. Second milestone is we achieved. We crossed 1,000 crore of license-linked revenue, exactly 1,060 crore revenue, which is purely coming from license-linked revenue.
When we started the company, we started with INR 600 crore as the overall company, and license was close to some hundred crore or 150 crore. In last 6 years, that momentum of the license-linked revenue, which was to the limit of something, INR 150 crore-INR 160 crore license in 2015-16. Today that crossed 1,000 crore. I think very few company can boast of having a license of India sold in global market. We take a pride, this 1,000 crore come from all the top banks in the world. In India, we have 8 out of the 10 banks from RBI, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank, IDFC Bank. You name it, I think we have all the banks where we have deep footprint. It come from the best banks in UAE.
Top 8 out of the 10 UAE banks are our customer. Top 3 banks of Saudi Arabia, top bank of Singapore, top bank of Malaysia, top bank of Philippines, top bank of Indonesia, top bank of Vietnam, top bank of Australia. If you move into these geographies, top 3, one of the top 3 bank in South Africa, top 3 bank in U.K., top 3 bank in France, in Spain, in Germany, in Sweden. I think that's. Canada and U.S. That is what make the product company different on the whole trajectory which is there. That makes the biggest deal which we announced last quarter is Reserve Bank of India. They are interested to give complete cloud native central banking solution, first time in the world on managed services to Intellect.
It's a big confidence that the Reserve Bank of India demonstrated in the technologies, they took almost 18 months to evaluate our internal technology with their architect that is suitable for next 10 years or next 20 years, this technology is suitable or not. This contract is a 7-year contract, runs into close to over INR 400 crore. This contract we have received approval in this quarter for this contract. This contract is a large value contract, but since it is signed in the last and it's being designed to build on a completion POC basis. Obviously by the time it's signed, we complete only a small portion of the contract, and that's why it's not a full license being booked onto the contract upfront, which is normal practice.
This, since it's a full managed services contract, this we require to bill partial billing and that has some shortfall from that perspective or the expectation of the investor that revenue has some shortfall because of that. That's not an issue at all because in the long- run it's a full deal, managed services deal for seven years. We got another very large digital transformation deal for a large private sector bank in India. This is about transforming their entire digital scope for the transaction banking, entire payment systems, and this is another very big deal where client entrusted us and give this deal for execution. The fifth point is our Microsoft partnership. Looking at all the wins, what we are getting and the presence we have in the marketplace.
Banking and financial services division of Microsoft Azure, where they have brought in very senior people from the industry to lead the financial service segment, whether Bill Borden, who was also coming from transaction banking or Peter Russo. They have seen all the companies in the world in transaction banking business and they've chosen us to be partner on Azure. This will give us a huge access to the customer in Europe and America's all advanced market besides Asia and Middle East. Our sales team will get enhanced and get a better footprint in all the advanced market over there. Besides this, next point is, DBS and Bajaj Finserv. They, you know, they launched their operation in India last month and they are operating on our card platform.
This is a platform which we are building it up over the last two over three years period, but it's now moved to the cloud and DBS has chosen this platform against all the standard platforms they have in Singapore or the global products. That going live creates a positivity of credit card area. What has not gone so well in this quarter is Russia-Ukraine war. We lost one large mega deal. It was about core banking transformation for Russian bank. You may guess the bank in Germany. They were already about to sign the deal on the same day Rajesh was about to fly to sign the deal and that Russia attacked Ukraine.
There was a smaller deal which we have not mentioned in the press release, where we were to implement trade supply chain finance system in Ukraine for one of the European banks, and that was supposed to be implemented in Ukraine. Both these deal, we have not booked any revenue, we have not booked any exposure on the company books, so it's completely risk-free from that perspective. If we would have signed the deal, let's say in January, and then we might have to take a write-off of the deal that would have been harmful for all the investors. On one side it is good from the revenue perspective, but bad from the loss of at least $4 million of the revenue which could have been accounted in this quarter because of the deal.
Second thing is about talent cost. INR 13 crore cost increase happened during the quarter. Over the last quarter, this INR 13 crore is attributable to salary increase and employee increase and few travel, which started sometime in March. These three elements constituted the INR 13 crore increase in the deal. On the front of we look at six-capital, the way we look at the whole business, our technology capital, where our products which I was mentioning is gaining momentum. If you look at Technology Day presentation, we are progressing very nicely continuously in that space. In leadership space, our leadership which is we call it most critical for product company, which is the top 500 people in the company who has a deep expertise in the product business.
Our attrition is less than 10% in that space, which is a very, very good news because the expertise is when the industry is running around 25%-30% attrition, we were able to retain the critical talent in the company, which is very, very useful for us. Our customer base, I always mention, I mentioned that we have 270 customers at end of the year, and these customers are marquee clients of every geography, and that makes it another area for next years and we look at the journey. Now we need to go deep in each country and expand the each country operations on customer capital. I want to bring to the attention the execution capital. How do we deliver the product to the customer?
There, the significant improvement happened, which is displayed by INR 558 crore cash in the company is demonstrated by single- phenomenon in last two years which happened, is we applied design thinking for execution excellence. What does it mean? As an investor, I cannot explain the nitty-gritty how we work on. We did a digital transformation of one of the Malaysian banks on cloud. A typical digital transformation take 18-24 months. Globally, that's the benchmarking of a digital transaction banking when we go sign the deal. After signing the deal, you have observed the AMC takes 2 years to come in. It's because 18 months is a cycle time for the implementation.
For this, using the cloud as a technology and using our delivery methodology, which we call iZoom methodology of implementation, where we break down every small user journey to the smallest work packet to be delivered and what decision customer needs to give it, we are able to implement the entire cycle in six months time. It's a significantly moat we have created for digital transformation using our execution capital when we apply design thinking at a requirement stage, solution stage, engineering stage. We are inspired by Toyota, where Toyota disrupted the auto industry of America's in eighties. That's how we are looking at it, Intellect disrupting the IT implementation industry by bringing every smallest component to be so perfect that it accelerate the transactions, transformation on a cloud significantly faster. That's our storyboard for next year.
On future side, if I look at next year, our designed strategy is 20%, which is stated strategy that we have designed our organization for 20% growth. We are not looking to downgrade or anything because of the international disturbances. We understand international disturbances. We have taken into account those deals and those pipeline deals which were just sitting in those areas which are doubtful. In spite of that, our sales pipeline has grown to $725 million from last quarter, substantially higher than the last quarter. Our destiny deals have grown significantly to 61 destiny deals. All the metrics which are there for us to see next year, there was a dilemma in management team, should we look at design of 20%? We designed for 20%.
This year we are able to do 25%, which is much better than what we designed the organization. Obviously, in product company, which is measured on annual basis. The first of the principle of product company is they're never a quarterly company. It's not a service company. Indian investor believe that everything is a quarter- on- quarter. I mentioned multiple times that when you have a deal of $4 million or $5 million in single deal, it's $4 million deal means INR 30 crore of additional profit or INR 30 crore of addition or reduction in the profits. Now, that is not a way we can understand and play on Intellect stock from that perspective. Twenty percent moved to 25% was our delight as a management team. We are all celebrating that element, that 25% growth we achieved.
Next year we are looking 20% growth, should be available. Next thing is Microsoft should accelerate bringing some tailwinds to our 20% growth. That should help us out in doing it. We have seen where we have given a focus on the countries. What I mentioned that if you go to the top bank in a country and then expanding the footprint. In 2016, I spoke about it that our strategy is to go to the top, one of the top three banks whenever we enter into the country, and then we go down from top three bank to the rest of the banks in that country. That strategy is working in India, that strategy is working in UAE, that strategy is working in UK, that strategy worked in Canada, that strategy is working in US.
These 5 countries where we sent full kit sales team, we invested into these 5 countries. We have achieved substantial run rate of more than $30 million revenue per country delivered by these 5 countries. Now we are looking to choose another 3 countries for market expansion, where we deepen. We have 18 countries where we have a $3 million-$5 million revenue pool per country. This revenue pool for 3 countries we've chosen, 1 in Asia, 1 in Middle East, Africa, and 1 in Europe. These 3 countries will be deepening by putting more, moving the sales team. We have moved Paramdeep Singh, who was Executive Vice President, to lead our Vietnamese business.
Vietnam will become our focus country for deepening the relationship there, so that number can move to $10 million per country in a next 2-3 years window. What next point which is working in favor of Intellect is we've now learned how to deal with. Last time you asked a question, "Can you crack $50 million deal?" Some investor asked that question. I was, we were working with RBI for that deal, but I was shirking away that question that, yes, we are working on those large deals of $50 million. We've now demonstrated the $50-million-dollar deal we can crack. The $50-million-dollar deal we need to have a proposal team, the pro-proposal team, pre-sale team. It requires a full village to win a $50-million-dollar deal. Once.
Once you have all the templates, all the calculations, all the commercial arrangements, all the delivery nuances coming together, the organization move from $5 million deal to $15 million deal to $50 million deal. We crossed third hump of a $50 million deal, and it's about strategic dealing. When we call that destiny deal few years back that we are focusing on strategic deal, that is what is working well now. That's how we look at it, that we prepared the organization for saying calibrated $60 million, two quarters of $55 million, two quarters $60 million, and then sixty-seven million dollar and then $75 million. Our focus will be to, in next two quarter, to reach whatever the investment we did initial, additional investment last quarter and this quarter for the headcount that will be prepared for a $75 million run rate.
We are hopeful to achieve faster. Looking at the tailwinds which are available to us, we need to invest higher from the sales and marketing side, along with Microsoft. Some increase in the budgets will happen. One is because of travel. Obviously, the travel costs will go up. COVID is opening up, so all the meetings have started happening. Face-to-face meeting. The beauty of the face-to-face meeting is those large deals which are there internationally, we were able to sign a lot of deals. Now, face-to-face, our sales team is able to influence the deal to earlier closure of those deals. That will be helpful. Investments will be on the sales and marketing side over the coming year. Second side of investment will be on product investment.
As of now, in spite of the salary increase, our capitalization of the product is still at INR 116 crore versus INR 120 crore. Next year this budget will go up by at least 15%-20%. The R&D budget will go up because we are looking for those countries where we're entering. We have to make it 100% suitable for that country, the product upgrade, the technology edge and the interfaces. Those are the places where the large R&D investments are going into next year. Our product like Wealth, which is bought by SBI, is a great validation of Wealth products. Those are the high- growth products. Underwriting products are taking momentum in US and Treasury products. Treasury product is taking momentum.
These are the third layers of product besides the top- layer of product liquidity, Quantum and DTB, the three products which is the core leading products, and then IDC, IDL, payments and cards is the next generation products. It's a very, very healthy pipeline over there. Next year our tax rate will come to 26% levels. Our standard tax rate will be all our losses are being taken care of. In this quarter, the tax rate has gone up somewhat because we exhausted the cumulative losses which were available for us till Q3 . Q4 tax rate has gone up to slightly over 20%. Regular tax rate will be 26%.
One beauty is on effective cash tax rate or balance sheet tax rate will remain at 17%-18% because we have INR 96 crore of MAT credit available to us. That INR 96 crore will take at least next 2 years for us to bring our tax rate, effective cash tax rate above 18% of the tax rate. So this is what I think I wanted to share as a story with you. At this point in time, I can leave for question answer. All the presentation slides, all the data slides are available in this, in the deck, and any question arises from there, you can go through it.
Thank you, Arun. Now we are opening the session for Q&A. Please click on raise your hand, raise your hand to ask a question. We have first question coming up from Mr. Rahul Jain of Dolat Capital. Rahul, you may ask your question, please.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. First question is on the growth and the comments you have shared on the cost side of yours, the headwind. I understand that the year has progressed well, but at least from a Q4 exit perspective, we faced a couple of challenges. How, with these things going into FY 2023, does your overall outlook change and what are the risks that get assigned to that outlook with the changing macro situation?
Rahul, I mentioned to you we are quite confident on the pipeline what we have. The deals, the pipeline what we have and those pipeline make us confident that our desired growth of 20% is all possible and unless something else happens in the industry or anything happens in the industry. As of now, whatever the parameters available to Russia and Ukraine, all the deals we talked to all the customers and all the pipeline member who are in P4 and P5 stage of our sales funnel, we are quite okay for managing that. Going to cost. Yes, salary cost of the talent is definitely a concern, but that's industry phenomenon. We have a less dependence on headcount increase compared to any other industry.
We are not expecting in this quarter not to add more than 125 people in this quarter. There's no significant pressure on from additional count, but salary increase is definitely will be, which get distributed over 4 quarters.
Rahul, to answer your question as well, you know, as Arun said see, none of us can have ever disregarded the macro factors which are affecting the global economy today. Having said that, the pipeline numbers which you see in the presentation shows a healthy growth, and that is after discounting and clarifying with various customers about the digital transformation journey, allocation of capital and all of that. The key point here is that while the larger players in the BFSI segment will have issues to some extent, it is our belief that niche-focused players, which are especially IT related, will be able to weather the storm relatively better based on current circumstances as it's yet. Therefore, as Arun said, the organization is designed for 2020. We see no reason to change that design at the moment.
Right. Just a small follow-up on that. On the profitability side, since we are already at a much higher- growth rate than the 20% kind of a thing that we are highlighting as of now. What should be the margin given that we have headwind plus the growth rate will be lower compared to last fiscal? Is it safer to assume the Q4 should be the benchmark going forward right now for the near term?
Rahul, look at the LTM basis margins. Don't look at it quarterly margins. Quarterly margin is no indicator. A $4 million deal of Russia could have been there. The margin would have been 28%, 29%. For a product company planning, do use different yardstick on a LTM would be better yardstick for you.
25% for the full- year is the right number for next quarter?
I don't want to put the numbers, but my PAT margin will be lower because of tax rate. Effective tax rate on PNL will be lower. PAT, visible PAT will be lower because 26% will be there, while effective tax rate will be not more than 18%. That's how I think you have to make a judgment call.
Right. To the comment that Prabal made on the macro situation and how some of the large banks may think about the way forward. Is this also emanating from some of our conversation or this is a generalist view in terms of past cycle behavior that we might have witnessed?
This is a general macro issue, not a client talking. Don't mix the two issues. The client he has mentioned, Prabal has mentioned, that clients we talk to, we are finding they are looking for this technology faster than the earlier. The liquidity solution which we have with the interest rate going up, it become valuable product because all the banks are now accelerating their journey because all the corporate is putting pressure with the interest rate going up. Liquidity, Manish, you can just throw some light on the liquidity product, why the interest rate increase is helpful for selling the liquidity.
Yeah, that's on a leadership quadrant product for us. Actually, you will see on the press release also, we have been rated best in class by ITA, and there's a significant gap between us and the next vendors over there. That's from a market positioning perspective. Interest rates, if you look across the board, I guess including India yesterday was increased. UK was increased today. This is an opportunity for corporates to gain more. For banks, it becomes quite a defensive product as well as a retention product to ensure that the balance is remaining with them. The amount of RFPs I'm dealing with is at an all-time high right now from a number of European banks as well as Asian banks. This demand will only grow with all these interest rates.
I think, U.K. itself is saying we will expect another 2-3 interest rate hikes. U.S. is saying the same. Across the board in Europe, you're hearing the same thing. The demand for it will only go up. I think we have established success for very large banks in U.S. also to get them live in 6-9 months, by leveraging our iZoom methodology. That creates that moat for us of having a ready product to be able to implement fast and having market coverage for covering tax regulation for 60+ countries. No one else has that ready product from a market perspective. Any large global banks will have at least 30-50 country footprint. That becomes a big differentiator.
Right. Also, Manish, if you could share a quick thought on this iColumbus .ai numbers, how it changes our market positioning or TAM or anything.
If you look at most of my revenue driver was through cash management from a corporate banking perspective. Trade and supply chain, we had done a deal with Raiffeisen Bank before, and then UOB in Asia and Singapore. That's where we were modernizing the platform, AI-based cloud-native infrastructure. It was important to ensure we establish right level of success. If you look at any of my peers, their trade revenue is higher than their cash revenue. That gives you as a perspective of the revenue pool I will be playing into. That's a very big opportunity of now taking it out to a market-leading product where we've invested and established success, and to take that out to the market. That should add to the growth of the platform.
Okay, you're saying this iColumbus.ai is kind of a test deployed already on these two transactions that you mentioned in the past?
That's where the base formation of that happened over there. We have significantly added AI capabilities and other capabilities which we'll be taking it out. This is the only product out in market where you have trade finance, supply chain finance, collateral limits integrated along with a channel which is integrated with a cash channel. No one else has that capability. Now it's about monetizing that, taking it out to market, marketing it that. That's where we focus on. If you look at, again, from a trade perspective and a supply chain perspective, all the demand-supply gaps which we are hearing in the market, as well as the pressure on trade to digitize and how AI will help you do that faster and take paper automation, I think all of those things we have addressed, looking at the market needs.
Oh, sure. That's quite helpful. Just last one, bookkeeping one. On the other income side, sorry I missed your comment if you have shared already. What is the reason for the other income jump?
There are two reasons for it. One reason is subsidy income. There are two companies, Anovis Fox and Adrenaline. They delivered a good quarter four, so they are not a consistent number. There is some reversal of which we considered more than three years outstanding as a write-off. Our auditors consider more than three years outstanding as a write-off. They were written back into it.
Treasury income.
Treasury income. The third component is treasury income. Now we have a surplus cash, so there is a treasury income also.
Thank you. I'll get back in a sec.
Yeah.
Thanks, Rahul. Next, we have Mr. Vivek Cherian. Vivek, please ask your question. Please unmute him.
Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. You had two quarters where we've hit a run rate of $67 million. Should we expect this to ramp up from the next quarter onwards? As you'd alluded earlier, should we expect to hit a run rate of $75 million in the next two quarters? If yes, if you go from 67 to 75, and even if the costs increase, the margin as a percentage should go up. Would that be fair to assume? Thank you.
That's what we are shooting for, that $75 million. Whether $75 million is next quarter or next to next quarter, but that's what we are shooting for in next two quarters. One of the quarters we should hit $75 million. You understood right, Vivek.
Vivek, not very far away in history, you know, I think it was you who asked the question about those that we were struggling in the $55 million-$60 million category. We're already talking of a $75 million hump at that stage. I think just keep that in perspective as well.
Sir, just one more question. On the talent front, should we expect a bit more to come in the books or most of it as of now is on the books and from here on, we should expect regular selling pieces? Or do you think? Because in the last quarter, you had mentioned that a bulk of the cost was yet to come on the books. Would you say a Q4 run rate of INR 250 crores, as I can see on the P&L for the employee cost, would that be a fair base, or do you expect this to go up higher than the revenue growth from here on?
It won't be higher than revenue growth, but I think the cost rate will go up in increments and some hundred people additional cost. That's what we have. Now I'm saying if you are making a sales and marketing investment, then those will be there. Also part of salary cost will come in.
Sir, up to what level of revenue can the current capacity sustain? I'm just trying to understand because you talked about-
As of now, $75 million. $75 million current capacity is there. That's what we have mentioned to you. That is what we completed till March 31. Now we are next milestone is 100 million or 90 million. That's what we need to achieve when we are preparing the organization for $100 million, $400 million run rate in next 2 years, 2-3 years, whatever the numbers will be there. That is where our effort will be there for the right investment we need to make. That's at 3 countries we've chosen. In this year we want to choose again calibrated growth of the country, 3 countries, per year when we make a full country and then expand further on it.
Just one last question. As you've been saying in the past that since you're a product company, so I'm guessing as we go from INR 67 to INR 75 to INR 90 to INR 100, at some point there should be a jump in the margin, right? I mean, because we had mentioned that beyond a certain point, most of it flows down to the EBITDA. Would you say that, I mean, that might have been delayed because of the cost increase, but, that, the premise is still valid, if I'm-
Premise is fully valid because if you say license-linked revenue of INR 1,060 crore this time, that 1,060 comes flowing into the bottom- line without any additional cost of the delivery. So that number is the one important number you have to monitor is license-linked revenue. But on other side, some companies stop investing. You have seen some of the product companies stop investing and then push for the margin, like FLEXCUBE may push for the margin to 40%-45%. We will not be doing that. We have been advised by the investors, all of you, that we don't push for the margin beyond a point because market size is too big for us to capture. For that we need to constantly keep on investing ahead of time for our growth.
Growth investment has to be part and parcel of it. You have seen multiple product company which stagnate at INR 60 million, which stagnate at INR 70 million just because they stop investing into growth investments.
Absolutely. Vivek, you see our this statement which you just made is very crucial to understanding this, which is that most of these companies we compare with or is being compared with are essentially single- product or dual- product companies, right? We are firstly, we are very young and they are much more mature companies, number one. Secondly, they were just 1 or 2 product companies. We are 12 products, 4, 5 platforms now and 4 horizontal technologies, right? This is our IP chest, so to speak. As a result, continuous investment is the right way to go for shareholder wealth. I mean, there is no other great mantra to it apart from that.
That continuous investment will form part of our strategy purely for the reason of our IP richness.
That was very helpful. Thank you.
Sure.
Thanks, Vivek. Next we have Mr. Nitin Gupta. Please ask your question.
Yeah, my question is like, what are you planning to do with the cash that you are having on your books?
We declare the dividend first, yeah. This is the first time we did the sharing the dividend. I think cash in the books is just starting to build up, as I mentioned last time. We'll be looking at it where the opportunities are there. We are not a acquisition company, but if some opportunities are there in the market, we'll see if something comes out. Not to disturb the arcus system, whether we could be market facing acquisition, if it comes in our way or mostly market facing, not on a IP side. IP side we have everything available to us. So if market facing, which gets us a acceleration somewhere, then we may consider. Otherwise, we'll two buckets pay back to the investors, and then-
Deploy.
Deploy in case of a phenomenal opportunity comes our way. We need to keep our kitty ready.
Okay, one minor point. For how many quarters this ESOP cost is going to continue?
What is it?
How many ESOP costs will continue?
ESOP will continue. ESOP is 4-year, every time we issue the new ESOP. ESOP will be. As of now, we have it this quarter I think cost of around INR 11 crore. INR 11 crore is this quarter cost. In this year we spent something INR 40 crore in ESOP RSU, which is not a non-cash payment. Our INR 40 crore is bundled into it. If we take that into account, INR 40 crore will be close to 2.5% of EBITDA margin.
Okay.
Thanks, Nitin. Thanks, Arun. Thanks, Nitin. Next, we have Mr. Mayank Babla from Dalal & Broacha. Mayank, you can ask your question.
Hi. Am I audible?
Yeah. Yeah, Mayank, please go on.
Thanks for taking my question. Sir, just wanted some clarity. Sorry I missed earlier. We lost two deals right in the-
Yeah.
Because of the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
Absolutely.
You mentioned I think $4 million was the size of the deal?
No. That's right.
Of both put together?
Both put together, yeah.
I know it's a bit difficult, but any view on when we can recover or, you know, this deal will be back on track?
Unlikely as of now. Russia in Europe, operation of Russia and Europe will not be activated for next 2, 3 years.
Oh, okay. All right, sir. That's all from my side. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Mayank. Next we have Mr. Rajiv Parekh from Ambika. Rajiv Parekh from Ambika.
Yeah. Hi, this is Nishit Shah from Ambika Fincap. Thanks for taking my question. Arun, congratulations on a good set of numbers. My question is, I mean, everyone seems to be too focused on one quarter EBITDA margin, but my question is on the overall, how do you see the next three years? You have now five platforms, and you added one platform. You already talked about moving to $100 million run rate a quarter, from $67 over a period of next two or three years. But where do you see the company in next three years? How do you see it between GTV, GCV and insurance?
From a product company perspective, I would say five years is a good horizon. We should look at it that how we have designed the company for it.
Yes.
Next five-year duration. That's our whole design is all about.
Correct.
When we invested into cloud technology in 2019 and 2020, and we suffered some losses, those are very advanced investments which has delivered the result for our SaaS revenue to go up to $60 million annual run rate. Even if, say, $50-$60 annual run rate, this is a very. These are recurring revenue streams, and that is license-led revenue. That's, once we look at it, that each time we are selling into one country, like, in UAE, if I'm selling to the ENBD as a bank, and then I sell to FAB as the next bank.
Next.
The premium got increased and my delivery time has come down, so my margin has gone up on every deal when I go. As of now, we are building on three products, as you mentioned, three out of 12 products, five platforms. Five platforms just started working on it. The five platforms. So this is a big scope to us. We are finding our competition is getting slightly off track. Temenos is looking, private equity investors are looking for Temenos. Great news for us. If private equity buys them out, they will squeeze the research R&D dollar out of the window. That's what is our sweet spot for us. We have seen Finastra going down the tube when their private equity investor has taken the money.
We wish that it should become private quickly so that with that competition get under pressure of doing and cutting the costs and no R&D investment. We are quite bullish about the future because there are not too many companies which has got this strength, not too many. We don't see any single company in financial technology space which has got a complete suite of 900 APIs, 300 PBCs, and ability for composable and iZoom methodology of 6 months implementation. It's a very, very different space we are looking ourselves. That's why we want to be calibrating. That's why we don't want to make any single mistake in this journey which will topple our engine.
Whether it's a security, whether it's extreme security, the investment in security, the investment in performance of the technologies. Those are things that are becoming very, very critical. Just to answer your question, I think it's we are building. Design thinking is helping us out to building a culture. Culture itself is a moat, a big moat for any competition to come in. Because when I say execution capital, when we do the implementation, Nishit, we talk about work packet level, four-hour work packet. We are breaking down like a Toyota work packet on assembly line operation, how each work packet get executed. We are breaking down the implementation into those work packets. We have sheets running into our project plan sheet, planning sheets running into PGM 110 to PGM 120 to PGM 130.
That's how the six months implementation can be done for the large banks in Malaysia. That is very, very different moat. If you can cut down the delivery cycle time by half, I think world is yours.
Correct. The point which is left unstated is that.
Can you speak little loudly, Prabal?
Yeah, sure.
We cannot hear you.
The point which is left unstated is essentially that what he just mentioned is that we are trying for the first time in the IT industry of essentially doing what Toyota did in the manufacturing setup. We are now trying to do it in the IT industry. It's really a very, very big fundamental move, and we're able to do it over the next, you know, few quarters, you will see the results. As such, results are already evident, but just keep that in mind. It's a really, really seismic shift as and when it comes to the IT industry as a whole.
My next question is on the IGCB side. I mean, how is the consumer banking space shaping up and the competition, and how are we winning, and how is the pipeline there?
We just explained all the pipeline. I think we have a good pipeline. We have growth of $725 million dollar pipeline. West End deals are growing. Strategic deals are there coming up. Overall, Nishit, it looks to be good.
No, particularly the global consumer banking,
The global consumer banking? Rajesh, you want to comment?
Sure. I think when you look at global consumer banking, there are really four product lines that we talk about. One is our IDC proposition, our flagship product, IDC. Lending, our leadership product, which is the central banking, Quantum Central Banking. Now the credit card platform. Let me just spend a minute on each of these product lines so that you'll get the granularity on what we are seeing. I think on the central banking, Arun talked about the large deal win that we had on RBI. Besides RBI, we also closed two very large deals on central banking, and we had closed one deal in the previous year. We are seeing humongous momentum in the central banking space. In fact, as a leadership product, we are now seeing us being called, rather than us going to these clients.
Clients are calling us and asking us to participate. Central banking, we are seeing good momentum. Right. Many central banks are going through this process of modernizing their core banking system. IDC, we are seeing some very good traction in Europe. Our product, unfortunately, Arun talked about one of the banks, the German direct bank, the deal which we lost because it had Russian ownership. The bank had Russian ownership. We are seeing very good momentum. We are in the last two or three in many large deals in Europe, and that journey in Europe and other parts continues. Cards, we talked about the recent launch. I think you may not have noticed it, but Bajaj Finserv and DBS came together to launch the first co-branded credit card.
This credit card is not only managed by us from a technology perspective, but also from an operations perspective. The way this platform has been designed, it's a low- touch, no touch with a lot of empowerment from a customer perspective, so customer can do a lot of operations. It's a game-changing platform that we have put together along with the IP of both Bajaj Finserv and DBS. We are very hopeful that this platform, which has now gone live in India, we will be able to take it. From a market perspective, as I go and meet a lot of clients, I see a lot of opportunity where I see banks sitting with a lot of legacy, and I think we are there with our.
There's one more point that I have to make. What is the tailwind that I'm seeing? I see that the cloud technologies that we invested in, our architecture, our API-first architecture and our product being cloud ready, whether it's Azure, whether it is AWS, that is giving us the fillip, and that is a competitive edge that we have today in.
Great. Arun, I have a small question on Microsoft. The tie-up with Microsoft, when do you see the results coming in terms of order flow coming in? Are we increasing the bandwidth to take care of the orders that can come flowing?
That will take two quarters, two to three quarters. I think by January, we can expect some orders flowing from that deal, nine months from now. We have time to take care of that. That's why we need to plan next round. As soon as we reach $75 million, we need to plan for some nice additional capacity in Q3 , Q4 to be added that time to make it $90 million. $50 million is a good bucket quarter- on- quarter we run. That is working very well, Nishit. That this $50 million bucket size to increase the capacity is not too much, not too less.
That's all from my side. Thank you.
Thank you.
All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you, Nishitbhai. Next we have Mr. Utkarsh Solapurwala from Damos Capital. Utkarsh, please ask your question.
I have two questions. First one is, what is the current status on AIF that we are looking to create on the ecosystem investing in ecosystem?
We are still waiting for the approval. We have applied in SEBI. SEBI is taking time to ask some questions. As soon as it's through. As a strategy, it's the same strategy. We are looking for those small ecosystem players to invest into the IDC marketplace. That's a 2023, 2024 agenda. By that time, this should be completed.
Second question is, as we scale up from $60 million to $90 million and potentially $100 million in next 2, 3 years, are we ready with the management bandwidth for the top leadership positions that we might need to create if as the revenue is inching higher?
We have a very high- quality leadership capital. We have 50 partners in the company, very rich capital available, and close to 365 VP plus leaders with more than 25 years experience. This is a highly- rich organization. Expertise is required. That's what I think we invested upfront, and that is what we are leveraging.
Thank you.
Thank you, Utkarsh. Now we have next question coming from Mr. Harshit Chetia from AUM Fund Advisors. Harshit, please ask your question.
Yeah. Sir, I had a question on, currently our deal pipeline is of around $725 million. What is the timeline of the deals? Do we have more on the shorter- end of the deals or more longer- tenure deals, if you can paint the picture?
Yeah. This deal pipeline, we qualify destiny deals. This destiny deal, we are reporting separately in the deck on the slide. If you go to the slide, there's a destiny deal slide where some of the decision of 61 deals, some 10 or 12 deals were decided in the quarter. We win two out of three deals. Typically the ratio is coming 70%, 60% to 65% to 70% win rate in those destiny deals with us. That's one forecast we can look at. We are as I mentioned, that we learned the art of having larger deals like our $50 million deal. Now we have a capacity to get $1 million deal to $50 million deals.
Obviously, the quarterly impact comes from the major deals. While $1 million deals are also important for us to keep our cloud running over there.
Sir, actually, my question was on the same slide of, it's, I guess page number 35. You mentioned that our funnel pipeline is of $625 million.
$725 million. $625 million is 167 approximately.
Correct.
Yeah.
What is the timeline of the deal? Basically, majority of the deals are like 3-year deal, 5-year deal, if you can tell me.
There are two questions you are asking. You are asking duration of the deal when it closed, or size of the deal for which the deal will be.
Duration is my question.
Duration of the deal, once you sign it's a 10-year deal. Once you sign a deal with any customer, it's a 10-year deal. Nobody changes the license.
Okay. Secondly, I had this question with Microsoft. What products are we going to sell with Microsoft? Are we, like, working with Microsoft for our platforms, or how is it? Can you just elaborate?
Yeah. We are working on all the GTB products: Suite, Cash, Cloud, Payments. They are exclusively signing with us. For other products, they are working with us. GTB products are exclusive, which I mentioned. Other products will be there. That's our current arrangement.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Harshit. Next, we have Mr. Ankush Agrawal. Ankush, please ask your question.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my question, and congrats on the great set of numbers. Firstly, you know, Temenos in the recent capital markets day has said that, you know, going forward from 2022, they will stop selling licenses and subscription would be the standard offering for new and existing deals. You know, wanted to know your thoughts on how does this impact the industry, you know, if the market leader shifts to a permanent subscription-based model, and how does Intellect is looking towards this?
It's good news for us. If somebody says that, he doesn't want to sell on-premise license and we are selling it and customer wants it on-premise, so it's good news for us.
Like, but Intellect internally doesn't have any plan to move to a permanent subscription-based model?
Why should I do it? My customer focus is there. I want to look at it, what is right for the customer. If customer wants to invest upfront for the capital cost, I want to pay him capital cost. And if customer wants a heavy operating cost model, I would like to give him. As a design thinking, I'm all about customer here. Customer is in the center and run around the customers.
Got it.
Why should I tell customer he should be doing here? I cannot tell customer, "Okay, you should wear blue shirt or a white shirt here." Let him wear whatever shirt he wants to use.
Right. No, the question was such that, you know, if the industry leader is moving to such a model, do you think the overall industry dynamics will shift more towards the subscription-based model? Or you do think, like, it won't make that much of a difference from the industry perspective?
It's a customer here. Industry doesn't have anything. Customer drives the industry. What customer asks, we have to do it. I think, but your question is right, that if leader is moving towards, it's good for us, at least for us. We also have a cloud revenue grown 100%-112%. We are also finding we would love to sign the cloud deal because cloud deal has a 10-year moat, and you can grow the revenue year- on- year.
Correct.
on the cloud.
Correct.
We always want to sign the deal. We don't want, we never want to say to the customer that we only sell one thing, not sell other thing.
Something on the similar lines. You know, our license revenue growth has quite tapered this year, right? Even though it's understandable that, you know, the SaaS has grown, like, 100%. You know, incrementally, a lot of deals are coming on SaaS, which doesn't have a license component. From here onwards, how do you think? Do you expect the license will again start growing at double digit? Or do you think that, funnel is such that, you know, larger part of our growth will be driven by the SaaS deals and such that, you know, SaaS will already lead the growth and license will be more or less at the similar levels?
I think from an investor perspective, you should only understand license-led deal. You track only one number, which is 57% of revenue is license-led deal. It's a means of achieving the deal. Whether I win as a license or I win as a SaaS, it's a last choice given to customer. When customer selects a product, then he, his CFOs and his procurement department come into place and they start saying, "Oh, give me this rate, give me that rate, give me this proposal, give me that proposal." We are quite flexible on giving those proposals, which is best suited for the customer without Intellect.
That's understandable that, you know, you are more focused on the customer. The reason why I was asking this question is, you know, SaaS gives our business model more predictability, you know.
Yeah.
Temenos, the entire thought process about them going permanently for subscription was the same.
Yeah.
I was just trying to understand if our deal funnel is such that a larger part of is SaaS, but got it that way. Lastly, for quite some time we have been talking about this directional margin towards 30%, right? Given that some of the comments that you made, that given that we have to enter 3 more countries, and there we have to invest in an additional R&D. Plus on the sales front as well, with the given Microsoft deal, we have to invest. Do you think that target is like on the back burner for a couple of years now?
No, it's not a back burner. I think if the $4 million deal comes in, then we will have $30 million this quarter itself. Focus is $30 million and we remain 30%. We don't want to go beyond 30%. Now, 25, 27, 24, those are quarter-to-quarter game. Obviously for next two, three quarters, if we get some good wins, we may be able to come closer to 30%. Otherwise it may be 27, 26. It's an. We are not so much hung up on the margin has to be 30%, but directionally we are in the same direction and that's what our attempts are.
Right. Lastly, sir, just a little bit clarification on this Microsoft deal. You said, the IGTB, all products, would be exclusive. It would be exclusive on the Microsoft's end to sell this product or our end that only Microsoft will sell this product?
No, no, not from our side. I think we'll go.
Okay.
We have a joint go-to-market plan with Microsoft.
Okay.
Microsoft has a banking and finance team who has selected.
Right.
This product after a lot of evaluation.
Okay. Microsoft, in this area, will first sell only Intellect's products.
Yeah.
Right.
This-
Again, similarly on this, you said that this guidance of 20% growth is there, but this Microsoft deal should add some tailwind. This is over and above this 20% is what you're saying?
As of now, just keep it 20%, yes.
Okay.
That's all. We have to till the time.
Right. Thank you so much for answering those questions. It was very helpful.
I've got to clarify. It's not a guidance. We say we design the company for 20% because we can't give a
Yeah.
Guidance as a product company. We told two years back we don't give guidance. We never give 25% guidance or something. It happened, it happens.
Yes. Well, thank you.
Thanks, Ankush. Next we have Mr. Nandan Madiwala for Pankush's One Capital. Nandan?
Yeah. Thanks for taking my question and congrats on the quarter. Just one quick question on the GeM platform. Till when is that deal going to go on? Because I remember somewhere around FY 17 or 18 is when we won the deal. It was some 5-year deal or so. So, is it going to come up again for rebuild or if you can just clarify.
This deal is up to 2024, basically. 2023, December 2023, to be exact. This is coming for 2 years. Extension is a part of the proposal, so we are looking forward that it should be extended by 2, another 2 years on that deal.
You mean beyond December 2023, right?
Yeah. That's right.
Okay. Thanks. That's it. All the best.
Thank you, Nandan. Next we have Mr. Amit Chandra from HDFC Securities. Mr. Amit Chandra. Please unmute him.
Yeah. Hi. Am I audible, sir?
Yes, Amit. After a long time, I'm hearing your voice.
Hello. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, my simple question is on the SaaS and subscription revenue.
Mm-hmm.
Like, currently we are at 20% SaaS subscription, but, you know, how you know, in terms of margins, how different it is? Because typically SaaS or subscription is a high- margin business.
Yeah.
As we are increasing our SaaS and subscription in our revenue mix, that is not being reflected in the EBITDA margins. Like, one thing is that, you know, the non-SaaS revenue, like, margins are coming down. Is it, you know, the right way to look at it? Or we will see the, you know, like, benefit of increasing SaaS subscription on the margins going ahead?
Yeah. Amit, the SaaS revenue in a full operating model in a stable operation is around 70%, which is rightly estimated that it should be around 70% on a fully operating model. But since we are in enterprise cloud, if you look at the first statement we made, enterprise grade solution in the cloud. What does it mean is that we will take a full client on cloud. They will pay us $2 million-$4 million per year on the cloud, depending upon what services is consuming. It may vary from $500,000 per year to $2 million. It's different from a smaller client, like Freshworks, which will be signing for the $500 or $5,000 per client per year.
That's the difference that we want to sign up a big enterprise. For that, initial investments are large. When we are building up the entire business, we have to build up a higher- capacity, higher- investment, and this margin will come to 70%. Those contracts which will become into operating stage, they will come into 60% to 70% to 80% levels. That's the current level there. On margin level. This margin level of 23%-25% level is not on annualized basis, 25% level, which is reasonably good. I mentioned some deal, like $3-$4 million deals move here and there, left and right. That shifts the margin.
Okay. This 70% rule or this 70% gross margin rule for a subscription revenue is, you know, is it true for all contracts? Or, though, like, there is a range which is you know, very big in terms of margins that we engage with, you know, enterprises on the SaaS side.
I'm saying this is in a full mature stage of here. GeM, we don't have that kind of a margin. Government e-Marketplace will not have that kind of a margin. That is much lower- margin we operate at in government e-Marketplace. Any global marketplace, those kind of market norms between 60%-70% are established.
Okay. Sir, you know, like, you know, on the free cash flow conversion, you know, what is our estimated or our target, you know, range where we want to operate in terms of, you know, the FCF to PAT conversion?
From EBITDA to cash conversion, last year we converted INR 300 to INR 322 crore on an EBITDA of INR 450 crore. It's close to 70%-75%.
Yeah.
Our target will be around 80% should be converted. 70% is a good number, but 80% should be our target.
Here also, Amit, if you see, if you compare over the last six quarters or so, you would see that it used to be in the range of 35%-40%, and we've steadily been increasing that. On an annualized basis, Arun just gave the figures, we're already at 70%-75%. Maybe another 5% here and there is possible, but I think we're on the right trajectory there.
Okay. Okay, sir. Thanks and all the best for the future. Yeah.
Thank you.
Thanks, Amit. Arun, can we take couple more questions?
Just two questions if we can take. 6:10, 6:15 we can.
Okay. Thanks, Arun. Next, we have Mr. Ashish Kabra from Fairdeal. Please unmute him. Ashish?
Yes. Hello. Hello.
Yes.
First, congratulations on a great set of numbers. Sir, I just wanted to ask like from a three-year perspective, is this $100 million revenue-
PAT.
Is it? Yes. Can we make that or?
Yeah.
That will go beyond three years?
Yeah. No, that's what we are working for, yeah. Not beyond three years. That we are working for, three years, yeah.
Okay, okay. Thank you, sir.
There are a few questions here, Praveen. Sir Sanjeev Agarwal from Glovel Holdings, he pushed a question. Going forward, what is going to be the dividend policy? As of now, the board is just evaluating what is the dividend policy we'll be looking at based on 2-3 years of sustained cash flows and market scenarios. We'll come back to you as soon as we define the policy over there. Somebody asked a question about the tax part. Tax part will be 26% plus, 26%-27% will be our overall tax number for the next year. Our effective tax rate or cash tax rate which company will be paying will be at a MAT rate, because we have a MAT credit available to us.
Our payout will be on MAT rate, and that will be 18% for the number. The third question is, there are a few lost deals. Srinidhi Adiga, there are few lost deals from the pipeline. Could you please let us know what is the likely reason for those? Obviously, 70% conversion of winning the ratio is always good, yeah. You can't win all the deals which is there for you. We all want to have all the IPL matches won by the one team, but the other teams also to play, yeah. Which is the products will reach monetization phase? I think we have IDC as a, IDC payments, iCare 360, wealth and underwriting. All the five products are in the race for monetization 2023, 2024.
He is asking the question, in 2023, 2024, I'm saying out of 5, 3 should go, 3 should be doing well in 2023, 2024. What is the impact of losing Russian banking deal? There's no impact. We have not booked any revenue, so there's no impact at all. It was about to be signed. We didn't sign. If it would have signed, maybe we would have a positive impact, but no negative impact on this deal. There was Amit Kasat on saying GeM revenue of INR 1 lakh crore, it can move to INR 1.5 lakh crore. A lot of things are happening in government because there are some discounts and discounting is also available for this GeM. So based on that, predicting revenue of GeM is not 100% there. Ravi Mehta, Deep Financial.
Was it a conscious step to let go of the Russian deal, or can we relook at that opportunity? No, it's not about letting go. It's just a situation that reached that point of dead-end banking opportunity in Europe because no Russian bank will be allowed to open a branch in Europe as of now. Sanctions are there. It will not be there. Okay. Praveen, any other question? This is the question which came to my
Thanks, Arun. One last question we can take it from Mr. Gaurav Singh from Sarat Capital. Gaurav, you're there?
Yeah, I'm here.
Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity, sir. Since you mentioned that, you want to not push the margin lever too much, and you also mentioned that you're working on methods to reduce the implementation time cycles. If you're not increasing the margins or not making a conscious effort to increase the margin, shouldn't that not be compensated in a higher revenue growth? On the revenue side, you're saying you want to go calibrated, while you're also saying that you don't wanna push the margin too much. Isn't that contradictory in a sense?
I'm saying margin is an outcome, margin is not a driver. If we have a lower cost of implementation, margin will naturally grow. We don't run the business for the margin. That's what I wanted to convey. The meaning is different. Meaning is not that we don't want a margin. Meaning is that whether we focus on margin and that we take a deal, that's not the whole question around it.
Right. Because there's a marketing cost side angle as well to margin.
Yeah.
You could hike your marketing cost, reduce your margin.
Right.
grow your revenue, right? It should translate to a higher revenue growth, right?
That's right. This year instead of 20% we did 25% revenue growth. It happens in a product business that sometimes when we are focusing on deal for two months or three months and we win the deal like RBI, it's a big plus. Most of the RBI accruals have not happened in the last. Those will flow into the next year. Most of the revenue will flow into the next year. These are the few positive sides of this trajectory. That's why committing anything over 30% is our baseline. I'm saying we designed the company for 30% EBITDA, 20% revenue growth. That's the design parameters.
Right.
It can be on 25%, 33%. It happened this year, it happened 33% and 25%, which is better than what we designed the company for. Whatever the guidance we given to board, approval we have taken for the investment, still based on those investment we were able to generate 25% growth.
Right. Since you want to, you know, you calculated it for 30% EBITDA growth, if you wanna do that.
Yeah.
Growth of 20% in revenue, you have to grow your margins, right?
That's right. That's what we are looking for. I don't want to put myself in a box saying, "Oh, everything is committed. This number is committed, this number is committed." There's no man-management flexibility available here.
Sure, sure.
We need to play the ball here.
Sure, sure. Thank you so much for answering my question.
Yeah.
Thanks, Gaurav. Now we are closing the call. In case you have any further question or want to have a follow-up call, please do write to us or call us for the details given in our website. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you to the management team, Arun, Prabal.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for the deep question.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.