Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the KFin Tech Q4 FY 2026 earnings conference call hosted by IIFL Capital Services Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vedant Agarwal from IIFL Capital Services Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you so much, Iqra. Good morning, everyone, welcome to the Q4 FY 2026 earnings conference call of KFin Technologies Limited. Today from the company we have with us Mr. Sreekanth Nadella, MD and CEO; Mr. Vivek Mathur, Whole-Time Director and CFO; and Mr. Amit Murarka, CFO, International Business and Head of Investor Relations and Mergers and Acquisition. I would now hand over the call to Vivek for his opening remarks. Thereafter, Sreekanth will share the key developments in the quarter, after that, we will open the floor for Q&A session. Thank you, over to you, Vivek.
Thank you, Vedant. I would request Sreekanth Nadella to give his opening remarks, and then I will cover the financial section.
Excellent. Thank you. Thanks a lot, Vedant for organizing this and for all the attendees, very good morning. Warm welcome to our Q4 results. You've seen the data. What I would do is over the next, you know, 15-odd minutes, walk you through in terms of, you know, how the quarter had gone by. By and large, you know, you are now familiar with the numbers. Hopefully, we'll spend a little bit of time in terms of, you know, how we see the upcoming year, and then we'll speak about the financials, and then a bit of Q&A. You have the presentation with you. You know, we kept the content, you know, familiar for you so that we don't have to spend too much time explaining as to, you know, what else.
By and large, a lot of metrics that we have been tracking to consistently for over the past three years since we went public, you know, we've been in the uptick. You know, we continue to be the single largest investor solutions provider in India, you know, by the mutual funds in the form of the number of asset management companies, you know, we manage. By AUM, of course, we are a second contender. That is a reflection in terms of our clients' growth. I guess our performance is probably more attributable to the number of clients we win. So to that extent, we continue to have a, you know, high win ratio.
Into the last year, we won four new asset management mandates, and we have several more to come into the coming month or two. In terms of the AUM itself, we continue to have a market share expansion in the overall AUM. Whilst there has been a little bit of dip on the equity side of it, I'll explain to you in terms of why and then what we see in terms of remediation or the turnaround as to when could potentially happen. We continue to be one of the largest registrar in the form of the number of folios and consequently the number of investors we manage, not just in India, globally. We should be among the top five.
Given much of the drive had been over the past five to six years, it all goes very well in terms of our market share expansion. That's on the mutual funds, and we'll kind of deep dive more in terms of the, you know, the growth percentages, the vectors, the basis points, so on and so forth. Issuer solutions, you know, has been continually seeing quarter after quarter, our market share expanding. At this point in time, we track to a little over 52% on the NSE 500, y ou know, companies, by market share in terms of market cap by folios, it is about 45%. By the count, it is slightly lower.
In terms of the net new client addition, you know, we've been having the highest in the industry. We crossed 10,500 total corporate clientele, you know, as of 31st March. You know, we aim to cross, you know, we aim to get to close to 11,500 into this upcoming year, you know, both in terms of the listed, unlisted and as well as our new focus to expand into the SME markets as well, right? In addition to being the single largest RTA provider as well as a bond market provider. Largely, you know, these two are our mature businesses, right? The mutual funds and the issuer solutions.
I know we've been, you know, guiding, you know, our entire community in terms of, what are the new growth drivers, assuming a base case scenario of anywhere between, you know, 15%-18% or 19% growth on the mature businesses. How do we then get past 20%? If you see our last five years CAGR in terms of top-line growth, we've been, you know, crossing 20%, on a CAGR basis. We will have a quarter or two here and there, but by and large, you know, we've been comfortable, you know, in accomplishing, our own, internal targets of 20%+ top-line growth. International business, of course, is, you know, our one of the biggest bet.
You are familiar with the fact that we have acquired Ascent Fund Solutions in the month of October. The quarter that had gone by had been an excellent performance by the inorganic acquisition as well as KFin Technologies. When I will discuss the financial numbers in a little while from now, we have added close to 499, you know, clients, you know, overall, in terms of the fund managers. And by funds themselves, it is substantively higher to be anywhere around 900, 950 thereabouts. Pensions, a smaller business, but as I've explained in the previous quarter, it's a turnaround quarter in terms of us having broken even. And we continue to outpace the industry by a factor of three.
The overall pension subscribers in the industry have grown about 11% for the full year, including the last quarter. We have grown a little over 34%. That basically explains in terms of the superior technology solutions and the market share we are taking away from, you know, the current market leader, and keeping a very distant third, you know, fairly distant, if I may. 716 Alternative Investment Funds, you know, marking a 38% plus market share in the Alternative Investment Funds continue to grow at a reasonable clip, both in terms of the count of the assets as well as on the AUM.
Bearing in mind that a bulk of the AIFs we manage are Cat III funds, which have a direct public market, you know, movements, you know, from a secondary market standpoint in terms of the stock prices. You know, times like this when we have pressure in the markets overall, clearly as much an impact there is on the mutual funds, there has been a certain amount of impact on the AIFs. Then again, you know, it's a matter of time the markets, you know, could turn around, and when that happens, we should see a significant uptick. In that context, I guess, you know, it's been a fairly stable performance, you know, especially in the top line growth.
You know, we've dropped a little over 23% year-over-year, on, you know, on the overall top line. That, includes Ascent, of course, and, even excluding Ascent, you know, we've grown a little around 11% thereabouts. EBITDA growth about, you know, 5%, and margins have, compressed, and one would expect it to, you know, given we have added, nearly, on an annualized basis with over $22 million of international revenue with, little to no margin given the very early stage of, the entity but growing at a 30%-35%, you know, top line growth.
As I've explained in the previous quarter as well, you know, as we consolidate and drive the synergies, in terms of both cost optimization as well as driving, you know, big size or, you know, bigger sized clients, will help us to drive the efficiencies. For example, Ascent has won about five contracts, you know, five funds rather, which have little over $100 million in AUM, right? That marks a, you know, a rather quick turnaround in terms of the ability for the entity to bid for larger deals on the back of, you know, a stronger balance sheet and a public listed company's strength and the technological capabilities that KFin Technologies is able to offer.
A full year growth of a little over 19%, you know, you would see that the core PAT has, you know, grown on an annual basis at 6% but declined marginally or rather we have a flat, you know, PAT growth in the quarter. And the core of course is in some sense adjusted for a one-time exceptional item of the labor code driven inflation that we have accrued in, you know, in the context of the payroll. Adjusted for that, you know, we've had a flat, you know, PAT growth. Q4, you know, especially, you know, we had two headwinds.
One, you know, a significant mark-to-market erosion in the case of mutual funds, you know, as has impacted and that is, you know, the data is out there for everyone to see, in terms of the total, you know, mark-to-market write downs. To a decent extent, to some extent at least it was partially offset by continuing net positive flows into the industry. Issuer solutions, you know, have seen, probably a little bit more dent, primarily on the back of two points. One, is, a continual mark exodus of the retail investors meant that the retail portfolios have further come down, in the case of issuer solutions.
As well as the fact that in the previous year we have had a demerger of a large listed company which had given a small bump up in the historical revenue for that quarter which we did not have that. In some sense there is a slight base effect impact. But we believe that both these will get neutralized, you know, from this quarter onwards. Overall, our AUM has grown in line with the industry at about 21%. But that of course did not necessarily, you know, translate into the revenues as they grew only about 11%, a little over 11%. Reasons we all know, part of that was the pricing discounts that were given in the month of April 2025.
Obviously the base effect of that, you know, would get over by the month of 31st March, right? Clearly that was one of the reasons why the overall AUM did not necessarily translate into the revenue. There has been, you know, another two important factors. One is, you know, mark-to-market erosion, you know, which has a larger impact at EBITDA and PAT level because what goes from top line for us directly goes from bottom line, especially if it is to be associated with mark-to-market. Third one is there has been a significant expansion in the passives. I would still think, you know, without necessarily being a 100% sure of it in terms of if it's a definitive trend or not.
The metal, ETFs, you know, thanks to the tremendous rise of silver and gold as we all know into the Q2, Q3, Q4, had meant that the asset mix for us, you know, for equity has come down by 200 basis points into the last two quarters. In the month of April very early trends point to a reversal of that which means that the share of ETFs, you know, is coming down and hopefully, the share of the actively managed funds will go up, which will drive the yield and revenue corresponding to that. We continue to win AMC mandates.
I know we have more to announce into the coming months, as you know, we await, you know, whilst we have heard informal communications, you know, we await for SEBI's clearance for us to be able to announce the same. We have four out of the 10 top 10 fastest growing, you know, AMCs by AUM with us. I guess, you know, all of that will continue to go very well. We do believe that in another quarter to two we might just end up having, you know, five out of the top 10 AMCs to be serviced by KFin Technologies. Issuer solutions I briefly spoke about it. We have added about 740 odd clientele. Market share expansion from last quarter through now by little about 80 basis points.
We have continued to invest our efforts to, you know, orchestrate transitions. We have transitioned successfully Punjab National Bank which has a very large retail portfolio base and, you know, FNS as well and many more to come hopefully in the coming times. More importantly we are awaiting the launch of several large IPOs into the coming quarters. We are all obviously awaiting, you know, the Jio IPO as well as several large ones. Many of those hopefully should happen into the coming quarter to two. That, you know, well put issuing solutions in a much better state than what we have seen in the previous year. Many primary issuance has been, you know, withheld in the context of where the market is.
Of course, it is still anybody's guess in terms of which way the markets go. It is possible that it'll all be, you know, hunky dory in a few weeks from now, or it could be worse. We have assumed a fairly conservative estimate as we are moving into the coming year in terms of, you know, where we believe we will end up with, you know, high-level numbers, which we will speak about in a little while from now. We, you know, from our alternative investment fund standpoint continue the similar expansion.
You know, the AUM has grown about 19% revenue, you know, larger than that, despite the fact that there had been a mark-to-market, you know, erosion, even in this case, given much of the funds we manage are Category III funds. Right, and obviously, where there's an adverse impact and we still have a quarter with, you know, a little over 23% growth and, you know, margins still holding a little over 37% will mean that as the markets turn around, you know, we should go back to, you know, much brighter days into the coming quarters. By and large, you know, our solutions on technology, data, wealth, have found strong resonance in the context of us winning our international mandates in Philippines.
Several more into the pipeline, and not to mention a very successful completion of our largest contract in international with the Philippines' largest bank for fund accounting. That proof of concept basically now leads into the execution phase, you know, which has pretty much started now. You know, with that included, we are looking at a pretty robust international revenue, you know, the organic revenue to grow, you know, a little lower 60%+ into this year. The overall international revenue to be, you know, a little lower, you know, 70%, including that of the SM, so to speak.
National Pension System, I'd like to believe that we'll continue to expand in the same trend that we have seen in the past two years. You know, we have excellent partnerships with, you know, all the PFMs, the POPs, and just as importantly, with the regulator. You know, we have created the country's first gig economy, a pension platform. We have created the country's first, you know, health, work and the health-related insurance, you know, unpledged to when, I guess, you know, withdrawal of the funds for any person needing, you know, to undergo surgeries, so on and so forth, by liquidating part of the NPS.
These are some very unique and important technological solutions which are going to drive pensions into very fast growth into the coming year. It also obviously augurs very well that we have moved away from pricing at a plan level but into a basis points, which is akin to that of our mutual fund business. As the corpus of the AUM increases, we will partake in the gains and not necessarily be limited to the count of increase of the pensioners of the country itself. We have in terms of the overall industry, I'll just quickly cover overall India performance more specifically about KFin Technologies.
Despite what could be considered as a very challenging year, I think, you know, we have continued to see a strong performance by the overall industry. The mutual fund industry AUM has still grown 21%. We expect, you know, a similar growth into this year as well, on the back of a potential or a possible turnaround in the markets, which we have not factored a whole lot. Given the velocity of the net close continues to be strong and resilient, and given our clients have been growing at a pretty fast clip, you know, we should continue to see a reasonably robust performance this year as well.
The equity AUM, as I said, is a little bit of bother, in terms of the market share coming down a little bit, but that is largely, you know, relegated, two important factors from our assessment. One is many of our clients, you know, have been very, you know, optimistic about passives. Consequently, much of the passive fund movement and mobilization in the industry has happened with our clients. That obviously has a downstream impact on the yield. Then again, you know, as I said, this is probably capitalizing on the near-term trends of the metal ETFs. We could see already in early April, or rather for this month, you know, as of yesterday, that there's been a reversal of that trend.
The second one, just in terms of the configuration of the funds itself, I think, our clients seem to have lesser hybrid funds as compared to the clients of that of competitor. If you saw the growth of the past three quarters in mutual funds, there's been a good amount of good that has come through into the hybrid funds. I'm sure it is a trend that our clients are, you know, have seen it and, you know, probably they would launch a lot more hybrid funds and then probably flow back into the market share that we once had, you know, a lot more on the equity side as well. SIP inflows continues to be strong. You know, we hold a little over 37% of the market share in that space and continuing to grow.
The number of Demat accounts, of course, is more related to the issuer solutions. Again, despite being challenging year, a 17% year-on-year growth is not a small number, which already has a very high base of a little over 25 crore Demat holders within the country. That has not necessarily translated into investments into the secondary market by the investors. There has been a net erosion of close to almost 2 million folios in this year.
Despite of it, you know, we have shown good growth, decent growth, I would say, in corporate registry, only and only because we managed to win a substantial number of IPO mandates into the previous year, which has contributed to that, which otherwise would have been a negative in terms of the folio erosion that has happened into the previous year. With the retail investors coming back, you know, it could just very well be a scenario where we have a substantial net new client additions and substantial net new folio additions, which could drive the growth, you know, into the higher 20% numbers, though we have factored a little over 15% for the coming year.
Overall, domestic mutual fund, you know, a little bit of color in terms of the market share, which we have already spoken at about, you know, 33 odd percent, you know, close to the overall market share. We're continuing to expand, as you could see the trend from FY 2022 to FY 2026. Consistently from 30.3% to 32.5% has been a market share expansion, even if it is a little slower into the coming quarter. You know, this is how cyclicality is of industries. You know, certain AMCs do very well for a period of three, four, five years, and then you will see a different set of AMCs perform very, very well, into the subsequent cycle.
It would just very well be our clients into the coming year or two. Of course, that's not necessarily in our hands. We still believe that winning the mandates is important. Providing technological edge for our clients to grow faster is all that we have in our controllables, and the rest is something that is dependent on how clients perform. Overall, I guess, given that our market share had been pretty resilient even during this time, we believe that as the industry grows, we'll continue to grow alongside or slightly higher than the industry into the coming quarters and years.
By and large, most metrics trend to positive, whether it is net flows, whether it is SIP in terms of the inflows that are happening. The transaction volume continues to see fairly largish growth, in terms of, you know, the ticket size coming down, especially in the context of Choti SIP, and a lot of other initiatives, you know, started by our regulator and AMFI with a view to drive financial inclusion in our country. On the international, investor solutions, you know, clearly our present acquisition, you will see a significant and a dramatic expansion of the net new clients. You know, what used to be 75 in the previous year, you know, now is little around 500 clients.
Even if you exclude the inorganic, just the pure organic client expansion has been quite substantial from 76 to a little over 100 and little over 110. The combination of both pure RTAs as well as fund accounting in the last quarters we have announced large deal wins in the GFS. It's not just the count, but what you're now seeing is the wins of large deals. It is with that confidence that we are looking at about a 60% plus growth in the GFS into the upcoming year.
You know, obviously, you know, market still will continue to play a certain amount of role in it and, you know, with any luck, it can be much higher than that, you know, should the market turn around with macros improving overall. Right. In terms of the international portfolio itself, you know, you can see slide number 13. You know, it has a very diversified mix which offers the hedge, right in terms of, in years like this where the markets have been fairly tepid. You know, the coverage is across hedge funds, public market funds, digital assets, private equity, so on and so forth. It is possible that at any given point in time, some of these asset classes can have a hit, for example, digital currency funds.
It is also possible that the same can significantly outperform and, you know, I guess in some sense overcompensate for the slowness of the others. Geographically too, we are very well diversified now. Asian countries, as we all know, in terms of the revenue contribution, outside of India, Malaysia, Singapore, Cayman Islands and Hong Kong, are our larger geographies. Middle East, you know, was expanding quite rapidly, but obviously with all that's happening in the last, couple of months, it's a wait and watch. What would nevertheless will happen is even if there is a downstream impact on the GCC side of it, much of those funds would be redomiciled into Singapore or Cayman or wherever.
The good part about us diversifying the way we have is that it doesn't matter where it gets, you know, redomiciled or migrates into because we have a presence in all those geographies, which will mean that we will have a very little to no impact at all, even if funds were to move outside of the Middle East, so to speak. On the issuer solutions, you know, we believe that the trend will continue to expand in terms of both the number of the clients and portfolios and the market capitalization, given there's been a significant renewed push at our end.
We have, you know, also leadership additions, you know, in this particular line of business, to be able to, you know, capture times like this where I guess the resilience and the financial strength of KFin vis-à-vis other competitors in this space, especially on issuer solutions. You know, we have a formidable strength which we will, you know, you will start seeing in the form of the net new client wins, as well as driving higher revenue and margins in this business. AIF, you know, as you could see, there's been a substantial improvement in terms of the number of funds, you know, 593 moving up to 741. It marks a year, a little over threefold increase in as many years.
You know, I hope the trend will continue both in terms of new fund launches and our continued win rate across, you know, domestic, international and in the gift city as well. The AUM itself, slightly tepid in growth come in from the previous year to just about 19%. Again, just like in the case of domestic mutual funds, as I said, given much of what we do is Category III AIFs, there has been an impact here as well in terms of the AUM growth. It wouldn't have been more than 20%, you know, in a bad year like this. NPS I've already spoken, you know, wouldn't belabor much on that. I'll spend a little bit of time on the, you know, how do we see the upcoming year, right?
I mean, we are looking, in spite of what's happening in the market and the global uncertainties we have, we believe that we have a reasonable line of visibility to get to about 23%-24% top line growth into the coming year. This isn't necessarily a guidance, but as much as, you know, I guess our bottom-up predictions internally. These, unlike, in the past years, we will have to recalculate course correct nearly every month from here on, given everything that's happening in the market. EBITDA, you know, we expect it to be around 16%-17% and a PAT little around 10% growth is what we expect to see into the coming year. As I said, this is a conservative base case.
Should the macros improve and if there is a quick turnaround. You know, in some sense, you know, even with a little bit of positive news, late March, early April, we already saw the markets to perform much better, right? I mean, if I look at April for us, you know, we have seen a 2.5%, you know, thereabout, increase, you know, month-over-month. You know, that itself should give us heart in terms of, you know, if the macros were to dramatically improve, we can see a very, very substantive, you know, tailwind.
You know, significantly enhancing both the revenue and the PAT number that I just spoke about. The standalone, the 27% I was talking about, 24% I was talking about, is broadly consolidated version. Organically, we believe we have line of visibility to grow close to about 15%, and PAT little over 11%. The margin compression this year was obviously large on account of two important factors. One obviously is the consolidation of accounts with Ascent, which we all knew that there was going to be a downstream, you know, drag into the overall margin. The second one, of course, was a substantive mark-to-market erosion that happened in Q4, in conjunction with a reasonable drop in the issuer solutions because of the retail investors moving out.
Now, all of these factors, no longer will be applicable now, given the mark-to-market movement has seen uptake, retail participation has improved in the month of April. Should this trend continue, we should have a, you know, much better quarter ahead of us. Given this, you know, the focus had been more in terms of controllables, in terms of, you know, effective cost management, and, you know, tightening the belt in terms of, you know, the discretionary spend. We believe that we have been a flavor that I've always been maintaining, that if we see a protracted downtrend, you know, we will definitely control the tap.
I still do not believe that we are in that region of having a definitive view that there is a protracted downturn given the volatility. We definitely have, you know, ensured that we have, you know, at least all new projects, you know, are going to be, you know, scrutinized, you know, with a greater detail of, you know, approval mechanism. You know, cost management in the form of payroll, non-payroll, is something that, you know, has been significantly enhanced. Despite that, you know, with a little bit of tailwinds in the form of top line, you know, that gives us as well as, you know, additional levers we have in the cost optimization.
Hopefully, we will be in a position to beat the numbers that I just spoke about into the coming year as well. That's broadly from us. A broad summary, good top-line growth, agreeable, I guess bottom line growth, if you especially adjust for the one-time exceptional item of the labor code driven, in a cost inflation, which is non-recurring in nature now. We've taken heart from significant market share expansion and our goal to reduce the dependency on the domestic mutual funds to be below 50%. At this point in time, we are at 58%, to be specific. There is a 3% value-added solution driven revenue that we get from the MF clients.
If you exclude that, which is purely tech revenue, it is 58%. You know, we said that we'll get to under 50% over a five-year period. We believe that we'll be able to beat that sooner than we had anticipated, given we are looking at a little ov er 70% plus growth in the international business into this year. With the other businesses growing much, much faster than the mutual businesses, we should be able to have a much more diversified revenue and hence, you know, a much better managed risk profile as a business that we have today. I'll take a pause. I'll hand it over to Vivek to quickly consolidate the financial highlights, and then we'll take the questions.
Thank you, Sreekanth. On the financial performance, let me start with revenue. The overall revenue grew in the year at about 19.3%. For the same quarter versus last year, it has grown by about 23%. If you look at excluding Ascent, it has grown for the same quarter versus last year by 4.6%. If you look at sequentially. Sequentially, there is a degrowth in terms of the overall revenue by 6.3%, and excluding Ascent about 8.5%. That's mainly because of mark-to-market correction that happened in the second half of the year because of the geopolitical situation and movement of asset mix towards metals such as gold and silver.
Whatever was perceived as mark-to-market gains through coming through the mark-to-market movement in the overall AUM growth was little offset by the mark-to-market losses on the equity side. That resulted in a subdued performance. Also in the issuer solutions business, the corporate actions were tepid because of the geopolitical situation in the last quarter. Also there was an exodus of retail clients from the participation in the equity market. That also resulted in a lower number of folios, giving us income in Q4. I will give you a flavor of how the revenue looks like at the end. You know, in Q4, on an overall revenue mix, domestic mutual fund gives 61% of the revenue.
Issuer solution now gives 10% of the revenue. AIF, private wealth management, PMS gives 4.5% of revenue. GFS gives 4.5%. Ascent contributes 15% of revenue. NPS, [Rebiel], Hexagram are just about 1.5% each in terms of the revenue contribution. That's the breakup of revenue. If you look at, you know, expenses. You know, the expenses because of Ascent have gone up in terms of the overall expenses looking like, you know, the employee expenses, including Ascent, have gone up by 30%. If you exclude Ascent, it has gone up only by 13%.
The EBITDA margins, therefore, if you look at for the whole year, they have gone up slightly in terms of 5.1% growth and sequentially 15.2% down for the reasons I explained because of the integration and mark-to-market impact and lesser action on the issuer solutions and similar impact because of mark-to-market on AIF. If you look at excluding Ascent, our margins are almost 42% in the quarter. For the whole year, excluding Ascent was 43.5%. Including Ascent, we have maintained 40.7% EBITDA margin, which is the guidance we have been giving. In the quarter it was 37% because of the reasons I explained.
Our range of 40%-45% is something which we have maintained for the year. As Sreekanth talked about, we are working on various cost optimization initiatives and to improve productivity, leveraging technology investment and AI, which is coming to play, which will help us in terms of sustaining these difficult times if the mark-to-market continues to behave you know, in this volatile manner. We also expect the mix of AUM to change as metals have corrected and retail investors continue to maintain a robust SIP. We do expect equity to come back. Irrespective of that, we are preparing ourselves to create the operating leverage by working on the cost optimization initiatives.
The core PAT for the whole year went up by 6.2% at INR 353 crore, including Ascent, and the increase was 8.1% for the year without Ascent. For the same quarter last year versus this year, there's a growth of 3.8%. If you look at PAT margins, we are at 27.1% on a consolidated basis. Without Ascent, we were at almost 30% margin, which is the guidance of 27%-30% that we have been giving, and we have maintained that. If you look at the overall diluted EPS, it's currently at INR 19.81. With Ascent and without Ascent it is INR 20.16. We are happy to take questions now.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star 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. The first question is from the line of Karthik Chellappa from Indus Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. Good morning, team. Two questions from my side. The first one is just taking a cue from the comment that was made on the asset mix as far as the domestic MF business is concerned. If we were to assume that the asset mix is more or less stabilized, so possibly even declining, and if that were to be the case for FY 2027, can we say that our original expectation of domestic MF yields being down, let’s say, about 4%-5% year-on-year on a steady-state basis, will that still hold true? Are there any other variables that we should be keeping in mind? That’s my first question.
Good morning, Karthik. This is Sreekanth. I'll take that question. The numbers that I spoke in terms of what, you know, our predictions for the upcoming year, assumes continuation of similar asset mix as we have ended with the previous year. You know, as I said, I do not necessarily believe that asset mix will be, you know, with ETFs, you know, almost at 23%. I believe the mix will be more in favor of actively managed funds this year. In the base case of the numbers that I've said, you know, we consider the continuation of ETFs to be around the same number.
Excellent. Just to clarify, Sreekanth, your original guidance, which you just shared right now, was at a consolidated level you had expected a revenue growth of about 22%-23% and an EBITDA growth of 16%-17%, right? At a consolidated level.
That's correct, Karthik. You know, it's more towards 24%-25% top line, and yes, EBITDA around 16%-17%.
Okay. Excellent. My second question is as far as the issuer solutions is concerned, if I were to just look at this quarter, in absolute terms itself, both the revenue and the segment profits are down. You did allude to some factors which are transient, but if I were to exclude those and look at it on a steady-state basis, what is the expectation as far as the revenue growth for this particular segment is concerned? What I see is I do see that the folios are weak, but they're still reasonably okay, and so are the transactions. It looks like it's the realizations which have actually taken a bigger hit driving the decline. I was asking the question more in context of that.
Sure, Karthik. No, I get what you're saying. The folios may look decent, in terms of growth but, you know, that was largely because of, you know, superior performance in terms of new wins. The new wins have added a little over 2.5 million, 3 million folios, but the fact remains that all the existing clientele we lost over 1.7 million folios, right. That is largely in the context of r etail investors not showing a lot of active interest in the secondary market, given the mark-to-market, you know, write-down, the past quarter or two.
That will change, right? I mean, this is a seasonal business, you know, markets will go up and down, you know, retail investors will come back the moment they invest, the moment they see here. Why do you still see the drop in the revenue numbers? You know, there are, you know, two big reasons, right? I mean, three big reasons. One is the folio reduction, as I told you. Second is the corporate actions. Traditionally, Q2, Q3, Q4 are the corporate actions quarters in India. Q2, Q3 more stronger than Q4 traditionally.
Given, again, significant headwinds that the entire economy, you know, especially at a financials level is facing, you know, the corporate actions declared by the corporate India have been far and few right now. That has impacted our revenues into Q4. There is one third item which is smaller impact, but nevertheless an impact, which is that we had orchestrated a very large demerger in the Q4 of FY 2025, which had a one-time episodical bump up in revenue, which did not obviously have it, so that means there was a slightly higher base, you know, in the previous year. That said, every year, you know, we should see some mergers, demergers.
You know, some of the demergers that were to have happened in the month of March have now been pushed to May. Which means that there is going to be a little bit of lag in revenue, but that will come in the upcoming quarter, more or less, right? Those are the three reasons. A little bit of folio erosion, corporate actions being extremely low into the Q4, which will change as the, you know, corporate profits of the country grows. In general, you know, once I guess, there is a little bit of certainty, you know, coming back, then the companies will be more, you know, confident in declaring dividends and so on and so forth, which was not the case because everybody was in a cash conservation mode into the previous quarter.
Excellent. Perfect. That's all from my side. Thank you very much, and wish the team all the very best.
Thank you, Karthik.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rajit Aggarwal from Nilgiri Advisors LLP. Please go ahead.
Hi. A very good morning. Just to start off with a few clarifications. Now, the number of new clients added in Ascent is about 62. I mean, that's like 20% of what they had last quarter. That's a big number, right? What really changed in this quarter, and do you expect the run rate to carry forward?
Absolutely. Right. I mean, the again, just to put things into context, you know, Ascent started about five years back. Today they have, you know, the numbers are, you know, up north of close to 800, 850 odd funds, and they're increasing by the day. Until and unless we are adding, you know, 70, 80, 100 funds every year, we wouldn't be getting this far. To that extent, I would expect the trend to be even faster into the coming, you know, quarters and years. The same issues we face in India are being, you know, faced everywhere in the world as well, right?
I mean, so to that extent, despite a fairly distressed financial markets across the globe and fundraising activity being a little tepid, and the same is the case with investment activities downstream, you know, I think this amount of growth actually is slightly benign compared to our expectations. I do believe that as, you know, the turnaround happens, we should see numbers higher than INR 60 that you saw in this quarter.
That's wonderful. At the same time, when we are talking about the EBITDA outlook for FY 2027, it doesn't seem to factor in much of an operating leverage that we were hoping to, you know, kind of see from this quarter or the next couple of quarters. How do you look at the expense side of, you know, Ascent?
See, I think if you see the, i f you split the EBITDA numbers for, you know, the standalone KFin, when I say standalone, of course we have other subsidiaries also part of it, including WebileApps, et cetera. But excluding Ascent, you know, our EBITDA margins this year too have been, you know, pretty strong, right? Close to about 43%. We are expecting that number to go up into the coming year. What we have been saying is KFin standalone, in the past three years, we've always maintained, you know, we will be able to return 40% of EBITDA numbers. Now, even after acquiring Ascent and consolidating Ascent's numbers, we are still looking at the same 40% and above.
That obviously would not have been possible until and unless there has been, you know, significant productivity-driven efficiency gains, you know, that are coming through. For a business that has a significant growth potential, right? Starting new geographies, getting into new asset classes, significant business development expenditure for us to win new mandates, so on and so forth, you know, one would expect that expenditure will have a downstream track. What truly is happening is a lot of productivity gains, you know, driven, cost optimization, is funneling and fueling the growth. Like you mentioned, you know, if you are winning these many number of mandates, that has to come largely in the form of significant bill spend.
If you are looking at a fairly mature business, if you just take a look at only India business without having to try to be, you know, growing global and launching new businesses like Wealth, so on and so forth, you would see a significantly higher, you know, leverage than what you're seeing here. I guess what I'm saying is the productivity is fueling the growth. You know, till such time we have a huge growth visibility market share gains, we will continue to do it.
You know, so long as the margins, you know, as we have been maintaining around, you know, 40%-45%, hopefully more closer to 45% than to 40%, I'd like to believe this is a good strategy for us to fuel growth rather than, you know, just conserving the cash, you know, using the productivity back into it.
Got it. That's very helpful, sir. Just a quick clarification on the numbers, now I'm picking the numbers from the slides that you have shared on consolidated financial summary, excluding and including Ascent. If you look at, the EBITDA of Ascent and PBT and PAT. The difference between EBITDA and PBT seems to have gone up for Ascent in this quarter, and similarly between PBT and PAT. Why is that happening? If you can, you know, quickly. I mean, is the depreciation somehow increased on Ascent? Are we paying tax in Ascent despite the net negative profit before tax?
Yeah, I'll take this question. This is Vivek Mathur. So there is an, you know, an amortization of the assets that we acquired from Ascent, you know, including the client contracts and the brand valuation which was done, which is getting amortized over a period of time. That is where you see the gap, and that is something which will remain consistent because it will be written off over a period of time. This will actually, you know, sustain in terms of as the business grows and Ascent continues to grow that business and start creating operating leverage. That's why, you know, to answer to your question as to why we are not seeing operating leverage, it doesn't come in one quarter or one year. It's a process which you will see in coming quarters.
When we acquired, we gave the guidance that you will have to be with us for two to three years to see the impact of growth and operating leverage, and we are working on it. You see a good growth in terms of, you know, the revenue growth of Ascent and the new acquisitions that we, you know, they are doing in terms of number of funds and number of clients, which over a period of time should offset.
I'm sorry to interrupt. Sir, your voice is breaking.
Can you hear me now?
Yeah. This is good. Please proceed, sir. Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. That's it. As we grow Ascent business, the operating leverage will kick in to offset the impact of the amortization and depreciation of intangibles.
Understood. Is there a currency benefit in the top line of Ascent, the top-line growth of Ascent?
Actual top-line growth is 5%, but in INR you will see about 8% growth. That's sequential, Rajit.
Right. Right. Sequential we are talking about. Yes. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management will be able to address questions from all the participants in the conference, kindly limit your questions to two per participant. Should you have a follow-up question, please raise your hand again. The next question is from the line of Jitark Shah from Union Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yes, you are.
Thank you. Sir, just one question. Any thoughts, sir, you would have on the TER changes?
I'm sorry to interrupt. Can you please use your handset mode?
Hello?
Yeah. Please proceed, sir. Thank you.
Sir, just one question. How are you reading the changes in the TER norms effective this year? Going forward, how are you anticipating, you know, the changes that will be passed on from the large MS? Because most of them have been talking about managing the margins going forward. That would be helpful.
Sure. Thank you. As you know, we have given our narrative the previous quarter. Bulk of our contracts have been negotiated in the previous year, right? We have, you know, one each for this year and into the upcoming year. The negotiated contracts also take into account, you know, the TER driven, you know, reduction that the clients have been facing and given that there is no net new impact that we have. At the same time, please do bear in mind that the AMC results that you have seen in the past three, four, five days are all operating with EBITDA margins of north of 60%-65%. Clearly there is no yield pressure, margin pressure for the asset management companies.
That's largely because, you know, registrars have been single-handedly been, you know, reducing the cost to serve, which is operations is one of the biggest costs. Again, it's a 60 basis points average yield. You know, our yield is just about 3%. I mean, so that 3 basis points, that translates to less than 5% of the total biggest operating cost to be managed by us and reducing it, you know, year after year. We have already, you know, passed on much of the benefits that were to into the previous year, and there is going to be no additional discussions on this topic from hereon.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Supratim Datta from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks a lot for the opportunity. I had three questions. Starting with the first one. Based on your guidance of 24%-25% growth, 16%-17% EBITDA growth, it seems like you're building in for an EBITDA margin of somewhere around 38%-39% in FY 2027, including Ascent. Now previously you had indicated that after Ascent integration also you will hold on to a margin of somewhere around 40% at the EBITDA level. Just wanted to understand, is there a new development that has happened because of which you are, you've moved that guidance? Secondly, just wanted to understand what all is included in the guidance.
You know, it seems like the guidance includes an ETF AUM share of 23%-24%. Does it also include the fact that, you know, the cost growth will remain as is? Just wanted to understand, you know, on the cost and AUM, what are you assuming? That's the second. Lastly, on the Ascent side, based on your release, it seems like you have gotten six $100 million+ AUM fund this quarter. Assuming that, you know, you get somewhere around a 10 basis points, 8 - 10 basis points, that should add some around 4%-5% to your revenues. Just wanted to understand, is that math correct? When does this revenue start kicking in? Does it kick in over two to three years, or does it start kicking in from FY 2027 itself?
If you could give us some color on these three things, that would be very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you, Supratim. I'll address a few, and I'll request Vivek to address a few of these. First of all, it's not necessarily a guidance. As I said, you know, we do not give formal guidances to the street in our projections. You know, basically, your math is right. I think, you know, you're looking at close to 39 odd percent . We have estimated with a decent sense of conservatism, you know, coming from the hindsight of what happened in the past two, three quarters in the markets.
As we are in a business which has a very, very strong connect to the market. Even the range that we give obviously is slightly broader than what you may like or even what I would like to give. It's actually because of the vagaries that we have a dependence on the markets. Hence, our business cannot be looked at quarter to quarter, month to month as a business. On a compounding year-to-year basis, we continue to look at a 20% top line growth, margins around 40%-45%.
We may have a transient quarter or two where there may be a trip, or you will also see quarters where the numbers have gone to 48%, 50% thereabout, but eventually averaging down to that. We still have a very strong visibility to 40% every time to this scale, right? If you work the math backwards, it's close to 39%. Of course, you know, the numbers that we spoke was at the time of Ascent acquisition, which is probably, you know, the last workshop that we had was some time a year back. Obviously, the world was a very, very different place at that point in time, right? We said even at that point in time, we'll still maintain, try and maintain 40%-45%.
With the world being dramatically different today, we are still saying that we have the confidence to get that far. I guess in some sense, that speaks about the resilience of the business as well as our own, you know, capabilities to manage the costs in bad years or tepid years or, you know, years when there'll be completely sideways movement. One must also understand that our business, you know, growth in non-mutual fund and issuer solutions, which is a mature business, comes at a slightly lower margin, which you're all aware, right? Because these are all brand new businesses built over the last three, four, five years, and they do not necessarily at a business unit level contribute to the same margins as our mature businesses do.
If you see years like this when issuer solutions and mutual funds, you know, slow down a bit because of the market vagaries. Our top-line growth still dramatically at 24%. That means that is going to come with revenue coming from businesses which are not contributing to the same margin level, and hence you will see a certain amount of margin pressures. Despite all that, you know, we are still looking to get to 40% and slightly above that. The math that you said, you know, it would be somewhere around 39% in terms of the numbers that I told you. Those are rough order of magnitude, not exactly precise numbers. We are still aiming to, you know, cross 40% into this year. That was the first one, the guidance.
I mean, on the EBITDA numbers and, you know, happy to take down some, you know, if you want any double click on that. On the Ascent Fund Solutions, on the new funds at, you know, $100 million. The revenue, you know, obviously each of these contracts are in different regions for different clients. The start date for each of these is not exactly the same. One contract has already started, late last quarter itself. In fact, you know, third week of March thereabout. You will be able to see full year's revenue for that. Of the remaining five, you know, three will be starting later part of this quarter and the remaining into the Q2. Now these are obviously the deals that have already been signed.
We still have a pretty steady pipeline of many more such $100 million fund deals, which we are hoping to consolidate and track in the coming quarter to two. What you're talking about is the ones that we have already signed. Obviously, through there we'll sign more. The timing of the launch is obviously depends on a lot of things. I mean, you're all very concerned about these markets. Should the market look benign for fundraise to happen as well as for downstream investments, I'm sure the funds will launch sooner than later.
It is also possible that if the macros were to, you know, materially be jeopardized, despite winning the contract, we might just have to defer the revenue because the client has yet to launch the fund. We have factored, you know, I think, a certain amount of revenue from all of these six funds. The precise numbers, you know, we won't be able to dive with. It's fair to say that about, you know, 3.5 to four contracts worth of revenue would have been fully baked into this year. It is possible that it can go all the way up to six if they launch soon enough. Should we win more deals, which we are hopeful to, that number can go up even further from here.
The other question, sorry, the third one was on the cost. My apologies, I could not get to note that down. Vivek, if you have, could you answer that, please?
Sure, Sreekanth . In terms of the cost optimization initiatives that we are taking, you will see that we are trying to protect 40% margin because Ascent adding almost 15% of the total margins which are just about 5%, 6% will go up to early teens. Still, there is a lot of gap between core KFin Technologies margins and Ascent margins, and that operating leverage will come over a period of time. Therefore, we are tightening our belt within KFin Technologies to create that operating leverage to protect 40% margin. On your point on Ascent, it is actually not 10 basis points. Ascent is in the range of 6-7 basis points, and that is what you should factor if you are modeling anything.
You know, suffice to say that, you know, Ascent will continue to win larger clients, more clients, and 25%-30% revenue growth for them is a good growth in an international market in a competitive environment. We are working with them in terms of creating operating leverage and giving them, you know, enablement and capability to command premium in the market by developing solutions. You know, like, you know, simulation for wealth managers or, you know, for fund managers and LP/GP reporting, which we have been talking about that, you know, Hexagram team and Ascent team are working together. We are working religiously in terms of creating that unique advantage, and you will see the results of that in times to come.
I'm sorry to interrupt. Mr. Datta, we are not able to hear you. Your voice is cracking in between. No, still the same. Please use your handset mode and try to speak something.
I'll join the queue later.
Yeah. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dipanjan Ghosh from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening, everyone. Just a few questions from my side. You know, first, if I look at your presentation and you have broken up the revenue into various streams. If I look at the alternatives private wealth and PMS revenue, whether I look at quarter-on-quarter or I look at year-on-year, there seems to have been a meaningful drop. In conjunction with that also the OPE revenues which you specify, if I look at sequentially, there has been a decent drop. Even year-over-year it looks slightly two down. I'm just talking from a four Q perspective. Just wanted to get some color on what's really going on out here.
Second, you know, in terms of your Ascent new client base, could you give some color? I mean, would this be like small long/ short funds, HFTs, or these would be like large fund structures like one you had historically maybe in the last 18-24 months. Just wanted to get some color on the clientele proposition. The reason I ask this is because if I go back in time and look at Ascent's yields, at one point it used to be like 8, 9 basis points. Now you're down to like 6.5 basis points. So what's really going on out here?
Let me address the second question first, then we can talk about the other things. I think the yield, you know, is obviously a factor of, as I said, you know, multiple things. Part of that is pricing, part of that is asset mix. Right. I mean, in years where you have, you know, for example, you know, crypto in the digital currency funds is one of the, you know, bigger basket of the total fund solution that we, Ascent does. Cryptos, for example, have seen, you know, fluctuations up and down and, you know, to certain extent that may either offset the goal with the growth of the yield of a more stable asset class, or it can significantly enhance depending upon which way some of these move.
Given that the asset mix drives a very important factor in terms of the overall yield, you know, it is possible that intra-quarter or inter-quarter within the same year, you will see these numbers. Ascent was always around 7 basis points. I do not believe it was ever at 9 basis points thereabout. With ± 50 basis points, you should see that movement, you know, which can work in your favor or against you depending upon which asset class is performing in which manner. Yeah. On the alternatives front, I'm not sure. Can you tell me as where exactly you're looking at? I probably missed that point because we've been looking at the.
If I'm looking at your presentation in 4Q 2026, I see the alternatives private wealth and PMS revenue that INR 16 crore. In third quarter it was INR 20.7 crore. In the fourth quarter of last year it was INR 18.3 crore. I'm quoting from your presentation.
That is slide number 22.
Oh, sorry.
Yeah. Fair. Yeah. I'll take that. Basically the alternatives private wealth and PMS, there are three components as you can clearly see, right? AIF, the wealth and the PMS. AIFs is the larger part of it. You know, there that is where you saw our continued market share expansion as well as the net new fund addition. Nearly 24%-25% AUM increase and equal number of, you know, equal increase in the form of the overall number of funds itself, both the AUM as well as on the fund. AIF is [kosher]. Private wealth and PMS was where there was a little bit of an impact, again, largely on account of, you know, mark to market.
I mean, you have funds which are all of these are directly linked to the markets, and there's been a reduction, as you saw from Q1 to Q2 to Q3 to Q4. With each quarter there has been a markdowns in the valuation of the underlying stocks and therefore the total AUM. Also, in the case of wealth, you know, we have won, you know, six large contracts into the early part of the year. Wealth is more a platform play in some cases, you know, especially when you go to the large wealth managers. If you are dealing with a new age wealth manager, it is a full service model, much like how we do it in asset management space, right? It is our platform, our people. We charge basis points on the outcome.
The deals we have won into the early part of the year were platform deals, which meant that there was a slight uptick in the revenue for that quarter. Some of the other deals into the Q3, Q4 could not be materialized again, you know, because almost all entities have been on wait and watch and cash conservation model. We do believe that many of those deals that have been withheld for closure, you know, will get fructified into this quarter.
Got it. Thanks for explanation and all the best. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijeet Sakhare from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good morning. My first question is if you could just broadly indicate what were the Ascent EBITDA margins in the fourth quarter. Secondly, related question is, you know, the point around the depreciation or the amortization of intangibles. You know, how do we think about the impact coming from there into FY 2027 and FY 2028 as well? Secondly, there was also a labor code impact that came in in the fourth quarter, whereas what you've seen across most of the other companies and sectors is that everything was absorbed in the third quarter itself. Some clarification there would be helpful.
Sure. Vivek , do you wanna cover that?
Yeah, yeah. I'll take that. The Ascent Q4 margin was 8%. You know, what was the second question on the amortization?
Yes.
T hat we have. The amortization actually in KFin Singapore is valuation of the client contracts and brand against the goodwill that you pay, and you get it externally valued, which is amortized over a period of, you know, 10 years. That is something which is around INR 6 crore, which is having an impact on the PAT, consolidated PAT when you merge KFin Singapore, Ascent with KFin Tech. On the labor code one-time impact, INR 12.6 crore for the whole year, which will not be there from FY 2027 onward. This was one-time impact.
Okay. Yeah. Like, when we think about FY 2028 as a year and then the delta between the EBITDA growth and the PAT growth, would you expect some convergence in the year 2028 between the two numbers?
In terms of EBITDA and PAT?
Yeah. For example, FY 2027, we are sort of indicating like a high-teen EBITDA growth and a PAT growth of like low double digits or so.
Yeah, yeah.
That differential between the two numbers, how do we think about it or from an FY 2028 perspective?
Yeah, it will narrow down. It will go in almost similar range because if you look at FY 2028 over FY 2027, it would have been normalized.
Understood. Okay, that'll be all. Thank you.
I think what you would see is, you know, the trajectory of the acquisitions margins improving. You know, from the time, you know, we started discussing at which point in time it was a negative territory by the time we acquired and to where we are today, it has already started contributing into the positive EBITDA territory and at a PAT accretive level as well. The synergy plan that we have, which basically optimizes costs, you know, which we already spoke about, whether it is technology, real estate, people, shared service functions, so on and so forth, those plans have been drawn out and have been put in place. The effect and the impact of all of these, you know, you will start seeing the higher margin contribution.
You know, that obviously will reduce, I guess, the gap between the revenue growth and EBITDA growth in the coming.
Sreekanth , if I may, just one more question. At the time of the Ascent acquisition, I think the broad direction of thinking on the margin was that, in about three to five years, by the time the transaction closes, the margin would reach somewhere, you know, upwards of 35%. That understanding still stays, right? I think that's not changed over the past couple of quarters, right?
Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, when we said what we said, that was obviously with outside-in perspective of based on the due diligence information. Now, obviously, we work together. Now we are, you know, even more confident than what we said at that point in time. In fact, we'll try to move the number even beyond that.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Uday Pai from Investec. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. Just a couple of things. We had launched a KRA business last quarter, or it went live in the last quarter. Any update on that? Also, any update on the Aladdin platform integration that we had done? Any color on both these sides, is something I was looking for. Thank you.
Thank you, Uday. I'll take that. The KRA platform, as you rightly said, went live late Q3, in fact, early Q4. Obviously, it's in early stages of business growth. We are extremely thrilled that in a very short period of time, we have closed contracts with a little over 25 asset management companies, large brokers, and have been chosen by AMFI to be the preferred partner in the objective of identifying the unclaimed assets that are lying in the country. This is an initiative from the finance ministry, given there is a significant turnover of money that is held up in unclaimed money, and then we are not able to track and trace.
Our technology has been proven to be best in class and hence to be chosen. You will start seeing the growth in the business, you know, from here on. That said, I think, you know, whilst our, you know, overall contracts have been, you know, very strong and resilient, what we have signed so far.
There has also been some industry shifts, I think, which I have already alluded to back in the day, you know, where it is possible that the overall KRA revenue itself may have a little bit of impact across the industry, in the context of the initiative, that, you know, there will be a singular POS, point of sale, you know, ID that is going to be leveraged for securing and fetching the KYCs, which effectively will then mean that a decent part of KRA revenue which comes in the form of fetch costs probably will go away. It is not yet operationalized, but that's under discussion. Expect, but that happens, you know, obviously there will impact on the overall KRA industry and not specifically to KFin.
If that were not to happen, I guess, you know, we will see, you know, reasonably robust growth into the KRA business into the coming years. As for Aladdin, you know, the status is, has slightly moved ahead from what I spoken last time, which is about the integration. Right. This is exceptionally complex and a very large integration. We need to bear in mind that we are talking about the world's largest risk management platform on which close to $30 trillion-$40 trillion worth of stock gets orchestrated. Integration with downstream systems. Bear in mind, we are more a fund accountant in this conversation. Our platform is mPower. The front office system is Aladdin.
That needs to be integrated with this, and training needs to be imparted, business development lifecycle has to kick in to win the clients. It will take a little bit more time. We need to stay patient. What we have been, you know, gaining through this process is a phenomenal understanding in terms of how large international platforms behave, what goes into it, what drives their growth, what helps them to sell, how do they manage their internal operations, so on and so forth. All of that is invaluable, and, you know, and experience that can't be quantified in numbers here, but that's something, you know, that will definitely reflect in our overall international expansion. The direct integration as well as into the business development activity should start in a couple of quarters from now.
Sure, sir. Thank you. That's it from my side.
Thank you. That was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you everyone for attending the conference. I just want to reiterate what Sreekanth mentioned that we continue to work towards creating operating leverage. We are taking a hard look at all our costs and, you know, in terms of enablement of whatever investments we have done in technology to leverage that and working closely with Ascent to gain more market share and create that operating leverage in the international business. You will continue to see quarter after quarter the results of our integration with Ascent as they play out in terms of improving both the top line and the bottom line. Thank you so much for attending today.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. On behalf of IIFL Capital Services Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us today, and you may now disconnect your lines.