Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Tech Mahindra Limited Q4 FY 2022 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in listen only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. C.P. Gurnani, MD and CEO of Tech Mahindra Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Hi, good morning, good evening, everybody. Welcome to Tech Mahindra Q4 2022 and FY 2022 results. Thank you all for joining us today. We are excited, happy, regarding our financial performance and overall as a company, investing into future. You know, it's been a great year. We started the year, when I look back, with our new framework, which is NXT.NOW. NXT.NOW was really taking into account, the next range of technologies, which will lead to business transformation. We took into account some of the unique features of the company, which is communications, you know, content, creativity through BORN or Pininfarina, and also on commerce, which is really how to help our customers grow.
Now, this four C focus, I think is worked well for us and our team of NXT.NOW, which is basically to be agile, to anticipate the future, and do it now, has worked well. Just to give an example, February, you know, our leadership did a simultaneous launch of TechMVerse in Barcelona as well as in Hyderabad. Again, very, very well received, and we believe that today our use cases are helping many, many customers. Few people on e-commerce on NFT, a few people who are looking at creativity, few people who are looking at solving business challenges in retail sector or in some cases working on the content again, which is about the teaching platforms or education, or simulation for the sports. Our company will focus on 5G, will focus on the Wave 2.
Wave 2, as you know, is an internal program which looks at data flow from IoT, from various devices, from various other sources, and how the data is, you know, managed, how the data is, you know, not only managed through conventional tools and platforms, but also through AI. How the data, you know, goes through edge computing or data centers or the cloud, and how we are able to secure the data. Now, that journey for us is Wave 2. I think overall NXT.NOW has resulted in good results and good value creation for our clients. Company overall signed more than $3.3 billion dollars of large deals. We saw some of the very big large deals mainly in CME and BFSI.
You know, we are lucky and happy that our 5G investments are now yielding results. Our cloud business is growing, you know, very, very healthy. Overall, I can say that FY 2022, as Rohit tells me, is that it's one of our best years in seven years. I can only say is, thank you all of you for supporting us in FY 2022, supporting us in the previous years. I know Q4 results take us to almost a $6 billion company. Constant currency growth of 5.4%. Overall deal win, large deal win of $1 billion+. I mean, CME business growing over the last six quarters consistently. I am only glad that I have a great team, and I have this leadership team right on this call.
You know, thank you for your support. The board recognizes that our capital allocation should continue to reward the shareholders in short term also. The board has recommended the final dividend of INR 30 per share in addition to INR 15 per share, which was earlier given as interim dividend. My focus for FY 2023 and my management team's focus is organic growth. Continue to look for improvement in our EBITDA improvement programs and continue our focus on Wave 2 and Metaverse. Connectivity, Wave 2 and Metaverse will continue to be our focus leading to business transformation. I wanna thank you all for attending the call. Handing over to Milind and Rohit to update us on all the financials. Milind, over to you. Thank you, guys.
Thank you, C.P. Good evening and good morning, depending on the time zone you are in. Let me cover the company financials for the quarter ended March and for the year in little more details. We ended quarter with a revenue of $1,608 million versus $1,533 million last quarter. The constant currency growth of 5.4%. As C.P. alluded, balanced growth with CME vertical growing at around 4.8% and enterprise growing at 5.8%. Another quarter. We had another quarter of a strong deal win with TCV exceeding $1 billion for the second time in last two years. Now, overall increase of over 50%+ year-over-year in terms of TCV wins.
Revenue in rupee terms was about INR 12,116 crores versus INR 11,451 crores, which is a 5.8% growth in revenue terms, in rupee terms, sorry. EBIT for the quarter was about $211.5 million versus $228 million in Q3. EBITDA margin for the quarter was 17.2%, lower by about 80 basis points compared to the Q3, partially on account of lower utilization, which is in view of the recruitment which we have done for the growth and juniorization. Salary and retention related impact because, the cost, I mean, the supply side pressures still continue. There are some one-time which were there in last quarter, which obviously have not got repeated in the current quarter.
There was an additional charge of about 80 basis points on account of depreciation and amortization. Depreciation because of additional investment in the hardware and software which we have done in the current quarter, and amortization resulting from the acquisitions in quarter four, where the impact, in terms of cost, was for the full quarter, but the benefit we got was for part of the quarter. Moving below EBIT line, our other income was higher at about INR 42 million compared to INR 30 million in the last quarter. The increase was mainly contributed by the Forex gains, which was about $27.8 million versus $17 million in Q3.
We continue to follow the hedge policy which the board has adopted, I mean, for last many years, and that consistent hedging has helped us to deliver good returns over the period. One redeeming feature for this quarter was the tax rate was about 17.5% as against 27% in Q3, and this was on account of one-time reversal of tax benefit, tax provisions related to SEZ benefits. That is result of two factors.
One is the pickup in the investment in plant and machinery in last year, and our decision to opt for new tax regime from FY 2022, which means the investment that we will do in the next three years will be available for the utilization of SEZ investment reserves, which till FY 2021-2022. Now we will be under new regime, as I said, from FY 2022 onwards, and our normalized tax rate for the company will be in the range of about 26%. The net profit margin for the quarter is 12.3%, which is an increase of about 30 bps over the last quarter. Free cash flow for the quarter is about $111 million, which is 56% of PAT, lower than the last quarter.
That was the cash flow was impacted because of the additional hardware investment in hardware and software, as well as some OpEx payments which we had to make for the future. Okay. Some of these benefits you will see as we go along in the coming quarters. Our DSO days, which have increased last quarter, have improved by about four days to 97, and we hope to continue on that movement. Moving to full year performance. The revenue for quarter, we are almost at $6 billion as C.P. alluded to . We were at, I mean, $5.998 billion, a growth of 17%, 17.3%.
During the year, our communication business grew by 17.2%, while enterprise business grew by 17.4%. In the enterprise, technology and BFSI were major growth drivers for the current quarter. When it came to CME, the 5G revenues helped us to accelerate the growth there. EBIT margin for the full year at 14.5%, which is about 30 basis points improvement over the previous year. In absolute terms, EBIT for the year was $872 million. Our EBITDA for the year was $1,076 million, a margin of 17.9%. In terms of our other income, other income for the year was $149 million, significantly higher than the previous year because of higher Forex exchange gains.
Forex gains were about INR 75.5 million this year, as against INR 12.6 million last quarter. Free cash flow for the year, full year was about $595 million, about 80% of our PAT for the year. As C.P. said, the board has declared a final dividend of INR 30 per share, and with an interim dividend of INR 15 per share, dividend will be INR 45 per share, same as last year. As I said, we continue to follow our hedging policy consistently. Our hedge book was about $2.2 billion , almost similar to last year.
MTM gains as on 31st March were about $571 million, of which $16 million have been taken to P&L, and $55 million are in the balance sheet based on the accounting that we do. Okay. In summary, I would like to reiterate that we are taking the right steps towards transforming our operations as we continue to focus on growth momentum moving into new fiscal. With this remark, I will now open the floor for questions.
Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Nitin Padmanabhan from Investec. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. First is on, I had a couple of questions on margins, actually. In the last quarter, our SG&A was around 12.1% of revenue, and you had suggested that it could go closer to 13% on a sustainable basis. This quarter also it seems to be just about there. Is there any specific one-off there, or how should we think about this particular cost item?
Nitin, for convenience, I'm gonna request Rohit Anand to coordinate all the Q&A. Rohit, can you take over, please?
Sure. Thank you, Nitin. From a quarter-over-quarter perspective, there is absolute increase of $10 million in the SG&A spend. While as a percentage, yes, we've not seen that increase so much come through. Nothing from a dramatic one-off that we see this time versus last time, which is reflecting from a P&L standpoint.
Sure. Now from a margin perspective overall, if you look at EBIT, how should we think about it on a going forward basis? I think you mentioned something on depreciation. If you give a broad color on puts and takes on margin, and how should we think about it on a going forward basis?
Yeah, sure. I think from an EBIT perspective, maybe, the way to think about it is, you know, from where we are, let's look at a little bit of recap. I think from the year perspective, we were at 14.6%, right, at an EBIT level. Based on some of the charges that came in in Q4, which I'll talk about, I think, barring that, we were very close to the range that we had outlined for the year. We're in the ballpark. We look at, as we move forward, right, and where we are from a quarter perspective, what has happened through the year is.
Rohit, can you-
Sorry. Can you guys hear me properly?
Yeah.
Yes, sir. You're clear.
Yeah, we can.
What's happened through the year is the salary cost and the retention based on the, you know, the supply side pressures has continued. We've also seen in the second half a little bit of advantage come through for price, but that's lagging the cost increases dramatically. As we move forward, when we look forward, one of the big levers that we'll continue to work on with our customers is gonna be price increase, right? That's one, looking forward from a margin standpoint. Second, you know, we've invested consciously in the last two quarters for future, which means we've invested in juniorization. We've done a lot of fresher hiring. That's the long-term impact we wanna get to bring our average resource cost down, right?
That gives a short-term impact. Our utilization has gone down. If you look at that from a two-quarter track standpoint, we are operating at almost 87%+, which has gone down significantly. As we look at the future, there's an upside on utilization that will pay out, right? That's the second broad trend as we look at, right? Third, I think, we're continuing our journey on offshoring. I've mentioned that multiple times before. As we look forward, I think, we see a definite improvement opportunity for us available on doing more and more offshoring. Short term, the demand because of travel restrictions, et cetera, has also been fulfilled onshore. A lot of deal wins that we've done, you know, the work will start getting transitioned to offshore.
That'll be an opportunity that we'll see. If you see our subcontracting costs, right? That's another lever. That's gone up to get the growth that we've enabled this year. As we stabilize in those programs, as we get maturity, we continue to work two things. One, wherever there is offices, stick to ITB, onshore those subcon will be replaced by, onsite people who are full-time headcount. Also there we'll play the, you know, in terms of how do we hire the right fit employees. That gives us an advantage from a cost benefit by substituting subcon to headcount, right? That's another lever that will play for us. Then we've, you know, this also I've mentioned, in the past, and we're continuing pursuing it.
We're trying to look very strongly on geographies that are low margin for us, countries that are not giving us the return we want. We're taking conscious effort on picking those portfolio out which doesn't fit strategically, which is not giving the return, one, by organically not focusing on that. Or second, you know, package it from our perspective so we're seeing that, can we make a better realization for somebody else there, right? Versus the fitment to our portfolio. Those efforts, you know, in our perspective will give a better business mix as we look forward and give us upside from a margin perspective. So these are the levers, as we look forward will continue to work for us.
You know well, right, from a supply side perspective, salary cost, travel coming back, you know, some of the facility costs, while we continue to work on a hybrid model, those will be the headwinds for us. Given this and the growth prospects, given how the deal wins have been and what the pipeline looks like, it makes us continue to believe we'll continue to progress as we go sequentially through the quarters of the year to improve our margin story as we move forward.
Sure. Thank you, Rohit. I'll fall back in with you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pankaj Kapoor from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Rohit, a question on the revenue outlook. If I look at this year, you have added over $700 million of organic revenues. Now for the next year, if I see the deal booking this year, of course, has been 50% higher than last year. How should one think about the incremental revenue addition on organic basis for next year? Do you think we should sustain this level or it could be even better than this?
Pankaj, as you know, I mean, obviously, we don't give guidance, but I can give you some trends that we're seeing from a market and our vertical perspective that give a flavor of what the future is, right? Communication, right, you've seen that grow consistently over the last few quarters. That from our perspective, deal wins that you see in the quarter is almost $600+ million of the $1 billion that we got in the fourth quarter, including a significant win that C.P. also mentioned on the 5G space. Communication with all the levers that we've said on 5G are kicking for us. That will continue to, including the pipeline that we see, that will continue to fire. That's a positive for the year from a momentum standpoint.
Second, you know, if you look at enterprise from the different vertical perspective that we've articulated before, technology continues to be a positive momentum for us. While we saw some quarterly fluctuation in the last one. As we look going forward, that's another area that consistently will grow for us similar to last year. We're seeing a ton of opportunities in the technology space. That, that's the second area where we're seeing demand continue, right? Then, you know, you've seen BPS. BPS has grown significantly for the year. When we look at the way we are bidding for deals, the way the opportunities are stacking up, that's another area where we continue to offer better solutions to our customers.
You know, we've also done a lot of solution capability adds in our BPS segment, including the consulting, getting earlier in the cycle from a BPS process perspective. That all from a go-to-market perspective is coming together for us to give us better leverage on new deal wins. That's another area that we continue to see positive momentum. The whole, you know, customer experience area, the XDS pillar that Dilip Keshu leads, and we've been talking about that. That continues to help us a lot on giving the positive side on deal wins. A lot of deals that we win, which gets supported, they play a very active role in helping overall solution on customer experience standpoint.
I think from a momentum standpoint, as we were, you know, last year, same time, our pipeline's looking good. Our deal win momentum is similar. We ended the year last year with a similar deal win and that's the same position we're in. That's kind of from a demand standpoint, Pankaj, that we see. Geo-wise, we see Europe, we made some leadership changes there. We put a, you know, different leaders. We articulated it that a segment was going down for us. That gave us a positive momentum. Again, we've done similar changes in the Americas segment. That again, this year from a geography mix standpoint, we aspire to continue to grow.
Yeah. Any headwinds you see, maybe not immediately, but in the second half, given the kind of macros that we have?
It's difficult, Pankaj, to kind of really outline right now. What we're seeing is visibly the pipeline. The pipeline continues to be strong. I mean, there could be certain short-term pressure on costs that might come at a client perspective, but it's also an opportunity for them, you know, to use our capability to even give them, you know, a better structuring, long-term structuring of their cost, right? It's an opportunity for further offshoring for some of the clients, right, because they get the cost pressure. It'll play out from a short-term medium-term perspective. We are proactively working with customers early to give the right solutions upfront so that they can think about what is bothering them instead of having knee-jerk reaction.
I think those discussions are early in the phase, but overall we're not seeing too much reactions come through. Maybe I'll just ask Manish and Vivek if they wanna quickly comment on what they feel in their segment.
Sorry, you want me to go first, Rohit?
Yeah, Manish, why don't you?
Yeah, no, absolutely. I think the overall trend as we have been saying through the year, through the last year, has continued to play out exactly in that fashion. Which is the digital transformation driven by 5G and the need to be ready for 5G revenue growth, whether in the consumer realm or in the enterprise. That continues to drive the transformational activity within the telecom ecosystem. What also continues to drive growth for us is the adoption of cloud. That is also a pretty solid secular theme across the world. That's largely for transforming their existing stack, you know, as most of it will continue to drive the digital transformation as they adopt some new software as well.
I think those two broad themes will continue. What has also been helping us over the last year or so is the investments that we have made in our digital engineering capabilities. That's as well helping where now we are in pretty good positions to provide engineering capabilities in the Metaverse ecosystem, from network to devices to applications and use cases. Or for that matter, offering the software product development and capabilities therein. That's also another solid theme, you know, that is continuing to emerge. Like Rohit said, there will be some pressures because as the economy evolves, there will be pressures to try and conserve some cash.
The broad demand sentiment remains that the telecom ecosystem has benefited a lot over the last 18-20 months by digitizing as much as they can. We believe that process will continue. We continue to have that privileged access rights across all the major operators for us to get a pretty good view of what's happening from some of these transformational projects to be able to take advantage of. Whether it is in the network space, in the infrastructure cloud space, or in the software transformation all through.
Um-
Vivek.
Rohit.
Vivek.
Yeah. Thanks. So I think just from a BFSI perspective, you know, we had a good year with a 19% year-on-year growth. That obviously takes us on a certain trajectory as we look into next year. Q4 obviously included the CTC acquisition. As we explained it at the last earnings call, with that acquisition, we've now created a standalone focus team to drive insurance growth and drive synergy with the new acquisition. We're making good progress there.
I think just reiterating what Rohit and Manish said in different contexts that we do continue to see robust demand. I mean, there isn't any impact on the wider economic issues or the war on the demand scenario right now. Jagdish?
Sure. Thanks, Vivek. I think overall, I think couple of things that are playing out in our strength, I think overall for the enterprise business, but I guess for the whole company as well. Large deals, specifically I think, we've more than doubled in our performance from last year to this year. That I think augurs well in terms of what we see as an opportunities, and we aim to add, you know, at least $1 billion revenue next year. We add about $1 billion of deals in each quarter is what we're trying to go to, and maintain that momentum, which should show a good number of sequential growth.
As far as the verticals are concerned, especially on manufacturing and high-tech, manufacturing, as you know, for us includes auto, discrete, oil and gas and utilities. All of them have shown more than double-digit growth this year. They are also promising enough to be able to. Manufacturing for us is very close to BFSI in terms of a billion-dollar vertical, so we should hit that very, very soon. The rest of them in terms of high-tech, et cetera, should start entering that league at the end of the year as we get into that kind of a run rate, at least upwards of sequential growth rate, upwards of high double-digit growth high-tech. Bullish on large deals, bullish on the vertical growth and, as we said, primarily transformation towards revenues from Americas and Europe.
That's where we've seen most of the growth happening.
Got it. Thank you for that detail. Wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sandip Agarwal from Edelweiss. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity, sir. I have only one question. How you are seeing the demand for telecom and enterprise evolving? Do you see that telecom demand, particularly in the 5G, will take over the demand in the enterprise side? Or you think that it is too early to call that out?
Rohit, sorry. You want me to take that one?
Sorry. I was on mute talking. Apologize. I think that, Jagdish and Manish just articulated that, but maybe quickly, Manish, if you want to just add anything to what you just explained.
Yeah. I think if I understood the question, your question is, will 5G in enterprise overtake the demand in enterprise from other digital transformation areas?
No, I just wanted to understand whether, you know, going forward, you see more demand in 5G coming in or you think that enterprise business will equally grow strongly or, you know, it will be ahead of telecom. What is the sense on that? And also if I can add another question, on the attrition side, when do you think that, you know, the attrition will cool off? And where is more attrition, whether it is more in enterprise or in telecom? Thank you.
Okay. I think let me comment on the growth. I think I did in response to the previous question, I did highlight where we are seeing the demand sentiments coming from within the telecom ecosystem. That, like I said, is largely, and we've been consistent about it, if you recall that this is a wholesome, very comprehensive digital transformation that is underway. Digital transformation in the telco realm is not just about changing the front end or changing some BSS systems. It goes all the way back into the way the networks are operated, and before that, how networks are built and how the network compute happens now in, you know, going forward with a cloud-based model. In totality, it is a complete transformation that is underway.
We believe that this momentum of where the need for continuing and completing at least this phase of the digital transformation is going to still continue to play out the next 12 months also. Our pipeline reflects that. Our current advanced conversations with various operators indicate that. Clearly what is driving most of that digital transformation is clearly the power of 5G and 5G protocols that will allow the operators to offer services to their enterprise customers, to their partners, and to their consumers, slightly and very differently with what we have done in the previous generational wireless technologies. That's going to continue. As far as the enterprise commentary is concerned, I'll hand it over to Jagdish and Vivek because I think they've given you broad answers about how the growth cycles will be.
Jagdish, if I may, Sandip, I think to your exact question, I think the great news is that we, as Manish articulated, that's 40% of the business. We are seeing great demand driven by 5G and everything else. I think on the enterprise side, between what Jagdish and I said, high-tech, BFSI
Continue to grow very well for us. It's a healthy competition between the two parts, right? That, where can we outdo each other from a growth perspective. The demand scenario is pretty robust across the board.
Thank you. On attrition, I mean, there's no specific trends between the verticals, but it's more driven by the skills. Certain high skills, niche skills, we see that trend higher. That's the general trending, but not across these two segments. I know, Harsh, if you wanna add anything, as we've seen improvement on attrition sequentially quarter-over-quarter at point of time, while LTM continues to be flat. That trend is improving. Harsh, you can comment if you're on the call.
Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Rohit. I don't know. Can you hear me?
Yeah, we can hear you, Harsh.
Great. Rohit, thanks for asking that. We would see, you know, our trend. We've actually bucked the trend by showing a flat on attrition this quarter in the last twelve months. If you really look at our annualized quarterly number, which is, we've seen a considerable downward trend. Now, obviously, that means that all the you know, efforts that we had put in place about four quarters ago or three quarters ago seem to be paying off now. As Rohit said, we don't see a particular trend between CME or enterprise. It's more, you know, skill-based as well as, you know, tenure-based. Obviously, at the junior level we probably would see slightly higher, as has always been the trend.
The real good news is that our quarterly annualized number is actually coming down, which is really bucking the trend from last few quarters, as well as from what we see in other companies. That's a very healthy sign for us. We do believe that all the steps that we have taken at Tech Mahindra will ensure that this downward trend continues and the stabilization of attrition happens.
Thanks. That's very helpful. Thank you, and best of luck for the current quarter.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Surendra Goyal from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good evening, everyone. Rohit, just wanted to know when the next wage hike cycle kicks in. Secondly, do you expect the Comviva seasonality to impact margins in the coming quarter? Thank you.
Yeah, Surendra. Sorry, I didn't get the second part of the question. Could you just repeat?
I was talking about the Comviva seasonality in the business.
Yeah.
Do you think that impacts the June quarter margins?
Yeah. From a salary hike cycle perspective, you know, while we'll be doing some, we're already doing some sequentially in batches, but the main cycle is for us gonna be July. From a Comviva perspective, you know, we've structured the business where we've over a period of time reduced the seasonality impact that we typically saw in the last few years. While it will be still there from a June quarter standpoint, but be relatively lower than what we've seen in the past.
Sure. Thanks for that. Could you also comment on Visa costs? Any idea about the quantum and timing of that for you?
Timing usually is gonna be the current quarter frame. From a quantum standpoint, you know, say it'll be maybe an impact of 25-30 basis points from a margin standpoint.
Yeah. Thanks. Thanks a lot, Rohit.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vibhor Singhal from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, thanks for taking my question. Rohit, just one small question. All the extra incremental acquisition and amortization costs that we saw this quarter, that's going to be a recurring one? So, basically we should model the current number in this quarter going forward as well, or was this one-off costs in terms of acquisition which was made in this quarter?
Yeah. I think for next year, the way it works is some of the amortizations obviously for one odd year. That's a reduction that'll happen, but not for this year. It'll be a reduction for the following years, right? In the quarter, while there were some catch up, et cetera, but broadly you can assume that to be recurring as you move forward.
Got it. Any other incremental expense that we're expecting, maybe from any of these acquisitions which might not have been fully integrated in the next quarter to hit us? Or do you think everything has been taken into account in these quarter numbers?
Yeah. I think we've done a thorough due diligence. We've accounted for most of the activity that's happened.
Got it. Just again, one, maybe one last if I could squeeze in. Any color on the tax mix? Should we consider it to be in a similar range that we've had this year?
Sorry, any color on? Sorry.
On the effective tax mix.
On the current quarter, is the question?
I mean, going forward, should we strip it out?
Yeah, range going forward that we've articulated is around 25%-26%, 26%. That's the range that we modeled and we end up being that on a normalized run rate basis.
Got it. This quarter was exceptionally low.
Yes. We did have some benefits that we got on account of SEZ, so that's reduced effective tax rate for the quarter.
Got it. Thanks a lot. Thanks for taking my questions. I appreciate that.
No worry. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Gaurav Rateria from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. Two questions. Firstly, when I look at your commentary, when I look at the deal win numbers, it's significantly better than the last year. Is there anything that precludes you from commenting that next year growth could be better than the last year? Is macro creating that kind of uncertainty which is precluding you from saying that? Or are there any other factors around renewals or anything which one should be aware of from a growth perspective for next year?
You know, you heard Manish, Jagdish, and Vivek talk about it. From a demand perspective it's looking favorable, right, across the sector we're seeing positive demand, discussions are favorable. Communications obviously to our strength and the capability that we have. When we look at also the pipeline, where we were last year to where we are now, I think that is also showing significant improvement, right? All the trends are positive. You know, from our perspective, as we discussed, macro is obviously an uncertainty and how it pans out, as we move forward, I mean, it's very difficult to predict. I think that definitely is something that we'll have to keep on monitoring as we move forward quarter on quarter, though right now we don't see that in the data.
Got it. Second question is on margins. Your ex amortization-related charge around acquisitions, your organic margins would be in ballpark in the range of 15% in fiscal 2022. What kind of a pricing lever is required to be able to absorb the incremental cost on hiring, et cetera, and manage stable margins in fiscal 2022 on a organic basis without including the effect of amortization? And secondly, within the amortization, is there any schedule that you can share, which can help us to model it better from a 12- to 24-month point of view? Thank you.
Yeah. Pricing is one big lever, but, I mean, not the only one, right? There's definitely a lag on pricing, as I mentioned. We've seen some positive impact come through in the second half, more towards the fourth quarter. I think the active discussions by the commercial delivery and the leaders are moving in a favorable direction. That should start kicking in. That's just one of the levers that will be required for us as we move into next year. Beyond that, as I mentioned, a lot of focus being driven on business mix, growing geographies that are giving us better returns. Also kind of looking at low margin areas where don't fit us strategically. Trying to actively work on finding the right fits there.
I think, beyond just pricing, which is gonna be an active lever as we move forward, it's a bunch of these actions and some of the investments we've already done on generalization that will start kicking in for us as we move forward with utilization rates going back to the levels we were comfortable with, which you saw first half of, the last year.
Great. Any schedule for the amortization charge for 12-24 months just to help us model the D&A chart better?
It'll be, as I mentioned, I think from a run rate perspective, FY 2023 will be similar, what you've kind of seen. As we go into the next year, the following year, it'll go down. Specifics I think Kaustubh can help share with you.
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ashwin Mehta from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. One question in terms of acquisition intensity. We've spent almost INR 940+ million on acquisitions since the start of last year. In terms of acquisition intensity, how are you seeing things going forward? Do you think this pace continues or we look to consolidate our acquisitions and possibly focus more on organic in the subsequent years?
Yeah. I think from a capital allocation standpoint, this year is gonna be more organic focused for sure. We'll focus on consolidating the assets that we've acquired last year. I think a lot of work has to go there to make sure that we set it right, get the structure going and make sure that we can long-term get the benefits of synergy that we've planned for those assets, right? That's the view. You're right, the focus is gonna be more organic and getting these aligned to our you know, infrastructure overall and the structure so that we get the right potential benefits. Vivek, you can also add anything on this front.
I think, Rohit, you laid out the direction. I think the only color I would add to that is that we've always stated in terms of our acquisitions, the areas we focus on fulfilling capability gaps.
We've done a lot of them over the last 18 months. Hence there is, you know, less white spaces to go after. That's just an outcome of what we've done. Hence the focus will be on driving synergies, driving integration, creating value from the investments we've done in the last year.
Thanks. Just one follow-up on an earlier question. From an SG&A perspective, do you still think you'll go back to those steady levels of more closer to the 13% TOD levels? Or, there have been some structural savings that maybe help us operate at the current levels?
I think there will be, you know, upside movement to the current levels for sure. I think there are few key areas therefrom, you know, cost increase perspective. One obviously, we spoke about, facility at some point, coming in. That's the infrastructure cost that we have. You know, some of the other costs that has, you know, been subdued for us for the year. I think as the operating leverage and the growth continues to pick up and the demand continues to be what it is, I think from a leverage perspective, we might see some benefits and hence, maybe it'll be somewhere in the middle that we might land up, while there might be some quarterly variations.
Thanks, Rohit. Thanks for the answers.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dipesh Mehta from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Couple of questions. First, if I look at our standalone profitability, it declined sharply, 430 basis points, quarter-on-quarter. Can you help us understand what played out in standalone numbers? Second question is about fresher addition. I think you alluded to we have increased juniorization. Can you help us with some data about how many freshers we added during FY 2022, and how we intend to increase for 2023? Last question is about the EBIT margin aspiration. Earlier we always alluded 15% EBIT margin aspiration and our medium term taking it to high teens. How we look that number shaping up for 2023? Thanks.
I think first question from you was on standalone. I think you've got to look at it consolidated margin, because you know, there's a lot of intercompany deals and transactions that happen that truly don't give the right picture. I think that's the way to look at it. That's one. Second, in terms of freshers, we've added more than 10,000 in the year last year. I think as I mentioned, one of the big levers that we will continue to drive is juniorization and addressing the turnover. I think that's an area we'll continue to pursue while we move forward into this year as well, because it's an important area for us to structurally adjust the cost structure, right?
That's the second point. From a margin standpoint, I think, you know, as I mentioned, when we look at this year, we've been, you know, organically close to that number that we've articulated. I think for following year also our positive levers that are articulated will continue to drive it through the year. You know, from a journey perspective, continue to pursue sequential improvement through the year and get towards a similar range that we'd articulated last.
Understood. When you are saying sequential improvement, you are referring to Q4 EBIT. We expect Q1 to Q4 will be better kind of trajectory?
Sorry, I didn't get that question. Can you repeat please?
You said, one of your comment was we expect sequential margin to improve. Now, in that one of the quarter would have accelerated. I just want to understand from Q4 to Q4, we should expect steady improvement in trajectory or how one should build it?
I think they probably, you know, cyclical, as we mentioned, there are certain cyclical aspects for us, right? We spoke about seasonality of Comviva that comes for Q1 with certain visa costs, et cetera. There is certain cyclical nature of cost that comes in Q1 for us. I think looking at that, there will be certain headwinds going into the quarter. I think as I mentioned, the positive momentum that we're seeing on all the actions are starting to yield results. As I said, you know, the cost obviously increased last year and lagging behind the price increases. The price increase momentum is coming in, right? I think as that kicks in, that will start offsetting some of these impacts.
As we move forward, in our view and the way we're driving these actions, the positive momentum will carry us through better margins through the quarter moving ahead.
Understood. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Manik Taneja from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Yes, sir, you're audible. Please proceed.
Rohit, sorry to pester you on the margin outlook. I just wanted to get a sense as to what are the different moving parts that have impacted our margin performance in second half of the year. Because six months back, you hosted an analyst meet, suggested significant confidence on sustaining 15% EBIT margin. Subsequently in second half, you've missed or margins have been lower than that level. If you could help us understand what are the different levers that have been working against you now? That's question number one. The second thing is, do our wage hikes happen in Q2 now, or because I caught one comment suggesting that wage hikes might be happening, could be spread out during the course of this quarter and subsequent quarters.
If you could help us understand that. Thank you.
As I had mentioned, maybe I'll take the wage hike first. I had mentioned that we do that in batches, but there's one big batch which will be predominant that we said is going to be end June, July, right? That's the point you mentioned from a wage hike perspective. You know, from a margin perspective, let's kind of backtrack on what we said. I think we said that we'll be closer to the vicinity of 15%. I think the main difference from us being there versus the current 14.6% number is, you know, the amortization charge from an accounting perspective that we had to take on some of the M&A activity that happened, you know, in the last few months of ending of the year, right?
That caused a little bit of a headwind which diluted the benchmark that we kind of outlined for ourselves. As we look forward for next year, I think good part is the actions that we've outlined for ourselves for giving us the positive momentum are starting to kick in. The structural actions on utilization we've taken has already given us the headwind it had to on the utilization being lower. Now I think that will start turning around. Some of the investments we've made in, you know, areas of, you know, expanding our market to delivery centers to nearshore operations as well as Tier 2 cities are also starting to help us on stemming attrition.
As we move forward, we see some of these investments giving us a benefit and hence, from a path perspective, I think that journey continues. You know, the pressure on the cost side, you know, is relentless. It continues, right? That market is still strong. Hence, all these actions, from an execution perspective have to be implemented impeccably for us to continue the path. That's what we are striving for every day.
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhishek Shindadkar from InCred Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the opportunity and congrats on the Q4. The first question is, you know, can you give us a color about, you know, how the CY 2021 numbers look like for some of the larger acquisitions like Perigord, Activus and Brainscale? You had shared nine months and 11 months data, in and CTC as well, during the acquisition details. But any color in terms of, you know, how CY 2021 full year numbers were and, you know, CY calendar 2022 looks like. The second question is on, you know, the capital allocation. What is our strategy going forward? Any color on that could be helpful. Thank you for taking my questions.
Yeah, no worries. Maybe I'll take the capital allocation first. As I mentioned, you know, our policy is to keep on looking at niche and complementary assets that add a win in the marketplace. Situationally, we got good assets last year, which added up to, as somebody you know articulated also a high M&A spend for us, right? Now when we look at the following years, I think our focus is gonna be more organic and ensuring that we assimilate all these acquisitions into the company from a cultural as well as go-to-market perspective, so that we can get long-term synergy benefits that we envision with these assets, right? That's gonna be the focus.
From a capital allocation perspective, you see, while we've articulated over the past three years, whatever we earn as FCF minus the M&A spend, we return back to the shareholders. This year that math, if you just do, you know, is kind of giving us no return from a shareholder perspective. Still we said in that situation also we are comfortable with the cash balances we have, and we've dipped into that to continue to offer the similar return as last year to shareholders, right? That will continue to, you know, stick to our capital allocation policy that we'd articulated before, with a focus next year on more organic and assimilating revenue. That's on that.
In terms of numbers, of all the acquisitions, exactly for calendar year, I don't have it with me, but if you can offline touch base with Kaustubh, whatever we've published, we'll share that with you. In terms of trend, all those acquisitions are being closely monitored. Vivek, who heads our M&A portfolio, maybe can add a comment, but we have a robust process ensuring that, you know, we continue to see growth in those portfolio, including the synergy revenue and that visibility for calendar year 2020 looks very positive.
Rohit, I think the only thing I would add is the numbers on those three specific acquisitions which are later in the year. You know, we are pretty much on plan and working very closely with the management teams to drive synergy and growth apart from, you know, whatever is the organic growth plan of those businesses. Yeah. That's a quick summary of how those specific ones are doing.
Great. Thank you for taking my question, and best wishes for 2023.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraint, we take that as the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Rohit Anand for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. You know, just thanks for everybody for joining the call. I'll just recap the year for us. You know, top line growth of 17%. You know, margin EBIT expansion year-on-year basis. You know, we've given record wins of $3.7 billion on deal wins, which is 50% increase versus last year. All our significant verticals have grown, communication leading the way and BFSI as big ones. You know, if you look at dividend, we continue to stay on the commitment we had on dividend to shareholders, and we've given altogether between interim and final dividend of INR 45. Overall, you know, that's the summary for the year, and we'll continue to keep on working as we move next year for a similar performance here.
Thanks everybody for the support and thanks for joining.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Tech Mahindra Limited, that concludes this conference. We thank you all for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.