Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Nuvama Wealth Management Limited Q3 FY 2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will remain in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal the operator by pressing star, then zero on your touchtone telephone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Ashish Kehair, MD and CEO, for opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good morning, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I wish you all a very happy and healthy 2026. Today, as usual, I have with me Bharat, our Group CFO, and the SGA team, our investor relations advisors. We'll walk you through the performance for the quarter, discuss the key drivers of our results across the segments, and then also share a bit of strategic outlook for the period ahead. We can then jump to the Q&A section. Starting with a summary of the results, I think we continue to build on our growth momentum, supported by the core businesses, which are our strategic priorities. We are seeing the benefits of the value proposition built around the exhaustive platform, which can basically service the full wallet of the client.
This, I think, positions us well, you know, to continue to capture the growing trends in our industry across the segments in which we operate. Our revenues for nine months grew by about 8%, and we witnessed growth across most of the segments except the core Capital Markets , which is IB and IE. Wealth, Asset Services , we saw decent amount of growth, and operating profits after tax for nine months was about INR 780 crore. Coming to a bit of outlook on the market, I think while the global conditions remain challenging, it's generally a extremely volatile environment, given the geopolitical stance of the U.S. But domestic growth, as there is consensus now, should begin to recover.
The policy support through tax measures, RBI action, has improved the credit momentum, which should support the gradual recovery in the corporate earnings in the Indian markets. I think with this backdrop, the overall Capital Markets looks to be supportive, and, with the increasing investor confidence and rising participation is continuously translating into healthier flows. I mean, the domestic flows are still strong, in the Capital Markets . Turning to Nuvama, over the last two, three years, I think we've gone through multiple phases of transformation. Our initial focus, subsequent to demerger, was to ensure a smooth transition and establishing ourselves as an independent company with our own governance framework, brand, rating, and operating system. This was followed by listing about nine quarters ago.
Since then, our focus has been firmly on driving organic growth across each of the segments, and also to unlock synergies across the different segments through what we call One Nuvama program. I think this approach has worked well till now. Profits have grown by about 45% CAGR over the last 3 years. 9 months now, as I said, was INR 780, compared to 9 months FY 2023, which was about INR 253. With this scale, we now are also looking at a set of strategic initiatives aimed to drive better value discovery for the company across each of the segments over the near term. Starting, let's say, with asset management, business has been historically focused on AIFs and a bit of PMS. We are now expanding this platform to include SIFs.
We, as you are aware, we've already applied for the mutual fund license, and we have the in-principle approval. Only the final approval is pending. Once that is done, in the next 2-3 months, we will launch the SIF, and it's just a migration of our existing well-positioned AIF strategies, which we will transition here. And I think that gives a significant better value proposition for the client, which will then bring about growth. We are also looking at potential M&A opportunities in this segment. I mean, we are open to all kinds of ideas, but the primary interest is in alternatives, where there are managers, where they have skill sets of managing money, but do not have the platform to raise capital.
So we plan to bring some of these under fold if we get decent opportunities in the market. In Wealth Management , I think domestic is doing reasonably well, and we have the path well laid out as to how to expand and add capacity and, you know, continuously innovate on the product side and invest on the technology side. I think one major trend which is playing out and which will be visible in the next maybe 5, 7 years with greater amount of prominence is that client portfolios will have a decent amount of offshore allocation. So, our offshore platform build-out, we are dialing up, and I'll talk about more when we are talking about the private business and the wealth business.
This can also be done through both organic and inorganic growth. Asset services and Capital Markets , our focus remains on growing our client base and expanding our footprint across different geographies, bringing newer clients into India, especially in the HFT category and on domestic side, on PMS and AIF. And we've done significant amount of work on backward integration here. We are going to add RTA services, which is only for PMS and AIF. Pretty much most of the things are done, and we should be live in the next three months. And we will also add trustee solutions so that it becomes a one-stop shop for the domestic PMS and AIF managers, and will help us to get significantly higher market share.
And, lastly, our One Nuvama program, which we launched in 2023, 2024, to accelerate synergies between segments and look at opportunities which can create more value. I think this will evolve. We'll continuously assess which segments are most synergistic and how we can organize the businesses to ensure that such synergistic, you know, opportunities continue to be leveraged by us. Coming to the key highlights of our business segments, for this quarter, starting with the Wealth Management , and before we go to wealth and private, I think there are two broad trends, which we've been witnessing. I've been talking about this, in the previous calls also.
I think what it makes sense to just distill and talk about the two clear trends which we are seeing and which is going to, you know, shape how firms will grow in this business. One, I think the competitive intensity is growing, and at least that's a validation that we are in the right space. In addition to traditional brokers, we are also seeing several private equity-backed platforms that are aggressively building teams. While this competition historically was, you know, restricted to ultra-high net worth, we are also seeing it now move to the HNI segment and the affluent segment. I think over the long term, firms that combine people with an exhaustive platform approach will be best positioned to sustain and win, and that will require investments and a lot of patience. I don't think these businesses can be built overnight.
Second important trend, which I am witnessing now, is product innovation and availability of size is becoming extremely important. When I say size, it basically comes in two components. One is your distribution capability, your reach, your placement capability, because that has become a big attraction of getting new product manufacturers to come to you. Second, in certain pockets of clients, your balance sheet availability, because India is also moving towards leveraging their investment assets, and I think it has become now an integral component, if you want to succeed, in Wealth Management business. I think these two are extremely important. Otherwise, it will become difficult even to attract good quality people to come to your platform.
Because as an RM, if I join a platform in which I cannot really service my client, I am depleting my value in the long term. So I think these two, these two trends are extremely visible right now. Coming to numbers, Nuvama Wealth. Let's start with our strategic priorities, which is Managed Products and Investment Solutions. We continue to grow this reasonably well. During nine months, revenues from MPIS grew by about 48%, and closing assets increased by about 30% year-on-year. This now contributes to 60% of our overall wealth revenues and generated about net new money of INR 6,500 crore. So I think we are broadly on track to deliver 28%-30% of NNM in this.
Coming to lending, I had mentioned about two quarters back that we will now start growing the book. As of end of Q3, our closing book was about INR 4,300 crores, compared to INR 2,800 crores, which was at the beginning of the financial year. So we were able to grow the book by more than 30, 38, 39%, and NII also grew by about 30% in Q3. On the RM front, as I said that, over the last 12 to 15 months, we have evolved our strategy, and we are given the complexity and the sophistication of clients, which we are now handling here. I think we are migrating the quality upwards. So the number of RMs may not actually reflect the investment which is being made in this segment.
So, but the whole population quality, we are basically changing the orbit to two notches above, just to meet our client needs. And we continue to invest in our partner business, which are external wealth managers. We feel very, very enthused and excited about that whole segment and the growth that brings about. And there is a wide space there for non-mutual fund distribution, where I think we are playing a pioneering role. Nuvama Private, starting with the ARR. This revenue stream now contributes about 60% and has grown by about 30% year-on-year for nine months, FY 2026. Average ARR assets are now about INR 50,000 crore plus and delivered a blended retention of about 90 basis points. Product pipeline here remains robust.
I think we can sustain the growth trajectory. We've also strengthened the leadership across our advisory platform, which is branded as Infinity. It is basically a combination of discretionary, non-discretionary, and RIA, all three. We've increased our leadership strength there, around coverage of key clients, fund management, and the core advisory team. I think these additions will further help us sharpen the value proposition and grow that part of the book. Quarterly net new money may seem a bit moderated here, but there are no structural concerns. I think we should not look at it quarter to quarter. Overall, full year basis, I think we are broadly on track to deliver 25% growth, on the opening assets here.
On the talent side, we continue to attract high quality talent despite significant competition here, because as I said, the platform essentially offers a unique value proposition for RMs. I'm confident that if they, you know, leverage the full platform, their ability to generate revenues and service the clients significantly superior to majority of the other platforms that exist in the industry today. Over the last 12 months, we've added about 10% of the capacity, taking the count to nearly about 150. We've strengthened our teams in Hyderabad, Bangalore, and also established new locations, Jaipur, Surat, and Kanpur. Coming to offshore, our build-out in Dubai and Singapore continues to move well. We've added incremental capacity in both the locations.
We now have established partnerships with multiple banks and asset managers, and can offer a full bouquet today, both for inbound and outbound customers. The Dubai office has already broken even, and we expect Singapore to follow in the next maybe two quarters or so. About 5% of our overall private revenues now come from offshore. Moving to asset management, commercial real estate fund, the AUM has now reached about INR 3,000 crore as at the end of quarter three. On the deployment front, we are already at about 40%, and there are a few good deals in the pipeline. Once that is done, we should cross 50% comfortably. These are all market transactions which have happened. You would have seen the coverage in some of the newspapers.
Category A buildings in category A locations. I think they will all end up whenever we exit in some REIT. If and these, these can have, you know, a sustained, continuous ownership. So we are thinking of what structure to create, to provide exit and still continue to earn on them. And given the fact that we are already at 3,040% is deployed, I think another quarter, maybe quarter and a half, we should be able to mop up another INR 1,000 crore and wrap up the full fund at INR 4,000 crore. On public markets, net flows were subdued. Primarily three reasons. I think volatility has been significant in the public market space, over the last 12 months.
There were a few scheduled maturities in this segment, and, and I think competition from SIF is also creating an impact. And, which is why we fast-forwarded our MF application the minute the SIF rules came, and we are hopeful that by quarter one we should be able to launch our SIF, subject to the approvals coming in. And we'll be able to migrate our existing, strategies into this, and thereafter, I think we will start seeing growth coming back. Even between Q2 and Q3, I think, the growth in the gross flows have come back, but because the scheduled maturity, we saw some amount of outflow, but it was significantly lesser than what we saw in Q2. So from a trend perspective, it is improving. There are two new launches in this segment.
We are launching a dynamic asset product, which will be an evergreen product, can get money from clients across seasons. And we are also getting a REIT-linked product filed, which will give clients exposure. We are trying to get a vehicle which can give them exposure to both listed and unlisted spaces, and should be able to launch by the end of this quarter. On private markets, I think right now we are in consolidation phase. We are completing the deployment of the existing fund and also starting to exit some of the older funds. We've listed Suven Pharma, one of the largest positions in one of our earlier funds, and there are two, three more listings which are going to happen in the next six to eight months.
I think subsequent to that is when we see the, volume pick up. So overall, if I were to look at these three strategies and were to look at the next maybe year or so, across the three segments, because commercial real estate, we would have finished deployment, and somewhere by the end of Q1, we would have launched our second fund. So that should contribute to maybe INR 2,000-INR 2,500-INR 3,000 crores, and about INR 1,500 crores should come from public markets, and balance between private markets and credit, which we expect to launch again in the next three to four months. So FY 2027, maybe another, seven to eight thousand crores of net new money is what we would target, from this.
Coming to Asset Services, revenues grew by about 15% year-on-year nine months, and 7% quarter-on-quarter, which basically shows the recovery of this business subsequent to the loss of large clients, which had happened in the first week of July. Basically at the beginning of quarter two. Third quarter, basically, we saw meaningful improvement in client assets and float balances. Our closing float balance in Q3 is now already above Q1 levels, and therefore, I mean, subject to regulatory situation remaining the way it is, I think Q4 earnings will be at par with Q1, and we will form a base for again coming back to growth numbers in the next 12 months in this business. We've reasonably expanded our client coverage here.
We are, as I said, going to newer geographies, opening up India to newer set of funds which have not earlier looked at India. On the domestic side, in essentially backward integration of our RTA trustee services will help us increase the market share here. Coming to core Capital Markets , Institutional Equities and investment bank, I think this is where we saw a bit of moderation in the numbers. In this, also, Institutional Equities was essentially flat between the two quarters, and as compared to last year, there was a dip, because last year in this quarter, I think, the F&O rules came in, in the middle of the quarter, so you had half quarter available at higher volumes. And on the IB side, fixed income continues to do well. It was mostly the ECM billing.
So while we did the mandates, we had the issues. I think the billing essentially moved from one quarter, so therefore you saw some amount of dip here. As I said, fixed income in that part of the business now contributes about 50%, and that continues to do well. I think this is it from my side right now. I will hand over to Bharat to cover the financial numbers, and then we can jump to Q&A from there. Thank you.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Ashish. Ashish has anyway provided the comprehensive overview on the business environment, our strategic initiatives, and the broader market context. I'll not take much time, given we have an hour call. I'll try and cover the group level financials more in detail. Anyways, business level financials, Ashish has covered. It touched on almost all key parameters around growth, around MPIS, around ARR, and strategy around each businesses. So if you look at on the overall financials, our consolidated client-level assets are now at INR 460,000 crore, which is due to the net new money as well as the mark-to-market on the assets. It was INR 435,000 crore as at the end of the previous quarter. Our revenue was at INR 755 crore.
This grew by 4%, and on a nine-month basis, our revenue is around INR 2,300 crore, which is a growth of around 8%. But I think looking at the total revenue may not be the best way to look at it. We should look at the individual business segments contributions. So like within this growth of eight percent on a YOY basis or 4% for the quarter, wealth businesses has actually grown by 18%. Now, the wealth businesses contribute almost 57% of the total revenue, which was almost 50% in the same period last year. The Q3 of FY 2025, this was 50%, now we are at 57%. So we are moving to a wealth becoming one of the largest revenue contributor in the total revenue line. So that is one part.
Secondly, if you look at from a Quarter two perspective versus Quarter three, there are two elements which I would like to highlight, both on the revenue side as well as on the cost side. So if you look at from the revenue side, there is a drop of the revenue from INR 772 crore to INR 755 crore. There are two, three key components. One, Ashish anyways covered, which was the IB, and within that ECM billing, which is just maybe a quarter-on-quarter movement. That's one reason wherein the revenue has dropped. And secondly, if you look at the private business, the transaction revenue has dropped from INR 100 crore to INR 65 crore or so. This is basically in the Quarter two, we had a lot more syndication related transactional revenue, which was...
The way it works is that when you do a transaction, the revenue gets booked in the same quarter. So it's not like there is a structural change, it's just that you have maybe more deals in Quarter two and relatively lesser deals in Quarter three. But having said that, our focus on this continues to be strong, like we'll have a lot more such deals coming in the coming quarters. This could be led by our commercial real estate fund, other third-party credit funds, or whenever we launch our own credit fund, we will have similar transactions. So I think looking at a quarter-on-quarter for transactional revenue in private may not be the best way, and these can obviously have a little lumpy in a quarter.
So our trend of next 3-4 quarters is what I would suggest to look at from a transactional revenue consistency. Those are the two things on the revenue side. Similarly, on the cost side, there are two things. One is the new labor code, which got enacted on 21st of November. Like everybody in the market, we have also revisited our past service liability, and that has led to almost like INR 11 crore of one-time impact. For the better performance measurement, we have actually shown the numbers without the new labor code impact in the Databook as well as in the investor deck, but that's like one-time impact of around INR 11 crore. And secondly, you will notice that there is a drop in the variable cost of the businesses, which is mainly in the asset services and the capital market.
So now, given we are at the end of quarter three, we have a lot more visibility as to how the year will end, and hence we have revisited our overall variable bonus for these businesses, and that is where you will see from an incremental provision perspective, from a variable cost, there is a drop compared to quarter two. But we are very comfortable what we have done it, and we are very sure where we will end up at the year, and these numbers seems to be pretty aligned with the bonus philosophy of our company. So to that extent, the variable cost has dropped. I think those are the two unusual from a revenue as well as cost compared to quarter two. Otherwise, all other key parameters are working very fine.
That is the reason you will see that the total cost shares from a quarter-on-quarter, it has only gone up by, it is down by 8%, and in year-on-year, it is up by 4%. On the OpEx side also, if you look at the number, has moved from INR 115 crore to INR 107 crore.
These are just the transaction which has happened in a particular quarter, nothing specific around here. Our overall, guidance in terms of maybe a 10%-12% growth on the OpEx on a full year still remains intact. As I mentioned in my previous call, out of this 10%-12% growth on the OpEx, 50% of that, so anything around 5%-6%, will go towards the business expansion, like opening up new branches, setting up, verticals within businesses, and another 4%-5% will be towards inflation link. So your rentals goes up, your AMCs goes up. That's the broadly the breakup of 10%-12% expected cost increase. Those things will continue as we are working on a quarter-on-quarter basis.
Overall cost income ratio is now at 53%, and for the nine months, it is at 55%. PAT, anyway, we discussed, Ashish also covered. So the PAT is both, without labor code, it's at INR 262 crore, which is a 3% quarter-on-quarter growth. But with the labor impact, with the labor code impact, it is broadly same as what it was in quarter two. I think those were the key numbers. Ashish anyways covered on a lot more on the individual businesses, and I think we can move to Q&A now, given we are left with half an hour. Over to moderator.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use their handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We take the first question from the line of Manas Agrawal from Sanford C. Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the opportunity. I wanted an update on the HFT business within the Asset Services vertical. A, how is the activity trending? And B, your yields have moved up as an offset to Jane Street issues. How sustainable is the bump up in yields? So that is one. B, wanted an update on the litigation that you've talked about in your annual reports in the past with Anugrah. And C, on the PAG situation, if you have anything to share. Those are my questions.
So activity perspective on HFT, I think post the order of SEBI, we saw about 30-35 days when the market was adjusting to basically understand how the regulator is looking at it. And then I think regime change also happened somewhere around September, and the signals from the regulator were reasonably positive. And their whole discussion around weekly options and all also subdued. So I think activity now is actually back at similar levels or even more, and volume is also reflective of that, and newer HFTs have started signing up. So maybe it was a 30-40 period of adjustment, and then it all came back.
Yields, Manas, as we have already mentioned earlier also, is a function of the split of the collateral between deposits and G-Sec, and that is, is not a very simple this thing. It's a function of how the overall service is being priced. There is a broking relationship, there's a custody relationship, there's a clearing relationship. We are able to operate as a single one-stop shop and can give a bundled pricing. Given the size of the clients and how they have looked at the overall pricing, right now, the proportion of deposits should be higher than G-Sec, hence, the yields have gone up. If you ask me, we can forecast for a 12-month period, and in my view, it should remain between 2.6, 2.7 to 2.9 kind of range.
Should not migrate much unless we see an interest rate movement, significant interest rate movement on either side. Minor movements will be absorbed. On Anugrah litigation, I think one major step that has happened is that for the last two years, unfortunately, whenever the case was coming for hearing, no significant discussion could happen because there were maybe other issues which the Supreme Court was handling, which was of higher importance. But this time, they have formally admitted the case. Till now, the admission itself was going up, down, up, down. Formally admitted, and I think by in... and now the hearing will start. But, I don't think any decision looks to be, you know, to be reached in near future.
It may take a couple of years, but, our positioning, our understanding, our assessment of the situation, we are fairly confident that this will be favorable for the company, because whatever we did was in accordance with the law then. On PAG, you had any specific question?
No. Just wanted to check any change in position. I think in the past you have said that as management, there is something that you cannot change, but is there any change in the position?
Not really. I mean, as I've always maintained that there are financial sponsor and there will be a change of ownership at some point in time, but at this point in time, there is nothing that has changed, and in the recent past.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Prayesh Jain from Motilal Oswal Financial Services Limited. Please go ahead.
Hi, Ashish and Bharat. Just, you know, like, a few questions. Firstly, on Nuvama Wealth, you know, and if I look at their MPIS revenues, sequentially, they have been flat. You know, you had incremental money coming in from these flows. They should have an equity mark-to-market positive, yet the revenues on MPIS appears to be flattish sequentially. So what would you ascribe that to?
See, basically, composition of the MPIS also matters. Now, if you break MPIS into two buckets, Praesh, there is managed products and there is investment solution. So managed product is your classic AIF, MF, PMS, and investment solution is your fixed income, MLD, insurance, and largely, ML, unlisted and syndication deals. So if, if in the investment solution bucket, you know, there are certain categories which have different kinds of yields. So your overall flow may not directly correlate in terms of the revenue, because that, like... Just to give an example, I mean, if you do insurance, the earning is fairly different from what you get if you do fixed income versus MLD. So I think that composition creates a bit of a quarterly variance.
But as long as your net new money is on the upward trend, and if you look at the trend of the numbers in MPIS, I don't think there is any structural concern. There is 11 quarters of growth, and if you look at a year-on-year growth, it's about 48% on 9-month basis and 22% on a Q-on-Q basis. It's just INR 3 crore down from previous quarter, which I don't think, you know, merits any concern, from a trend perspective.
Right. You know, generally, we've been used to seeing consistent growth, and that is the reason you know, just pointing that out.
Yeah.
The other question was on your asset management piece, where you mentioned that there have been challenges to, you know, flows, given the volatility in markets on the private equity side, on the listed equity side. But is there also a point where, because the number of accredited investors is increasing and they are looking to get into smaller ticket size and probably more varied products, is that any cause of concern, with respect to incremental flows from a industry perspective?
From the numbers, at least what we are seeing, that is not something which we have witnessed as of now. Not really, no. Theoretically, what you're saying, can have a bearing, but I think it is not visible. In fact, not at all. None of our discussions internally has brought this topic up. In fact, in Nuvama Wealth, we were trying to position this to the clients, that if they take accredited status, they can actually go ahead and do a large number of credit funds at a lower ticket, which will give them a much higher diversification. But then what we faced practically on the ground is that the fund managers have a number of investors cap of 1,000, I think.
So they don't really want to encourage this significantly unless they have the ability of, you know, launching multiple schemes. So we'll have to see how that evolves, this whole accredited investors thing.
Got that. Last question on the asset services front, where, you know, we, in terms of revenues, we still are, you know, from the peak of what we had, you know, in the, in, say, 1Q FY 2026 or even for that matter, 4Q FY 2025, when we had about INR 198 crore of revenues, we still had about INR 172 crore. You had kind of alluded to the fact that you'll be back to full revenue potential by fourth quarter. Are we on course to do that, or probably we're still running behind on that? And just an extension to that, you mentioned about adding more services here, for from a RTA perspective.
Do you think that, you know, that will kind of add to cost in the initial period and then, probably help you get better, revenues and profitability over a medium term? Yeah, those would be my last questions.
So, when you look at the revenue in asset services, one component you earn from float, right? Now, float-related earning has two components, the float balance itself and the yield. So from a float balance perspective, we will be back to full potential by end of Q1. But yields have compressed from Q4 and Q1 this year because of the rates going down. So whatever residual impact in the difference in revenue, which you will see, will be because of the fall in yield. And I think in Q1, maybe once the float goes even further up, we will be able to negate the impact of the fall in yield. On the services front, I think large part of the costs are already incurred, and these are not very high OpEx, CapEx.
These are more licensed, like trustee services do not require a very high amount of expenditure, and a marginal increase in market share will be able to compensate. So I don't think there will be any sort of impact which we will see in the numbers which are worth discussing that, you know, which we need to highlight, at least as of now, we don't see that.
Great. Thank you so much, and wish you all the best.
Thanks.
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Dipanjan Ghosh from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, sir. A few questions from my side. First on Nuvama Private and Nuvama Wealth, if you can give us some color on the gross net new money in recurring assets versus the redemptions, so that, you know, across, let's say, the third quarter or maybe nine months, so that we can get some color on how the gross money into the ecosystem has been shaping up. The second question is, you know, in terms of the variable cost reduction that we have seen, how comfortable are you on fourth quarter?
I mean, you give some, I mean, Bharat gave some color on the fourth quarter, but, I mean, do you have any more headroom in case, let's say, the revenues were to kind of dip a bit in 4Q also? And third question is on the IBIE business. If you can split up the margin profile of the business between DCM, ECM, and your IE. And just for clarification, I think at the start of the call, you gave some color on the flow expectations in AMC in FY 2027. Did I hear it correctly that you're expecting around INR 7,000 crore-INR 9,000 crore of flows in that?
So let me go one by one. In your gross ARR assets for private, I think would be order of magnitude about INR 4,000-4,500 crore for the quarter. And net we saw was about INR 1,500-1,800, so balance would be the adjustment in terms of redemption or scheduled maturities and all that. We don't track ARR, non-ARR in wealth, so that we may, maybe we will check, and when we talk next, we can give that number. On variable cost, essentially, in this quarter, the adjustment was largely around two businesses. One was in Nuvama Private, because in Q2 we saw the revenues go up, so therefore in line with that, the incentive and the bonus provisions went up. And second was in the Capital Markets business.
So in both, we have the flexibility to move up and down, and broadly we try to track the variable provisions in line with the revenue so that we don't have a shock in any quarter. In fourth quarter, it's not that we will have something unreasonable, or large come in, which is disproportionate to the revenue percentage. So it should be in line with what we have been seeing till now, and our overall cost income range also should be in line. It will not be materially different. In terms of the margin profile for ECM, DCM, we've not gone to that level because there are a lot of resources which are also common. But broadly, if one were to I mean this is just a guess, I don't have actual numbers.
DCM would be maybe slightly better margin, because people cost could be slightly lower than ECM side. Maybe one is at 40, one is at 60, and blended we operate at 50. And institutional equity will range from a 50 to 60, 65 range, depending on the performance of revenues. When the revenues go significantly up, the cost income comes down and vice versa. On AMC, yes, you heard right. I can tell you broadly how we are looking at the break-up. Essentially, if we are able to launch our new commercial real estate fund and do maybe INR 2.5 thousand-INR 3 thousand there, and if credit is also launched, which we are planning, maybe by Q1, latest by Q2, and one could do another INR 2 thousand-INR 3 thousand there.
Once we migrate our flagship strategies of current AIF absolute return and long shot into SIF, we expect flows to improve because SIF gives a significantly improved tax profile for the customers, and our absolute return and long shot still are in the top quartile in terms of performance. So I think that will start attracting flows, and it also opens up a large set of distributors. Maybe we will take time to onboard them because we are not a retail brand, but it opens up the 10 lakh distribution IFA community as and when they, you know, qualify to distribute the same. So I think combination of these three could essentially give us another 2-2.5 thousand.
So that's if we add all this up, order of magnitude, anywhere between 6.5, 7-8, 9,000, without taking into private equity, I think that will be an added upside element. That's how, that's how the numbers add up.
Thanks. I just take one small follow-up on the gross profile. If you can give the same number for nine months, thank you and all the best.
About INR 15,000 crore. Sorry, 13,000 crore. 13,000 crore.
Thank you. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one. We take the next question from the line of Mohit Mangal from Centrum Broking Limited. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. My first question is towards the net flows. So I think, you know, if, if I look at this quarter, so Nuvama Private, you know, has seen, has seen a considerable uptake led by the transactional segment, while wealth has seen a kind of a decline from around INR 3,800 crores to INR 3,250 odd crores. Now, going to financial year 2027, how do you see net flows actually spanning out, you know? That, that would be my first question.
So, net flows become important in two things. One, for private, we should look at the ARR net flows. ARR net flows this year for private, right now is about nine months. This is about INR 6,500 crore. And in order of magnitude, it should end up at around anywhere between 23%-25% of the opening. And, let's say we are right now sitting at about INR 52,000 crore of assets in ARR. If we end the year at, say, 54, 55, and you take a range of, say, 20%-25% of that, you're looking at INR 10,000-INR 11,000 crore or maybe INR 12,000 crore next year in Nuvama Private.
If you come to sort of Nuvama Wealth, I think similar, about 25%-30% of the opening book, which we will have in the MPIS segment. So that's how essentially one should track the net flow numbers.
Understood. That is helpful. My second question is on the cost to income. So I think, I think you've guided for 10%-12%, you know, increase in OpEx. So does that also cover the RM addition that we are doing?
No, no, no.
Because RM is a little-
No.
No.
No, no. So when we in our, when we speak our lingo, OpEx means everything else other than people cost. People cost, I think if I look at a 9-month consolidated, we would have grown by about 7%, year-on-year. By the end of the year, maybe it can be slightly higher, but order of magnitude, this only. OpEx is everything else other than people cost. So there, last year we were about INR 410 crore. I think this year we should end up anywhere between, anywhere between INR 440 crore-INR 445 crore. So that's, that's the 10% increase is what we talked about.
Okay, understood. This is very clear. And just lastly on basically the RM addition, I think we are adding about 10%, you know, to our RM strength. So I think this strategy will continue, right?
Yes.
Over the next two to three years.
Absolutely. Yes, yes, yes. This continues.
Okay. All right. Thanks, and wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Nidhesh from Investec. Please go ahead.
Sir, thanks for the opportunity. First question is on private wealth. There is an increase in yield in this quarter. What has led to that increase? Secondly, what is the run rate of transactional revenue that we should build in this business?
So yield increase typically happens because of the composition of the products in the ARR basket. Sometimes, if the salience of category two will increase slightly, because there you earn about 30-odd percent in year one, so that gives a bump up. But on a BAU basis, I think any range between 80 to 85, 90 basis points is what we will continue to see there. In transactional income, broadly this year, we should see about 20% growth. So like last quarter, we saw about INR 110 crore of revenue. This quarter we saw INR 64 crore, INR 65 crore. I think anywhere between INR 70 crore, INR 80 crore is a decent run rate, till, I mean, going forward is what we are going to see.
Second question is on,
Right
Wealth Management . Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, go on, go on.
Yes, sir. So on Wealth Management , can you give some color on MPIS income? How much of the revenue is upfronted? How much is, let's say, trail-based, et cetera?
The overall Wealth Management , around 60% comes from MPIS, and about, say, 20% comes from NII, and balance is your broking and others. If I look at full Wealth Management as a bucket, around 55% comes from ARR. So if I subtract 20% of NII from there, around 30%-35% will come from recurring revenues within the MPIS bucket. So 60 divide by 2, let's say about 30%-35% of that 60 break up. So 20-25% would be upfront and 30%-35% would be recurring.
Understood. Understood. Last question is on asset management. In that segment, the yields are quite volatile among segments, with private markets, public markets, and real estate. So, how should we model that? So what, what is leading to this volatility in yields, and how should we model it?
Actually, it's a temporary, this thing. In real estate, what happens is that every time a new... Until the time you close the fund, right? Right now, we have reached about INR 3,000 crore. As I said, another INR 1,000 crore, we will hit the end of the fund, and after that, the yield will stabilize. Because every time till the closure, when a new investor comes, at that point in time, in that quarter, you charge fees from the beginning. So in any quarter, if, let's say, we move from INR 3,000 crore to INR 4,000 crore in one quarter, on that INR 1,000 crore in that quarter, from the beginning till the till end of quarter four, the full fees will be charged. So once we hit INR 4,000 crore, on commercial real estate, the fees will stabilize, which will be order of magnitude, 50, 55 basis points.
On private equity, you can assume it to be around 50-55 basis points, and on public markets, the fees have been fairly steady at around 60-62 basis points.
Sure. So, there will be element of carry also, right, in this, in these businesses?
No, right now, this is zero carry.
Which will get accounted over a period.
This is right now, this is zero carry.
Right.
As of now, we don't take carry into consideration. We take carry as and when it comes. If we change that policy in the future, we will tell you.
Sure, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you. That's it from my side.
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Shrenik Mehta from Indo Alpha Wealth. Please go ahead.
Hi. I just wanted to ask you a question about this institutional equity segment. We have been seeing significant declines over the last few quarters. What parameter would you use to say that there is potentially a bounce back, whether this is the number of active institutional clients, or is it the overall cash volumes that will help us say that, you know, we will start getting back to a year-on-year growth?
I think two things. One is the cash volume, and second is the derivative volume. These are the two components that essentially, once they start moving up, and if the market share remains intact, which typically for us, remains intact, then you start seeing growth coming back.
Okay. And are you seeing any early signs of it?
Yes, at least in this quarter, we have seen quarter-on-quarter, there is an improvement in the average daily turnover. Because on a year-on-year basis, Q4 will become full, full, I think, clean quarter, where, the F&O rules, if you remember, came, middle of, Q3 last year. So half of Q3-
Mm-hmm.
had higher numbers in F&O volumes, and then it sort of subdued. And Q4 onwards, you get a base, which is with the new F&O rules. So this Q4 will be the first quarter which... So I think you should see a year-on-year uptick start happening because the base effect will come into action.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Lalit Deo from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Good morning. So just two questions. So firstly, on the lending book, we reckon that we are seeing some strong growth in the wealth business, where we have scaled up to INR 4,300 crore. So now, how should we see this for the next year? And similarly, in the private also, like where we are at now, close to around INR 2,400-INR 2,500 crore. So how should we see the overall loan book?
Ideally, we have to grow it in line with the business. Anywhere between 20%-30% is what we will target for next year.
Sure, sir. And sir, just like, we have also highlighted, we also touched upon this advisory piece in the Nuvama Private, which is the Infinity. So like, so current, what is like the overall current AUM over there, and like, how should we see this in respect to the distribution business in the, ultra rich next segment?
I think right now we are not separately disclosing. It's a part of the ARR AUM. We are also discussing internally on whether to call it out separately. So give us a couple of quarters, and maybe we can give you the numbers, but it's growing significantly within the ARR AUM.
Sure, sir. Yes. Yes. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Sanket Godha from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. Ashish, probably the question on asset services still remains to me, because, I mean, if I look at 1Q FY 2025, your yield or retention was 1.4%. Now it is more than double of that, 2.88. So, just to understand, this model really works on retention or is it you calculate a growth number, how much you want to achieve from the clients, and then accordingly, you rebalance the cash and G-Sec component so that incrementally revenue doesn't fall? As to whether building a model around the yield is actually right, or how do we understand this way to look at this business?
So, I think what you're saying is quite pertinent. Actually, last year, in Q1, we had the large client, right? Now, the large client was disproportionately large as compared to others, so therefore, there was an adjustment. And, actually, the answer to both your approaches is a yes. That is the challenge, that if somebody becomes very large, then the correlation with yield will fall off, because then you will target a growth and adjust the cash and non-cash securities. But if they are all within a particular range, then I think the yield works, which is the case right now. So I don't see this breaking suddenly in the near future, and should be in the range of 2.6%-2.9%, in terms of the yield on the clearing balance.
Now, why it was 1.4 and becomes 2.9, is how that clearing balance is split between cash and G-Sec. Which what you said was absolutely right, that if somebody becomes very big and they want to reduce the cash, then we will have to target a growth and therefore adjust accordingly. But I don't think for the next 12-24 months, we have to model for that. We don't see any client with that size.
So incrementally, 2.6-2.8 kind of a number is a realistic number to build in?
Yes. Yes, yes, that's right.
Understood. And, maybe, for the first time, asset clearing revenue, AUM grew, so which means whatever migration need to happen from insti to wealth or even the fall which will happen from the large client. Now, we assume this growth to come back, kind of a thing, in the assets under clearing?
Correct. Correct. That's right. That's right.
Okay. And lastly, just want to check this recent SEBI came out with a paper that on FIIs, yeah, nothing is allowed.
That's only for cash markets, not for derivatives. Anyways, derivatives-
Yeah, and then-
Margin-based business, so doesn't matter.
But in this revenue, we don't make any significant from the cash-
No.
in the asset clearing from FIIs?
No, no, no. Cash-related float is insignificant.
Okay, understood. And lastly, Ashish, on the flow number, yeah, I know I ask this question typically, but that you gave a guidance of around INR 20,000 crore for the year, closer to INR 20,000 crore, and now we are at 14,000-odd crore. So we need to get closer to INR 5,800-INR 6,000 crore for the fourth quarter to achieve that number, and you are seeing a growth of 20%-30% on that number for the next year. So just wanted to understand, given the two core pieces, that is, private and wealth, saw a sequential decline QOQ, means you are confident on delivering 20,000 kind of a number. Is there any macro factor?
Because market sentiments have weakened meaningfully in last maybe two weeks, maybe three, four weeks or one and a half months. Then your RMs interacting with the clients, how do you see whether the money will come or they are waiting and watching? Something, any color on those will be very useful to understand.
So largely around the product calendar or the products which you have, which, which are non-correlated to equity markets, is what gives us the confidence to be, you know, in line with that number. Because equity flows are equity flows. They will always keep moving, at least in the higher net worth segment and ultra high net worth segment, they are not as, I would say, consistent as the SIP retail flows. But the non-equity component, which is your alternatives, fixed income, MLDs, and within alternates, different categories, there you see reasonable degree of certainty. And there, if you have a product calendar which is decent, then you have a reasonable amount of control. I will never say 100% predictability on where the flows will be, but reasonable amount of control on those flows.
So, Ashish, then in the current year, around INR 19-20K, and next year, around INR 26K net flow number is achievable in your view?
Yeah. So about 19-20K next year between 25-26 is what we target. Yes.
Understood. That's it from my side. Thanks. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we take the last question from the line of Amar from Raedan Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello, am I audible, sir?
Yes.
Hello? Hello.
Yes, you are audible.
Yeah. Can you just give me a summary for the FY 2027 guidance overall, and the new launches and products that you'll be introducing to FY 2027?
We don't normally give guidance on revenue and PAT numbers, but what we say-
Mm-hmm.
is that we aspire to have a 20%+ growth. And this year, because of the adjustment of asset services, we will not end up at that. But I think once the base is formed, we should come back to that same level of growth, anywhere between 20%-25% of the overall business. That's what we target. I don't think we give any guidance. In terms of new products, at least on the asset management side, there's a dynamic asset fund, there's a REIT InvIT fund, there will be a credit fund, there will be a new commercial real estate fund. These four we have visibility currently.
Okay. And what will be the percentage of revenues, if you could help me with that, for the new launches?
So these are all asset management products, so they will run at a management fee structure of, you know, anywhere between 1.5%-1.75%, which gets split between the asset management and the Wealth Management businesses, in terms of distribution and management fee, and then there'll be some carry. But each product will have a different structure.
Okay. So that's helpful. Thank you so much.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we conclude the question and answer session. I now hand the conference over to the management for their closing comments.
Thank you. Thank you all for coming back again. Hope to see you again in the next quarter. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Nuvama Wealth Management Limited, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.