ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company Ltd.

ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company Ltd.

2,655.50
INR
-62.30
(-2.29%)
70.39EPS
46.85P/E
1.63TMarket Cap
Mar 03Next Earn

Q1 FY2027 · Earnings Call TranscriptJuly 13, 2026

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company Limited's earnings conference call for the quarter ended June 30th, 2026. Joining us today on the call are Mr.

Nimesh Shah, MD and CEO; Mr. Naveen Agarwal, Chief Financial Officer; Mr.

Abhijit Shah, Chief Marketing and Digital Business Officer; Mr. Vipin Bhandari, Senior Member from Business Team; Mr.

Harshil Sanghavi, Lead Investor Relations, who will be available to address your questions following our opening remarks. 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 the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchtone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr.

Nimesh Shah, MD and CEO of ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company Limited. Thank you and over to you, sir.

Nimesh Shah

Good evening, everyone. I trust you guys have the opportunity to review our earning presentation and the investor materials that have been shared on the stock exchange and our website.

I straight start with the industry. As markets have behaved relatively where we were on 31st March, 2026 till where we are on 31st 30th June, there has been a positive movement in the markets.

Everything is a reflection, whatever you see the numbers, is a reflection of that. Overall, the industry quarterly average AUM grew by 15.4% year-on-year, reaching ₹83 lakh crore.

The sequential growth in quarterly AUM appears to be muted, however a comparison of closing AUM between the two quarters indicates a strong momentum reflecting a growth of 11.6%, and equity and equity-oriented AUM stood at 45.2 lakh crores. As the market sentiments improved during the quarter, equity market witnessed a broad-based recovery across segments wherein small-caps outperformed with a return of 24%, followed by mid-caps at 17.2%, while large-caps lagged behind delivering a recovery of only 8.9%.

As you all analysts understand, a lot what happens to the P&L is dependent also on this particular numbers, the last line that I mentioned. During the quarter net flows for equity category was more than 1 lakh crores, which categories like mid-cap and small-caps were at the forefront of attracting highest amount of equity net flows, and categories like thematic funds and hybrid, specifically multi-asset funds, faced reduction in net flows when compared sequentially.

While the industry saw a steep fall for the month of May 2026, net flows for the month of June 2026 rebounded by 26% month-on-month, coming back to the pre-Middle Eastern crisis levels. June 2026 recorded SIP contribution of ₹31,781 crore.

Monthly SIP inflows remained largely stable throughout Q1 despite volatile market conditions, demonstrating the resilience and stickiness of retail investor participation. In the debt segment, overall the quarter witnessed redemption by institutional investors and tighter liquidity condition resulting in a sequential moderation of 6% in average AUM.

Passive AUM grew by 25.3% year-on-year to ₹14.73 lakh crore. Industry continued to have a positive new customer addition reaching 6.2 crores, which represents an increase of 12.1% year-on-year.

I now handover the call to Harshil for covering the performance of our company.

Harshil Sanghavi

Thank you, Nimesh. Good evening, everyone.

For the quarter ended June 2026, our total mutual fund quarterly average AUM reached to ₹11.17 lakh crore, which is up by 18.3% year-on-year, thereby maintaining our position as the second largest AMC with a market share of 13.4%. In active schemes, we continue to maintain the highest market share of 13.5% with a quarterly average AUM of ₹9.25 lakh crore.

As of June 30th, 2026, we continue to maintain our leadership position in equity and equity-oriented schemes with a market share of 14% and a quarterly average AUM of ₹6.31 lakh crore. On year-on-year basis, we outperformed the industry growth rate by 3.6%, recording a growth of 19.8%.

It is important to note that in Q1 FY '27, we continue to receive one of the highest market highest net flows amongst the industry. The quarterly average AUM of our equity-oriented hybrid schemes grew to ₹2.22 lakh crore.

This represents the largest market share of 26.6% as of June 30th, 2026. For the quarter ended June 2026, our margins on an annualized basis stands at 66 basis points for equity, 32 basis points for debt, 12 basis points for liquid, 12 basis points for passive, and 30 basis points for arbitrage.

There is no negative impact on account of changes in the TER regulations. As of June 30th, 2026, we have a unique customer base of 1.73 crores.

Notably in this quarter, we added every seven of 10 new customers from the industry. In June 2026, our systematic transactions, which includes SIP and systematic transfer plans, moderated marginally to ₹4,872 crore from ₹5,104 crore in the month of March 2026.

Similar to the industry trend, we saw a moderate dip in the first two months of the quarter, followed by a rebound in June 2026 as compared to May. Our distribution mix of our mutual fund equity quarterly average AUM is as follows: where MFDs accounts for 36.2%, national distributors accounts for 15.9%, ICICI Bank share at 7.7%, other banks contributing 10.7%, and direct representing 29.5%.

SEBI introduced Specialized Investment Fund under mutual fund, which is well-positioned between traditional mutual funds and alternative investment products. ICIF is a distinct brand assigned to SIF launched by ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund.

We have launched four strategies: ICIF Equity Ex-Top 100 and ICIF Hybrid Long Short was launched in previous quarter, while ICIF Active Asset Allocator Fund and ICIF Equity Long Short in June 2026. Our quarterly average AUM of SIF is ₹2,678 crore.

Coming to GIFT City, we have launched our first offering in GIFT City, the ICICI Prudential Smart Navigator Fund, which is an inbound fund. It is encouraging to see that the fund is gaining traction and witnessing growing investor interest.

Now let's move to our alternates business. Just to clarify, comparative data has been restated by considering the effect of acquired business of ICICI Venture.

Our alternates business comprise listed equity-focused PMS and AIF, private credit, real estate, private equity, early-stage private equity, and offshore advisory. For June quarter end, our alternates quarterly average AUM stood at ₹79,446 crore.

Within alternate, our PMS AUM grew to ₹28,996 crore. Our AIF quarterly average AUM stands at ₹22,737 crore.

For the quarter ended June 2026, on an annualized basis, the gross yield on our PMS and AIF business was 1.91% and the net yield, that is after reducing the fees and commission expenses attributable to PMS and AIF business, was 0.95%. Yield on assets under advisory was at 30 basis points.

Coming to AI, our focus is to deliver value across three core pillars: customer and distributor experience, operational efficiency, and investment management. On customer and distributor experience, our goal is frictionless interaction.

Today, a customer can use our natural language search engine on our website, which has already processed over 5 million queries. For our customers and partners, we have embedded an engine in our mobile apps and distributor distribution portal that delivers a hyper-personalized prompts, which helps to engage better with the clients.

On the operational efficiency front, 60% of our customer queries over emails are replied through AI. We are actively expanding such capability like by transitioning outbound SIP renewal calling to an AI-driven process.

In investment management, through our proprietary platform, we are building a conversational layer over our investment data. At present, we are using AI to generate summaries of reports, videos, DRHPs to suit our requirement.

It enables faster processing of data and gives us gives our investment professional a head start so that they can focus on alpha generation and judgment. I now hand over the call to Naveen for covering the financial performance of the company.

Naveen Agarwal

Good evening, everyone. Let's cover the financial performance for the quarter and yields that are presented on annualized basis.

As we mentioned earlier also, all the data have been restated by considering the effect of acquired business of ICICI Venture. Our operating revenue stood at ₹1,564 crore, representing a growth of 17.6% year-on-year.

Our operating net revenue mix from mutual fund was 90.02%, alternate 8.54%, and advisory business 1.44%. Other income of ₹181 crore turned positive from negative vis-a-vis last quarter on the back of positive mark-to-market.

Operating expenses amounted to ₹464 crore, which was an increase by 11.7% year-on-year and 14.3% quarter-on-quarter. The sequential increase was largely on account of employee expenses.

As you would recall, we had mentioned in our previous concall as well, the ESOP-related expenses have been debited from this quarter, while in the last year P&L there was no such charge. Also particularly in Q4 of FY '26, any provision that we had made in the previous quarters of last financial year was also reversed.

Our operating profit before tax, which indicates the core profitability of our business, reached ₹1,100 crore. This represents a 20.2% increase year-on-year.

Profit after tax stood at ₹965 crore, which is up by 23.1% year-on-year. For quarter ended June 2026, our gross yield and net yield on an annualized basis stood at 52.4 basis points and 48.3 basis points respectively.

Net yield is arrived at after reducing fees and commission expenses on PMS and AIF business, which is shown as an expense item in the P&L. For quarter ended June 2026, our operating margin stood at 36.9 basis points as compared to 36.1 basis points for the quarter ended June 2025, which is a year back.

Thank you for attention. I look forward to discussing our performance in more details and addressing any questions that you may have.

Operator

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

Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and then one on their touchtone phone. 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.

Again, to register for a question, please press star and then one. Your first question comes from the line of Rahil Shah with HSBC.

Please go ahead.

Rahil Shah

Hello. Thank you for the opportunity.

My first question is I just wanted to understand the drivers of change in market share both in terms of equity AUM and SIP flows. Can you give more color on how much it's maybe driven by, say, MTM difference and how much is actual change in net flows?

Something around net flow market share where you said that you are getting highest, but sequentially is it higher or lower? Some color on that would be helpful.

Naveen Agarwal

Rahil, if you look at it from a one-quarter basis, given the high base of equity AUM, the change in market share would predominantly be driven by mark-to-market. Net sales in one quarter would not make that much of a difference.

As we mentioned in the beginning, mark-to-market that has been received in the industry is a function of how each of the segment has done, whether it is small-cap, mid-cap, and large-cap. The change in our market share has also been predominantly on account of mark-to-market.

Just to reiterate what we mentioned with respect to the indices, small-cap have in this quarter showed a return of 24%, mid-cap 17.2%, and large-cap 8.9%. That is what you would see as reflecting in the mark-to-markets and the respective AUMs as well.

Rahil Shah

Understood. In terms of SIP flows?

Naveen Agarwal

SIP flows for the month of June has actually seen a rebound vis-a-vis May, while from March to June if you see there's a small fall. Rahil, in this always see for the quarter, because monthly, na, there are a lot of changes that happen because of month-on-month.

Normally always look the numbers from a quarter point of view and not from month-on-month. Don't analyze too much month-on-month numbers because the numbers sometimes, over a quarter it gets stabilized.

Rahil Shah

Maybe if I can request to give the quarterly number because we don't have that, so that would be helpful for everyone of us. Just a related question around if I see the distribution mix, I can see that the growth from banking channel, including ICICI Bank, there has been a sequential degrowth compared to a very healthy 3%, 4% growth for other direct and national distributors.

Again, what explains this divergence? Is that something where banks have kind of slowed down selling mutual funds or some clarity here would be helpful.

See,

Naveen Agarwal

again, if you look at the distribution mix, it's spread across, from a servicing perspective, the distribution mix, all the channels, whether it is mutual funds or national distributors or ICICI Bank, we continue to serve all of them. Whether the small changes that you see, for example, if I look at what was the number for June quarter vis-a-vis let's say previous quarter, I do not see much change, for example, in mutual fund distributor category or on a bank on an overall basis.

Frankly, the numbers have not really moved that much. June mix and March mix is pretty much in line.

No,

Rahil Shah

maybe from a mix point of view it's same, but if I see in absolute terms, there has been 4%, 5% increase in AUM from direct or national distributor, while for banks it's flat to lower. What explains such divergence within a quarter?

Is there anything specific or to read into it?

Naveen Agarwal

Are you referring to the industry numbers? No,

Rahil Shah

no, your ICICI AMC numbers. You give the mix number, but I just multiplied it with the AUM.

Naveen Agarwal

In our case, as of June, direct share was 29.5% of the equity AUM. You must see the equity AUM.

I don't know if you're looking at a total...

Rahil Shah

I'm looking at equity. Equity...

Maybe I'll take this offline. No issues.

Naveen Agarwal

Yeah. [foreign language]

Rahil Shah

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Piran Engineer with CLSA.

Please go ahead.

Piran Engineer

Hi team. Congrats on the quarter and thanks for taking my question.

Firstly, just some number-keeping ones. Naveen, what was the ESOP cost in 1Q?

Naveen Agarwal

We had indicated, I think last year, when the ESOPs were granted that for the full year ESOP cost would be between the range of ₹125 to ₹130 crores. And...

Piran Engineer

Sorry, that... Sorry, that was for three years, right?

Naveen Agarwal

Yes, yes, that's what for... Sorry, that was a three-year cost of ₹120 to ₹130 crores...

Piran Engineer

Correct. This year...

...and

Naveen Agarwal

for this financial year, the cost was indicated between ₹64 to ₹68 crores.

Piran Engineer

Correct. Will that come equally each quarter or was it front-ended in 4Q?

In 1Q, sorry.

Naveen Agarwal

No, no. It would be in proportion.

It would not be front-ended. As that would be as per the Black-Scholes method.

It is charged based on the total vesting period and it is effectively, it will not be front-ended.

Piran Engineer

Understood. This is the base to sort of model the employee opex on, because last quarter we had some reversals, before that we had done other accounting method.

This ₹200 crore quarterly opex is sort of a base to take as a thumb rule?

Naveen Agarwal

Correct.

Piran Engineer

Theek hai. Fair enough.

Secondly, just going back to that SIP number, on slide 17, your SIP is for the month or it's the average for the quarter, month?

Naveen Agarwal

No, that is the number for the month of June.

Piran Engineer

April and May would have been even lower than 48 billion?

Naveen Agarwal

The trend has pretty much been in line with that of the industry. What happened in the industry is what we've witnessed in our number as well.

Piran Engineer

Then how do we think about it? Is it the stoppage ratio has gone beyond 100 or is it just the ticket size per customer has gone down?

Naveen Agarwal

Piran,

Piran Engineer

it's... Fewer people or lesser amount per person is what I'm trying to understand.

Naveen Agarwal

Piran, effectively it's not that the new SIPs have not been coming. If you look at the industry level also, the new SIPs have come in.

Obviously if the SIP trigger number has fallen, that's obviously because the stoppages of the old SIPs have been more than the new SIPs. Frankly, count-wise it does not matter.

No one should look at from a count perspective. It should be more from the perspective of if the new SIPs have come in and how much of the old SIPs have stopped.

The net of it is reflected in the SIP trigger number.

Piran Engineer

Understood, understood. Just lastly, the industry and our debt AUM declined this quarter.

Is it seasonal or it's just simply because bond yields spiked and there was some uncertainty in the market?

Nimesh Shah

You rightly said there has been a reduction in the debt AUM. We understood it's largely on account of institutional investors redeeming amongst tighter liquidity conditions.

It's a liquidity that the corporates would be having, where the corporates are investing. Because of the war situation, where they're investing more in the working capital, and if they invest more in the working capital, their surplus liquidity decreases, and to that extent, investment in mutual fund decreases.

It's more liquidity in the system, nothing else.

Piran Engineer

Understood, understood. It's nothing to do with seasonality, in 1Q it goes down or anything like that?

Nimesh Shah

June to June I won't say seasonality, it is more of how are the corporates in India behaving.

Piran Engineer

Understood, understood. That's it from my end.

Thanks and wish you all the best.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Madhukar with JPMorgan.

Please go ahead.

Madhukar Ladha

Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my question.

Sir, on the fees and commission side also, we are seeing increase in that number both on a QoQ basis and on a year-over-year basis, probably also because the assets under advice which have come right now also have some fee payment happening. It'll be good if you can explain that a little better.

Naveen Agarwal

The fee and commission number, as you see, is a number which is effectively the distribution fees that we pay for alternate, PMS and AIFs. Unlike mutual fund, any distribution fees that we pay for PMS and alternate, it's routed through the AMC.

The increase that you see is because of the increase in the underlying business. If the volumes of PMS and AIF go up, the underlying fee would also go up.

That is effectively a reflection of growth in the underlying business.

Madhukar Ladha

Got it, sir. Got it, sir.

Thank you. I'll come back in the queue.

Thanks.

Naveen Agarwal

Yeah.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Piyush Kumar with Magnus Hathaway Investments.

Please go ahead.

Piyush Kumar

Am I audible?

Operator

Yes, sir, you're audible. Please go ahead.

Piyush Kumar

Sir, my question is regarding the SIP inflows this quarter. As we can see on the slide number 9, the SIP inflows are down 1% QoQ.

What could be the reasons for this? [foreign language]

Naveen Agarwal

We all know how the markets have behaved. In fact, we would say that if you look at the numbers over a longer term period, if you look at it vis-a-vis let's say March of last year or even September, you would see the June quarter number showing an uptrend.

Even when you compare on a very short-term basis what happened to this number vis-a-vis May, there has been a bit of a rebound. As Nimesh mentioned a little while back, ideally you should see the number on a quarterly basis because there could be some adjustment in one month vis-a-vis the other month.

The numbers of 31,000 that we see at an industry level, 31,781, we would say it's still a very healthy number.

Piyush Kumar

Okay. Sir, going forward, which scheme are you most bullish on?

What do you see the trends in the Indian market and the Indian investors?

Naveen Agarwal

From our perspective, as our AUM, of the total equity AUM that we have, there is a... [clears throat] ...the hybrid AUM has a large component of that AUM.

All our products are suitable for an investor on a long-term basis. We believe that if anyone stays in our product over a period of 7, 8 years, he would obviously get a good return.

Nimesh Shah

See, overall we are believers of a moderate return world. That is where I sometimes feel it suits my business.

The customer when he comes in is slightly skeptical. This kind of environment, the customer is also asking four questions and is not going by euphoria before investing.

That's a good environment. We believe it's a moderate return world, and the series of products that we have created on dynamic asset allocation, whether it is balanced advantage fund or multi-asset fund or a asset allocator fund, I can go on, there are a series of products that we have created which mix equity and debt in some proportion.

The way I look at it, Indian customer has now feeling the pain of volatility, and in those times, it can be a good dynamic asset allocation. Look at what has happened in the last two years.

In the last two years, I was in Patna and one of the distributors I asked him that 'Do saal se return nahi bana, kaafi pain hoga.' His reply was, 'Nahi sir, aapke funds mein theek hai,' because he was referring to my dynamic asset allocation, which has given a reasonable return to the customer anywhere between 10% and 20% over the last two years, right, when the market has hardly given any return.

I think this dynamic asset allocation category overall. In addition to that, we like what SEBI is allowing us in SIF products.

Though I agree the distribution is not very huge today vis-a-vis a mutual fund because you have to clear an exam and all, but the products are very beautifully constructed. Right, the use of derivatives can be much more over there.

It can be used to hedge your position, even if you are invested in mid-cap, small-cap. We've got a mid-cap, small-cap fund over there also, but where I can hedge the position if I feel that mid-cap, small-cap is too overvalued.

There are series of products, frankly we are a supermarket, where I've got product for the common man, I've got product for HNIs, I've got product into various asset classes, and I believe that Indian customer and overall the family offices will move towards very different kind of products will go from the AMC, including something like commercial real estate. I believe that family offices, in addition to looking at equity, if somebody can give them in a organized way commercial real estate, which gets a good yield also for the customer as well as there are escalations possible, I think the entire product suite would work well for the customer.

Piyush Kumar

Sir. Thank you so much and all the best.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Prayesh Jain with Motilal Oswal Financial Services Limited.

Please go ahead.

Prayesh Jain

Hi, good evening everyone. Just some color on the SIP again, sorry to harp on that question, but just some color as to where are you seeing some slowdown, whether it's the direct channel, through brokerage platforms, through distributor route, probably some color on the ticket sizes, whether the smaller ticket sizes are closing down more or the larger ticket sizes are closing down.

That is point number one. Question number two would be on...

yeah, sure.

Nimesh Shah

One second, Prayesh. You take the second question later.

Prayesh Jain

First question,

Nimesh Shah

you asked on SIP. Let me give my perspective before Naveen gives you the details.

I'll try to reply the question the way I look at SIPs, right? If a person continues, what has happened in the market is there are various kind of distributors selling SIP.

There are various customers going on various platforms and buying SIPs also. The responsible distributor would have given a long-term outlook, some of the customers where there is handholding, they would have come with a long-term outlook and their expectations of SIP would be more realistic.

There would be some other channels where only past performance, a customer might have self-selected also past performance. Right, I saw in a typical year in 2023, if somebody has looked at last one-year return and entered into a SIP, say he has entered into a small-cap SIP or a PSU SIP or various sector SIPs looking at only past returns, those kind of SIPs.

I divide SIPs always responsible distribution or self-selected. If the quality of sales is good, it will sustain.

If the quality of sales is not good, it will not sustain. It has got nothing to do with the size of SIP.

If after two years your portfolio is positive, you will continue the SIP. After two years, if your portfolio is negative, you will not continue the SIP.

It is more to the nature of quality of sales or quality of purchase which decides whether the SIP continues or not. Now Naveen can give you some number color or whatever you had asked.

Prayesh Jain

Sure, thank you, sir.

Naveen Agarwal

The numbers, I believe you already have...

Prayesh Jain

Got it.

Naveen Agarwal

...as we answered in the earlier question also, I believe numbers you already have.

Prayesh Jain

Sure, sure. Yeah.

Nimesh Shah

Second question. Another question, please.

Yeah.

Prayesh Jain

Second question was on the expenses. How do you think the full year is going to pan out for the expenses, whether it's opex or whether it's the employee expenses?

How do you think, where are the investments that we are making or how should we see about overall expense growth compared to say FY '26 what we had?

Naveen Agarwal

We don't give guidance for future, but with respect to this quarter, I think I explained, if you look at it on a quarter-by-quarter basis, if you see specifically the employee expenses, that has shown a higher growth and this is on a quarter-on-quarter basis. The reason I explained, which was also mentioned in the previous call.

If you look at it from a overall perspective, see, one thing is you must exclude when you look at our financials, our fee and commission numbers are also stated as part of the expenses, and hence we also give you the net yield. When you look at our expense base, you must remove that

Nimesh Shah

because... Fees and commission on PMS, yeah, alternates.

Prayesh Jain

Yeah.

Naveen Agarwal

That should be removed from the expenses. You must look at the expense net of that, and being pretty much in line, whether it is on Q4 or on a Y-o-Y basis.

Prayesh Jain

Got that. Last question, what are the product launches that we can expect on mutual funds, AIFs, PMS across these categories over the next one year or so?

Nimesh Shah

As you would have seen, there have been various approvals we have received. We came up with some SIFs in the first quarter.

See, the whole idea of having products in ICICI Prudential is that we are preparing an AMC for the future also. When you when I have got four SIFs, it's not that SIF is going to completely change my P&L tomorrow, but I start creating a track record on those products.

One has to think from a long-term point of view. Balanced advantage fund we started some years, for three years it was only at ₹300 crores or something like that, and then after showing a track record, you start publicizing that.

Don't look at, irrespective of the nature of markets, whether the market is in a euphoric condition or the market is subdued, we will come up with our launches. You will see regular You must be seeing a lot of launches and you will see regular launches in the next nine months.

Maybe Vipin has can give come some color on that.

Vipin Bhandari

Hi. The...

Nimesh Shah

It is more for creating a product bouquet for the future, right, don't look at the numbers alone, look at more from the capability to create a track record and then based on that track record, it can lead to future sales.

Vipin Bhandari

Hi. The whole idea of launching ideas is to see opportunities available in market.

There are multiple ideas which we are launching on MF side. Under MF, we have products currently running, which is under fund of fund categories.

Then we are launching a new category which we are super excited about, which is life cycle fund, wherein we have got the approvals. In near future, we should be launching those ideas, along with a contra category which has got approved.

This is on MF side. Equally we are excited on ETF.

We have approvals in multiple ideas, and this is under MF categories. Then if I have to talk about ideas under SIF, we have already four out of seven which are approved, and there is one more approval which we have, which is under sector rotation SIF.

This is on SIF side. Equally excited we are on the entire alternative ideas.

We have a successful idea which is running, which is commercial real estate, which we will launch the next series of it. We have multiple ideas under real estate, and also on the equity side.

Prayesh Jain

Got that. Thank you.

This is super helpful.

Nimesh Shah

This life cycle is a very interesting one. It will also have the year.

Typically I will launch 2031, 2036, 2041. You're launching a year.

The guy has got so much clarity. If you're retiring in 2041, you are collecting the money for 2041.

Or if your son's education is in 2036, it will help a lot whether it is retirement or a person's son's education, daughter's education, whatever is the goal, if it is in 2031, 2036, or 2041. I think SEBI has introduced a brilliant category, and you will see us launching those products.

Prayesh Jain

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Dipanjan Ghosh with Citi.

Please go ahead.

Dipanjan Ghosh

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. A few questions from my side.

First, if I look at your PMS business, obviously it continues to do well, and even when I compare with your overall mutual funds or equity mutual funds, it seems that the growth rates sequentially have been far better for the last few quarters. Now, I would presume that this favorable growth in PMS would be a factor of relatively higher flow contribution as mark-to-market differential might not be that high.

Just wanted to get some sense of the structural driver behind these flows in the PMS business, and maybe some color on the distribution strategy or channel mix in that business. That's the first question.

The second was on the advisory business...

Nimesh Shah

Dipanjan, let me first finish PMS, then we'll go to the second question.

Dipanjan Ghosh

See,

Nimesh Shah

first of all, your assumption that it may be more because of flows and not because of mark-to-market, unlike in PMS, I've got a reasonably big PIPE product also, where the composition of mid-caps, small-caps would be higher, to that extent the mark-to-market over there would be higher. Having said that, in PMS or the overall alternates will not only have products like PMS, AIF, which will be a factor of mark-to-market as well as sales.

Also when you sell alternates, a part of the AUM will come when you actually call for that money, right? Suppose commercial real estate, if I'm calling for 50% of the funds today and 50% of later, in the AUM you'll see only 50%, right?

Whether it is private equity, whether it is any of the alternate products, you won't see the entire sales been reflected in the numbers per se, because the client will give the money later also. Overall, forget quarter or this one, it's a good business where you can take a different risk metrics than in the mutual fund.

Mutual fund, I'm very clear that the retired school teacher is my target customer, and the risk management is that much more strict in the mutual fund side. Here maybe we'll play with concentration risk, right?

In a mutual fund typically we'll have 50-plus stocks, but in a PMS, AIF, I would be on an average, you would have 30 stocks, right? That's what, if I have to play concentration, if I have to play more slightly higher risk parameters, here the customer does understand that he's taking that incremental risk for the incremental return.

Focus is on everything, in mutual fund also, on PMS also. We have segmented the market in different market segments.

We'll be focusing on different products.

Dipanjan Ghosh

Got it,

Nimesh Shah

sir. [foreign language] No,

Dipanjan Ghosh

sure, that's fair enough. Just maybe one small follow-up on that would be that you mentioned that on the alternate space, obviously the AUM that you're reporting is fee-earning AUM, and as and when you call the money, obviously the AUM kind of see the jump.

What sort of trajectory, let's say over the next two to three years, and in the previous participant's question you also mentioned you have a pipeline for commercial real estate and some real asset funds also. How should one think of your aspirations in that segment?

Nahi, pehle

Nimesh Shah

let it become big, no? Let it become that material, otherwise we'll spend too much time discussing that.

I would rather first make it big so that it is material to discuss that. Today it is not that big vis-a-vis the overall P&L.

Dipanjan Ghosh

Got it. Fair enough.

Second was on the advisory business. Yeah.

Second was on the advisory business. The AUM in the advisory business has seen some moderation.

Just wanted to get some idea on what are the drivers behind it.

Nimesh Shah

Advisory is more of international business, and international business, there is a lot of FII selling that has happened overall in India, and similar trend would have been reflected. Advisory is essentially advising international outfits, and to that extent there would have been redemptions and that is why you would have seen lesser flows or lesser AUM over there.

Thanks.

Dipanjan Ghosh

Last question was on the, coming back to the SIP part, to the extent possible, would it be possible to give some color of the SIP mix across some schemes or a broader mix, let's say between hybrid, pure equity, or anything that you can give some color on that part?

Naveen Agarwal

I think we've already put out the number which is on a total basis. We haven't given the breakup across the schemes.

As which are the schemes in which we are bigger, the SIP numbers in those schemes obviously for us also go in that line itself.

Nimesh Shah

It will be more on equity funds. Pure equity funds, the SIP will be more towards it.

Naveen Agarwal

Luckily, we have a lot of investors who have varied requirements, we see a lot of SIPs coming in hybrid also. We see SIPs coming in multi-asset, SIPs coming in BAF, wherein customer is looking at products which are less volatile and the goal is closer than what he needs in next three to five years.

It's mix of both.

Nimesh Shah

Reply to your thing is we don't market SIP separately and mutual fund separately. We market our mutual funds.

It would be in line with what Naveen said. It would be in line with our AUMs only.

Yes.

Dipanjan Ghosh

Got it. Thank you and all the best.

The data is in front of me.

Nimesh Shah

The data is in front of me, but it is too dispersed to tell you any It is spread across I can see some 20 on my screen in front of me. I can see some 20 schemes.

There is no problem in sharing the data, but it won't make It is spread across.

Dipanjan Ghosh

All right. Sure.

Thank you and all the best.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Shreyas Pimple with Nomura.

Please go ahead.

Shreyas Pimple

Hello, thank you so much for the opportunity. I wanted to understand the color of investment book that we have, ₹4,225 crore.

For the quarter we have seen ₹181 crore of other income, which amounts to around 17% of annualized yield. I understand you highlighted that small-cap, mid-cap, and large-cap had different kinds of MTM gains in the quarter.

I wanted to understand the color of this investment book. You have highlighted mutual funds, AIFs, and corporate bonds as segmentation.

How much of the 23.5% AIF, other equity, and REIT is subject to mark-to-market? That was the first question.

Second question on that was how much of the investment book would be around in large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap if you can give the bifurcation? See,

Naveen Agarwal

on a broad basis, we mentioned earlier as well, if you look at our overall investment book, about 50% of the investment would be on account of seed capital, and the seed capital is effectively, most of it is driven by the SEBI formula. To that extent, it is largely driven by the mark-to-market as we get in the respective underlying asset classes.

Now, vis-a-vis March to June, obviously as of March, you would have seen in our numbers there was a market fall as on the towards the last days of the month, last days of the quarter, hence there was a big mark-to-market loss. As of June, towards the end of June, on 30th June, the markets were up, hence we had a mark-to-market gain.

But 50% of the overall investment in seed money is what you should take as a ballpark number.

Shreyas Pimple

Got it. Just on that, 23.5% is into AIF, other equity, and REIT.

How much of it is subject to MTM?

Naveen Agarwal

We'll come back to you on the number separately, but broadly if you see, as I said, the other way of looking at it is 50% seed and 50% non-seed.

Shreyas Pimple

Got it. That was the only question I had.

Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Abhijeet Sakhare with Kotak Securities.

Please go ahead.

Abhijeet Sakhare

Hi, good evening, everyone. My first question was on the opex.

Now, just from an accounting point of view, when we have the salary hikes for the year, does that get spread out throughout the four quarters or there is a first-quarter impact playing out there?

Naveen Agarwal

The salary hike, would be on actual basis, whatever gets paid out on quarter on a month-on-month basis is what you would see as a reflection in the number.

Nimesh Shah

Salaries increase only once in a year in April, whatever is increased has been increased for the whole year.

Naveen Agarwal

Abhijeet, if you're looking at the number vis-a-vis the last quarter, I think I mentioned in my opening remark as well and we had mentioned in the last investor analyst call as well, in last year there was no charge on account of ESOP or similar head, while this year it has come in. In Q4 specifically, there was also reversal of any such charge that we had provided for in the previous quarter.

To that extent, the numbers are looking elevated when you look at the total employee cost on a Q-on-Q basis.

Abhijeet Sakhare

Got it. Looks like this is the quarterly run rate, right?

ESOP point you had clarified earlier, but even from a salary hike or salary revision point of view, there is nothing in terms of one-off in the first quarter in terms of the normal seasonality as well?

Naveen Agarwal

This is the quarterly run rate, you're right. Just to clarify, obviously these quarter numbers and also the previous quarter numbers now include Venture as well from an expense perspective also.

Abhijeet Sakhare

Understood. Is it...

ICICI Venture. Yeah.

Is it possible to quantify the impact because of Ventures?

Naveen Agarwal

That has not been really material. It's a small number, as the entire business acquired, but run rate basis, you must now take the June quarter number as the quarterly number.

Abhijeet Sakhare

Understood. Got it.

That was the only question. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Mohit Mangal with Centrum.

Please go ahead.

Mohit Mangal

Good evening and thanks for the opportunity. My first question is that in the opening remarks, you said that there is no negative impact of account of changes in TER regulations.

Fair to assume that you have passed on all to the distributors?

Naveen Agarwal

Yes.

Mohit Mangal

Okay. Thanks for the clarity.

My second question is towards the employees. We have seen that employee count has kind of increased 6% sequentially.

What was the reason for that?

Naveen Agarwal

If you look at it from a quarter-on-quarter basis, sometimes the hiring happens in a particular month, and the count increase is mainly on account of additions that we do at the sales level. Also, typically campus hirings happen in the Q1.

The employees come in Q1. Sometimes the Q1 number looks elevated, but I don't think you must read anything more than that in those numbers.

Mohit Mangal

Also...

Naveen Agarwal

There's also a small addition on account of the employees that have come over from ICICI Ventures as well.

Mohit Mangal

Understood. Lastly, in terms of debt, I think the growth kind of has come down sequentially, and even on year-on-year basis, it's a lower single digit.

Any kind of color on the debt AUM?

Naveen Agarwal

I think Nimesh answered that a little while back. Effectively it's a reflective of what has been the behavior of the institutional customers who park money in the debt schemes.

If they see the usage of that money more in their business and for their working capital purposes, you would see this money moving out of the debt liquid schemes into their respective businesses. I think that's what we have witnessed at the industry level in this quarter.

Mohit Mangal

Understood. This is helpful.

Thanks and wish you all the best.

Naveen Agarwal

Yeah.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Neeraj Toshniwal with UBS.

Please go ahead.

Neeraj Toshniwal

Hi. On the alternates net yield of 95 bps, just wanted to understand how the trajectory will kind of move forward, because that's been quite volatile over the last couple of years.

Just wanted a sense that how should one model it and what is the right way to think about it?

Naveen Agarwal

I think we mentioned it earlier also. What we've observed is that the net yield in the alternate business typically hovers between 90 to 100 basis points, and the difference is also on account of the composition of the product mix.

It's a function of that. It's pretty much in line with the larger range that we've seen over a period of time.

Neeraj Toshniwal

Sure. On the new products which you mentioned like lifecycle products and all, how's the mix?

Would it be mostly towards debt within that, given it's goal-based, and how you're thinking about it, what kind of yields we should be building in those products? If any more color you can give, because these are more like a insurance endowment kind of a product, which is having goal-based.

Just wanted to get some sense whether it kind of conflicts with insurance products, or it's totally a new way of building out the product allocation, asset allocation within that?

Naveen Agarwal

Of the alternate AUM, if you look at, we mentioned those in our numbers as well, the largest component is the PMS AUM, which is long-only equity. Any inflows that come in is from across clients, and that is more equity-linked.

Is the case where we have a Category III AIFs, where again it is equity-invested. Only in the Category II funds, whether we have private credit or commercial real estate or any other funds, that is where it's more debt-linked.

The new launches, whether it is the new scheme on the PMS or the AIF side or Cat II would be there in all categories.

Neeraj Toshniwal

This lifecycle fund would be outside of this, I assume, or

Naveen Agarwal

it's... Lifecycle is more on MF side, and as per SEBI regulations, they follow the expense structure which is predefined by SEBI.

Neeraj Toshniwal

The asset mix, what would be likely asset mix in that?

Naveen Agarwal

The way SEBI has structured this products is they start with more of equity initially, and suppose you have taken a 2041 product, initially it will be more of equity, less of debt. As the years go by and as you go near the redemption, the debt component of those funds will increase.

Neeraj Toshniwal

More of a NPS kind of a structure.

Naveen Agarwal

Yeah.

Neeraj Toshniwal

Sure. Got it.

That's it from my side.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Pranav Tendolkar with Rare Enterprises.

Please go ahead. [foreign language] Pranav sir, your line is unmuted.

Please proceed with your question.

Pranav Tendolkar

Hello?

Operator

Yes, Pranav sir, please proceed with your question.

Pranav Tendolkar

Yeah. Thanks a lot, sir.

Sir, can you just tell me what kind of yields on the industry level you see for active equity funds? Are they holding up?

That's one. Second is that there were so many questions that are asked on SIP, do you see any structural change in investor behavior of SIPs?

That's it. Thanks a lot, sir.

Nimesh Shah

I'll take the SIP one, the easier one first, there is nothing new about SIP. This is how India saves.

Even when there was no systematic investment plans by mutual fund, there was a recurring deposit with banks. Customers always preferred every monthly, it's the way India saves.

There is nothing new or strategic new. I think SIP has been doing well because it is the customer needs, because customers in India save monthly.

Nothing new about SIP. What was the first question?

It was about...

Pranav Tendolkar

Active equity.

Nimesh Shah

Yields.

Pranav Tendolkar

Sustainable yields. You see that sustainable yields will be around this, right?

Barring whatever structural changes we are doing because of the real estate fund and other AIFs etc., structural yields you see holding up, right, for mutual funds?

Nimesh Shah

On the mutual fund side, SEBI has done a very good job of regulating the expenses, and the expenses keep on coming down as the size of your fund increases. That is the best thing to happen, because it has become a very good product for the customer, and from a push product 20 years back, it has become a pull product today where people sell mutual fund so that the customer gets attracted to their website and then they can do other products.

This transition has happened. The charge on the mutual fund is very less, I think that is the best thing to happen, the probability of beating the benchmark increases to that extent.

The mutual fund has become a pull product from a push product only because we charge less. I think SEBI has just changed the way we charge, and this structure, almost at 100 basis points, he gets a product which is actively managed, the customer.

Pranav Tendolkar

Thank you, sir.

Operator

Thank you. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Divij Punjabi with BanyanTree Advisors. Please go ahead.

Divij Punjabi

Hi, thanks for the opportunity. I have two questions.

First is what is the current view on small and mid-cap valuation?

Nimesh Shah

In the investors call where I'm looking at, I am not getting into the market calls and all, right? There are separate calls we do for the investors on where we see the market and why, but overall we have always believed that the way you position in the market.

Let's discuss this when we are talking to the investors call, not when you are my investor in the mutual fund, I discuss that.

Divij Punjabi

Sure. No, I wanted to understand from a sales point of view.

Some time ago, you're not pushing small and mid-cap because of the concerns around valuation. Sure.

Second one is around the growth in the passive, which has come out quite good. What is the driver of this growth?

Nimesh Shah

After two years of mediocre performance, the situation is not the same as it was in September 2024.

Divij Punjabi

All right, sure. Second one is around the growth in the passive, which has come out quite good.

What is the driver of this growth?

Naveen Agarwal

Passive, if you're looking at the numbers, we know there was a lot of inflows, especially in the categories of gold and silver at the industry level also. That has been one of the big drivers.

Apart from that, the rest of the growth has been pretty much in line with the overall industry. Passive effectively comprises of, as ETF and index funds.

On the index fund side, the base is small, of the total passive, index base is small. ETFs, there are also a lot of institutional investors who park money on the ETF side.

The growth numbers are also driven by their appetite or their change of focus. Barring the flow increase that we saw if you look at it on an year-on-year basis vis-a-vis gold and silver, the numbers have been pretty much in line with overall industry.

Divij Punjabi

Sure. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Gaurav Jani with PL Capital.

Please go ahead.

Gaurav Jani

Thank you. The first question is harping back again on the staff cost.

Excluding the ESOP charge that would have been recognized in the quarter, barring the appraisals which generally are chunky in nature or quarterly in nature, staff cost logically should rationalize, right, in the coming quarters? No,

Naveen Agarwal

I think, Gaurav, I gave the explanation. If you're looking at it vis-a-vis last year, if you look at it on a Y-o-Y basis, our employee cost has gone up by 11%, and that is the right comparison that you should see.

If you're looking at it from a Q-on-Q basis, you would see a larger increase, but that is because of the one-time phenomenon that happened in last quarter of last year, wherein I explained that earlier as well, there was some of the reversals that we had done in the previous quarters. That's why the numbers are from a Q-on-Q basis is looking higher.

The number that you see now for this quarter is the right base to look at. This is the run rate for the quarter.

No,

Gaurav Jani

I understand the base, which you had anyways explained, I think, in the last quarter. What I'm trying to get at is after Q1 of '26, right, there was a moderation in staff cost sequentially, which I believe was related to the appraisals which happened in Q1, sir.

If you look at Q2 '26 over Q1 '26 or Q3 over Q2, there was some moderation, sir. Nahi,

Naveen Agarwal

your first assumption itself is not in line with how a company functions. Whatever changes I had to make on the compensation would have happened from April 1st onwards, right?

Whatever is effective April 1st onwards and that will be accounted in that quarter itself, April, May, June. It does not happen that you do appraisal in April and the salary starts increasing sometime in the next quarter or something.

It happens on 1st April itself since the time the company has been in operation. It's effectively an annual performance appraisal cycle and the...

Effective 1st April. ...compensation change happens in the month of April, effective 1st April.

Gaurav Jani

Understood. Sure.

The second, coming back on the SIP, just one thing I wanted to check with you guys. For the industry, right, SIP on a quarterly basis has increased by 1%.

It's been a while since we have seen such a low growth, 938.5 billion over 929.3, translating to about 1%. Would we be in line with the industry in that sense or would we be kind of lower or higher?

Naveen Agarwal

Which is the number? You're referring to SIP AUM?

Gaurav Jani

SIP flow for the quarter for the industry. That has only been sequentially up about 1%, which has been a while, it's a low number.

Just want to check, are we in line with industry or lower or higher in terms of the quarterly growth in SIP flow?

Naveen Agarwal

Our numbers would trend that of the industry on a quarterly basis. You are adding April, May, June number for the industry.

Our numbers also would be pretty much in line with that of the industry.

Gaurav Jani

Perfect. That is what I want to check.

Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as the last question for today.

I now hand the conference over to Mr. Naveen Agarwal for closing comments.

Naveen Agarwal

Thank you, everyone. We appreciate the interest shown by the analyst and investor community.

Thank you very much and wish you all a very good evening.

Operator

Thank you. On behalf of ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company Limited, that concludes this conference.

Thank you everyone for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines.