Good afternoon everyone and a warm welcome to you all. Thank you for participating in the Q4 and full year FY25 earnings call for Tata Communications. My name is Sudeshna Patnaik and I'll be your host for the call. We are joined today by MD and CEO Mr. A.S. Lakshminarayanan, our CFO Mr. Kabir Ahmed Shakir, and our Head of Investor Relations Mr. Rajiv Sharma. The results for the quarter and the fiscal year ended 31 March 2025 have been announced and the data pack is available on our website. We'll begin today's call with opening remarks from Lakshmi on the business performance and outlook followed by Kabir on the company's financial performance. All participant lines will be muted for the duration of the call. There'll be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the management remarks.
Some of the statements made in today's call may be forward looking in nature and are subject to risks and uncertainties. The company does not undertake to update these forward looking statements publicly. With that, I would like to invite Lakshmi to share his views. Thank you. Over to you, sir.
Thanks, Sudeshna. Let me begin with the overall year. FY25 digital revenues grew by 29.5% and we sustained the growth momentum over the last few years. Now we've had a good year on year. Growth in enterprise market segment in both India and international. India enterprise grew by 8.7% year on year and international enterprise grew upwards of 20% on a year on year basis. Despite the macro uncertainties the world faces today and potential delays in enterprise decision making, our differentiated digital fabric, which is a full stack of infrastructure, software and the services on top of that, continues to increase our relevance with our customers and positions us well for FY26 and beyond. Our full year consolidated revenues came in at INR 23,109 crore, growing 11.2% year on year. Data revenues came in at INR 19,513 crore, growing by 13.7% year on year.
Full year EBITDA margins were at 19.8%. However, at FY25, core business EBITDA margins, which excludes the subsidiaries and the recent acquisitions, held steady at 23.3%, a marginal decline of 40 basis points year on year, but have largely held steady. This decline is due to increased provisions pertaining to some pockets in the SAARC region in the acquired businesses which are currently diluted to the margins. The cost synergy programs are well underway and I will ask Kabir to elaborate this in more detail later in his commentary. Moving on to our quarterly performance data, revenue in Q4 came in at INR 5,096 crore, up 3.9% QoQ and 9.6% year on year. On the order book front we had called out a good H1 l ast year where our order book had substantially increased relative to previous years. It had come back to more normal levels in the second half of the year. We see the good H1 and Order growth that we had playing out in our revenues in Q4. On the funnel front, our funnel continues to be healthy with a good representation of large deals. These large deals are also well diversified across India and international and we are winning multi fabric deals. For example, in the APAC region we won a large deal with an integrated healthcare solutions provider. This deal cuts across multiple fabrics of network and also the cloud and security fabric with a complete SASE stack implementation. We won another deal in the European market and in the European market we are a challenger in this network fabric deal with the high tech telecom manufacturer.
It is to modernize the traditional setup to a more flexible Internet-based architecture that ensures agility, SLA compliance, proactive monitoring, and also supports their cost reduction goals. Core Connectivity reported a revenue growth of 2.5% this quarter and 3.2% year on year. We are leaders in the DC- to- DC connectivity segment and we continue to benefit from a steady demand for dedicated Metro network builds in India. Our core business is strategically positioned to capitalize on substantial infrastructure investments in AI which are currently underway and are expected to only accelerate in the future. Our digital portfolio revenue came in at INR 2,240 crore, growing at 5.5% Q on Q and 17.5% year on year. Our interaction fabric using a collaboration and managed CPaaS portfolio declined by 2.9% quarter on quarter and grew by 8.8% year on year.
The QoQ decline is attributable to a temporary customer specific issue and to seasonality of the CIS business. In Q4 during the year we expanded the channels to program the voice, video, RCS and WhatsApp. We continue to invest in channel orchestration and also the customer journey orchestration to make the interactions more intelligent t hrough Kaleyra AI . NextGen connectivity which is part of our network fabric grew by 3.9% Q on Q and 23.6% year on year. This fiscal year we closed multiple strategic wins where IZO Hybrid WAN enabled large scale network transformation. IZO Multi Cloud Connect has demonstrated robust growth since its launch and in the last three years the revenue CAGR has been upwards of 50%. With our multi cloud connect we had landmark wins across verticals including BFSI, automotive and airlines.
Our cloud and security fabric grew by 18.9% Q on Q and 28.8% year on year. The growth was primarily driven by a large deal that we announced earlier this year. Our security offerings have seen a healthy order bookings driven again by the BFSI verticals. We launched Tata Communications Vayu, which is our next generation cloud fabric. The Tata Communications Vayu addresses the growing challenges of rising cloud costs, multi cloud complexities, and AI infrastructure demands that places on the enterprises. Compared to large cloud providers, Tata Communications Vayu cloud reduces the cost up to 25%. Our IoT fabric, which is our incubation portfolio, grew by 17.7% QoQ and 57.4% year on year. Sequential revenue growth is driven by new vertical vehicle additions on the platform.
Data usage on our MOVE Platform increased significantly in FY25 and I see this as an encouraging sign with our approach to drive platform growth in this fabric. Our media portfolio witnessed a growth of 13.9% Q on Q and also 13.9% year on year. We won a marquee deal with a Middle East broadcaster for transforming their broadcast network. To sum up, this fiscal year reflected solid operational performance alongside meaningful progress in strengthening our digital fabric proposition marked by an addition of AI cloud, and capability augmentation on the interaction of the network fabrics as well. With that, I'll now request Kabir to share the key financial highlights.
Thank you and good afternoon everyone. Before we dive into Q4 financials, let me take a moment to reflect on the year gone. FY25 was truly a milestone year for us. We made remarkable progress on multiple strategic interventions that we had outlined in FY24 like the disposal of TCPSL, a large land parcel monetization, action on Net Foundry, and improvement in the profitability of TCTS. At the heart of these interventions is one underlying theme: shifting focus away from non-core businesses that was tying our balance sheet and management time. With these interventions, we have freed up the capacity allowing us to multiply resources to capture growth for our data business.
Our balance sheet is shaping well with improvement in gearing ratio this year and in line with our ambitions. Q4 FY2025 revenue growth came in at INR 5,990 crore, a growth of 3.3% sequentially and 6.1% on a year-on-year basis. The top line has certain forex benefits accruing from the strengthening dollar. Normalizing for the same, the revenue growth is at 2.3% Q-on-Q and 4.1% year-on-year. Data revenue for the quarter came in at INR 5,096 crore, a growth of 3.9% quarter-on-quarter and a 9.6% year-on-year. Digital revenues for the quarter came in at INR 2,440 crore, a growth of 5.5% quarter-on-quarter and a 17.5% growth year-on-year. EBITDA for the quarter came in at INR 1,122 crore, lower by 5% compared to previous quarter but up by about 4.3% year-on-year.
Our EBITDA margins for the quarter were at 18.7%. EBITDA margin was impacted by a couple of factors. There was a temporary customer specific issue as Lakshmi already pointed out. We also had some spillover costs from cable repairs in Q4. We invested in marketing and launched our Vayu cloud. Full year EBITDA margins were at 19.8%, 100 basis points lower on a year on year basis. One of the reasons for the lower margin this year is increased provisions pertaining to some pockets of SAARC region as they remain impacted by geopolitical factors. Full year impact because of this was about 50 basis points. Additionally, as Lakshmi pointed out, our core EBITDA margins came in at 23.3% for the full year and that has been fairly stable for us. We suggested earlier that the subsidiaries and the recent acquisitions have been a drag on all margins.
We have taken actions on the subsidiaries and it's reflecting in higher margins for this year. On the acquisitions, we are executing the cost synergy programs while Kaleyra is 18 months in and Switch is 24 months in. Both are approaching the inflection point and we expect the synergies to play out in the coming quarter. PAT for the quarter came in at INR 761 crore, up 196.5% quarter on quarter and 114% 14.8% quarter on quarter. PAT this quarter has benefited from exceptional items to the tune of INR 578 crore. This includes profits received from the sale of land. Full year PAT is at INR 16.25 crore, up 44.7% year on year. All of these are for continuing business. For the consolidated business PAT for the full year came in at 1,836.
FCF for the full year was at INR 306 crore and for the quarter was INR 66 crore lower because of higher cash capex for the quarter which was at INR 730 crore. Our full year cash capex is at INR 2,206 crore. This quarter we received proceeds from TCPSL and land sale that helped us reduce our net debt to INR 9,376 crore. INR 9,377 crore. Sorry. Net debt to EBITDA stands at 2.06x. As we mentioned earlier, net debt to EBITDA ratio will be the first to start coming within our desired range. ROCE will be the next followed by EBITDA margin. ROCE came in at 15.9%, a decline of 10 basis points quarter on quarter and a decline of 284 basis points year on year. Our ROCE is based on 12 month rolling numbers. The recent net debt reduction and gradual improvement in profitability will help proceed positively going forward.
On the subsidiaries, TCTS revenue came in at 15.4% quarter on quarter. EBITDA margin improved 11.8%, an improvement of 342 basis points quarter on quarter. The Switch revenue grew by 6% quarter on quarter and EBITDA margin came in at 72.7%. I will now ask Sudeshna to open the forum for question and answers.
Thank you, Kabir. We'll wait for a minute for the question queue to assemble. Interested participants may click on the raise hand icon at the center bottom of the pane on the WebEx application to join the question and answer queue. The first question is from the line of Sanjay Jain. Sanjay, you have been requested to unmute yourself. Please unmute and ask your question.
Hey hi. Good afternoon all. Thanks for taking my question. My first question is an order book. Lakshmi, you mentioned that first half was s trong, scond half was more normalized. When you say normalized, we are still growing at high single digit to early teens, or it has really been muted i n the second half. nd we were expecting some deal wins to flow through. Is the decision making getting even more d elayed because of all this tariff uncertainty and all? Have we seen customers developing cold feet on already announced deal win? What has been the reaction because of t his tariff things which is playing out in the U.S.? And how do you see o rder book going into FY26?
Sanjay, the order book in H1 was good. It was. It's been some of the highest compared to the previous years that we had seen for the overall year. If you look at the order book, the ACV that we booked, it was in good high double digit number is overall growth that we saw. In H2 it had come back to the more, so H1 had a few large deals. We had called out a few of them in the markets with an OTT player. We had called out the World Athletics, we had called out a large BFSI deal, and there were a few others. We didn't see the same extent of deals coming in H2. It had come to the new normal levels, but overall we had a good growth for the year.
Now if I look at the color of the funnel and how it is panning out, whether there are cancellations, we didn't see any cancellations as such. We had a few deals that we were hoping to close in Q4. They are rolling forward to Q1 and we expect to close those. We didn't get any negative sense from the customers that there would be any reactions as a result of the tariff war. We don't really see an immediate impact on the order booking, the funnel. As I said, the overall funnel additions have been good even in the last quarter. Overall, the funnel still is quite healthy. The number of large deals in the funnel is, proportion wise, it's the same. The number of large deals addition in Q4 had come down while the overall funnel growth has been there.
I do not think with all these we can really call out something that the customers are either reacting and making decisions. While we do see a cautionary approach, at least in the language, we will have to wait and watch to see what happens.
Got it, got it. For the full year when you say Lakshmi double digit, it is above teens, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Got it. Very, very clear. Second question is on the net revenue t hough our total revenue is healthy in t he digital services and even in the core connectivity data as a whole. The translation to the net revenue h as been quite weak or inferior in this quarter while mix has been favorable b ecause the CPaaS revenue has declined sequentially, which has a higher net cost, direct cost. Now what has led to the deterioration i n the translation from the gross revenue to the net revenue? In fact, it should have improved.
There are a couple of factors. Maybe Kabir can take this.
Sanjay, when I actually called out for the full year as a whole, we did have SAARC as one of the things where the impact was about 50 basis points. We had already highlighted that situation, so we are seeing how the geopolitical thing is anyway evolving in that space. We had to take some tough calls, you know, there and terminate some certain, you know, customers also. That was definitely one. As Lakshmi pointed out, there was one customer-specific, you know, issue, you know, which impacted. It is temporary in nature. Just, you know, we had a fixed, you know, cost deal and the revenue, and that was a fixed commitment, and the revenue which we were expecting did not, you know, come through. It is very, very specific in quarter. I do not expect that to repeat.
Those were a couple of things. Also, again, we had alluded to all of you guys, three of our cable systems had gone down. This never happened before in this year. It took us longer due to the conflict that we had in those geographies for the ships to even go and repair those systems. It took longer, which impacted both our growth in core connectivity, which has been softer than what it used to be in the good low to mid single digits kind of thing. It has been in the low thing this quarter if you actually see core connectivity, which also, when that comes with a high INR margin profile and INR EBITDA as well, has a drag on the in-quarter numbers. All of this is behind us.
I alluded to that we invested in marketing in one of our product launches as well. Acutely aware of the things that led to this plus the conscious investment that we are also making for the future. Those were the one off things that I would say that impacted us in Q4.
Thanks, thanks.
Kabir, most of this cost I think are below direct cost. Right. What we have talked about provision.
No, they are not. They are not. You know like for example the customer specific deal was a direct cost issue because the fixed commitment was there at the direct cost level and the revenue did not come. So that one indirectly impacts direct cost and therefore no.
Okay, but what led to the digital s ervices having such an inferior conversion? While we have grown 5.5% sequentially while u nder net revenue, it's decline of 0.5%.
Yeah, so that's as I mentioned, it is direct cost. It is in the interaction business, in the CIS business which is part of this table.
Got it. And do you expect t hese things should get resolved in Q 1, and Q1 should have a much normalized net revenue margin.
Exactly. This is a one time in Q4, a specific deal, a specific customer, a specific instance. Do not worry about it. That has no track in the future.
Kabir, what is the bridge for you to grow from this 20% EBITDA margin level to more 23-25% where w e aspire to be?
We will talk more detail of that, the investor day is not far away. Sanjay, we'll talk about our ambition of 23, 25 still stays, right? I mean, that's an ambition. It still stays. We announced that two years ago. We exactly know, as Lakshmi talked about, the reason why we separated out the core business to say is that is static. We have made investments very, very clearly due to acquisition. It's been a drag and those need to come back up. Second, we've made investments organically to drive innovations as well. They need to give us return by getting the right revenue and having the operating leverage. There are, I would say, BAU stuff which I will not offer justification, but that is an explanation that, you know, is the one which is shaping us.
We will come back, you know, are we committed to 23, 25? Yes, we are committed to 23. Because for this business, structurally, you know, what should be the kind of growth rate that should deliver. Therefore, what CapEx does it actually needs to sustain that kind of a growth. And that should come at what ROCE and what margin profile. This has been very carefully thought through and I do not want to change that because nothing structurally and fundamentally has, you know, has changed. Yes, the mix will change, you know, for business moving away from core connectivity into digital. But once they scale up, they should give us the same, you know, EBIT or PAT. When we shift that, we are a couple of years away to even get to shifting the marker on margin. ROCE, you know, remains intact.
Therefore, structurally nothing has changed. It's only, I would say, timing issues. It's only external environment uncertainties, volatilities, customer decision-making delays, and deal-specific things. Sometimes we get this good order book which resulted in a very good Q4 that we had, revenue as a result of the good order book in H1. Those things we will ride the wave as it comes. I am not terribly worried about it. These are just the timing issues. We will write them.
On these acquisitions, f irst few quarters went very well. Now it's already 18-24 month in the acquisition. Are we happy satisfied with how those acquisitions have turned up? Or you think the turnaround has been slightly more challenging than what we thought a t the time of acquisition?
No, Sanjay, I think we are very happy with the acquisitions and the capabilities we acquired. If you look at Switch, t he capabilities o n production are extremely good. We are winning deals on the back of such capabilities. We announced with World Athletics, for example, and some of the deviants in Latam that we talked about will include some of the production capabilities in due course as we transform. These are capabilities that are good capabilities to have. On the cost side, synergy, execution, while it was being done, we were hit with something that we did not anticipate. That is where you see the margins did not kick in as quickly as we anticipated, but that is on the Switch side. Similarly, on the Kaleyra, I think the capabilities are very good. Again, we are cutting down on a few areas which had low margins, bringing a bit more discipline into how we manage some of the tail accounts and so on and so forth.
That should help improve the margins in the longer term. We also said we need to invest in the software layers above these for the channel orchestration, expansion of channels. Those investments are also going on. You are right to say that some of the results are not visible. The short answer for if you are happy with these acquisitions: absolutely, yes.
Got it. Got it. One last question from my side, Lakshmi.
Going into FY26, where are we very confident on winning order book revenue transition and acceleration to come in within our digital portfolio?
When you say where are we, you mean we see the. Across all the fabrics. The opportunities are good because I'm visualizing the customers today are faced with two challenges. One is the uncertainty on the macro side and what they should do about it, which they also don't have control and they are watching and waiting to see what will happen. On the other side the customers are seeing that they are going to hyper connected ecosystem where AI and other technologies are going to disrupt in the future and they have to make investments to prepare themselves and that is where we would see the opportunities. Now whether one on the macro will weigh down the other, we don't know yet and I think I commented on it earlier. The customers today are weighing.
There has been no knee jerk reactions that we have seen to cancel things or anything. The opportunities we see is that the customers would have to invest to make themselves more relevant for the future. That is where all the products that we have launched have absolute relevance to these customers.
Got it, got it. From the funnel side, which is the s egment which is showing maximum growth for u s.
Both India and international funnel, we have not analyzed by industry segment because that is not how we look at our business. Both India and international side we have seen good funnel increase.
Got it. Got it. Thanks Lakshmi. Thanks Kabir for answering all those questions and best of luck for the coming quarters. Thank you.
Thank you, Sanjay . The next question is from the line of Vibhore Singhal. You have been requested to unmute yourself. Please proceed with your question.
I hope I'm audible.
Yeah.
Thanks, Lakshmi. Lakshmi, a very solid performance in the cloud business in this quarter. I think this has come after multiple quarters of kind of modest growth in this vertical. We discussed it before that basically, I mean, I think, do you see, I mean, that the cloud business is predominantly India business. Basically, do you think this cloud business at this point of time is kind of turning the leaf in its own nature and we could probably be at an inflection point where we could see some incremental growth, strong growth in acceleration in this vertical. Any color on this, that will be beautiful.
Yeah, this is both the cloud and security fabric is what we put together and call out the numbers, r ight? The cloud has been somewhat static and we are seeing some uplift from some of the deals announced in the first half of last year. As we execute on that, we are seeing the results in this quarter. Our funnel both on the cloud and security is quite robust and in fact we are further strengthening our security commitments on both the threat management side. We have been doing good banking sector deals. We are going after some of the local government and other opportunities in that area. On the network security, we have a very solid proposition now with putting together all the capabilities of what we have in the edge, the security, the firewall, and all those capabilities. We think that will have a lot more legs in the international markets.
As we strengthen that portfolio and continue to invest in these portfolios, both the cloud and security has good upside potential in the future chart.
Got it. That was helpful. Is it fair to say that the growth in this vertical and the positive outlook that we are talking about is more driven by our own efforts and our own capabilities rather than something changing on the macro front or let's say overall cloud adoption demand front, that enterprises are becoming more amenable to the idea of moving on to the cloud platform? Any visible change in the broader macro level? Are you seeing anything on that front or is it more of micro driven?
Yeah, no, I don't see. I think I commented on a macro level. We don't see anything either way to talk about at this current point in time. We think this situation is changing very quickly. At this point in time, we don't have anything to talk about on the macro side.
Got it, got it. That was really helpful. On the flip side, I think the CPaaS business had a QoQ decline in this quarter. Any exceptional thing that we're talking about there and what is the outlook that we're looking for the CPaaS business for FY26 given that FY25 was a year in which almost all CPaaS players were chasing profitability, maybe not focusing so much on growth, do you see that trend to continue or maybe growth taking precedence?
That trend will continue. I did mention that we are looking carefully at all the low margin deals and cutting the debt out, and this quarter Kabir explained there was a customer specific issue because of which we had to take both a hit on the top line and the bottom line. For a specific issue, but otherwise our strategy in CIS is that we are going to expand our channels beyond the SMS, which has become a commodity, and look at expanding in the layers above with the software platform capabilities is where we are investing and focusing.
Got it, got it. Thank you for that. Just one last question on the demand front then we'll probably have a couple of questions for Kabir as well. A lot of our, I will say the technology peers, I mean especially the ISPs have been talking about an uncertain elevated level of uncertainty because of the tariff situation. Now I know you've mentioned this in the past that at our size we are not really coupled with, there's not too much of coupling with the macro levels, but any basically headwinds that you are seeing or challenges that you're seeing at this point of time. At this point of time I know things are quite volatile and can change in a matter of weeks from here. At this point of time in your conversations in the deal flows, any, let's say, delaying deal closures or, let's say, a delay in execution of an awarded deal—anything that we are seeing or any conversation that we are seeing at this point of time, or is it BAU at this point of time?
Yeah, and I think I mentioned this. We are not directly impacted. We anticipate indirect implications for us when customers' cautionary approach. We see caution but we haven't seen any knee jerk reactions of cancellations or anything. I did say that a few deals have got rolled over to Q1. Attribute that to the macro condition, it is just a matter of delays and specific delays from customers, but it is a situation that we will continue to watch carefully. You have to be, and the customers are cautious. They are all worried. They are all cautious. But as I said, they are also wanting to see w hile they have to be cautious on this front, they are also worried about the future that they are getting into, the hyper connected world where technology is going to play a major role and AI is going to play a major role, and therefore how to balance these two considerations is what they are looking at. There will be investments in that area, albeit in a smaller way. The answer is we haven't seen any direct implications, but there is certainly caution in the air.
Got it, got it. Sure. Thank you. Thanks for that. Kabir, just two questions from my side. You mentioned in the remarks that, ex of Calera and Switch, our margins for the core business are already north of 23% and you would be looking to, let's say, and Calera and Switch are probably at an inflection point as you mentioned. What would typically be the margin levers for companies like that? I mean, I know that in technology space, when a company tends to acquire a company, when an Indian company tends to acquire a company outside India, the typical margin levers are you offshore a lot of work, a lot of the local people are replaced by people in India, which gives a boost to the margins. What could typically be the margin levers here for companies like Calera and such?
I think the cost synergies from what you have mentioned that were done right in the very first couple of quarters itself.
Right
Where we are seeing the benefit is as for example on media, when Lakshmi answered the previous question, it has just enhanced our capabilities and helps us for better dealings. Let's take the World Athletics deal that we announced earlier in the year. I think the merge of our transmission capability, our global network coupled with the production capability has made us a better suitor to win that particular team. I would say both these assets were acquired for us not to just strip away costs but to add capabilities, add to our global presence and become more relevant to our customers. I am looking at these to give me operating leverage through that. In CIS i n specific, I am probably repeating what Lakshmi said. We want to move away from A2P bulk SMS, which is more commoditized, to layer two, layer three orchestration. That is why we called it CIS. We are not calling it CPaaS, we are calling it Customer Interaction Suite. We are not flippant with the choice of words, but it has deep meaning because we are able to therefore orchestrate a full customer's journey. Omnichannel, make it contextual, make it programmable, make it agile to someone, and then introduce AI into each of them. When you look at some of them, demos are there in our websites as to how this comes to life. That is when we will be able to command a slightly higher premium margin for those layers when customers start adopting them.
For me the levers are that you get more volume, therefore we don't add more cost to it, operating leverage. You also get more high calorie volume which is more profitable. Because of this, you know, this suite of offerings that we do. These are the, you know, I would say the two main and good source of revenue to get us to the margin profile that we want.
Got it. Fair to say that the World Athletics deal would probably be a margin accretive deal and could probably be a higher margin deal than the other deals that you would have done before?
This is a long over a five year deal and over a five year deal we are doing a massive transformation for them and the transformation will involve using our production capabilities. Year one we will continue to, there is a transition, we will continue to use the current setup and manage that. Over a five year period this is a very good deal. It brings in all the capabilities that we have to deliver. We don't want to comment on a specific and individual deal as such but overall it is a transformation deal which will give us good margins in the full course of the deal period.
Got it. Thanks for that. Lakshmi and Kabir, just my last question on the debt front. This quarter of course we had, I mean last two quarters we've had good amount of cash flows from the land sale and TCPSL divestment and we saw the net debt coming down. What is the way going forward? We also, I mean we issued a commercial paper I think yesterday at around 6.5%. What is the objective of that and how are you looking at the debt number moving over the next two years?
Yeah, I stick to what I had mentioned before. Our ambition is to bring the debt down to under 2x and operate at that optimal, like o ptimal debt situation. We had earlier indicated that had we got our growth and our profitability as what our ambition was, it would have been under 2x already. We are almost there so we will get to under 2x in the next one or two quarters. I am not terribly worried about that. I will not link the commercial paper thing. A lot of people in the media also ask me this question earlier today. Once we decide on what is the optimal debt structure then the debt structure is made up between long term and short term and then the short term is commercial paper.
Because I write the market depending on my working capital and my cash flow needs, the short term funds are therefore matched with short term liabilities as well. Therefore, we keep rotating this commercial paper. They are of a short, short term nature, 30, 60, 90 day kind of a tenure. That is what we do at CPaaS. For me, I would not link that with it because that is the flexibility given to the treasury team as to how efficiently they can source capital for us. At a strategic level and from your vantage point, you should look at our debt on a BAU basis being under 2x, which is our stated ambition, sans any big activity that we may do for maybe another acquisition or maybe another monetization parcel or anything that we may do that will take it down or up.
For example, for a large part of the time before we did the acquisition, our net debt to EBITDA went down to as low as 1.3x. That was the war chest that we were actually building so that we can invest back in. I would not be married to just 2x and stay at 2x. If cash flows then come in and we do not have an avenue to invest in, debt will come down and we then build the war chest for the right avenue when it comes to invest back both organically and inorganically, which is what we will use and therefore stay under 2x.
To take it from there, let's assume, I mean we are at around 2.06. I mean we are at 2.06 Net Debt to EBITDA . Given that our EBITDA is going to be going to increase, as you said, in the next couple of quarters, we might actually come within below that targeted range that we're talking about. Now, if that is the optimal debt level that you're talking about, and we are going to generate free cash flow every quarter, are we going to hold that to the cash reserves to maybe plan for some acquisition at point of time or in the interim we could see the dividend also increasing?
We have announced dividend in line with our dividend policy. Yes, our dividend policy is 30-50% of consolidated profits. This dividend is about 39 point, some 40% is what the board has announced. It may look, I mean, high and that is because of the exceptional gains that we actually got and we have a higher PAT. I would not, it is not like as if we have declared anything bumper. We have declared in line with policy. It is not that we will, when we get extra FCF, we are going to give it away, you know, in dividend. That is not the intention. The board will continue to remain within the policy and we will therefore, like how we have said in the past, we will build this war chest, you know, for funding growth both organically and inorganically.
Got it, got it. Just one last one bit from my side. I know I've said last multiple times just on the guidance for FY2027. Now it's for the four point guidance. I think you've clarified that ROCE margins and probably the debt levels will definitely come through. O n the groXwth part, I think the INR 28,000 crore number for the data revenue looks to be quite steep from the current levels. Do we maintain that guidance? Are we basically talking of it more as an aspiration? Do you see it spilling over? What is our final point of view as we end FY2025?
I'm sure Lakshmi will want to chip in. First, I want to clarify, this is not a guidance. I've said many times, this is our ambition. Goes to doubling our data business 100%. Yes. When we announced it two years ago it was different set of business environment at that point in time. Different, different set of environment that we are facing and we are navigating that through the investor day is, you know, less than two months away. I think we will talk a little bit more in detail at that point in time as to what that ambitions, that ambition, you know, and how we will bring that to life. I know I wouldn't worry about, you know, about that aspect. I don't know if Lakshmi wants to add anything.
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Sure. Great. Thank you so much. Thanks for taking my question guys and wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Vibhore, the next question is from Sumangal Nivatia. Sumangal, you have been requested to unmute yourself. Please unmute and ask your question.
I have a couple of quick questions. First on the Red Sea cable cut issue. In last quarter we mentioned that we are in the process of winning back customers and some lost business. Can you give some update? Have we normalized in fourth quarter or should we see some further low, low base benefit in coming quarters flowing?
We said let's see cable cuts, we said we are near that and the repairs are done and we are in the process of going back to the customer. There is nothing specifically we want to comment about.
Understood, understood. Second, I mean we've seen some good progress on the overall strategic corporate measures and on land monetization in the coming years. I mean is it fine to assume that a large part of heavy lifting is being done as far as monetization is concerned or we should expect something to continue on an ongoing basis?
At an overall level this is ongoing. I mean the strategic review that we will do of both non core and also I would say core because end of the day every business needs to perform for its growth margin and return aspirations that we have set for that business. Yes, there will be more of that review that happens. As and when we find an answer to it and we get the approval from the board, we will come and disclose that for you. That also holds good for monetization of the land parcels. Two years ago when we came out and then told all of you that we have a real estate strategy that's approved by the board and we are working towards that, we've been monetizing a few land parcels here and there.
Outside of this land parcel, we also sold something in the beginning of the year, a Vikhroli property. There are a couple more smaller properties like that which is in the anvil and that will continue to happen. We have some large land parcels in the north and even this Chennai land parcel took us little over two and a half years to get through all the paperwork and title deed clearances and approvals. For example, there was a shareholder approval that we had taken because the buyer was a related party. It took us just four or five months just to go through even that last hurdle. All of this will take time. We do have a roadmap, we do have a plan. Some more large land parcels are yet to come.
The timing of it, I will not be able to give you a finality to it because actually I don't know. As to how they will unveil at that point in time and we will therefore realize the value. The last thing that I would say is on each of them I've very clearly articulated that it is the best intent of the management to match the inflows and the outflows. I would like to even clarify to the earlier point that we were asked, you know, the idea is not to monetize this and dividend it out. Dividend will be done because that is BAU and we need to maintain a dividend policy and give consistency to the market. That's what we will do.
All of this we would try to match to the internal needs of the company to support growth organically and inorganically. That's how you should look at it.
Got it. That's very clear. Just one last question. I mean with respect to the cost synergies which we're expecting to kind of play out for all the acquisitions we expecting. I mean a good inflection point. Did we share that it's about to be in the coming quarter or it's more of a medium term target or kind of ambition or guidance we are?
Looking at this will gradually start playing out. As I said, this is about driving the right revenue synergies on the top line and building that in while right sizing the organization is a continuous thing. It is not just, I would say, for the businesses that have been acquired, even for other businesses also we are going through exactly the same, you know, same principle. The right sizing and being competitive, you know, to the market from, you know, from a P&L perspective is something ongoing that we will do. You will see that gradually, you know, coming through.
Got it, got it. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Sumangal. The next question is from Balaji Subramanian. Balaji, you have been requested to unmute yourself. Please proceed with your question.
DC- to- DC connectivity, large deal that you had signed earlier in FY25. Is it right to say that, you know, the revenue contribution from that is yet to begin and whenever it starts contributing we could see a step jump in revenue? A related question would be that that would be part of next gen connectivity or core connectivity.
That would be part of core connectivity and we would see the revenues coming in more towards the later part of this year.
Sorry, later part of?
Later p art of this year.
This year. Okay, so it is. Okay, so it's fair to say that it's more of a 2H FY 26 event?
Yes, yes. Yeah.
Would this also have margin profile similar to core connectivity, or would it be similar to the newer businesses?
It's core connectivity.
Right. This means effectively the core connectivity revenue will see a sharper jump compared to the 3-5% that you have always guided for, r ight?
We take all of these into account and we say that the number 3-5%.
All right, got it. Just a clarification on the margins for this quarter. You know, the net margin to—sorry, the net revenue to gross revenue ratio deterioration that we have seen. You know, you did mention in passing that there were a number of issues. Is it fair to assume that most of the drop which we saw from Q3 to Q4 was because of all these one-off factors mentioned, and going forward, it should be similar to Q3 levels? The point I am trying—the question I am trying to ask is, it is not the case that the cybersecurity deal that you have won comes with inherently lower margins, right? That is not the case, I presume.
Let me answer because the answer lies in the middle. Is it a temporary one, customer issue? Yes, we have said that and that happened in the interaction business and that is the one which actually resulted into Q4. Are the DPS margins inherently lower than my overall margins and my vis a vis core connective margins? Absolutely yes. That has been factored in in our ambition to say that they will have a negative mix. Despite that, they should be able to get countered by operating leverage at an overall level as well. The answer is yes to both. Balaji, yes, it was a one time thing in Q4 and for CIS the NR margins should come back to this normal levels from at a Q3 of that level while coming into Q1. The answer is also yes for the cloud and security, the thing that you mentioned.
Right, got it. My final question would be on, you know, your thoughts on the data center associate. So you know, what is the plan there? Would you like to, you know, exit the stake there completely or would you look at, you know, consolidating by taking the stake up? You know, just wanted to get your thoughts on the way forward there. Especially since the data center business has seen a fair bit of rising competitive intensity in the last 12 to 18 months.
See, we hold a 26% stake in ST Telemedia Global Data Centres and we continue our position is that we will maintain that stake. Whenever there is any capital raise that has come from ST Telemedia Global Data Centres, our management is absolutely supportive of it and we will continue to maintain our 26% stake. If there is any decision to do increase or decrease or exit is something that, you know, the board will take a decision on. Whenever we take the position then we will communicate to the market. As of now, there is no such proposal in front of the board. There is no such discussion. We continue to be committed to our 26% stake and we continue to support ST Telemedia Global Data Centres in their venture.
Okay, got it. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. That brings us to the end of the Q A session. We are running out of time here, so I would thank all the participants on the call. With that, I would request Lakshmi to please share his closing remarks.
Thank you. Thank you all. It's been a very good quarter and in terms of the quarter-on-quarter growth, in terms of overall growth for the year, has been very good. We were in FY2023 at INR 4,500 crore in digital revenues. Today we are at INR 9,100 crore revenues, close to getting close to 50%, which is a marker that we said that we would need to touch when we talked about our EMI management strategy as Kabir outlined the margin profiles. There is a program, there is a plan, there are, and we will ensure that we can execute to that to get to the ambition levels of 23%-25%. Overall, I think the sentiments, the comments, the internal energy, the investments we are doing are all very high. Very happy about it.
Okay, thank you, Lakshmi. This brings us to the end of the call. In case of any queries, please write to investorrelations@tatacommunications.com. Thank you for joining the call and you may disconnect your lines now. Have a good day.