Canara Robeco Asset Management Co. Ltd.

Canara Robeco Asset Management Co. Ltd.

204.30
INR
-7.75
(-3.65%)
11.57EPS
21.40P/E
49.36BMarket Cap
Mar 03Next Earn

Q3 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptJanuary 27, 2026

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and welcome to the Q3 and nine months ended FY26 earnings conference call of Canara Robeco Asset Management Company Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes.

Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded.

Before we proceed, please note that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company as on date of this call. These statements are not the guarantee of future performance and involve risk and uncertainties that are difficult to predict.

I now hand the conference over to Miss Savli Mangle from Adfactors PR. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.

Savli Mangle

Thank you, Swapnali. Good morning, everyone, and a very warm welcome to our Q3 and nine months FY26 earnings conference call.

To guide us through the results today, we have the senior management team of Canara Robeco Asset Management Company Limited, headed by Mr. Rajnish Narula, Managing Director and CEO, Mr.

Ashwin Purohit, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Atit Turakhia, Head of Corporate Development.

I would now like to hand it over to Mr. Rajnish Narula for his opening remarks.

Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Rajnish Narula

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you to our earnings call, and thank you for taking the time to join us this morning. With me on the call today are Ashwin Purohit, our CFO; Atit Turakhia, Head of Corporate Development and MIS; and Adfactors, our Investor Relations team.

We hope you've had a chance to go through our results and presentation. I will begin with a brief overview of the mutual fund industry, then touch upon the India-specific landscape, and finally walk you through our performance for the quarter and nine months ended December 2025.

On the market environment and industry brief, the following observations are there. Indian markets experienced elevated volatility amid geopolitical developments and global trade uncertainties.

However, the asset and wealth management industry demonstrated strong resilience, supported by sustained retail participation and increasing investor preference for diversified investment products. During Q3, the NSE 500 Index rose 5% on a closing basis, providing moderate mark-to-market to the industry AUM and the quarterly average AUM.

As of December 31st, 2025, the industry AUM stood at ₹80.2 lakh crores, while Q3 FY26 quarterly average AUM was approximately ₹81 lakh crores, reflecting an 18.1% year-on-year growth and 5% quarter-on-quarter growth. Growth was driven by steady SIP flows and moderate market appreciation, with equity-oriented AUM at ₹56.6 lakh crores.

Key operational highlights as of December 31st, this is for Canara Robeco, our closing AUM stands close to 1.2 lakh crores, up by almost 12% year-on-year, supported by our base of over 50 lakh investor folios across India. Our quarterly average AUM also grew approximately 13% year-on-year to close at 1.22 lakh crore, a testament to our disciplined investment philosophy and enduring trust of our investors.

Our growth has been well-rounded, driven by a healthy equity-to-debt mix of 90 to 10, 90% equity and 10% debt, and a balanced investor base, with individual investors contributing 87% and institutional investors contributing 13% of our assets. SIP continues to be a key strength, with over 21 lakh active SIP accounts, with monthly contributions from SIP and STP combined of ₹755 crores.

Further, our B30 presence has strengthened meaningfully, with our monthly average AUM from beyond the top 30 cities accounting for ₹289 crores as of December 2025, increasing from ₹261 crores in December 2024, reflecting our growing reach and relevance across emerging India. Progress has also been fueled by a robust distribution ecosystem of over 55,191 empaneled partners and 29 branches.

This growth has been further supported by increasing adoption of our digital platforms, enabling seamless investor engagement, while also driving operational efficiency and scalability. These operational milestones reflect the strength of our franchise, the resilience of our business model, and our continued focus on delivering consistent risk-adjusted performance across market cycles.

We're going to move on to the financial highlights, and for that, I'm going to request Ashwin Purohit, our CFO, to take you through that.

Ashwin Purohit

Welcome to everyone. Coming to our financial performance, nine-month ended reflects our continuous focus on sustainable and profitable growth.

In nine months 2026, our total revenue stood at 310.7 crores compared to 263.3 crores in nine months '25, it is representing a growth of 18% on YoY basis. In nine months 2026, our PBT stood at 216.4 crores compared to 199.33 crores in nine months, representing a growth of 9% on year-to-year basis.

I would like to highlight upon in nine months for FY26 financials, the company has accounted for a one-time employee benefit expenditure to the tune of ₹10.15 crore largely on account of new labor laws and IPO-related expenses. The adjusted profit before tax, PBT, for the nine months ended was 226.5 crore compared to 199.3 crore corresponding period, making a robust 14% growth on a year-to-year basis.

Similarly, profit after tax for the nine months ended stood at 162.4 crore compared to 149 crore in the corresponding period, representing a growth of 9% on a year-to-year basis. With this adjusted profit after tax, it was 170 crores at a 14% growth on a year-to-year basis.

I would like to invite all the questions. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session.

Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two.

Participants, you are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for the moment while the question queue assembles.

The first question is from the line of Sucrit D. Patil from ISight FinTrade Private Limited.

Please go ahead.

Sucrit Patil

Good morning to the team. I have two questions.

My first question to Mr. Rajnish is as Canara Robeco AMC continues to grow its mutual fund franchise, how do you see the product mix evolving over the next 2 to 3 years, particularly in balancing equity, debt, hybrid, and ESG-focused schemes?

In line with your guidance, how will distribution partnerships, digital platforms, and investor education initiatives be put into practice to expand retail penetration while maintaining compliance and long-term investor trust? That's my first question.

I'll ask my second question after this. Thank you.

Rajnish Narula

Thank you very much. That's a very good question.

It is something that we during our product committee meetings discuss actively in terms of how should we position our growth from here. The mutual fund space for us is the primary area where that we focus on.

As you know that we currently only have products on the mutual fund side. We don't currently have products in any other space, which is to do with passives or PMS, AIFs.

Going forward, we will continue to focus on mutual funds, because we believe that is still very underpenetrated and that's the core of our business. We do not want to lose sight of the core.

We will clearly evaluate what should be the next steps in the next 6 to 12 months as to whether we should do AIFs, whether we should get into say GIFT City or passives. These are questions that we continue to look at, but we will only make an entry once we believe that the market is big enough for us to be able to position ourselves there.

Our main focus will continue to be mutual funds itself. Within that space, we will continue to look at products.

We generally do one or two products a year. We don't believe in launching multiple products.

That's not our philosophy. Our philosophy is to launch one or two.

Whatever we get during the NFO are just the base case for us to build track record, and then based on the track record build AUM in those funds. That will continue to be our focus going forward as well.

With distribution partners, we continue to engage across the country. We are also supporting the distributors by opening more branches.

Over the last 2 years, we've roughly opened about five new branches per year. That's the rate we see ourselves growing, 3 to 5 branches a year from here on as well.

This is making sure that we are present in cities where we have strong AUM already, as well as a distribution franchise that we need to support.

Sucrit Patil

Thank you. My second question to Mr.

Purohit is with profitability tied to fund flows and expense ratios, how do you plan to sustain margins while managing regulatory compliance and operating costs? From a financial point of view, how will you structure expense ratio discipline, optimize fund-level optimization, and apply digital cost-control measures to ensure ROE remains strong and the balance sheet keeps on growing in the coming quarters?

Thank you.

Rajnish Narula

Okay. I'll actually answer the question.

This is Rajnish, let me just answer the question on behalf of Mr. Purohit.

For us, we operate in an industry where it's a very very well-regulated industry. The TERs are very well-regulated.

Therefore, there is a cap on what you can charge to your schemes. That cap is based on AUM, and it's basically a scaling down of the TER as your AUM grows.

While we would like to remain competitive in the industry, because at the end of the day, there is a lot of effort that distributors actually put in actually getting investors across to the industry itself, they need to be adequately rewarded. We need to balance out brokerages versus cost efficiencies that we can bring about ourselves in our own ecosystem.

You're absolutely right. The amount of technology spend that we do has to be well-calibrated over the years to make sure that the returns on that are well-justified.

I think the measure that we'd like to look at is cost-to-income ratio. We'd like to believe that the cost-to-income ratio should be somewhere between around 40 hovering around the 40 mark is where we are comfortable at.

Depending on the year that we want to spend more, it may go up a little bit more, but other than that, that's the range we're comfortable in.

Sucrit Patil

Thank you. Just on a closing note, just want to understand your view.

Do you expect anything positive coming out of this budget with regards to the mutual fund industry?

Ashwin Purohit

It's a forward-looking statement. I don't want to second-guess what the FM may want to do.

I think we all always look forward to the budget with a lot of anticipation and positivity.

Sucrit Patil

Thank you for the guidance, and I wish the entire team best of luck for the next quarter.

Ashwin Purohit

Thank you.

Rajnish Narula

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Aadarsh from Nepean Capital.

Please go ahead.

Rajeev Rupani

Hi, am I audible? Yeah.

Hello. My name is Aadarsh from Nepean Capital.

I just wanted to ask what is the reason for the fall in number of folios in the investor base, because our number of outstanding SIP accounts also has fallen quarter-on-quarter?

Rajnish Narula

All right. Actually, it's a good question.

We are still analyzing data. From what we can see from a preliminary investigation of the data, that we find that people are discontinuing SIPs a lot more, and I guess it's got to do with the volatility in the markets.

We do see that trend. We also find that on the digital side, which means people who have come in directly, there seems to be an increasing tendency to cancel that SIP, or there's also a change in the way we account for the cancellation, because if you were to pause your SIP for two monthly cycles, then it's treated as cancelled.

That's the definition. Even if a person wants to pause a SIP and wants to come back in the third month, it's treated as a cancelled SIP.

We see on the digital side as well, because there's no advisor in between, these are people who take their own individual calls, they're perhaps are looking at the markets and then deciding for themselves whether or not they wish to be still invested in the market. We're still studying the data.

It's still early days for us to look at it, but that's the trend that we see. Right.

Rajeev Rupani

It's nothing that is specific to our business. I'm sure it'll be something that is going on in the industry, right?

It is a problem for us?

Rajnish Narula

I think it's an industry trend. It's just that we are more equity-based, right?

At the end of the day, if 90% of our business is equity, you will see a little disproportionate for us, but yes, it is industry-wide.

Rajeev Rupani

My second question, sir, is regarding the ESOP expense, the one-time expense. Could you give us more details regarding that?

Ashwin Purohit

You are talking about this nine months. There is no ESOP expenses has been accounted for this nine months.

Rajeev Rupani

There's a employee benefit expense, and there's a spike in the quarterly expense, right, that has hit our PAT?

Ashwin Purohit

Correct, sir. Employee expenses hit because of two things.

One is new labor codes, which has effective from the month of November, although it has not been notified, but we have taken into the consideration the cost of that. That is the one-time impact of the new labor codes.

That impact also is on a YTD basis up to 31st of December, sir. The second one is on account of employee benefit, which we have given one time for the purpose of IPO.

Rajnish Narula

Just to elaborate on what Ashwin said, the labor code basically has to do with gratuity. The gratuity is now basically on 50% of your basic.

Companies that were calculating it for lower than that need to recalibrate. The one-time impact for that has already been taken into our books for the December quarter, and that's what Ashwin alluded to.

It'll be felt across all companies. It's not only us, but it's going to be there across the board.

Rajeev Rupani

Okay. Thank you, sir.

That's it with my end.

Rajnish Narula

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and one to ask a question.

We have the next question from the line of Saket Mehrotra from Tusk Investments. Please go ahead.

Saket Mehrotra

Hi. Am I audible?

Ashwin Purohit

Yeah.

Saket Mehrotra

Yeah. Couple of questions from my side.

Firstly, could you help us understand what our equity market share is as a percentage of the total equity AUM?

Rajnish Narula

Just off the cuff, it's about 2.4%.

Operator

Saket, please proceed with your question. Saket, please proceed with your question.

Due to no response, we will take the next participant. We have the next question from the line of Ankit Dharamshi from RNM Capital Trust.

Please go ahead.

Ankit Dharamshi

Hi, morning. Thanks for the opportunity.

I hope I'm audible.

Rajnish Narula

Yes, we can hear you.

Ankit Dharamshi

Yeah. I have a follow-up question on the SIPs and the margin, but before that, on the AUM growth.

In the last call, you had mentioned that we are looking to launch two new NFOs and which kind of will ensure that we are closer to our aspirational 25% CAGR growth that we have been targeting. Just wanted to understand where are we with respect to the two new NFOs that we are going to launch?

Rajnish Narula

Okay. On the NFO, we are in the process of the regulatory approvals.

We are quite close to launching one. I think over the next 2 to 3 months, we will have an NFO out as well.

Ankit Dharamshi

Not Q4, is there a probability that one of the NFOs can come in the Q4 itself?

Rajnish Narula

There is a strong probability it can happen, but it also depends on we need approvals as well. We're working to make sure that we are able to.

There is a strong probability it can happen.

Ankit Dharamshi

With respect to the AUM growth, this year has been muted because of the uncertainty that equity markets have witnessed, but are we confident that we'll be able to get to the 20% CAGR growth that we have been talking and that we are aspiring to grow for AUM?

Rajnish Narula

This year has been muted, and you very rightly said it is because of the volatility in the markets, and mainly because of global and geopolitics that all of us are aware of. We do expect that to settle over the next one year, and we're very confident of maintaining our growth of the indicated number you mentioned going forward.

That's certainly what we look at and target internally as well.

Ankit Dharamshi

Okay. What would be the drivers for this growth going forward?

What is the strategy that we have been working on? Will it be driven by SIPs, or can you just provide some insight on that?

What is that giving us confidence that we'll be able to maintain that the growth rate that we just mentioned?

Rajnish Narula

SIPs continues to be a focus for us, we are building certain strategies around SIPs at the moment, and we're investing in those strategies for SIPs. You will see that playing out over the next 12 months.

Clearly, that's a focus area. B30 continues to be a focus area for us, and we are also making some investments in there.

Product launches certainly do help, and that continues to be a focus area for us. Delivering good performance is something that we keep an eye on to make sure that the investors' trust in us is retained.

Close partnerships with a larger number of distributors will always be key, so that you de-risk yourself from concentration from any set of distributors. That is key, and that we continue to do that, and that's one of the reasons you see our branch expansion happening more progressively over the last couple of years.

Those to me come to mind straightaway.

Ankit Dharamshi

Got it. On the new labor code impact, right, I think our opex have kind of increased 3% QoQ.

What is the number that you would be comfortable? You mentioned that cost-to-income of 40 is something you're comfortable with, but then any guidance on opex, what is that we see would be the steady-state number going forward?

Any color on that?

Rajnish Narula

I wouldn't hazard a guess at this stage. We just wait for the budget as well, because it's important to see what budgets have in store for us.

It could be positive for our industry, or it also could be negative. I'm not sure.

We are looking for positive outcomes. To us, like I said, cost-to-income ratio around the 40 mark is something we're comfortable with.

It is something that we keep an eye on, and calibrate costs accordingly. What we try and then do is to make sure that all essential spending is actually done, and some of the others if they can wait, we will push them out for another time.

That's the way we will calibrate it going forward.

Ankit Dharamshi

Okay. How do you see this new expense ratio, SEBI has restructured the overall expense ratio that can be charged by the AMC industry, what's your thought on it and how is it going to impact our company?

Rajnish Narula

I think it impacts the entire industry. We're part of the industry, whatever the impact is for the industry will be similar for us.

I think the regulator continues to look at how they can bring more efficiencies and lower-cost products to the investor. Ultimately, it's for the investor benefit.

These changes come into effect from April 1. By and large, the changes are more to what I can see to do with segregating the GST from the TER, there is more clarity as well, because in case the GST were to change over time, that doesn't impact the industry going forward.

I think that's really good. The other is to do with the exit load, and we will actually have a look at how that is being panned out in the industry.

Ankit Dharamshi

Thank you. I'll get back in queue.

Operator

Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and one to ask a question.

We have the next question from the line of Saket Mehrotra from Tusk Investments. Please go ahead.

Saket Mehrotra

Hi, am I audible?

Rajnish Narula

We can hear you now.

Saket Mehrotra

I'm really sorry. My phone went on mute.

My question was on the payout policy. How are we looking at the payout policy?

Is it going to be at the current level or how does this change?

Rajnish Narula

I think before we were listed, we had two shareholders to look at and therefore the payout policy was quite simple for us. We do understand with new shareholders coming in, they're certainly one of the items that they certainly look out for is the payout.

From what I see in the industry, the payout seems to be linked to your PAT. We will move to that as well and link it to that over time.

I think it's important to understand how much of the PAT is what we want to give out, because we still want to continue to strengthen the balance sheet as well, because you need to have a very strong balance sheet to cope with any one-off events that may take place, and you don't want to go back to the shareholders at that stage. Clearly, we want to balance that.

Right now, just more from a guidance perspective, something between the range of 40% to 50% of our PAT is what we're looking at over the next couple of years, and then we will move it upwards as the business continues to grow.

Saket Mehrotra

Understood. No, that's quite helpful.

My second question is on the fact that we are a very equity-heavy sort of book in terms of our AUM, and what are the two or three things that we are prioritizing, a, to maintain our market share, and b, also to ensure that we keep gaining market share as we move ahead? This is more towards the aspiration of the growth number that we've spoken about pre-IPO and even during this call.

Just want to understand what are let's say the two or three things you are focused on to make sure we achieve that pathway?

Rajnish Narula

I think the underlying basis for growth is consistent investment performance. To me, that is something that we make sure that it is continuously a focus.

We look to building long-term track records in our funds. Short-term is important, but for us, the long term, the 5, 10 years is very important for us.

We continue to look at our product range and see if there are any gaps in there. If there are gaps, how do we fill the gaps, and what's the timing of filling those gaps?

Continue to expand our footprint in terms of our branches. The other is, of course, distribution tie-ups and partnerships with key players in the marketplace.

That's an ongoing effort by our sales team. We continue to invest within the sales team as well as part of expanding it.

Also, we continue to invest in our research capabilities on the investment side. Those are areas that we continue to focus on.

I think the one thing that will help us grow is focus. It's focusing on exactly what we want to do rather than being all over the place and trying to do everything.

I think we are one fund house that you perhaps can see are quite focused on what we want to do, whether it's an equity-focused fund house with a small basket of funds that we believe are what's needed or suited for the investor, quite light in terms of the way our total staff count is. All of that is part of the focus that we bring to our business.

Saket Mehrotra

Understood. Final question from my end, Rajnish.

Now that the consultation paper has been formalized, and I can also see that our revenue yield has gone up slightly. Going forward, do we expect these yields to remain, or can we expect some moderation given what changes have happened?

Rajnish Narula

I think we're hoping to be able to maintain these yields. That's our hope.

Again, I've always believed in the AUM growth more than the yield. To me, because of scalability of our business, because a single fund manager can manage ₹1,000 crores or ₹10,000 crores, just taking two numbers just to give the example, without added cost.

To me, continuously growing your AUM in the chosen products is the key, and revenue yields being stable, that's key as well.

Saket Mehrotra

Okay. Thank you so much, and wish you all the very best.

Rajnish Narula

Thank you so very much. Thank you for your support.

Operator

Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and one to ask a question.

We have the next question from the line of Prayesh Jain from Motilal Oswal Financial Services Limited. Please go ahead.

Prayesh Jain

Hi. If you look at your other expenses, that has jumped YoY 45%.

Now where are these expenses going towards, and how should we think about this from a FY27 perspective as to how much investments more will be going into this?

Ashwin Purohit

There are couple of points over here. One is it has been moved upside, but there are some of the expenses which is related to the technology expenses, the compliance expenses, and other regulatory expenses, which has been moved up actually.

We are in tandem with the requirements of the technology, compliance, and other things. There are one-time expenses, but that is marginal, but we will going to settle it down by March.

We have factored in all those technology and the growth in the profitability also to be considered while projecting our

Operator

Sorry to interrupt in between, sir. Your voice is not audible.

Ashwin Purohit

Am I audible now?

Operator

Yes, sir. Thank you.

Ashwin Purohit

Can I repeat it?

Operator

Yes, sir, please.

Ashwin Purohit

Okay. Technology cost and regulatory and the compliance cost has increased over a period of time because of the demand of that.

We are in tandem with that for this year. There are some marginal one-time expenses as factored in this particular quarter, but that is not that much which will going to impact.

This entire expense of the other will going to get settled down by March, and we have really while doing plan of FY27 also.

Prayesh Jain

Sir, sorry, we lost you in between again for in last 5 seconds. For FY27, how should we think about it?

Ashwin Purohit

We will be in line with our profitability growth, and we have factored in all those expenses, and we have considered both the things, technology cost and the compliance cost, in line with our profitability growth. You mindful of that that we are concerned about our cost, and the cost-to-expense ratio also has been 38% right now.

We are mindful of that, sir.

Prayesh Jain

Okay. Secondly on your yields front, sequentially there has been a bit of increase.

What explains that? Secondly, could you spell out your yields on equity and debt?

I understand debt is very small portion, but still, if you could spell out the yields on equity and debt separately for us?

Rajnish Narula

Hi. I'll answer that question.

On the yields front, our equity yields are in the region of about 35 to 36 basis points. Fixed income yields are around 26 28 to 29 basis points.

Liquid and overnight funds is in the region of 2 to 3 basis points. On an overall basis, our yields are in the region of 33 to 34 basis points.

Prayesh Jain

The reason for the sequential improvement?

Rajnish Narula

We've been looking at our structures and wherever there is possibility for us to improve the yields, we've been doing that too. This

Prayesh Jain

is rationalization of commissions that has been taken in this quarter to which has kind of built up the yields?

Rajnish Narula

It's a combination of a lot of things, and that is one of them.

Prayesh Jain

Got that. Thank you, and all the best.

Rajnish Narula

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Rajeev Rupani, an individual investor.

Please go ahead.

Rajeev Rupani

Yes, sir. Thank you for the opportunity.

My first question is, where do you see your AUM 5 years from now?

Rajnish Narula

It's really forward. If anyone was looking for a forward statement, this is really forward.

Okay. All I can say is that we'd like to outpace the industry, and if our internal targets year-on-year are benchmarked at 20% at a minimum, you can calculate yourself in 5 years' time where that will take you if you grow that 20% compounded.

Rajeev Rupani

Okay. My next question is, sir, when I see your peers like let's say HDFC Mutual Fund or ICICI Mutual Fund, they have over a time period more trust of the people.

The people would rather invest their money with those funds. Another point is if I go to a good distributor today, they would not recommend me a Canara Robeco Mutual Fund.

They would recommend me let's say ICICI or Motilal or some other bigger funds. What steps are you taking to garner the trust of the distributors and the people at large?

Thank you.

Rajnish Narula

Actually, a very good question. Basically, you're talking about relative brand value in the industry.

That is true for all industries, not necessarily only for asset management. Even banks, there are brands which are stronger than the other.

It doesn't mean that there is no relevance for the others. That is one.

Two, we work with 59,171 distributors. Clearly, we have a distribution franchise.

We have over 50 lakh folios, there are 50 lakh investors with us. Clearly, that's a mid-sized AMC already, and we've grown based on the trust that we have.

There is space for us to grow. There is space for everybody, just as much there would be space for new entrants, because they start with zero.

How will they compete with other brands that already exist? Each one will develop their own strategy to grow in their niche.

Our strategy is equity focus. We're not a supermarket.

Some of the names you mentioned are supermarkets. We are not a supermarket.

We consider ourselves equity focus, in a way a boutique to that extent. That's our chosen path, and we are very confident that we will be able to grow in that.

Coming back to the brand, I think the Canara Bank brand is extremely strong, especially down south if you were to look at it, where quite frankly some of the brands that you mentioned may not be even there or is even known to people in some of those pockets where Canara Bank is present. Clearly, we do have the brand also on our side, but I think it's more important to see the numbers.

We do have over 59,000 distributors as partners. That's a strong number for us, as well as over 50 lakh investors.

We continue to hope to grow.

Rajeev Rupani

My last question, how do you see the number of distributors for us going forward in two to 2 to 3 years?

Rajnish Narula

I think two things over here. We, of course, want to partner with more and more people, and as more and more people take to this industry, we'd like to be partnering with them.

We also look at increasing the wallet share with each of the distributors that are there, especially the meaningful ones, and make sure that we are getting our rightful share with them as well. Those are two areas we look at.

In terms of empanelment, we see a healthy rate of growth there, but more importantly, the focus is on making sure we get a higher share of wallet from the distributors themselves.

Rajeev Rupani

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Vaibhav Gupta from Avya Advisors.

Please go ahead. Actually,

Vaibhav Gupta

yeah, am I audible?

Rajnish Narula

Yes.

Vaibhav Gupta

Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity.

My first question is, with the rising passive inflows in the large cap equities, what are the key factors that are helping Canara Robeco to sustain active large cap flows, particularly on the SIP side?

Rajnish Narula

Sorry, we didn't understand the question. Can you just repeat that for me, please?

Vaibhav Gupta

There is a large passive adoption in the large cap equities, right? What are the key factors that are helping Canara Robeco to sustain the active large cap flows, particularly on the SIP side, sir?

Rajnish Narula

On the SIP side, like I said, we are investing in a new strategy on the SIP side within the company. One is, of course, the Goal SIP, which we launched over 6 months ago, but there are other strategies around the SIP that we are investing in.

You will see results, like I mentioned earlier, for that over the next 6 to 12 months, but clearly it's a focus area for us. There's a strategy which, of course, I'd rather keep it to ourselves at the moment, and so that we have some head start on it going forward.

Clearly, I think you can see some traction happening there on that space over the next 6 to 12 months.

Vaibhav Gupta

Okay. Sir, with respect to the SEBI's proposal to remove the additional 5 bps, how should we think about the eventual impact on our pop-up business?

Would this primarily be borne at the AMC level or do you see the scope to pass on to the distribution commission over a time basically?

Rajnish Narula

I think we will look at what the industry is doing and be guided by that, but clearly it is something that affects both partnerships, which is the AMC as well as the distributors, and therefore I think a healthy mix between the two is what we would prefer.

Vaibhav Gupta

Okay. In the presentation, I saw that while the industry's B30 AUM as a percentage of total AUM has been declined, but your B30 AUM has been increased, sir.

Could you help me to understand basically what are the key factors driving the B30 performance?

Rajnish Narula

I think it's to an extent the brand of the bank, which is present in the B30 locations, helps us. Also, we've been supporting that with infrastructure, where we are opening branches as well, which I've mentioned about five a year.

If you look at earlier, we were just about 20-odd branches a couple of years ago. We're already at about 29, we've put in nine branches over the last 2 years.

That's quite a bit. It's about nine branches on 20 is roughly about 50% growth in terms of physical locations in the last 2 years.

I think these are the two areas. Plus, like I said, we are also building another strategy on the B30.

We're making some investments in that strategy, which will play out over the next 6 to 12 months.

Vaibhav Gupta

Okay. I just have one more question.

What should an investor or analyst to track as the single most important metric to judge the performance over next 2, 3 quarters, sir?

Rajnish Narula

I think if you want to just look at one metric, then it should be just growth, because everything else can be managed if you're growing. As long as you have a healthy rate of growth, that to me is important.

You could have one-off blips that come in both in terms of revenue as well as in terms of cost. The example on the cost is something that you can see where something like a labor code can impact not only us as an industry, but other industries as well.

It's not something that you can anticipate. Changes in taxation can impact you positively or negatively as well.

If you continue to have sustained growth, you can absorb all these costs as you go along. To me, growth is very important, fundamental to any business.

Vaibhav Gupta

Okay. I just wanted to understand, can you throw some light on how the industry has performed in this last quarter and what is your expectation on the industry side, sir, over the next quarter or let's say in the next year as

Rajnish Narula

well? I think the industry itself has done remarkably well given what we see around us, right, both in terms of geopolitical risks, both in terms of certain sectors of our economy being sluggish.

I think the industry continues to grow, so that's the testament to the faith that investors have in the products that this industry actually has to offer. Clearly, over the next quarter as well, do expect this growth to continue.

March will be an important month just to see the impact of the new budget as well as some of the typical outflows that happen of advance tax that you see around that time. Clearly, generally don't look so much at short term.

That's very tactical. Strategically, you look at long term, and we always look at a 3 to 5-year view in terms of building our businesses.

Short-term pain is something that we are quite okay with. It's making sure that short-term pain is well worth it for the long term for us.

Clearly, we are focused on the long term, and in the long term, we believe the industry is well-positioned given the underpenetration of our products within the system. I think also on the insurance side, I think if there is a move to rationalize commission payouts there, that will help.

Vaibhav Gupta

Okay. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. That's all from my side.

Operator

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, as there are no further questions from the participants, that concludes the question-and-answer session.

I now hand the conference over to Mr. Rajnish Narula for the closing comments.

Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Rajnish Narula

I want to thank you all once again for being on the call and supporting us. Looking ahead, our priorities remain clear: to scale the business with stability and deliver performance with purpose.

We remain focused on generating consistent, risk-adjusted returns through disciplined fund management, while further deepening our retail and B30 presence to expand investor reach. In parallel, we continue to strengthen and diversify our product offerings, supported by technology-led enhancements that improve speed, efficiency, and overall investor experience.

Equally important, we are investing in our people and culture to build a future-ready organization, anchored in trust, innovation, and long-term sustainability. Together, these initiatives position Canara Robeco well to create enduring value for our investors, partners, and all our stakeholders.

Thank you, and have a good morning.

Operator

Thank you very much. On behalf of Canara Robeco Asset Management Company, that concludes this conference.

Thank you for joining with us today, and you may now disconnect your lines.