Good day, everyone, and a very warm welcome to the First Quarter FY 2024 Earnings Call of Mahindra & Mahindra Limited. We are glad to have you all join this meeting, either in person or virtually. For the main presentation today, we have with us our Managing Director and CEO, Dr. Anish Shah; ED and CEO of our Auto and Farm Sector, Mr. Rajesh Jejurikar; and our Group CFO, Manoj Bhat. After the presentation concludes, we'll commence with the Q&A session. For those attending through webcast, you can post your questions in the web chat box. As a reminder, this meeting is being recorded. I want to make sure you are, we just quickly run through the agenda. If we can please move to the next page. Just we'll run through the Safe Harbor, and then we are going to have, Dr.
Shah walk you through some, some opening remarks, then we'll go through the AFS presentation and the financials, followed by the Q&A, which I'll be moderating. Okay? This includes those who are virtually, who have virtually joined us. Just for the sake of completeness, I want to run through our Safe Harbor statement. If you can just move to the next page, please. Certain statements in this meeting with regard to our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. Okay. With this, I would like to hand over to Dr. Shah for his opening remarks.
Thank you, Amar. Good evening to everyone here, and good afternoon, good morning, good evening to folks online who are with us today. For folks who are here in the room, great to have you in person. There are a few seats open in the front, couple of rows, so for those of you who want to come ahead, please feel free to do so. We've got a very interesting set of results today, very, very strong financial results, actually, for the quarter. Different from our usual approach, rather than start with results, I want to start with a set of questions that I know is on everyone's minds. All right, this does not seem to be moving forward.
No, it doesn't.
All right. Yes, we start with capital allocation. Right? The first thing I want to say is, our capital allocation discipline has not changed. In fact, it's become even stronger. I know there are a number of questions around the investment in RBL, so we'll address those head-on as well. We'll do that first, and then go to how we are making this even stronger than what it was before. Then we'll talk about financial results as an afterthought. Yeah. What have we done so far? We've invested INR 417 crore to be exact, in RBL. Why did we do that? Let me move here so you can see the screen as well. Why did we do that? Financial services is a core area for us. Mahindra Finance has a market cap of close to INR 40,000 crore.
I'm sort of rounding up a little bit there, but it's close to INR 40,000 crore market cap. It's a business that is now doing exceedingly well, as you've seen from the financial services reports or results last week. It's a business that is looking at growing its books significantly over the next few years, looking at a very strong asset quality, and will be one of the premier financial services companies in India. For us, as a key investor in that business and an investor that works closely with the business to drive success for it, it's very important for us to understand all aspects in financial services well.
Therefore, as we saw an opportunity, and this was not something that was done as an afterthought or something sort of on the side or nice to have, it was a thought through plan around an opportunity opening up with a bank that is what we consider a very well-run bank, a very strong bank in its own right, in the space that it plays in. The best that we saw in that space at a valuation of 0.85x-0.9 x a book, and one that we feel will continue to do very well. That offered the opportunity for us to take a stake. A stake which actually makes us the third largest shareholder in that bank, because the shareholding component is important as well.
One that will allow us to harness synergies with the group, which will benefit our group companies and will benefit the bank. One that will help us understand banking in a lot more detail, that may allow us to answer questions in future around it. We had a media session, and there were questions of: Do you want to get into banking? I said, "Today, we do not, and we cannot." The objective here is not to get into banking, but it is to be able to answer those questions five, seven years later, where the landscape may be different, Mahindra Finance will be a lot bigger, and we need to be able to have a very solid answer to that question. Which is where we have an INR 400 crore investment in a sector where we have INR 40,000 crore.
That is the background behind why RBL. It is a long-term investment. This is not something that's been done for now. It's not something that is done because we want to be a bank. In fact, the other question was: Are we going to 9.9%? Here again, I want to clarify, because we tend to be sort of very straightjacketed around regulation and our responses. We had put out a stock exchange notification saying, we do not expect to be more than 9.9% at any point in time in future. That somehow was read as we want to go to 9.9% tomorrow, but that is not the case. Okay? We are at 3.5%.
We don't know whether there will be a compelling strategic reason for us to go to 9.9% or not. If there is, at some point in future, which may be two years, three years, five years later, then we will look at that, but we need to be able to be convinced that there is a compelling strategic reason for us to do that, and we need to be able to articulate that. If we can articulate that, we'll go there. If we cannot articulate that, we are happy where we are. It gives us a good understanding of banking, which is critical for the space that we play in, and it will give a good return to shareholders.
Because this is a bank that, again, we have a lot of faith in, in terms of what it will do, and, and that's something that will hopefully play out over the next few years. That's the overview on RBL. We'll get into a lot of questions. You can ask as many questions as you want, and, and we'll cover the topic, but this is an important topic for us. As I said, results can be an afterthought for today. We'll cover this in more detail. Yeah. We talked about enhancing our capital allocation discipline, and we are enhancing it in a very public way. That is what you see in the change in how we will present our results. Because there are 2 things we've done that are important. One is start identifying segments of auto, farm, and services.
Many of you have asked for this in the past. Many of our investors have asked for it as well, right? This is in response to that, and our response to that point was, "Yes, good point. We will consider it. We will find a way to do it," and this is an answer to that. You'll see a lot more transparency on each of these businesses and sub-businesses within them in future as well. Auto will be separated into various sub-businesses. This time, we haven't given all the information, but again, over time, we will start giving more information as we make sure it's completely consistent, it's something that will not change in future and so on. You'll have our core auto business, which is SUV and LCV, our EV businesses, which are MEAL and LMM, our trucks and buses businesses.
There are some allied businesses that include CLPL and international. Right? What we want to do is track performance of each of them. That, I'm sure, is something that you would want us to do as well. Yeah. The other key aspect is in these segments, you don't see the word others anywhere. There's nothing that can hide. There is no other segment that will be sort of, okay, things we don't like, let's put it in the other segment, and we don't talk about it too much. Each leader is accountable for each segment and sub-segments within that. Therefore, everything we have has direct accountability that's linked to it as well, right?
Therefore, that further enhances our capital discipline, because what I didn't talk a lot about earlier, and again, happy to do that more in the question and answer session, for us, as important as capital allocation is execution. If I look back at our past, it wasn't that we invested in many international businesses, it was that they didn't work. If we had gotten great results from there, there would have been no questions on capital allocation. Right? Execution is most important for us as well, and that's what we will drive with the discipline. It's, we've got to invest in the right areas and ensure we get the results that we say we will get when we invest in those areas. The second point here is around exceptional items. We were very compliant with all the accounting regulations over all these years.
One thing that those regulations do allow for you to do, is if there's an impairment in a business, you could call it an exceptional item. In our discipline around capital allocation, the question that we've had internally was: if we didn't do a business very well and we impaired something, why are we calling it exceptional? It's our accountability as a management team. It should be in our results. It's part of our operating results. You've seen various impairments for things that didn't work. Those were all exceptional. Right? Going forward, they will not be exceptional.... They'll be part of our results, right? There, and again, is the enhanced capital allocation discipline, because each leader is accountable for those results. It can't be, "Okay, let's talk about profit before EI," right? We've seen great increase in profit before EI.
Okay, we've got a bunch of exceptional items on the side. That is something that we will not do going forward. At the same time, our job is to create value in many of our services businesses. That is what we are actively driving. If we create that value, that's part of operational results. Both things happen. If we don't do well, that hits us directly. If we do well, that benefits us directly, right? That's what you want the management team to be accountable for, right? That's the reason for this change. Manoj does have a slide, because I know there were some questions through the afternoon on what's the impact of it.
We'll go through each line in the P&L and show what the impact is on each line, so that there's complete transparency on that as to what is the reason for that change, and therefore, there's no question or confusion on it going forward. If there is, we'll address that. Our objective is to be completely transparent in all of these numbers. Again, many of you asked for this in the past, so we are going to start showing you cash for auto, for farm, and for services. This is the actual cash flow for FY 2022 to Q1 FY 2024, right? We have in the past shown you FY 2022-FY 2024 as a consolidated amount, not broken down in these sectors. We will continue updating it for every quarter and show you, too, in these sectors.
When we do an FY 2025-FY 2027, we'll again show it to you in this format with these sectors. That, again, starts giving greater transparency, something you asked for in the past and something that we feel that we should be able to do consistently as we go ahead. What you see here, over the last nine quarters, Auto, after its CapEx and deployment of close to INR 9,000 crore, has generated INR 4,000 crore of free cash. The farm business has generated INR 4,574 crore of free cash. Our services businesses have actually generated INR 5,186 crore of free cash. What you see is one line here called investments. There's a cleanup line, which is on category C, which should not be repeated again, hopefully. There's an ongoing line.
Under services, you see INR 415 crore of ongoing. This does not include RBL, because RBL happened in the second quarter. Next quarter, you will see that INR 415 plus the INR 417. Again, look at it in the context of the value generation from services, which is INR 5,000 crore. Right? And frankly, this is why we were surprised at so much concern around the RBL part, but we've talked about that. Again, I'm open to addressing any further questions on that. This is how we look at our businesses, and this is how we monitor them, right? Hopefully, this should give you a lot more comfort that the capital allocation discipline not only has not changed, but in fact, it's getting even stronger as we go forward. All right. With that, let's come to financial results.
Revenue is up 19%, profit is up 60%. The 60% does include INR 870 crores of monetization from services. Actually, let me rephrase that. INR 870 crores consists of two parts. One is SsangYong, which now is operational. KG Mobility has taken over. The value of our investment has gone up by INR 405 crores, and that is what we have to mark to market every quarter. There will be likely some movement every quarter on this, which we will have to take. Sometimes it may be positive, sometimes it may be negative. Therefore, we will always show that separately, but it is part of our, our accounts. Besides the INR 405 crores, there's another INR 465 crores.
That's as a result of MCIE, stake sale, Sanyo, and that collectively makes up what we call, or rather, we don't call that EI anymore, but that could have been EI in the past. That is part of these numbers. Without that, profit would have been up 21%. With that, profit is up 60%. Even without it, we've got a very strong quarter in terms of the overall profit. What you also see here is consolidated, because we are accountable for consolidated overall. We can't just talk about standalone and sort of ignore everything else on the rest. Which is why you will always have access to standalone. You will see standalone, but often in an extras. This time, Manoj will show it as part of the main deck as well. We want to be accountable overall for consolidated.
As an aside, standalone profit's up 98%. As I said, that something is not as critical for us as consolidated. Then you'll see each segment and then how each segment does. We will also continue to talk about the strategy we outlined last time and the progress on that strategy. We talked about Auto, capitalize on market leadership. We talked about Farm, also capitalize on market leadership. Services-... which has one segment of Mahindra Finance and Tech Mahindra, where we need to unlock full potential, and the second around our growth gems, where we have given a 5x challenge for these growth gems. Now, Auto and Farm also have some growth gems, so you will see them as we talk about them. This is a framework for our businesses.
This is also the framework for how we will show accounts to you. You can monitor each part and say, "Are we delivering what we committed or not?" Let's talk about Auto and Farm first. Here's where you'll start seeing numbers again. I don't think we've shown PAT for these businesses in the past. Right, you're going to start seeing those numbers for each of these segments as well. The big news in auto is production is up 28%. As you saw from the July numbers, it's up even further beyond that. A lot of the issues around semiconductors have been sorted out, and we are producing at full capacity right now. Capacity is going up as well as we've talked in the past.
I will, though, give a caution that given the world we live in, we cannot take it for granted, and it's always possible that semiconductor issues will come back in some form. We are vigilant on that front, and it's something that, again, we are being upfront about, saying there is a possibility that might change, and we might come back and say, "Look, we couldn't produce 5,000 units because of semiconductors or 2,000 because of that," or, or whatever that number is. At this point in time, we feel good about where we are. Operating leverage for auto has driven auto results or profit after tax up 2.2 times. You see a number of 3 times here, that's because the INR 405 crores of SsangYong is counted in this number as well.
As I said earlier, every business linked to auto is in this segment. Auto is accountable for those results. EV programs are on track. Rajesh will talk about them in more detail, and I mentioned the KG Mobility part. What you also see here is what we call input metrics that will drive these results. SUV market share is a big part there, and you see a very significant jump. In fact, this is the one number on the page that is the strongest, a 310 basis point increase in market share year-over-year. This is revenue market share, just again, as a clarification. LCVs, again, in some ways, a more significant number. We always talk about SUVs because it's more exciting to talk about SUVs, but LCVs also do make a lot of money for us.
I know your question, maybe tell us how much each one makes. We'll, we'll, we'll get to that at some point in the future, right. That, again, is a very significant increase in market share, 480 basis points in LCV market share. When we are in the 40s is not a small number. If we go from 5 to 10, I'd say, "Yes, let's do it in a year." When we go from in the 40s with 5% market share, again, it's not a small number. Farm has been very resilient, despite various challenges and various challenges that you've seen over the past few quarters. Steady margin improvements, obviously in auto, but also on the farm side. Strong cash flow generation, as has been the case. Terms of trade are improving in rural. Here, again, market share has increased.
It's very difficult to increase market share in the 40s because we also want to make sure we're not being irrational in any form. It's been strong execution performance on the ground that really driven this market share increase. 20 basis points, I would say that's meaningful, even though it just looks at 20 basis points. Farm machinery revenue is up 24%. That number should be higher, in my view. I would say that's sort of underperformance at a 24% increase and something that we will look at accelerating further. Profit after tax for farm is at INR 1,198 crores, up 21%. Moving to unlocking full potential. Mahindra Finance is on a very solid path. We've talked about the turnaround we initiated a year and a half ago.
We've been giving an update on it every quarter. You're starting to see the results of this turnaround. You're seeing the results of this turnaround in asset growth, in disbursement, but more important, the single most metric that personally I'm invested in this business is asset quality. Asset quality, because we've had surprises in the past. It's been a model in the past. We've never had credit losses, as we explained before, but we don't like surprises any more than you like surprises. That's one thing that we are fixing, and you see the results of that here, where growth Stage Three is at 4.35%. It's the lowest ever that's it, it's been in this business. Net Stage Three is at 1.8%.
It's not only about where these numbers are today, there's a lot of work going on to ensure that in the next economic downturn, they don't go up very high and they stay within a tight bound. There is a decline in NIM in this business based on where the interest rates are right now, and you've seen that in the Mahindra Finance results. Despite that, the profit increase of 58%. Tech Mahindra has been a weak spot. It's one that has been the worst quarter ever for Tech Mahindra. As you see the results here, there is a lot of focus to have a turnaround on this, and with Mohit Joshi coming in, he started already. He's been here, I think, for about 6 weeks now.
He's outlining the plan to go forward. We are, in a sense, initiating the turnaround for Tech Mahindra that we initiated for Mahindra Finance six quarters ago. It will take time. It's not going to show results immediately, but that's something, again, I would look at it as a two to three year timeframe. We'll have the same set of milestones and come back to you with: here's what we're doing, here are the milestones, and here's what we need to deliver for it. Just going to give a highlight of three of our listed entities, which are growth gems. I won't go into each one of them. Logistics, strong growth in auto and mobility. E-commerce demand has been muted across the industry. We see margins up there, but it's been offset by poor implementation for Rivigo.
This is again, one where we take accountability. Implementation could have been better, right? There are no excuses for that. That's something that we are fixing now, so that from an implementation execution standpoint, we've got to be very strong in each of our businesses. Hospitality is on a very good track today. Very strong demand, significant growth plans for the business, we're positioned extremely well as a very strong offering for customers who want holidays or family holidays in India. That is a segment that is, we've really got a huge amount of opportunity, a lot of demand that is not fully captured, we just have to be able to execute well to be able to capture it over the next few years. Real estate demand continues to be healthy.
Residential sales are up, a strong launch pipeline. The business actually has really got a lot more momentum behind it now. You won't see the momentum immediately in the results because the way accounting works, it's only when the project is actually... not when it's launched, but when it's completed, when you start recognizing the sales from that project. There is a, a time lag in, in that happening. You know, maybe over time, if we do a more detailed session, we can go through what are the milestones that get us there, and therefore, that gives a little more confidence around the fact that it is on, on a strong momentum now. From our standpoint, this is what's important, right? We made certain commitments on ROE, on EPS growth. ROE is at 24%.
I know when I presented 18% for the first time, a lot of folks said: "How do you even put that number? That's crazy. You're never going to get there." We got to 18%, we got to 19.9% last quarter. We are at 24%. Don't expect 24% to continue every quarter, right? We have to drive growth as well, and this is a discussion we've had. We have it with our investors, and we tell our investors, "If you want us to be at a higher return with much lower growth, that's fine. We can do that. We've demonstrated that," right? What our investors tell us often is: "We want growth and returns, both. You can't take one and trade off the other." For us, we will maintain an 18% return threshold, and we will continue to drive growth.
We have promised a 15%-20% EPS growth. This quarter, we are at 60%. Here again, as I said, don't expect 60% consistently, okay? We've had a great quarter. We will continue to strive to out-perform where we can, but what we would be very happy with is a consistent 15%-20% EPS growth as we go forward. Key messages before I hand it to Rajesh to take you through a lot more details. Consolidated PAT is at INR 3,508 crore, up 60%. Auto and Farm are capitalizing on market leadership, as you saw in the numbers there. Mahindra Finance is on a very strong track, Tech Mahindra is not, and we need to fix that. Capital allocation has yielded investment results, and we are monitoring that very closely, as you saw.
A consistent delivery on our commitments, right? This hopefully should give you a lot more comfort around how we are managing the business, around our focus on capital allocation, and how we take it forward. With that, Rajesh, over to you.
Hi, everyone. I'm starting with auto, and I'm going to do this piece fast so there's enough time for questions, which is, I guess, what all of you want. We'll do this quickly. Very good growth in SUV volumes. We crossed 100,000 numbers in the quarter. Very good growth in the revenue market share. You already saw that with Anish and the LCV market share, all of which Anish covered. This is a trend line which shows our growth in volumes over a period of time. While we do keep talking about revenue market share, I just want to recap that in spite of the profile of our product, we are number 2 on volume market share as well, consistently for last four quarters, and that continued even in July.
While we have set revenue market share as the goal or the target that we monitor, we are doing very well on the volume market share as well. You saw the curve there for the revenue market share on the right. The booking pipeline continues to be strong. Open bookings are 280,000. Very strong bookings continue in for Thar at 10,000 per month. Very strong bookings on both Scorpio, Scorpio and 14,000 together, and Seven Double O is at 8,000 per month, as an ongoing booking. Booking pipeline continues to be strong. Cancellation rates are what they've been, which is less than 8%. Just a quick update on capacity. We had said we would get to 39,000 by March of the calendar, which is end of FY 20 2023.
We got, we got there, but we had challenges for the last three to four months, three months actually after that, on specific engine block parts, nothing to do with semiconductors. Specifically on semiconductors related to ECU and the airbags, which had affected us during the course of the quarter. Most of those are behind us, and as Anish said, we are now close to full, full capacity of 39,000 by way of production, which includes exports of SUVs. The number you saw of 36,200 was the domestic number in July, and we are on track to achieve the Q4 FY 2024 capacity enhancement. Anish covered this. Again, I'm going to do this quickly, but just gives you a trend chart of how we've grown the LCV market share.
The whole new portfolio of pickups, it's on the deck, which we put up in media, so I'm not gonna repeat that. You can take a look at it, which is the whole new pickup portfolio with the Manoj Bajpayee commercial. Some very good feedback on international launches, and then wanted to look at the visuals here, the kind of dealership network we're creating around the world. That's Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, all creating a very good brand image for our products. Last mile mobility continues to do very well. The highest ever three-wheeler electric volumes of 14,700, and we continue our market leadership of with a market share of 65.5. These are the EV programs that we have spoken about.
The Inglo platform with 2 products, XUVe 8 and XUVe 9, 2 BE products, O 5 and O 7. Then in February, in Hyderabad, we had spoken about and shown the Rally. All of these are on track. The Rally date got added later, everything else is in line with what we had spoken about a year back, and we are on track. As you know, we already have some protos running and so on, and we'll talk a little bit more on that on 15th August. We've just done the Temasek deal yesterday, which valued the business at INR 80,580 crore or INR 9.8 billion, which is 15% higher than the upper end of the valuation of the BII deal.
As we've re- reinforced, and Anish has spoken about earlier as well, we don't want to dilute too much at this stage, and hence, the cash flows of... the cash inflows of investors are being also managed to tie in with the cash flows the business will need. So there is a certain cash plan required, and we are managing funds in a manner that ties up with that. As we said, we don't want to dilute too much. This is the auto console, and on the right, you see the 81% PBIT growth is without the KG Mobility adjustment, and that's the INR 405 crore on top, and that's 141% if you take that.
This is a slide I think, you know, would be maybe answering a question that all of you have been asking us: When do we get back to our margins that we used to have? That was the FY 2019 margin, which is 7.5%, and in quarter one, we are at 7.5%. Farm volumes were down, but it's still the second highest ever quarter volume. Market share is up, Anish spoke about that. This is the highest quarterly market share since quarter two of FY 2020, at 42.9%. We see a big upside.
We've spoken about that earlier in a segment in which we have a relatively lower presence, and that's the orchard and the lightweight tractor market, which size of which is approximately 50,000, and our market, segment market share there is, there is 30%. With the launch of the Swaraj Target, which has already happened, and the OJA, which will happen in the second later part of this quarter, we see an upside for us in this segment and enabling us to increase overall tractor market share. Anish Shah spoke about farm machine. We're seeing good momentum. Clearly, our aspirations for growth are higher, and we should see that start coming in during the later part of the year. Quick look at the farm PBIT, 22% growth unconsolidated.
As we did last time, we are putting up here again the core tractor margin for you to be able to understand how the core business is doing. You can see that the core tractor margin in quarter one is now at 18.6% against the FY 2019 average of 19.8%. Again, it's showing a very good trajectory to tend towards the FY 2019 number. With that, Manoj. Thank you.
Thank you, Rajesh. I think I won't go into the details of the numbers. I think I, I want to spend more time on, on, on the segment and the exceptional item accounting. This, we spoke about this in terms of both auto and farm, and in fact, auto led the growth. Just a quick look of how that splits out. If you look at... This is the first time we are splitting it, so I'm gonna spend a bit of time on this. If you look at last quarter, last year, same quarter, we were at about INR 2,200 crore. If I look at the growth in profits, it's come from auto largely, which is about INR 533 in the core operating side of the business.
INR 405 crore is because of the KG Mobility mark to market. Farm has been very steady, contributing INR 205 crore. What we call services, which is Tech M, Mahindra Finance, Growth Gems, and all the other businesses there, I think that's, that's, that's the piece which has contributed INR 169 crore. Within that, of course, there is a gain because of MCIE sale, which is also coming through. The components are there. I think Tech M was a decline from INR 320 crore to INR 195 crore. Mahindra Finance was a growth from INR 125 crore to INR 188 crore. This is another cut, I think, as Anish said, I think with every, every passing quarter, and we are trying to give improved visibility in terms of so that you can understand some of these numbers much better.
Lastly, a quick look at standalone, and, I think we covered it, in terms of the EBIT margin, so I'm not going to spend time on this. The slide I want to spend time on is, is probably this. I think the first column, is, this is kind of a P&L walk, from where we used to report exceptional items to what are we reporting now. The first column in the gray is the old approach, is what I would call it, and then these are the changes. If you look at it, two, three things we are saying. We are saying, firstly and foremost, that we are taking an active role in managing and operating our portfolio companies, and hence it's an operating segment, so a lot of the income will now get reported as operating income.
What is that income? The first set of things which will come as any gains on account of sales, maybe sometimes there's a revaluation, all of that would come in as a gain. The second thing is dividend income, because that's an essential part of income. That's going to come in as an operating income. If you look at the first example in the standalone, I think the INR 78 is moving from other income, which is typically dividend, that's moving out of there and moving into the operating line. The operating line also has the MCIE income. That's, that's the way to look at it. In the past, it would have been reported, and I don't have a pointer, unfortunately. It would have been reported as exceptional, the INR 234.
There's a contra there, so I think that's the change. What it makes is, if you look at the old-
Pointer is this one.
There is a pointer?
Center, center. Center, yeah.
Okay. Maybe I'll use this. Actually, it's, it's not really functional. I think in the old approach, the EBITDA will look as 13.5, and in the new approach, it'll-
It will walk on screen.
Sorry?
This pointer will.
Yeah. I think INR 13.5 and INR 14.6, that's the difference. Now, what we will try and do is every time there's such a gap, we'll try and explain to the best of our possibility in terms of the changes which are happening. That's on the standalone side. On the console side, if I look at the same number, I think it goes up to INR 485, is where the operating income comes in. Now, that's a function of two things. The cost basis for MCIE is different in consolidated versus standalone. The second thing is that we also sold Sanyo. There was already an option to sell it, so that gain was already in standalone, but it was not reflecting in consolidated till the sale got completed, so that's in the INR 485.
There are some other minor items. In the consolidated, it would have been a INR 465 exceptional item gain, which, which is now not there and now gets reported as operating. I think that's the broad changes. Other than that, this is the SEBI format, we have to follow the format. There will be a, a line called share of profit of associates and joint ventures, which will continue as before, which is a profit pickup. In effect, the income from associates, which is the line which has been added into the operating income, is actually a line directly coming out of our actions and or inaction, as the case may be, in, in terms of an expense. That's what we are trying to reflect.
When we go to the segment, all of this vanishes, everything falls under those four segments, and there'll be a little bit of unallocable because of some surplus fund income, et cetera, which, which again, from an accountability perspective, lies with corporate in terms of how to manage that more effectively. So that's, that's essentially the change we have done. I, I know that, as we go along, I think disclosures around this will also improve. So that if there are any questions, please feel free to ask, and we'll try to make it as easy as possible for you to understand the numbers. With that, I think, I'll throw it open for questions. Thank you.
Just 1 second. We just have 3 or few seconds. It's easy to answer.
Yeah.
Other. Give us one minute to have the-
Is that all right?
... speakers seated. We'll take questions. We have been receiving a lot of questions, through the web chat as well, we will, we'll make sure we address those as well. We could just have a question.
Yes, go ahead, please.
Yeah, please.
Good evening.
We'll just hand you a mic.
We'll just get you a mic.
Just, just give us a second.
Thank you. Good evening, this is Deepak Gupta from SBI Pension. Congratulations on a fantastic set of numbers. two specific questions on the IBL investment, two small questions, actually. one, is the company planning to apply to the regulators for a board seat on IBL board? Secondly... Yeah, firstly, that, if there's any thought.
Answer is no. Right? Our, our approach was, at this point, just to take a stake that was.
... meaningful enough for us to be able to engage with them. We do not have an intention, as I said, of becoming a bank, so there is no discussion of a board seat. There is no intention from our side to take a board seat, and that's where we are.
Sure. Secondly, why was this investment not done through Mahindra Financial Services, given the fact that Mahindra Financial Services is incubating few subsidiaries, be it mutual fund, be it insurance broker, why wasn't this investment done through them?
See, the reason it's not done through them is, if it was a strategic path to becoming a bank, we'd do it through Mahindra Financial. Because then it would become something that Mahindra Financial would be investing more in. This was more from our standpoint as an investor, to be able to look at our stake in financial services, understand that a lot better, allow us to be able to make the right decisions around that over the long term, and therefore, it has been done at the M&M level. We felt that it was a better use, or rather it was more appropriate to do it here, because it's not something that is there for the short term. It's not something that we're getting into banking, and therefore we're not doing it through Mahindra Finance.
Sure. Thank you so much.
Yes, Kapil?
Yeah, thank you. Anish, you know, just to setting the context, you know, since you've taken over, we have seen, you know, consolidation of all the investments, and continuously the ROE has also seen a significant improvement. Yes, I mean, the RBL investment is something we were not expecting. In that context, if you could help us understand how you what really is the capital allocation policy? You know, it's a very basic question, but if you could set expectations for us in terms of what to expect. Earlier we have talked about we'll not invest auto and farm cash flows into other investments. Is there a more, you know, a broader vision here that you could lay out for us?
Yeah. Thanks for that question, Kapil. First, the principles stay the same, which we've talked about before. We will not invest auto and farm cash flow into services, and therefore, we've now clearly outlined those three. Where we ideally want to go, which we cannot say today, is auto cash flow will be used for auto, farm cash flow will be used for farm, services cash flow will be used for services. Given the EV investments, we'll have a better sense in the next three or four quarters. We may have to use a little bit of the farm cash flow for auto, but our sense right now is most likely that will not be needed. It will most likely be funded within auto.
I'm just, again, not committing to something at this point, but giving you a sense of the fact that that principle stays and will get further strengthened. That's one key principle from a capital allocation standpoint. The second key principle is that we will invest in what is strategically core for us. Does that mean that we will not invest in anything outside? I would say that that is unlikely, but if we do find a very compelling area outside, which we think can be strategic for us in future, we will invest there, right? The bar is extremely high for that. We've said no to lots and lots of things in the last two or three years, and every week there's a question that someone raises, "You know, here's an investment opportunity. Would you invest in, in that?" Our quick answer is no.
There may be something at some point that looks very appealing, and if it does, then we will look at that. That's the second part. We will invest what's core for us. Therefore, RBL is core from a financial services standpoint, because of an INR 40,000 crore business in that space already. The third, and in some ways the most important, is that capital will be allocated when we have a very high level of confidence that it's going to give us a return, that we think it will when we invest in that space. Because, as I said earlier, it's really about performance. It's about delivery of that. If we can deliver returns that are higher than what other companies can in that space, then our investors will actually want us to do more in that space.
The problems we've had in the past is because we didn't execute well enough there, right? That may be for a variety of reasons. There again, the bar has been raised significantly to say, if any of our leaders wants capital in a particular space, they need to be able to demonstrate a very high degree of confidence that the returns that we say when we invest will be given, and we need to be able to monitor that on a regular basis. That's what we tell our leaders. Talk about a 5x challenge, right? The message that we send internally is, "Yes, you've got to be bold in setting your targets, but tomorrow morning I'm going to ask you, how are you implementing on that?
What are your milestones, and are you meeting your milestones?" Implementation of that is as important, if not more important than setting the targets. Those are the three key principles that we would look at from a capital allocation standpoint.
We have talked about the fact, you know, that, you know, one of your core focus areas has been Right to Win, right? Does this investment in any way or in what way it contributes to that? Can you just articulate that?
Yeah. Here, Kapil, the challenge has been in this investment that everyone, right, the media, the public, everyone's been looking at it and saying: "How does this change what you do tomorrow?" The answer to that is, it does not, right? This is an investment that allows me to answer that question five years from now. The difference is, we have a long horizon. As a leader, I've got a 15-year horizon, right? Five years from now, seven years from now, when we've got a very large entity in financial services, the question someone's going to raise at some point is: does it make sense for you to be a bank? Today, we are not allowed to be a bank. We don't want to be a bank, right?
I don't have an answer to a question of does it make sense for us to be a bank. Because we don't have enough information on that. These are not decisions that we can take lightly or take quickly as well. We need to really understand them in depth over a long period of time. Therefore, it is going to be five to seven years later that we will be able to answer those questions, and therefore, we need to make those investments today. As I said, we're protecting an INR 40,000 crore investment or enhancing an INR 40,000 crore investment. That is the reason for us to be able to do this right now, and that's also the reason why it's not as easily apparent right now, because there's no immediate benefit from it. It's going to come only five to seven years later.
Sure. Manoj, can I ask one question on, just on the financials? If you could just talk us through in terms of what were the price increases and commodity changes that we have seen for the quarter? How is the outlook for second quarter and the price increases there?
I, I think I won't give specific price increases, et cetera, but I, I think more from a perspective of looking forward, I think two, two parts here. We do expect that the commodity environment, at, at least what we are pricing in, is a benign environment going forward also. I think in that environment, I think we'll have to see what we can do on the pricing front. I think that's point number one. Point number two is, as, as we look at from a goal perspective, if you saw the quarter-on-quarter margin increases, I think we are all goal towards improving margins over a period of time, and that's something we will strive towards.
I think that's the broad guidelines, without getting into the details of how much price increase, et cetera. I think, this is a dynamic kind of phase where we will take select price increases in select products at different times. Rajesh, any more color if you want to add, please?
Yeah, Kapil, I just want to bring alive that we've just implemented the BS-VI point two, which has meant material cost increase. The margin percentage increase is in spite of that. When we say the commodity environment is benign, it just means that it is still nowhere back to the 2019 level. In fact, we had kept some charts ready. Most of the core commodities are between 15% to 25% higher than they were in the 2019 time to now. The time when we are comparing our margin of 7.5% to 7.5%, when we say it is benign, all the key commodities are still 15% to 20% higher. They've just come down from the 1 big peak that we saw 1 year back. They're way, way, way above the 2019 levels.
Again, you know, back to the margin as a percentage topic. We've gone through BS-VI, we've gone through BS-VI point two, we've gone through a, let's say, corrected, averaged out, say, 16%-17% commodity inflation. All of this is a lot, and in a business of our size, we are 7.5% margin on the auto, now 18.6% on the core tractors, way above the peers, including on the auto side, all the listed companies. Way, way above the peers, some of whom are much bigger by way of top line than us. Clearly, you're seeing a series of actions by way of the way we are managing our mix, prices, and overall costs. That's what is enabling this to happen.
I, I, I think the range of price increases we've taken in the region of, on the auto side, 5 odd %, but that includes the BS 6.2 as well. Just reinforcing that, unfortunately, the BS 6.2 did not give an opportunity for a natural price increase to improve margin, because, again, you're forced to take an increase to set off a cost. Continuously we are taking increases to set off costs and not getting the headroom to take increases to improve margin.
Right.
What's really happening is management of mix and other costs, and of course, driving material costs down, which we've been talking about. But at the moment, costs are not allowing, are not easing off from a total cost point of view.
Rajesh, if I can just stay on that topic, because there are some questions which are linked to this.
Yeah.
This is coming from Chandramouli, who's asking, basically, given this entire environment you describe, what are the forward margin levers in the business, both in auto and tractor? Then a related question again was, do you expect the expansion to continue? This is coming from Raghunandan, who's basically asking whether with commodity prices in a benign environment and also run out of introductory pricing, do you see those helping you on margins?
Yeah, I, I think the, Amar, the answer is not going to be very different to both, both of these questions. I, I think we made substantial progress and over-delivered on what we had said would be the margin improvements. We had said that we will not get anywhere near F nineteen margins unless we see a significant commodity correction. We are very close to F nineteen margins, in spite of not having a significant commodity correction or a significant correction in cost structures. So I think you should just trust our desire as much as yours to want to over-deliver on margin, because that's important for us as well. So I would just leave it at that, rather than saying, "Are we going to increase margin by X or Y or Z?" I think the trend line should show our intent.
Okay.
Hi, this is Kumar Rakesh from BNP. Thanks, Anish, for taking the effort to explain the RBL. I'll just have very simple question, more to understand what is the tangible benefit we have from this acquisition? The reason I'm asking this question, you have said that we are not looking at turning into a bank, Mahindra Finance. You have also said that we are not going to increase the stake beyond 9.99, so that puts the merger out of equation. You have also said that we are not going to take the board seat, so the strategic interaction with the bank may not be happening, and we would be just be a shareholder in that company. How are we going to gain a tangible outcome from this?
That is my primary question, but the bigger question I have is that, if we do not are setting or at least sharing a tangible benefit from these acquisition or investments, it sets a question that we may be doing something similar for other businesses as well, which we, at least in the near term, may not be able to understand that what's the rationale, which I think Kapil also tried understanding, is what essentially becomes the capital allocation policy if we do not see immediate tangible benefits of these investments?
Yeah. On that, Rakesh, there will be somewhere, there will be immediate tangible benefits. If we make an acquisition tomorrow, there'll be a certain target return for that acquisition. There'll be an immediate tangible benefits. There will be somewhere, as a management team, we have to look into the future as well. Let me outline the path for this. This we look at as first step is just an investment. An investment that should not be a cost to us, should actually generate good returns for our shareholders. Investing in RBL, which we consider as one of the strongest banks in its space and a very well-run, a very good management team as well, at a 0.9 x price to book, is a very strong investment to make. That's one part, but that's not the reason to do it. Right?
The reason to do it is, it allows us the ability to be able to go in and understand banking a lot more. Once we do that, we can answer the question, say: Is it a strategic benefit for us or not? Is it a compelling strategic benefit for us to be able to look at banking more closely? If the answer to that is yes, we will look at taking a 9.9% stake at that point in time. I don't foresee that happening anytime in the next two to three years, it may be longer than that, but that's what we've got to be able to address. Once we have that, the question also is: Will regulations change at some point in time? Is there a benefit to Mahindra Finance becoming a bank or not?
As I said earlier, I don't know what the answer to that question is today. Will we create more value for our shareholders by Mahindra Finance becoming a bank? That's a question that I would look at answering five or seven years later. If we don't put the spade work to be able to answer that question today, then we're not going to have the answer to that. That said, if it required spending INR 4,000 crore today, we wouldn't do it. If it required spending INR 400 crore with the chance of losing half of it, we wouldn't do it either. It is, in a sense, a considered judgment to say this is worth taking it... Think of it as an option value, right? A costless option or an option that will actually give us returns in any case.
Worst case scenario is we get some of the answers to that, we say, "Okay, fine, we are on the right track. We are doing very well. We'll enhance value of Mahindra Finance as is. Let's sell our investment. five years, seven years later, we'll get good returns for that investment." That's part of what we look at as from an option value standpoint.
Thanks for that. My second question was on the cash flow side, which you said that we'll be using services cash flow for investing in services and keep the Auto and Farm cash flow for that businesses. The thing is that services business itself is generating quite a sizable cash flow, and if Tech Mahindra actually turns around, that number could be going significantly higher as well. Why not create a separate entity itself, maybe a holding company or something like that, so that investors, as well as you, have a better comfort and ability to make those investments more independently?
Yeah. On that, Rakesh, we have not given up on that thought. That has been a question that has been raised, and my response has always been that we will look at everything that is required to create shareholder value. For us, the first step that was important was to clean up, which we have done. The second step is to have all our businesses firing on all cylinders, which we've done for a good part, but not completely. We have more work to do in some businesses in, in that space. Then we will look at what is the real synergy of keeping some businesses together. If there is greater synergy and we can demonstrate that, and we are convinced, and we can convince our investors and our analysts on, on that front, then we'll keep them together.
If we are not convinced, and if we cannot convince our investor and analysts, then we will look at, at some point separating it. That's not on the cards in the near future because we still have more work to do with our businesses, but something that will be, things that we're looking at. For now, our bar is if we can create greater value than our competitors in any given space, that is where we will invest. We've had discussions with some of our businesses saying, "We're not going to invest in you because you don't have a clear path, or you've got a sub 10% ROE today, and I don't see that going to a certain level, and therefore, we're not going to give you more money." We've had that discussion. We've had many of those businesses out of the group by now as well.
In the businesses we have today that we call our growth gems, we see a very strong potential for growth. Two of them have demonstrated a 5x growth already. When we talk about a 5x challenge, it is not an abstract. Susten has a 5x plan to go from 1.6 GW to 7 GW, right? In the next five years. Not exactly 5x, but I'll round up sort of to 5x there, given it's a fairly aggressive plan, and they're on track to do that. Not only that, we had Ontario Teachers' come in and effectively underwrite that plan, saying: "We will invest in this company based on this plan." Similarly, Last Mile Mobility. Last Mile Mobility is more aggressive. It's actually going to be 5x in three years or something of that sort.
There again, we have IFC coming in and investing at a valuation that reflects that growth rate. We have businesses being able to demonstrate that with marquee investors coming and saying, "We believe in you." Now we need to implement and make that happen, and we need to get other businesses to that level as well. These are businesses that we feel we can grow. These are kind of growth rates that we will not see in those industries. If we can do that, that's what we're growing our services portfolio, that's where we'll invest. If I go back to your point, does that mean that we will use all the cash flows from services? Most likely not, because you're right, it's generating a good bit of cash flow, okay?
The one thing that we are very, very conscious of is that just because we have the cash, we don't need to use it, okay? We're very happy returning that cash if we don't find a need for it. We haven't done that as yet because we are still in the growth mode. We still want to look at where can we get cash from, and we've had cash to do ourselves. We didn't need to go and have other investors come in, but we are bringing them in to be able to show that discipline in every investment as well, okay? Last mile mobility, it's a much smaller cash requirement that we can fund ourselves. We had IFC come in for last mile mobility, for Sustained, we had Ontario Teachers come in.
For some of our other growth gens, we might get investors in as well, because that discipline is important for us. It's very likely we will end up returning a fair bit of that cash. Most important, as I go back to the response I gave to Kapil , is for us to be able to demonstrate we can get those returns and then execute and actually get them, okay? If we can do that, our investors will be telling us, "Please invest more, and please do more on this, in this front.
Thank you.
I'll just add here, Anjali Sinha's question and Pramod Amte's were answered by your response to RBL. Maybe if you could just answer one more from the web, which is from Chirag, from White Pine, who's basically asking: understand the logic, but why RBL? Why that specific bank?
Okay, great question, Chirag. There are a number of banks in that space. First of all, it had to be a bank which was very well-performing, a strong management team, sort of very, very low probability of getting back and losing money. As I said, that was one of the criteria we had around it. As I look at this, this is over a sort of five-year horizon. This is not over a five-month horizon. A bank that had very strong prospects going forward as well. Amongst all of those, as we saw in that space, also a bank that was reasonably small in size, because we weren't going to go out and spend INR 4,000 crore to sort of, you know, go down this path, to Rakesh's question there.
All of those criteria, RBL was the best bank that we could find in that space, okay? Many of the other banks in that space, I know, would have been very happy for us to come in. I know for a fact, as there were, you know, some reach outs, that some would have been happy for us to take a 9.9% stake on day one and immediately go in and say... We said, "Look, we don't need to do that," right? We're not gonna come in and do that, and therefore, we stayed with the bank that we thought was the best in this space, and, and one that we think will give us good investment returns, even if the other aspects don't work out.
Yeah. Sir, hi, Pratik here from Nippon AMC. Manoj mentioned about, you know, taking a very active role in terms of reviewing and as well as investing or, I mean, reviewing your investments, right? My question is, can you double-click on the review mechanism which you have set in place for monitoring whatever targets for each of your subsidiaries, which you have set? What is the real review mechanism? I think you also talked about implementation as the key core, right? What is that? What is this implementation? How will you monitor this such that they achieve their growth path rather than just being on a presentation?
There are two sets of things we have. First is, we've got a set of what we call war rooms, but they are essentially a strategy review once a year. Three months later, a budget review, which is a budget set based on that strategy. Three months later, a people review, which is, do we have the right set of people, to be able to drive that? Three months later, an operating review, which is, how is the business operating as compared to the budget that we've set? That's an annual cycle of reviews that we do for every business, which is a very in-depth discussion. In the case of Auto and Farm, it will span an entire day. In the case of some of the other businesses, it may not span an entire day.
It will be half a day, or it may be a little less, based on the size of the business. The second thing that we have is a monthly review, for what we call breakthrough projects. For each of these businesses, especially where we have investment, we are looking at what is a clear set of outcomes that will be driven, what are the input metrics for that investment, and therefore, there's a monthly review on breakthrough projects with each, with each of those businesses. That's how we continue to look at: are we on track? If we are not on track, what corrective action should we take? I mean, everything will not work, okay? If everything is working, then we are not taking enough risk.
There will be some things that don't work, but we need to be able to take corrective action quickly. That maybe is one thing I missed in Kapil's question on capital allocation, is the ability to act fast if things don't work, okay? We're not gonna stay sort of long and keep waiting for or hoping for things to turn around over a long period of time, and that's part of the reason for this review philosophy.
I remember in one of the conferences, you talked about being agile, right? Bold, agile was what you were trying to talk about in terms of culture. Again, the question is, when, let's say, certain investments are not going the way you plan, how agile will you be, or how ruthless will you be in terms of, you know, getting it, getting it right, or else, as you said, A, B, C, and putting it under B, you know, putting it under C, and then actually taking it in the P&L above EBITDA rather than below EBITDA?
We have demonstrated that we are fairly ruthless on that front. I would just let those actions talk for itself. If we believe that there is a reason for getting back on track, and it is articulated well, and there are milestones for that, then we will give a little more space to the team to be able to do that. If we don't believe those reasons are there, then we will start looking for an exit path, as we have done for our businesses in the past. That is, again, a critical element of capital allocation, the ability to be able to recognize what's not working quickly enough and be able to act on it.
... Last question, Rajesh, you know, 7.5% EBIT margins, industry-leading EBIT margins. Incrementally, is the focus more on, you know, reinvesting incremental margins into the business or, or to rather let it flow through the P&L? What's your thought over there?
I don't, I don't think there's a black and white answer to a question like this ever. You know, let me try and say why, you know, explain why I'm saying that. Every business will be at different stages in the life cycle, of growth, consolidation, stability, so on and so forth, and we've got to take decisions on an ongoing basis on where we need to invest, and when you have an ability to cash out and just play the margin game. Doing either one recklessly upsets a balance, right? We would not do anything reckless on pricing in a way that would upset our ability to drive volumes, because we know you may hit margins in the short run, you will start losing volume very quickly, and then the whole value of operating leverage is gone, right?
I think all of these are judgments that you've got to take depending on the situation. You've got to keep your... Just to take the example of pricing, very adaptive to what the market can take, but more importantly, not just from a competitive lens, but also from a customer lens. If you lose the core of who you are and try to pretend that it's not going to impact the customer, it's going to affect you soon. You know, we can always be very reckless right now and say, "You know, we have, 10,000 new bookings coming in," so on and so forth. Let's say on Thar or, you know, we have 280,000 booking. Let's take a 7% price increase.
maybe 280,000 will become 100,000 bookings, but then we've lost the core of who we are, because then you lose your price position. The minute customers say you lost your value proposition, slowly that's going to spread, and all those who are coming to you because of a reason are going to find a reason to go to someone else. You know, I think these are things we ought to be very sensitive to, and do with a lot of judgment. You know, I, I, I don't think a business is in a stage where you can say, "Yeah, you know, great, great bookings, so let's just go and cash out and start taking margins up." That's, you know, detrimental to the long run.
Neither can we say that, you know, we don't care what's happening to costs, let margins go down because that's the reality. It's, it's a question of balancing multiple levers in the business and knowing and having a judgment of which lever is going to give you the right mix of outcome. That's what we try to do, and that's why I was trying to explain why we've been able to get industry best margins, in spite of what we believe are, very adverse things in the environment like, you know, BS6, BS6.2, commodity prices, so on and so forth, because we are playing all the levers well. What's the right model mix, so on and so forth. I, I don't know if I've answered your question, but I'm just trying to...
Since your earlier questions were around, you know, the enabling processes, I've tried to answer this more from a process standpoint.
Really helpful. Thanks. Thanks.
Hi. Hi, this is Yogesh from HSBC. A couple of questions. First, on autos, Rajesh, while the bookings are great, the Vahan registration last few months have been lower than the wholesale. Actually, maybe barring one or two months, last four, five months, it's been happening. How do you read the registration data? That is one. I think you were targeting 20,000 sales for XUV400. Seems a little slow traction for that as of now. Is there a risk to CAFE targets because of the slow... I have a follow-up later.
Okay, let me take the second question first and then come to the first. We had said 18,000 as our volume target for the year, not 20. As we've got into selling the product, a couple of things on our mind. One is, we did feel that we need more time to ramp up production as we stabilize quality. This is the first time we are doing an EV SUV of this scale. There is an organization learning around multiple elements of ensuring product quality, so we are capping production at a certain level for the first five, six months. I think that's point one, that I think we said that last time, too, that we are going to back end a lot of the volume.
We may not do 18,000 in that process. We may do something lower. But at this point of time, I think there's a lot for us to learn as an organization, even in the way we sell the product. Unlike what happens on ICE, where customers are willing to buy our products very easily without adequate test drive, questions, so on and so forth, the process of selling an electric is a process which takes time from a customer, education, awareness, charging infra, so on and so forth. I think the next few months, you know, it's also about getting our dealership network ready, service network, all of that. We are using 400 more like a building block to build organization capability and learning, learning at this stage, and not looking to push volume.
We will do that in the second half, starting November. Right now, I'm just giving November as a date because there's a reason, and we will share that reason as we come lower, but really as we come closer to the time, but really, we're looking at back ending the sale post-November. You already seen, we, you know, we had some feature shortcomings, which we've overcome. There's a plan to, you know, make up some of that as we come along. We are going to back end the sale rather than front end it. That's broadly where we are on 400. On the Vahan question, Vijay, you want to take that?
... Sorry, Rajesh, does that? Okay, from a CAFE perspective,
From a CAFE perspective, there's no risk.
Okay.
There's no risk from a CAFE perspective.
Okay, fine.
Just quickly on Vahan, you need to see the Vahan data by category. If you look at the registration data of Vahan, you'll see two-wheelers, three-wheelers, and passenger cars have seen a higher gap between billing and retail. Unfortunately, in Vahan, you will not be able to get the classification of SUVs within the category of passenger vehicles. If you see the data specifically to SUVs, you'll see that in terms of stock at dealerships, because that's the feed that we get, whether it is for us or for competition. SUVs, specifically in the region of between INR 8 lakhs-12 lakhs, is where there has been a little bit of headwinds, and we've been talking about that even in the previous meet.
By and large, if you see SUVs as a category, retail is not as much under pressure as compared to some of the other segments in the passenger car segment.
Okay.
Yeah, but that's what I was trying to tell him, that if you look at Vahan data, you cannot classify it to say, what is compact SUV? What is small car? What is mid-size car? What is large-size SUV? When you look at the Vahan data by category, if you classify the data, you will see that the SUV segment per se, is not seeing that kind of pressure in retail. The gap between billing and retail.
Okay. Just on RBL, Anish, the, I think the way I understand it, it's more of a call option. As you said, you want to test it and then, see how it goes. Are there other large, big sector opportunities which may tempt you? I mean,
Great question. Great question on that. The simple answer is my favorite word, which is no. See, again, if you look at it, this is one sector which has huge potential in India. If you look at Morgan Stanley's report on $4.2 trillion to be added in India GDP over the next seven years, financial services is going to be one important part of that. We have a very large business in that sector, but a business which is not a bank. So that question will come up for us at some point in time, and therefore, that. It's a unique sector from that standpoint. All other sectors are a lot more straightforward. We, we're not going to...
Again, in some places we may have an option play because there may be, let's say, a promoter who is not willing to sell a certain business, and we work with them, and then we say, "Look, we'll take a stake in your business right now, and we may have the option to acquire it in future." Those are things that may happen. From that standpoint, yes, but we're not looking at anything outside our core sectors right now. Even here, because it's a core sector, because we've got a large investment, was the only reason we were looking at it, not otherwise. In that context, we may take a 20% stake in the company and, and then look at increasing that stake over time, as we have done in the past. With Sampo, I think we had done that. We'd taken a lower stake.
With Mitsubishi Tractors, we had done that in Japan as well, where we'd taken a lower stake first and then got into a higher level. Some of those things will happen. If the gist of your question was, look, are we going to look for sort of option plays outside somewhere else where it's not directly linked to our business? The answer to that is no.
Just
Yeah, a number of questions in the first row.
Yeah.
Let's get to the first row.
Amari, you want to-
Thanks so much.
Right after this.
Thanks for giving the presentation and, you know, covering this topic upfront. I think just a follow-up that I have, like, what I heard of you is, you know, it's an optionality to have a larger financial play. But are there any milestone that you have in mind? Okay, you know, I'm at 3.5%. This is working the way I imagined, and I can take the stake up. Or two years down the line, you probably take a call, okay, you know, let's bring it down to zero. So what are the milestone? And typically, that's the way you've operated in last two, three years, that have milestones in place.
What is it that we have in mind for this investment that gives us confidence that, you know, this is progressing the way we thought or otherwise, just, you know, let it go, it's a treasury investment gone? I mean, how should, as a analyst or investor, I look at it, you know, at what point INR 3.5 can become INR 5, INR 5 can become INR 7? Is there any milestone that you can talk, you know, talk us through?
Okay. 3.5% will not become 5% or 7%. Specifically to your question, I'd look at a two to three year timeframe for us to really understand banking in more detail. I'm not worried about the investment part. As I said, from a treasury investment perspective, this is a very good bank. It will give us a strong treasury investment return. Right, but that's not the reason that's not the primary reason we are holding it. I'd look at a two to three year horizon to be able to understand that in more detail, to be able to first address questions that we would have around being able to answer: Is banking something that's good for us? We've looked at banking multiple times over the last 10 years.
Right, at one point, when RBI had opened up banking for corporates, we actually withdrew our application. We didn't put an application in because based on how the rules were outlined, banking was not good for us. That was the right answer for us at that point in time. We got a payments bank license, right? As we looked at it in more detail in terms of what was required for a payments bank, we said, "Look, this does not make sense for us." We gave that license back. We've always looked at it, but from the outside, right? This is one where we need to sort of get closer to a bank to be able to really understand and appreciate what can banking do for Mahindra Finance. Can it enhance the value of Mahindra Finance or not?
Which is where I would look at the first phase being two to three years. Right, at that point in time, if we feel that, look, there is more merit to this, and there is something that, look, that can enhance the value of Mahindra Finance significantly, then we would look at potentially taking the next step at that point and say, "Let's go to 9.9% with a board seat." That would be a strategic point to it, with a set of milestones after that to say, "Here's what we need to achieve to make that a strategic thing," which at that point also would be a second option in a sense, right? That's not the end goal, right? The end goal will be 5-7 to 10 years later. This is therefore something that is not apparent at first glance, right?
That comes back to Rakesh's question of: What is a tangible outcome from there? For us, if you fast-forward seven years and Mahindra Finance is 3 x its size, and banking has been opened up for corporates, and there is a very solid reason for Mahindra Finance to become a bank, and we've understood that in a lot of depth, that could have been considered a masterstroke at that point in time. That's one end of the spectrum. The other, other end of the spectrum is we sort of look at it over the next two or three years or five years, and we say that, "Look, it's really not a space that makes sense for Mahindra Finance because it works very well in the space that it is in today." We say, "Fine, take the treasury and exit." Right?
We're not looking at that as a short-term answer. That's my primary thing. For us, it's a longer-term investment with the assurance that we're not going to lose money. In fact, we'll make a lot of money on it.
Okay, got it.
So-
Yeah.
Sorry. You have a follow-up?
Yeah. Okay,
Just one more thing I'll add to that is. One thing I haven't said before is one element in here is a discipline in capital allocation as well, which is we had taken approval from our board to get to 4.9%, right? Which was the first step. We did not want to go more than 0.9 x book. The minute the price hit 0.9 x book, we said, "We're stopping here now." Right? We've achieved what we had to with this. Therefore, I say we won't go from 3.5% to 4% or 5% or 6% or 7%, right? It will be at some point in time, either we go to 9.9% or we don't.
Okay, that's clear. The other question that I had was on the EV investments. Now, we are generating enough cash flows by ourselves. We have BII funds, which haven't been drawn down on. What is the thought process around bringing in, you know, these smaller stake strategic investors? I'm just not very clear, you know, there is already a financial investor, there's huge cash generation. Was there a need for another transaction? What is it that we are trying to achieve through these, you know, stake sales? Is it something that you are-- you know, you look to bring in more investors over a period of time? How should I think about the funding of this business then?
This is a, in a broader strategic view on it, which is, it's important for us to bring in marquee investors where we feel they can enhance the value of the business. BII coming in, Temasek coming in, these are two investors that understand EV across the world. They're playing in multiple countries in the world, and they're going to be able to give us insights, potentially linkages with other companies around the world. We've got to address a number of questions in, in EV. What are battery optionalities? Where, where are multiple sources for battery, not just battery. Where do minerals come from that make the batteries, right? In all of these things, having investors like BII and Temasek is going to give us a lot more insights for us to be able to run our business better, and therefore, we value them coming in.
That's sort of one aspect to it. The second aspect to it is, across the group, as I've talked about taking many of our businesses 5x, we want an external investor to come in and give us the validation. I come back to my primary point: execution is important, right? We may have a view, our leaders may have a view, they may be very gung ho on it, but if we're going to put capital behind it, I feel a lot better if someone like Temasek comes in and says, "Look, I'm sitting with you on this business as well." Not for EV. For EV, I think we've got a long way, but it will be for other businesses that, that we would look at as part of a 5x plan for our growth gems, right?
If we're going to put capital, we'd love to have them with us. All these investors are not coming in just for this investment. They're coming in to do other things with us across the group as well. We don't have to go out and sort of do fundraising, which we don't want to do because we don't want funds. We want the partnership with marquee investors to look at our group businesses and say: What else can we do with this business, right? With Ontario Teachers, with IFC, with BII, and Temasek, you got four very solid marquee investors, and all of them have said that we want to do more with you across the group, and that's going to benefit all our other businesses.
That's the strategic reason for doing it, not as much funding, which is also why we try to minimize the amount of dilution. We've tried to say, "Let's keep that as low as possible.
Thank you.
We'll just take some questions from the web as well. This will be the last set of questions. We are at 8 PM.
Maybe I want let's extend it a bit. We've got a few hands up there.
Sure.
Let's take a little more time. As long as you're willing to stay a little more, we'll, we'll, we'll do that.
Okay. This is all for you, Rajesh. I've tried to club a few questions. Raghunandan from Rumumai is asking: What will it take for farm machinery to go up to 40% growth? Rajender from, CA Rajender is asking: Why haven't we picked up on exports? What's keeping us?
Can we just take one at a time?
Yeah, sure.
So that-
These are all farm related.
Yes.
Let me, let me start with the first one. Farm machinery, what does it take to get to 40%?
actually, I don't-- I-- we won't worry about how to get to 40%. I think that we are sure it's gonna happen during the course of the year. It's-- we are on a low base relative to the size of the Indian market. size of the Indian market is in the region of INR 6,000-7,000 crore. We are right now in the region of INR 600-700 crore, so we are way, way below the weight we need to play. so we're... You know, we'll be very disappointed if we don't do 40% this year. we actually have to look at, you know, much higher growth rates, multiple new products that, and segments that we are getting into. We are relaunching a-
... the Swaraj harvest with a significantly improved product in the next season, which is a month from now. There are multiple initiatives in play, and we'll be very disappointed if we don't do 40%.
Second question is, why are exports muted?
Yeah, I, I, too, on the farm side, right?
On the farm side, tractors specifically.
Yeah. Basically, two, two key, two key reasons. One is, U.S. is a key part of exports. The U.S. industry for tractors, in the segments in which we play, is going through a significant industry degrowth after a significant industry growth through the first two years of COVID. Obviously we are adjusting for that, in the way that we export tractors to North America. We don't want to just get into exporting mindlessly and building inventory there. Keeping in norm the right inventory levels that we need, either in our network or, with us in the company, Magna, we, we are adjusting exports to that. U.S. is one part of that. South Asia has been under stress for multiple reasons.
Sri Lanka, we all know, has been having a crisis which is affecting the auto exports as well. That's the, that's the other piece. These are the two primary pieces. Markets like Turkey, et cetera, we are actually doing extremely well, Brazil, we are doing extremely well. All of these are now growing very well and also extremely profitable.
The last question is from Jinesh from Motilal Oswal, who's asking: "Based on the first quarter performance, do you expect improved outlook for the rest of the year, for the farm business?
for the industry, I think the question-
Industry, yeah.
Related to industry.
Improved outlook.
Yeah. You know, we are, having spent so many years in tractors, you know, one should assume that I should be able to answer this question easily. Unfortunately, it's very hard, very hard question to answer. You know, when it's up, we never know why it's up, and when it's down, we never know why it's down. I, I think it's too early to make that call. The rains through July have been a very good positive input. We are, we are also watching because last year was a very high industry base. As we've also said that last year had two Navaratras, so, you know, this year, March, you're not going to see, the Navaratra. You know, the industry shifted from April of this year to March of last year.
There's a double, double whammy of a 30,000-40,000, 25,000-30,000 industry just on account of Navaratra shift. Keeping all of that in mind, you know, we'd rather wait to see what happens over the next couple of months on the... how the industry grows. Typically, we want to take a view depending on how the festival season goes, because that's, that's the key situation. Last year we were wrong on the forecast. We were being pessimistic, and the industry grew faster than what we thought, e-e-even after the number that we put out in October, November. I think, I think it's important to understand that as an organization, we have the supply chain agility to respond to volatility. I mean, that's a key success factor.
Even though we were not expecting the industry to grow, we were ready from a supply chain perspective, or a micro planning of markets to leverage the opportunity when it came up, and we ended up growing market share through the year as the industry upsides kicked in. You should assume that we are ready to do that as well. I, I would just wait another two or three months before getting into a revised view of the industry. There are many positive factors compared to what we thought, three months back. The monsoon is certainly one of them. The kharif sowing is very positive. Farmer terms of trade have improved, so there are many positive enabling factors, but it's too early to call to say whether low single digits will be high single digits or something.
I would just wait a little bit before making that call.
Yeah. Amit?
Hi, this is Joseph from IIFL. I have 3 questions. One is, one of the important aspects of capital allocation is also giving back cash to shareholders, surplus cash to shareholders. What are your thoughts on dividends or potential buybacks, et cetera? That's one. A couple of questions on the SUV side. One is, Rajesh, you mentioned that the cancellation rate on bookings is about 8%. Is that a monthly number or a quarterly number, or how should we look at it? Third, on the SUV side again, how have retails clocked in 1 Q? Wholesales were about 101. How were retail? Retails, if you could, you know, give us a number maybe for the sake of transparency. Thank you.
So first, we've increased dividends significantly this year, I think about 40% or somewhere in the 35%-40% range. Our approach is that, if we cannot use capital effectively, to be able to generate returns over and above what other industry participants would generate, we give it back to our investors. So we will look at how we give it back in the best form if we have to. Right now, we're waiting for our EV plans to get completely finalized to make sure we've got enough buffers for that, and if we have to then start giving back, we will do it at that point in time. We are in a significant growth mode at this point, which is why we haven't done more than that so far.
Despite that, I'd say, you know, close to a 40% increase in dividend is a pretty good start on that front.
Can you just repeat your second question? Sorry.
Second was, the cancellation rate of 8%.
Yeah, sorry. Yeah. 8% is an approximate number. It's an average of the quarter, but there's not much difference through the quarter. It's typically cancellation on the base of open bookings.
Is it a monthly cancellation or a quarterly cancellation?
Yeah, yeah, it's a month... We calculate that every month.
Okay.
What we present here is an average. Do you want to build on it?
Yeah, if you look at Q1, the, while the figure is about an average of 8%, we calculate it every month. It ranges in the range of about 4%-8%. That's the rate of cancellation every month. We track it month on month. On your question on retail, I think one factor that I just want to put in perspective is, don't forget that it's only now that we've been able to scale up the billing to a certain level as compared to where we were earlier. Dealer stocks were really low. Even, just in terms of perspective, we are about 10% lower on retail compared to the billing for the period. The dealer stocks are still at about 30 days, the stocks, it's not that we've overstocked the dealer.
We will now get into the festive season cycle, which is again, when we will destock.
Understood. Thank you.
Yeah. Let us now take the three questions. Three hands have been up in the front for a long time. Thank you for your patience on that front. We shall go to the three of you now and take your questions. Go ahead, Ameen.
Yeah. Hi. One of the questions is that you specified that the Auto cash flows will be used for Auto, Farm, and the Services will be for Services. It's after a long time that we are seeing surplus in Services. Generally, it has been a negative. I can't speak for everyone, but I think a lot of investors and analysts may not mind if you use a lot of the Services cash flows actually for Auto and Farm. What is your thought? Is it like a straitjacket and you've taken this approach, or how are you thinking about it? Because the future obviously can be very volatile and uncertain.
Okay. Ameen, on that, the principle that we have committed to is auto and farm cash flow will not be used outside auto and farm. That is the principle we committed to so far. You are right, it's possible we may say use services cash flow for auto and farm, and we see much bigger opportunities there, and we may do that. Today, at least, what we see is both auto and farm are operating on such a strong path that we will be putting in strong investments in there, but they'll be self-funding those investments in any case. On that, bear with us for two more quarters.
By the end of this fiscal year or close to the end of this fiscal year, we will come up with a 2025-2027 plan, that will give you a sense of what the investments are. They will be higher than the 2022-2024 plan. They have to be higher, given what we need to do in EV and the investments that will be required in EV. Whether that will enable auto to self-fund itself, or it requires a little bit from services to fund it or from tractors to fund it, we will have the exact answers on that, right? That flexibility we do have, right? Hopefully, we won't need it, because if auto self-funds it, we are in an even better position, right? We can give more cash back to shareholders, as your friend suggested.
On auto and farm, we would ideally want to get there, but so far we haven't drawn that line in the sand to say auto will be for auto and farm will be for farm. I think once we have a better sense of 2025-2027, we can probably do a little more of that. There, we haven't sensed as much of a need, at least from our investors and from our analysts, to have that level of distinction. What we have sensed a very strong need is don't use auto and farm cash flow elsewhere. Don't fritter away the cash flow. Don't make investments just because you have cash. All of those things we have taken to heart.
Just, one clarification on the RBL thing. You've articulated that, that whatever the stake that you have right now is not going to 9.9% anytime soon. Given how RBL's financials are, it probably will need capital infusion, like one to 1.5 years down the line, which is sooner than the timeline. Is there a thought process that you will participate in that? Because right now you've just, you know, bought from the open market. How, how should we think about that?
Haven't thought about that part, but I would just say that we expect the bank to do well. There will be multiple folks who want to come in on a rights issue. At that point, we'll be. Do we participate in a rights issue to maintain 3.53%, or do we not participate? I think it'll depend on that. That's frankly going to be a very small amount. I mean, that may be INR 40 crore or something of that sort. We're not really worried about it from that standpoint. Whether we do participate or not will not make a difference.
Yeah, thanks. Rajesh, can you just remind us on the EV side, non-EV side, sorry, on the auto, what are the launch pipeline you have in mind for the next? Because you gave us extensive timeline on the EV side, like pretty pretty, I see every six months you'll have a EV starting 25%, effectively, right? What are you doing on the non-EV side? The question why-- the reason why I'm asking that is, given the, where EV penetration in India is, I think it grabs far more headlines and everything than what the customer really cares for. 2.7% is the EV share, right? Just in case, the way, the way the government policy is changing, you've seen what happened in e- two-wheeler EVs. In a matter of 1 month, the entire policy turned upside down, right?
They're already talking about a progressive taxation regime where the taxes will be linked to the emission of the vehicle. Entire GST slab may also change. It's a very fast-moving regulatory environment as well. What is the backup plan? Because we may be betting everything on EV, a lot on EV, but what if the policy regime changes, 5% GST is not 5% GST anymore on EV, it is much more higher. I'm just trying to understand, what is the risk management there on the auto side? Because we're doing phenomenally well right now, and we don't want the regulations to throw something at you which we're not prepared for.
Yeah, Pramod. In a best case scenario, we are saying four years from now, 70% of our portfolio will continue to be ICE, right? We're saying 20%-30% penetration in 2027, and the range is 20%-30%. 30% is the best case scenario, which means in that best case scenario, 70% of our business, which will be much bigger than what it is now, will be ICE. Obviously, for us, no question of risk mitigation, it is still core and it's going to be a substantial part of our profit, revenue, all of that. The reason we are not as open in sharing our ICE pipeline is because it has immediate cannibalization effect, which we don't have to worry so much about when we are sharing EV pipeline, right?
Just to take the example of Thar 5-door, right? As soon as you have a scoop saying your Thar 5-door is running, it does start affecting customers who are thinking of buying a Thar 3-door today, right? If I'm going to say we're going to do X in April of next year, why would we want to say that so early? That's the reason we don't have the transparency in the ICE product pipeline that we have in the EV product pipeline. We've got to be very sensitive of the impact that it has on the entire value chain, including suppliers, inventory, obsolescence, so on and so forth, right? We've got to factor all of that in, and we can't start going and putting our core products out by way of timeline before they're ready to be there.
Just believe us that we are very invested in the ICE portfolio, because at least 70% of a significantly enhanced profit and revenue is going to come from that four years later. We are hence, very invested in the ICE portfolio. Like Anish said, we will share with you the ICE versus EV breakup.
Yeah.
At the appropriate time.
I would just add to it that we will not give up leadership in that space. We have leadership today, we've got a bunch of new products, we will continue to build on that. When we come up with our 2025-2027 numbers, you will see substantial CapEx for ICE as well. It's not going to be as if we sort of say: Look, ICE doesn't require CapEx anymore, let's just put everything on EV. It will be both ICE and EV. You will see a breakup of that as well.
Anish, on the EV side battery, because now two of the largest manufacturing group have EVs in-house in India, through their parents, basically. In that context, what will be the Mahindra's? Currently, we have the tie-up with Volkswagen Group.
Mm-hmm.
As you look at larger scale, and localization will become more important, scale and the cost advantage will become more important. How is the thinking there? Because that is something which can require a lot of capital, right? If you can, if you could just share your thoughts on that.
Yeah. Prabhu, on that, our thought process is, first, there are multiple sources that we have locked up even today. It's not all eggs in one basket. We will have to look at an indigenization strategy, and that's something that we are working on. There are multiple factors that go into it, including battery technology, including making sure that from a geopolitical standpoint, that partnership is sustainable long-term as well. All of those aspects that come in there. We are not likely to invest in a battery plant 100% ourselves. I mean, that is a very unlikely scenario. This is where, going back to Kunjan's earlier question, some of our partners or investor partners will help us on that front as well. Either identifying other partners outside or themselves coming in as a potential co-investor in that space.
We will also very likely have a technology partner in batteries who invest with us also. It's going to be a combination of all of this, which is where our investment will come down, and we will not have to invest the large amounts that some others have invested in this space globally.
Thanks a lot.
Yes.
We are at 8:15. If we have your indulgence, can we'll take two last questions. Actually, I see three hands, so three last questions. Let's just go to the three of you, and we shall close after that.
Yeah. Hi, this is Nishit from Axis.
Yeah.
Just wanted to understand, you mentioned that you would look to invest in strategic core areas, right? How do we look at strategic core areas, right? Where I'm coming from is Mahindra, as a group, has investment in logistics, real estate, even in retail and all, all those spaces, right? Let's say if, if one year down the line or two year down the line, you get an opportunity in retail. Can you say today that it will be a completely no-go area, or you will look to evaluate and Mahindra may look to seize that opportunity or invest in that? Because that will also be a big, can also be a big industry over a period of time.
Just wanted to understand that, because this is something which you stated when you started, that, there's a go area, a no-go area.
Yeah.
How are we looking at now, or has things changed in the last two, three years? Thanks.
For us, our strategic areas are auto, farm, financial services, IT services, and where our growth gems play today. This is, this is our box. Anything outside the box is going to be a no-go, unless it's something that's really, really compelling and we can say that this has a huge set of synergies with our businesses, we can actually do a lot more in that space than anyone else. We've looked at multiple things outside in those spaces, and we've just said no to everything so far. The bar for that is extremely high, and I'd be surprised if something meets that bar, right? Therefore, I'm not going to rule it out completely. I'm going to say probably 95%, 99%, we're not going to play outside our core space. Also, because there's significant opportunity in our core space.
Yeah. Hi, this is Nikhil Kale from Invesco MF. My question is on the RBL investment you mentioned. It, it seems to be like a mix of strategic objectives and the optionality of a treasury kind of an investment. Just from the strategic perspective, were there any other options evaluated to achieve the strategic objectives that you intend to achieve? In the resources at your disposal, you could maybe have hired an entire team of experts from the banking side or inducted any of the industry veterans on the board to achieve the kind of similar learnings for. Any, any thoughts on that sir?
No, you're absolutely right, and there we have already. We have a number of banking industry veterans. What we felt was to be able to answer the questions we need to answer in the long term, we need to see a bank operating for a long period of time. Because there are multiple things through cycles that, that come in, so it's not for us, it's not more of a theoretical or academic exercise on here are things. A number of us have banking experience as well, ourselves. That experience is all going to go to be able to answer those questions, but we cannot answer them well enough without seeing a bank in an operating mode for a long period of time. Right? That is the reason.
As I said, it was possible with a very strong bank, with something that we thought was, you know, fairly costless. That was the reason why we took this step.
Just to follow up, when you mention about that engagement, so have you already had that conversation with RBL Bank management? The, the things that you're talking about, one would expect, like, very strong engagement, and without a board seat, I mean, how, how is that possible, and whether you have had that conversation with RBL management?
We did not have any conversations with them when we bought the stake.
After the purchase.
After we bought the stake, yes, we have met them. We have publicly disclosed that as well, which was earlier this week, Sunday or Saturday or something. We've had that conversation. They are keen to explore various synergies with us, because across the Mahindra Group, there are multiple synergies that can help the bank, and that can help us as well. We are not going to seek any public, non-public information. Right? That's something that we would not want to do, and that's something the bank cannot do in any case. It's just a deeper engagement, right? As our top investors have with us, in terms of just seeing what's public, but having a greater conversation around that. That is part of what we would expect to do on a continual basis over the next few years.
That's going to give us a better sense of it, a better sense of the people, a better sense of, you know, what are the various aspects that may be relevant for our business going forward, and, and that would be valuable for us.
Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, sir, for taking my question. Rajesh, I just want to understand that we are talking about retails being 10% lower than wholesale, but we have so many bookings. What is the reason for that, and why do we have a stock of 30 days at dealerships?
Yeah, there's, there's typically a conversion time, right? Basically, there's a time to convert billing to retail, because at the end of the day, a customer who is waiting for the vehicle, when the vehicle is gonna come, has to arrange their cash, has to do their loan closure, and has to pick a time of the vehicle, a time and date which suits them for when they want their delivery. Everybody has a peculiarity on when they want it or don't want it, or this is a good time or not a good time, and so on. You are gonna be carrying over some stock, because, you know, say, as a customer, you booked a vehicle, and your vehicle arrives at the dealership, and then you're not necessarily gonna pick it up the next day.
You may say, "Okay, I want one week," or, "I want seven..." you know, "15 days," or, "I'm gonna tie this up," or, "This is a good, auspicious time, you know, when I want to buy it." A lot of that happens in India, so we have to be sensitive to these. You know, in that situation, you don't tell the customer, "Okay, you're not taking it tomorrow. We're giving it to the next guy." I think these are things that, you know, we are sensitive to. As we just said, I, we don't see this kind of booking right now on the Bolero and the XUV300, which is a less than INR 10 lakh portfolio.
Clearly, for us, as well as the rest of the industry, over the last few months, that part of the portfolio, doesn't have the same momentum as the INR +10 lakh portfolio does. Some of the stock, when we talk about 30 days, is on products of this kind.
Thanks, Anish, for clarifying on the RBL part. We've taken a lot of questions. On a lighter note, financial services is actually a very broad space, right? There's Fintechs, there's private equity, there is banks. Where, where are we actually... You know, what is the commonality between all these, and how do you look at this space now? That is what we want to understand.
We have been looking at all players in that space. Mahindra Finance today has a very strong business model, and one that has even further been strengthened by going beyond just semi-urban and rural areas. We are starting with a strong position of strength, right? What we are seeing today is that if you think about Mahindra Finance, three times, four times its size, right? We've got to be able to operate with the processes as a bank, even if you're not a bank. RBI wants large NBFCs to operate with processes like a bank, those regulations have tightened a lot over the last few years and will continue to tighten.
For us to be able to operate a company of that size, right, we do need to have a very in-depth view of what banking is, even if we don't become a bank. Fintechs and the others are fine. I mean, those things we, we work with various companies on a regular basis. We've got a separate entity within Mahindra Finance right now looking at digitization, the whole DigiFinCorp that we've set up. All of those areas we've got well covered. I think final question we had from someone who raised their hand, or we may address everything.
I think.
All right, great.
Anish, I had one question. Just, you know, on the investment, you also spoke about the valuation of the bank being one of the trigger points, looks like. Given you had a board approval of going up to 5%, in case, you know, a bank is available at similar valuations and all, are we open to increasing stake in the near term itself, or that's completely ruled out?
Completely ruled out.
Okay. All right, on that note, we'll conclude the meeting today. For those on the webcast, thank you for your patience, and for those here, there's dinner served right behind. Thank you for attending.
Right. Thank you.