Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to LTI's Q3 FY 2022 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Sunila Martis, Head, Investor Relations. Thank you, and over to you, Ms. Martis.
Thanks, Elvan. Hi, everyone, and thank you all for joining us today to discuss LTI's Q3 FY 2022 earnings. The financial statements, press release, and our quarterly fact sheet are all available in our filings with the stock exchanges as well as the investor section of our website. On the call we have with us today Mr. Sanjay Jalona, CEO and Managing Director, Mr. Sudhir Chaturvedi, President Sales, Mr. Nachiket Deshpande, Chief Operating Officer, and Mr. Anil Rander, Chief Financial Officer. Sanjay and Anil will give you a brief overview of the company's performance to start with, and this will be followed by the Q&A session.
As a policy, LTI does not provide specific earnings or revenue guidance, and anything said on this call which reflects our outlook for the future or which can be construed as a forward-looking statement must be reviewed in conjunction with the risk that the company faces. Let me now hand over to Sanjay to start with our results.
Thank you, Sunila. Hello, everyone. I wish you all a very happy new year, and I hope you and your loved ones are staying healthy and well. It was good to see you guys in December for our Analyst Day. Since we recently talked about our view on the market and six reasons why we are confident about the future, I will not delve much on these today. Let me quickly walk you through our Q3 numbers. We are happy to report 9.2% quarter-on-quarter and 30.1% year-on-year revenue growth in constant currency. This translates to a growth of 8.7% quarter-on-quarter and 29.3% year-on-year in USD. This is our best ever sequential growth since listing.
Our Q3 performance once again brings to fore the strength of our portfolio as we have witnessed wholesome growth across verticals, service lines, as well as geographies. While we are seeing increased inflation, supply chain challenges, Omicron spread leading to shortage of people for companies globally, as we read and hear, our optimism is still underpinned by conversations we are having with our customers on their digital transformations. Let me tell you some highlights from Q3 that exemplifies our optimism. BFS, our largest vertical, continues to show strong growth with over 38% YoY growth this quarter. Excuse me. Our manufacturing vertical grew over 30%.
Our high tech and media and entertainment vertical grew over 44% year-on-year, while the other vertical, which includes some of our marquee clients and services sector, grew over 37% year-on-year. On the service line front, our analytics, AI and cognitive service line grew over 37% on a year-on-year basis, and enterprise integration and mobility grew at 36% on a year-over-year basis, with the rest of the service line also growing in double digits on a yearly basis. All our geos also grew over 25% on a year-on-year basis. Our Europe geo has turned around very well over the last few quarters and has grown 30% on YTD basis. We added 27 new logos this quarter, including one Fortune Global 500 logo, taking the total Fortune Global 500 count to 72.
On a YTD basis, this is the highest number of new logos we have added since our listing. We also opened a new logo in our pharma vertical in North America with a large deal TCV of $32 million. All top client buckets, whether it's top five, top 10, or top 20, grew by about 25% year-on-year basis, and we have added 1 more client to the $50 million bucket. Our hiring engine continues to drive our growth momentum. We increased our freshers intake to 5,500 for FY 2022, and we have proactively hired around 1,000 HTD people in Q2 and Q3 in the one-two years experience band. Post a three-month training on the new age capability like data and cloud, these 1,000 HTD resources are now ready to support our growth plans in Q4 and beyond.
We continue to hire ahead of the curve while balancing our utilization to capture the robust demand we see in the market. Moving to the performance of our verticals. BFS continues a strong near double-digit growth at 9.7% quarter-on-quarter. This vertical has seen holistic growth during the quarter across all geos and service lines. We talked in detail about key growth drivers and how banks are responding to the great restructuring during our Analyst Day. On insurance, we saw a 2% quarter-on-quarter growth. This vertical has traditionally been a laggard in the last few quarters, you know, several quarters, and saw some pickup in the last quarter with a 5.5% growth. Even so, some work still remains to be done on this vertical. Manufacturing saw a growth of 18.3% quarter-on-quarter.
H2 is stronger for this vertical due to the presence of higher pass-through in one of our India engagements. Our reported company-level revenues of 8.7% quarter-on-quarter includes about 2% quarter-on-quarter growth on account of these pass-through. Energy and utility grew at 16.7% quarter-on-quarter. While this has been a good quarter and all prices are high, we expect cyclicity to continue in this vertical. CPG, retail and pharma grew at 7.2% quarter-on-quarter. We see a consistent trend of leveraging data and supply chain resilience for our optimism. High tech and media grew at 3% quarter-on-quarter and has had a strong year-on-year growth of 44.5%.
Others which largely include professional services, Government of India ministries, and other global enterprises in public service, public services registered 10.5%-10.7% growth quarter-on-quarter. Let me now move to outlook. FY 2022 is shaping up to be one of our highest growth years since listing. Where we are today, we continue to be excited about our conversations with our customers, the pipeline revenue momentum and broad-based nature of our performance. We remain confident to deliver on our promise of being on the Leaders quadrant for growth with a stable PAT margin of 14%-15% band. Now let me hand it over to Anil for further comments.
Thank you, Sanjay. Hello, everyone. It is great to be back with you all with another quarterly earnings, and I wish you all safe and healthy days ahead. Let me take you through the financial highlights for the third quarter of FY 2022, starting with the revenue numbers. In the third quarter FY 2022, our revenue stood at $553 million, up 8.7% sequentially and 29.3% on a year-on-year basis. The corresponding constant currency growth was 9.2% quarter-on-quarter and 30.1% year-on-year. Reported INR revenue of 41,376 million was up 9.8% quarter-on-quarter and 31.2% year-on-year. Now coming to profitability.
EBIT for the quarter was INR 7,426 million, translating into an operating margin of 17.9% as compared with 17.2% in the previous quarter. The margin walk is as follows. A tailwind of 40 basis points from growth and operational efficiencies and 30 basis points from currency. Reported profit after tax was INR 6,125 million this quarter, which translated into a PAT margin of 14.8% as compared with 14.6% margin in Q2. We remain comfortable with our guided margin band of 14%-15% for FY 2022. Moving on to the people front. Utilization without trainees was at 81.4% as compared to 83.7% last quarter, and utilization including trainees was at 80.3% versus 81.6% in Q2.
We continue to strengthen our workforce and during Q3 we added 1,818 people on a net basis. The total manpower stood at 44,200, of which our production associates were 95.4%. In this quarter, attrition is at 22.5% versus 19.6% last quarter on LTM basis. On Forex and hedge book, our cash flow hedge book stood at $1,715 million as of 31st December 2021 versus $1,586 million as of 30th September 2021. While the on-balance sheet hedges stood at $94 million versus $88 million last quarter. Moving on to DSO in Q3. The billed DSO stood at 66 days as compared to 61 days last quarter.
The DSO including unbilled revenue was at 100 days compared to 98 days last quarter. For the quarter, the net cash flow from operations was at INR 4,303 million, which was at 70.3% conversion of the net income as compared to 91.3% conversion we had in Q2. This is largely impacted by the licenses which were booked on the last day of the quarter, leading to increase in DSO. At the end of the quarter, cash and liquid investments stood at INR 36,142 million as compared to INR 38,403 million last quarter. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 25.6%. This is same as Q2. Earnings per share for the quarter stood at INR 34.9 as compared to INR 31.5 in Q2.
The diluted earnings per share was INR 34.9 versus INR 31.4 last quarter. With that, I would like to open the floor for questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all participants in the conference, please limit your questions to two per participant. Should you have a follow-up question, we would request you to rejoin the question queue. The first question is from the line of Sandip Agarwal from Edelweiss. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good evening, Sanjay, and congratulations to the whole team for excellent execution and a happy New Year. Just a simple question, like if you compare supply side issue right now, which are there in the industry, and the level of urgency which client has to implement the projects, where do you see this both metrics of matching? Is the urgency of the client to implement the project much higher than the supply side constraint which is there in the industry? Basically want to understand how open the client is to give, to take the cost, additional cost on their books and allow the execution to happen. That was number one. Number two, another simple question which I would like to ask is, where do you see from here next two- three years?
I'm sure the environment right now is very good, but when you see the kind of cost which the clients are incurring on developing the IT infrastructure, what is your sense? Is it very longish, at least 10-12 quarters kind of thing, which it will take to complete those projects? Or it is more like digital projects, where the durations are shorter, but very frequently the deals are coming. So what kind of activity you're seeing on that front? Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Sandip. On the first question on urgency that we are seeing, witnessing our customers across verticals we are seeing a lot of you know, serious R&D efforts going in because the world is not the way it used to be. This is where following Great Depression, Great Recession we have coined the term of Great Restructuring for the industry. Because the nature of every industry has changed because the way you and I are operating is very different than what we ever did in our lives. The future of work, workforce, workplaces, everything has changed. Work in place of people coming to work is moving towards people, right? Every industry has to you know adapt itself to that otherwise they'll perish.
I've given many examples in the past, but the simplest example that all of us deal with in a simple way is, you know, if the companies did not have the ability to order online and pick up at the curbside, you will actually face extinction. Now, that urgency continues to be there. We are seeing, you know, onto the second point. You know, and in order to deal with that urgency, we all need to scale up. There's a lot of demand. We need to hire a lot of people. That's where you see the demand really going up in the marketplace. Market industry had not created enough people in the last few years, so that's why I believe in the next three, four quarters it will take for the supply to really come together.
That's why we took our call of hire, train, deploy, you know, a thousand-odd people in Q2 and Q3. Right? Just to create the pipeline for ourselves to meet the ever-growing demand that we see in our marketplace. The second question, how long do we see this demand to be there? Look, I'm not one for crystal gazing because our industry changes very, very quickly. What we have maintained to say based on three reasons that we gave in Analyst Day, one, global restructuring. Second, new areas of spend that is coming to marketplace, aka ESG, which is nothing else but workflows and data business growing in a meaningful way.
The third area is Great Resignation, because the customers are also facing double-digit attrition, and they believe that we need to support them and do more work from offshore. Maybe that's why you're seeing offshoring increase for every organization as well. These are reasons we believe that it gives us the confidence over next three-five years, definitely there will be this continued demand, as the companies cater to their digital needs.
Thanks a lot and best of luck for the current quarter.
Thank you, Sandip.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vibhor Singhal from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Hi, Vibhor.
Mr. Singhal, your line is on talk mode.
Can you talk to me?
Yeah. Hi. I'm so sorry. I hope I'm audible.
Yes, yes.
Sure. Hello, sir. Thanks for taking my questions, and congrats on a great quarter yet again. Sir, I think there isn't much doubt left in these two quarter numbers that we have delivered all on the revenue margins front. There's just one question that I had, and this is basically something which we are seeing across the boards for almost all the companies and for ourselves also. One is that the onsite offshore mix of course, in terms of the effort mix is more and more going towards SRV offshore charge. This quarter also we have around 84%. Just wanted to basically pick your brain on where do you think eventually stabilizing at, let's say two or three or four quarters down the line?
Do you think these numbers are sustainable, or do you think they'll go back to pre-COVID levels or they settle somewhere in between? A similar kind of a question is on DSO days. We have seen the DSO days for ourselves, and of course we are almost all of the companies as well, increase over the past two-three quarters. Of course, our number in this quarter was also an outcome of the license sales which you mentioned at the end of the quarter. Overall, there's been an increase in DSO days over the past two-three quarters.
Is it something to worry about in terms of, I mean, we are growing so fast, clients are not maybe making those payments on time and something that you believe is something that we should be concerned about? Or do you think those also should come back to their gradual normal levels in maybe a couple of quarters' time?
Okay. Let's talk about onsite offshore mix. I think we're very comfortable with where we are. Just remember, Vibhor, if you were to ask me before 2019, if the world will continue to operate and will continue to grow like we have done now for IT services, all industry has grown, I would have said-
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely not, right? No one ever imagined that the work world will work as seamlessly. People will actually communicate on these tools and platforms that do not go down, right? Whether it's Teams, whether it's Webex, whether it's Zoom, right? There are many collaboration tools, right? If you just recollect, two, three years back also, the world said, you know, the new age full stack developers and projects can only be done when people are sitting together, right? And all those myths we have been breaking. We have always talked about you can do, you know, these full stack work also with offshore if you have the right sets of tools, if you make infrastructure investments, and so on and so forth. I think today that is what is happening. Actually, people are working from, in our case, maybe from 40,000 offices, right?
Because everyone is at their own house, right? Why can't it continue to be in there? We are very comfortable with where we are. There is obviously a lot of merit to people. You know, people are all about social fabric. We need to sometimes go back to meeting people. I hope we don't go back to the model of you know a lot more travel because these platforms have sort of one thing, that these are the good things that we need to continue is to talk to more people using these platforms, and customers are ready to do that. That's why I think we are comfortable with the offshore mix, and I think it can still continue to move a little bit more offshore.
On the DSO days, I think this actually started in 2007, 2008 timeframe, when after the financial crisis, people started to increase the payment terms, right? That problem is what has continued. I don't think it's a recent phenomenon at all, right? That's why if you look at DSOs, it's been more or less stable for most of the companies.
Okay. Just basically make a follow-up to both these parts. On the first part, as you mentioned, you are comfortable with the kind of on-site offshore mix that we have today. Do you, with your conversations with the clients, do you see them also probably being comfortable with, if not let's say similar numbers, maybe slightly lower numbers, but them changing their mindset and becoming more and more comfortable with this higher offshore mix? The follow-up to the second question was what I was talking about in the-
One by one. Vibhor.
Yes, sir.
I can't remember so many things. One by one. I'll give you another option to understand.
Sure, sure.
Right. Your question is what? Your line is a little unclear. Are clients okay with offshore percentages being as high as what it is today?
Yes. That was my question.
Vibhor, people. Work is moving to people. That's what I said. Future of work is changing. In place of people moving to work globally is moving to people. That is a fundamental change that has happened, right? I think customers are well more than happy. That's why everyone is going.
Got it.
What's your DSO question, second question?
Yeah. On the second question, what I actually meant to ask was that, yes, the DSO days have been gradually increasing, but I think we've seen a sharp increase, not just for ourselves, but for the industry over the past three to four quarters. Just wanted to tie this up. Is it somehow related to the COVID part, or is it something which you think is a normal course of business and might automatically correct?
Vibhor, I don't want to comment on others, but for us, we are at the same level as before, if not a little better, from pre-COVID to now. I don't want to comment on anyone else. You need to look at their data and ask their management.
Overall net net for us at least, the COVID hasn't led to any change in payment terms or deterioration of any of the payment cycle?
That is absolutely right.
Perfect, sir. Great to hear that. Thank you so much for taking my questions, sir, and I wish you all the best.
Thank you, Vibhor.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mayur Patel from IIFL Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Hi, Sanjay and team. Congratulations for excellent set of results. Execution has been really good. Just one question,
Thank you.
Is this quarter more, you know, inclined towards the revenue growth from India? And is there any specific reason around that?
Sorry, say that again. I was trying to figure out something. Tell me. Say that again.
The revenues from India as a mix in the overall scheme of things, is it higher in this quarter? What is the reason behind it? Just wanted to know.
Around 2% is coming from our traditional. This is the time in Q3 and Q4 we have pass-throughs. This amount is, you know, 2% of our growth is coming and which is also associated with manufacturing, also associated with India. In addition to that, we have seen growth in not only India projects, but some other, you know, services to companies that are classified in. Contracts are with banks which are having contracts with India. Which are also in our model, classified under India. These are global banks.
Okay. Sure. Sanjay, is it when we say specifically some numbers around the cloud business, that is, you know, in addition to the cloud related work which is being done in individual verticals, right? Is my understanding right?
This is what we explained to you guys last quarter also, but I think we will have a reclassified service line breakup effective Q1 onwards. Right now I'll request Nachiket to explain what we explained last time also.
As you rightly said, the revenue reported under CIS service line largely captures only the infrastructure part of our business. If you combine the overall hyperscaler business in LTI, it is actually growing faster than the company average, and we continue to see very good demand driving growth for us in quarters to come.
Sure. Understood.
Yeah.
Thank you, gentlemen. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sulabh Govila from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity, and congrats on a good set of results.
Thank you.
I had a couple of questions. First is on the pricing bit. Do you see that incrementally coming in and supporting growth rates for you in the coming quarters, something which is echoed by peers as well, and if there has been a positive realization impact on revenue and margins in this quarter, which was not there earlier?
Pricing more or less is stable. We have seen pockets where there has been price increase. As the demand is much higher than the supply, it's logical for us to have the flexibility to have a positive impact. Broadly, as we keep saying, we are a growth company. Look at us as a growth company. This is the time when we want to capture as much market as we possibly can. Yes, but we have, you know, pricing you take it is stable with a positive bias.
Okay, got it. The other bit is that if you could provide some color around the book-to-bill ratio in terms of how it is trending for you guys over the past several quarters. How's the trend been on that front?
Okay. Can I request Sudhir to-
Yeah.
Comment on this?
I think, as we explained even during our Analyst Day, right, so the pipeline is up significantly over last year. It's north of the company growth rate, comfortably, which gives us confidence. I think the key thing, as Sanjay also mentioned, is that the changing nature of demand, especially for three verticals, Banking, Insurance, and High Tech, is becoming a lot more, you know, pod model oriented. These pod teams of 10, you know, a pod is usually made up of 10 people, you know, so they are. The that model, which is essentially a people requirement-based model in pods, to deliver, you know, a stream of essentially transformation projects, that is a differing nature of demand compared to, you know, the typical RFP-based demand.
I think when you combine the two demand, right, overall pipeline as well as the resourcing demand with for pods, you know, that is significantly ahead, which is reflected in, you know, Sanjay's commentary also on where we see confidence in the, you know, the that there is growth in the environment for the for the next three years at least that we can foresee.
Sure. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dipesh Mehta from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, and congrats for strong execution. Couple of question. First, about the one new logo in pharma which you said. I missed the number you said. If you can provide more detail about nature of work which we are likely to do for the client. That is first question. Second question is about the related to large deal related thing. Earlier we indicated we are having very strong pipeline and H2 is expected to be better. Do we think those pipelines are getting converted or you are still seeing clients are deferring some of these decision and we are seeing good flow, but from large deal perspective it might be likely to remain relatively less than what we might have expected maybe three months back?
I'll answer your second question. I'll request Sudhir to answer the first question and give you details on the new logo on what large deal data, et cetera. Look, first thing, pipeline is not necessarily equal to large deal. Analyst Day we tried to explain to you the changing nature, and every quarter we are telling you the changing nature. I'll tell you one, something a lot of debate went in. Previously, we used to report large deals in my call itself. I intentionally did not report it because the importance of large deal, while it continues for the industries, the nature of demand has changed so dramatically that it is one of the things that drives it, not necessarily the only thing that drives it, right? It is continuing to be there.
Pipeline is very, very strong. Large deals also continue to be there, right? That is not necessarily the only way to grow in this market today. It's about capturing the market of digital transformation, which is coming in small and discrete projects and pods that Sudhir talked about, and that's what we are trying to capture. Sudhir, why don't you answer the first question?
Yeah, sure. The large deal is with a company which is a subsidiary of a very large global organization. This is a multi-year deal for infrastructure management services. In addition to this, the $32 million is all net new TCV for us. This is a new logo addition, so we're making an entry into this account as well. This company is embarking on a multi-year transformation program in addition to this outsourcing program where they are looking to modernize their infrastructure and move to the cloud, as well as modernize their application infrastructure. We see headroom for future growth beyond what we have already contracted also in this account.
Understand. What typical kind of competition, let's say, new logo we encounter and how we differentiate ourselves? If you can provide some perspective.
On-
Because our logo-
On this particular deal, I mean, it varies, but on this particular deal, it was the two largest companies in the auto sector.
What played out in favor of LTI? If you can just help me.
Yeah, you come over and spend a day with you. Very different. I don't know how to answer this. Look, everyone is looking for a very customized solution for their needs. This is where, if you understand, listen to them, be disruptive, challenge status quo, show the urgency and help them meet the urgency that they have in the marketplace. I think these are some of the differentiators that we bring to bear. The strength of solutioning is very important. Focus on a few customers, few verticals is very important. Because you cannot do digital transformations on a generic vertical that you don't operate in.
Yeah.
These are the things that continue to operate and differentiate us on any day, and nothing is different here. This is how we are able to open some of these large Fortune 500 companies as well, because customers are also not sourcing for scale, but for expertise, right? That is what differentiates.
You know, the days of people providing these predictable cookie-cutter outsourcing solutions are over. You need, as Sanjay said, you need to provide a highly customized solution delivered at speed. I think that changes the game significantly when it comes to the new age of outsourcing deals.
Understand. Considering the changing nature of demand, do you think some of the metrics which you might start providing us as a lead indicator, maybe either total deal intake or anything which you think maybe from next fiscal year onwards, because the demand dynamic is changing?
Dipesh, we'll just do better, no. We will provide you better revenues.
Fair enough.
All right. Take care, Dipesh. Thank you for your time, and thank you for your interest.
Mr. Mehta, does that answer your question?
No, thank you.
Thank you.
Bye then. Yes, moves.
The next question is from the line of Sandeep Shah from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations on a solid quarter. Just Sanjay and Sudhir, both in terms of interaction with the clients entering into CY 2022, any color in terms of IT budgets where you believe there could be some shave off related to pent-up demand in CY 2021? Or when you say three- five years, the growth momentum, what we have seen in FY 2022, has the potential to continue for the industry as well as LTI as a whole? Some initial colors will help us to understand the nature of the demand. Is it more pent-up or is it more structural, which will help in terms of a multi-year growth?
Sandeep, I shared this data with you during the analyst day in December, that this is a Gartner forecast. The Gartner forecast is that, you know, we are going to see a budget growth of north of 6% this year across all sectors. In the key sectors that we operate in, the budget growth is, you know, our largest sectors is between 6%-10%, actually. That is the Gartner prediction. Now, of course, what we have, we haven't seen anything right now that changes it. I think there are a few factors that are emerging from a global macro perspective. You know, I'll request Sanjay to also add to this.
There are concerns around inflation that is, you know, it's very high right now in both in the U.S. and in Europe in key markets. There are issues with even still with supply chain predictability, and that is, you know, impacting some sectors. The third thing is that, you know, this Omicron is still a relatively, you know, we are still to see what exactly the impact will be right now. Of course, you know, things seem to be getting better, but we'll have to wait and watch. I think clients, the transformation journeys they are undertaking are these multi-year journeys. So the nature of that work will continue. Like it continued during the pandemic year, it will continue this year as well.
There are certain macro factors to look out for.
I'll just add a few things, Sandeep. You know, your question was pent-up versus new. I don't know whether you can call this traditional. For the last 30 years, we have talked about pent-up demand and budget flushes. Those don't apply anymore. This is the nature of the way the world is operating in the new normal, and there's a lot of work. Everyone is still discovering what is the best way to connect to customers who are operating differently. How do you talk to millennials who just don't want to even own a car, right? How do you communicate to them? Their investment philosophies are very different, the way they take insurance is very different. That work will continue to be there for some time.
You know, these three things that Sudhir talked about, these are not new as well, right? You know, one has to be watchful because these will have an impact in the marketplace. Based on the conversations that we are seeing, we still believe there is a positive, you know, bias towards the spend continuing to be strong for the next at least three to five years.
Okay. Thanks, Sanjay and Sudhir.
Don't know how to help you model this anymore, man.
Yeah. Just last thing on our bookkeeping. Treasury income generally used to be between INR 40 crores-INR 60 crores per quarter. This time, if I'm not wrong, it is INR 28 crores. Anything to read as an aberration in terms of the FMP-related investment income booking, which happens on a volatile basis?
Anil?
No, there's no aberration as such. Actually, our corpus reduced slightly, as I said, mentioned in my speech itself, you know. Where our cash and liquid investments stood at INR 36,142 million.
Versus INR 38,403 million last quarter. You know, there has been hardening of yields, you know, by this end of the quarter. It also has an MTM impact on the revenue report.
Okay. Thanks and all the best.
Sure.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Manik Taneja from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Sanjay, basically just wanted to get your thoughts on the trend towards expansion in tier two and tier three locations by companies. While we've seen significant offshore expansion, there is concern around the increasing cost of talent in India as well. With the increasing shift in terms of delivery centers in tier two and tier three locations, do you think that helps negate some of the cost pressures and probably provide some margin leverage to the industry as a whole?
I'm gonna let Nachiket answer this question, but I think, you know, you've got to look at this answer more from cost perspective, and you have to look at it more from where is the good talent going to be. Right, Nachiket, go ahead and take this one.
I think as Sanjay said, right, the whole war for talent phenomenon is happening within India as well or within all geographies as well. Especially in the current climate, I think the location of people is becoming irrelevant data point, right? Because people are still working from home and whichever city they are already in. For us, we've also looked at where people are who are already working with us and where we have a good supply of talent. We have invested in bringing our new facilities in Coimbatore that we inaugurated just a few weeks back. We've also inaugurated our facility in Hyderabad, and we are also expanding in Kolkata. For us, we are also going.
For us the strategy is largely driven by where we see our existing employee base, where we are already operating today, what's the preference that the employees are talking about. We want to provide that flexibility to them as we start to operate in our hybrid model. We have expanded into these three cities, and we will continue to, you know, reach out to multiple locations in India as we roll out our hybrid model.
Do you think that provides some sort of a cost leverage to the industry as a whole, or it's just the ease of finding talent and ease of delivery?
You know, one easy way to look at this is, you know, when people are drifting towards their hometown, so to speak. If people are in Bangalore, people are in Mumbai, people in Pune, and the commute is killing them, right, in many of these places. If somebody has, for whatever reason, the last two years have shifted to Indore or Lucknow or Kolkata or, you know, in Coimbatore for all matters, right? What typically happens is they like a better lifestyle. They're closer to their families. The attachment to the city is far, far stronger on many, many fronts, and that gives longevity for them in the company itself, right? Those are the things which definitely should help.
Right now focus is on where the talent is going to be and where do we want to be. You know, how do we actually get that talent because there is so much demand. That's what our focus is.
Sure. Thank you. All the best for the future.
Thank you, Manik.
Thank you. Participants, to ask a question you may press star and one. The next question is from the line of Madhu Babu from Canara HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. There have been a spate of acquisitions in the recent six months from Indian IT companies, especially Tech Mahindra, Wipro, and even in the midsize space, Infosys and Persistent. We have been a bit, you know, slower on that front. What are your views there, and any targets we are chasing?
Madhu, we have done in the last six years 7 acquisitions. We have always said we will never do acquisition for revenue. They will all be capability driven. These are the acquisitions which have created really cool pieces of work products on data. For example, the data products on Fosfor that we launched. They have created great capabilities on middleware and digital integration capabilities. They have given us the ability today, we are the world's most partner of the year for Temenos, for example. Strong partners and alliances, etc., continue to be there. Last acquisition we did was last year as well, right? With Cuelogic coming into our fold, there's a bunch of 300 people. Right? All about digital engineering.
Lots of, you know, different ways of supporting, enhancing the ability that we take to our customer. At any given point of time, we are always looking at capabilities that we lack, and we'll continue to do that. Our focus will always be on shareholder value. This is not our personal money. This is shareholder money. We will be wise in making sure do all analysis to find what is the way to build the capabilities that we need to do. If acquisition is the right way and we find an asset which is at the right price point, we'll definitely look at it. We are continuing to look at it. I spend significant time on it. We're evaluating the companies, all the niche things that you hear us say and talk and where customers are spending, and we'll continue to look at it.
We'll only be done if we get a right price for it.
Sir, second one on the fresher hiring. How are we seeing the trends on the freshers who are joining? I mean, is the attrition higher in this bunch? I mean, especially considering that they're working from home.
How is the, I mean, overall attrition all in the freshers, especially in that zero-two-year category in the last...
Nachiket?
We're not seeing any specific spike or any specific pattern on fresher attrition. It's not picked up at all. It's in a way similar. We are actually seeing typically a higher attrition in three to six years bracket for us and probably for all of the industry. No specific pattern on the fresher.
Okay, sir. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhishek Shindadkar from InCred Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity and congrats on a great execution. Just one question. Sanjay, you referred to spending after, you know, the earlier recessions, and one of the data points is the uptake in the multi-sourcing, which happened post, you know, GFC or any other point. Anything on the ground that you are seeing, you know, differently from clients today, you know, those comments could be helpful.
You're saying whether we are seeing anything about, you know, is there a way the customer are still doing multi-sourcing or some other way? Is that what the question is, Abhishek?
Sanjay, you know, one of the data points which ISG reported is the increase in multi-sourcing by customers, especially after you know, a downturn. Are you witnessing anything this time? That is my question.
This is where I, you know, we use the term that customers who used to typically choose sizes and the scale as the ways and means to source their partner, in multi-source model as well, have moved away to sourcing for skills and expertise, right? This is why it makes and I think this is what ISG is also trying to say in their own ways. This is where, because the project sizes have shrunk, it's expertise driven on verticals. This is why companies like us are able to open record number of new logos as well. That's what is helping us. Speed of execution, et cetera, agility, et cetera, all make a difference in today's time, and is very critical in their as a critical factor in their evaluation on who they want to partner with.
Perfect. That's helpful. Thank you for taking my question.
Pleasure, Abhishek. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhishek from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you. Hi, Sanjay. You know, I have a question around your SG&A expenses. If I remember correctly, you know, you had indicated last year that in your efforts to scale up your cloud and data vertical, you would be probably spending stepping up the SG&A expenses by one percentage point, you know, the percentage of sales. However, if I look at last nine-month data, not only this quarter, you know, we are kind of flattish, you know, at 11.5%. Ways of working have not changed. Travel is still restricted.
I'm just curious to know, you know, are the spends what you had planned on these two new verticals or focus verticals panning out in the way as they are? Even if I look, you know, from an absolute spending point of view, the SG&A expenses growth is only 20%, you know, compared to the top line growth of close to 30% in last nine months. Your thoughts will be helpful.
Yeah. You know, SG&A is not what we want to increase. What we want to increase is sales and marketing, first thing, right? You need to, as you grow, as G&A portion has to logically keep coming down. As you drive efficiencies and stuff, that has to continue. Our investments has been as per the plan in cloud data products as well. We could have done even more, but talent scarcity is everywhere, not only in delivery, but finding right talent anywhere is a challenge. We are continue and committed to investing in all these new things that we talk about in times to come as well. The way to look at it is our sales and marketing is going up. G&A, we keep trying to bring it down.
As our revenue base increases, G&A is expected to decrease anyway as a percentage.
Okay, got it. Sanjay, my second question is, you know, some markers towards your, you know, billion-dollar ambition on cloud, you know, which you wanted to achieve in next three years' time at the end of FY 2021.
We are progressing well towards that, Abhishek.
Okay. Just one small request. You know, Sanjay, you said at the start that, you know, the cloud classification of services probably does not give the correct picture. Maybe if you could correct it, you know, it will help us know how this vertical is progressing.
See, we will be able to give you something more on that effective Q1, but it'll still not give you the full picture because cloud is also embedded in enterprise solutions and a whole bunch of things.
Yeah.
Let's see. It will be a gradual process, I'm afraid, Abhishek. We'll definitely be able to add cloud engineering, which you don't see it at all in our report today, right? Which is a major portion of growth. It goes into ADM.
Okay. Got it, Sanjay. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Sure. Thank you, Sanjay. All the best for the year.
Board-level discussion is never without talking about how do we use cloud to drive growth and expandability for an organization. It does not even start or finish without that.
Yeah, across any of our service lines or at all tech.
Vertical or a customer.
Yeah.
It's a must. All right. Thanks, Abhishek.
Thanks, Sanjay, and, you know, have a good year. Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Debashish Mazumdar from B&K Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you very much for taking my question and good evening to everybody.
Good evening.
I have two parts question. First, related to attrition, and second related to the pass-through revenue. Although we have seen, on the LTM basis, our reported attrition as a percentage has gone up, I wanted to understand that whether actual number of churning of people has stabilized or reduced as we have seen in the last two months. The sense that I want to get that whether we are close to peak, as far as the attrition percentage is concerned.
See, if you look at, you know, obviously LTM basis, it shows what it shows in the fact sheet. If you look at quarterly annualized, the number is just marginally gone down from the previous quarter. I won't take anything to the bank as yet because typically two things. One, in the Q3, traditionally because of the holidays, because of Diwali, because of Christmas, New Year, traditionally, organizations go a little slow in hiring. Number one. Number two, an event like Omicron spread also puts people in a shell, and they, you know, go to the natural secured calm of working with the existing company. Obviously, the numbers have marginally come down, so we only then. The next two quarters will determine which way it is actually moving.
I don't know what else to say except that we have intensified the engagement with our clients. We have also gone ahead of the problem to hire people in advance in Q2 and Q3, right? With hire-train-deploy model and increased number of SCT to be prepared in case that problem continues. Today, as we stand in Q3, quarterly number has gone down. We will know more in Q4 and Q1.
Excellent. The second question I had is around pass-through, the 2% incremental growth that you have spoken about. Is it a kind of continuity or it's like a one-time pop-up that we got in this quarter and it will not continue in Q4? How one should read it?
It's seasonal. If you've been following us, it's there every year for the last six years. It continues. It comes in every Q3 and Q4.
Excellent, sir. Thank you very much for answering my question.
All right. Thank you, Debashish.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sanjay Jalona for closing comments.
Thank you, guys. Thank you for being in the call. It was great to see again all of you in December. Thank you for joining the call today, and we hope that you and your families will continue to stay safe. We look forward to seeing you next quarter. Till then, take care. God bless. Be well.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of LTI, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.