HDFC Asset Management Co. Ltd.

HDFC Asset Management Co. Ltd.

2,250.00
INR
-23.20
(-1.02%)
949.51BMarket Cap
Jan 26Next Earn

Q1 FY2027 · Earnings Call TranscriptJuly 15, 2026

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q1 FY27 earnings conference call of HDFC 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.

From the management team, we have with us Mr. Navneet Munot, Mr.

Naozad Sirwalla, and Mr. Simal Kanuga.

I now hand this call over to Mr. Simal Kanuga, who will give us a brief, following which we will proceed with the Q&A session.

Thank you, and over to you, Simal.

Simal Kanuga

Thanks. Good evening, everyone.

We'll begin with an overview of the mutual fund industry. Quarterly average AUM stood at Rs 83.1 trillion for quarter ended June 2026, up 15% YoY.

Equity-oriented AUM crossed Rs 47 trillion, up 16%. This 16% growth is during the year when there were bouts of challenges due to external factors and the impact of same on local economy and markets.

On flows during the quarter, equity-oriented funds saw net inflows of Rs 1,272 billion as compared to Rs 911 billion in the same quarter last year, increase of 40%. Liquid funds added Rs 984 billion, though debt funds lost Rs 757 billion.

The others category, which includes ETFs, arbitrage, and fund of funds investing overseas, added Rs 555 billion. SIP contributions stood at Rs 318 billion in June 2026 versus Rs 273 billion in June 2025, a 17% YoY growth.

This, in our opinion, would have beaten the most optimistic estimates in June 2025. The number of folios has grown to 279 million from 241 million a year earlier.

The industry added close to 6.6 million new unique investors over the last 12 months, taking the total mutual fund investor base to 61.9 million as of June 2026, compared to 55.3 million a year ago. Now we move to us.

Our QAAUM stood at Rs 9.35 trillion, up 13% YoY, with a market share of 11.2%. Excluding ETFs, our market share stood at 12.4%.

Our actively managed equity-oriented QAAUM grew 16% year-on-year to Rs 5.74 trillion. Our equity orientation continues to be meaningfully higher than the industry.

Equity-oriented assets accounted for 65.7% of our QAAUM versus 56.6% for the industry. On the fixed income side, debt QAAUM stood at Rs 1.66 trillion with a market share of 12.9%, and liquid QAAUM at Rs 851 billion with a 10.7% market share.

On unique investors, we added roughly 0.46 million during the quarter when the industry added 0.53 million, taking our base to 17.1 million. Our penetration in the mutual fund industry now stands at 28%, up from 25% a year ago, which means 28 of the 100 mutual fund investors have invested with HDFC AMC.

Systematic transactions, which is SIP plus STP, stood at Rs 48.1 billion in June 2026, compared to Rs 40.1 billion in June 2025, a YoY growth of 20%. Beyond mutual funds, we continue to take further steps to build our alternatives platform.

We'll close our private credit fund this quarter and have recently got an approval to launch a second fund on venture capital/private equity side. A marquee global investor has proposed to seed this new fund with a commitment of $50 million.

Total alternatives AUM, which includes AIF commitments, portfolio management services business, and advisory mandates, stood at Rs 148 billion, up from Rs 60 billion a year ago. Now to our financials.

Our revenue from operations grew by 14% year-on-year to Rs 11 billion, other income at Rs 2.6 billion. Total cost for the quarter was Rs 2.7 billion as against Rs 2.1 billion in Q1 of last year.

Operating profit for the quarter grew by 10% year-on-year with an operating margin of 35 basis points of AUM. Profit after tax stood at Rs 8.4 billion, a growth of 12% year-on-year.

Thank you so much. Navneet, Naozad, and I are here for any questions.

We can start now kind of queuing up questions. Thank you once again.

Operator

Thank you very much. We'll now begin with 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'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles.

Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. First question is from the line of Piyush Kumar from Magnus Hathway.

Please go ahead.

Piyush Kumar

Am I audible?

Operator

Yes.

Piyush Kumar

Sir, basically, I have only two questions. First is how are the SIP inflows in your schemes in this quarter?

How are the SIP inflows month-on-month? Do you see any trends or any sentimental changes in the investor psychology based on the numbers?

Navneet Munot

I think the SIP flows remain very healthy for the industry. Over the last 6 months or so, they have been about 30,000 crores.

We have a healthy share within that. What we disclose is inclusive of this, the systematic transfer plan.

We disclose systematic transactions, which include both SIP and STP, and which have seen healthy growth over the last several months and despite the market volatility.

Piyush Kumar

Sir. Sir, my next question is regarding which sectors are you most bullish on, do you have any idea which sectors are going to perform going forward, where the HDFC Mutual Fund is set to, where...

Navneet Munot

Sir, we disclose 100% of our portfolios. If you just kind of go to our website, it will be easier.

In sense, we have our overweight positions well mentioned there.

Piyush Kumar

Sir. Thank you so much, sir.

Thank you. All the best.

Navneet Munot

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Devesh Agarwal from IIFL Capital.

Please go ahead.

Devesh Agarwal

Good evening, sir, and congratulations on a good set of numbers. Sir, my first question is on the debt AUM.

We have seen a 6% QoQ decline, and even the closing AUM is lower by 3%. What exactly has happened?

Why are we seeing such a strong outflow from the debt schemes?

Navneet Munot

Thank you for the compliment, Devesh. On the debt side, we have seen money coming into the liquid fund, liquid and the overnight, while redemptions on the debt category.

Last few months, the volatility in rupee, the volatility in interest rates, given the global environment, crude oil prices, etc., we have seen investors redeeming from the debt funds. We have seen incremental inflows into the liquid fund.

For the industry as a whole, and we also have a decent share, get impacted by that both sides.

Devesh Agarwal

Sir. Second, sir, if you see on a blended basis, we have seen a marginal uptick in the yields for us.

Is this purely because of the product mix or is there any other reason also? Has there been any impact of the new TER regulations, which went live from 1st of April?

Navneet Munot

As there has been a change from the earlier TER methodology to BER. There has been an accounting change.

Industry has been adjusting to the new environment. I wouldn't read too much into the movement in the first few months.

Devesh Agarwal

Sure, sir. Sir, could you call out the revenues that we earned from the PMS and AIF segment?

I think now it's increasing, at least in terms of overall growth. What would be the contribution?

Can that be the reason for an sequential uptick in the revenue yields on a blended basis?

Navneet Munot

Devesh, it's still very small because the PMS does have a large mandate, which is one of the Government of India mandates. PMS and AIF...

Sorry, Navneet, you want to go ahead?

Naozad Sirwalla

Sure. The alternative side, the economics are slightly better than the mutual fund business.

The fee ranges between 80 to 90 points depending on the product. PMS, the discretionary book is broadly in line with the equity margins.

The non-discretionary piece is very different construct because it operates under very, very tight economics.

Devesh Agarwal

Understood. Sir, last two bookkeeping questions.

One is the asset-wise yield for the quarter. Second, just a clarification, if the CSR expense has been booked in the 1Q this year versus 2Q last year, is that right?

Naozad Sirwalla

Hi, Devesh. I'll take the question on the yields.

Our equity yields, total blended equity yields was 58 basis points. Debt was 28 basis points.

Liquid is 13 basis points, 1-3. CSR expenditure is actually a function of how our sort of CSR partners require the funding.

This quarter, we have funded to the extent that was required. It is more than what we funded in Q4 of last year or Q1 of the previous year.

Devesh Agarwal

Would you be able to call out what was the CSR expense?

Naozad Sirwalla

It's not a big number either ways, Devesh, but it is a function of, as I said, the annual numbers are available for people what we spend,

Devesh Agarwal

right? It's available on...

What I was trying to understand, we should assume a similar quarterly run rate, right, for other overheads. It's not that there's any one-off element of the CSR in 1Q.

Naozad Sirwalla

As I said, the CSR expenditure is not equally spread out through the year because as I said, it's a function of how our partners require the capital. This quarter, the number we have invested or sort of spent on CSR is higher than what we spent for Q1 last year as well as Q4 of last year.

Devesh Agarwal

Understood. Perfect.

Thank you so much, sir.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Meghna Luthra from InCred Equities.

Please go ahead.

Meghna Luthra

Hi, thank you for the opportunity. Sir, has there been any rationalization in equity schemes, the distribution commission during the quarter?

Navneet Munot

I think, Meghna, the one thing that we have done is of course, because of the change from this TER to BER, the rationalization happened starting 1st of April itself.

Meghna Luthra

Okay. Can we get which is it the balanced advantage or

Navneet Munot

across all schemes? Across all schemes.

Across all schemes because the 5 basis points that we were allowed to charge in lieu of exit load has now been taken off. Secondly, the whole accounting treatment changed.

Both of these things led us to revise the structures on the book itself starting 1st April 2026.

Meghna Luthra

Okay. Okay.

That's very helpful. Can we expect our revenue yield to benefit from it in the going 2 to 3 years well?

Because it has kind of a lagged effect, right, spread over 2-3 quarters.

Navneet Munot

Let me recap the changes. First was the removal of the 5 basis points of additional TER that AMCs were earlier permitted to charge in lieu of exit load.

The second, a shift from TER, which included levies, to BER plus statutory levies. The third element is the rationalization of brokerage limits on the cash market transactions.

Our approach has been to offset this through optimization of commission structures along with prudent management of both direct and indirect costs. What I can say is we have been able to maintain our margins.

Meghna Luthra

Got it. Got it.

Sir, one more question is on our market share in the flow data in equity schemes is higher than our outstanding AUM. Yet, our actively managed equity market share dipped by 20 basis points sequentially.

Sir, how do we link it?

Navneet Munot

Quarter-on-quarter movement you see here is largely attributed to MTM movements because the market share is a function of two things. One is the MTM movement and second is the flows.

I think overall if you see, the MTM movement has resulted in the decline in the market share that you've seen. On a year-on-year basis, the equity market share has held steady at around 12.8.

Yeah.

Meghna Luthra

Got it. Lastly, sir, on the employee cost also, is the entire increase attributable to bonuses and increments?

What would be the ESOP component of it?

Naozad Sirwalla

We have disclosed the ESOP component separately by means of a note. If you exclude that, which is there in the presentation, the increase in Q1 is largely on account of year-end increments that we have rolled out.

Also, certain employee benefits get actuarially valued beginning of the year and sort of based on the market interest rates. There's an element of that involved on the employees front as well.

We disclosed the non-cash component of the ESOP separately by way of a note. Got it.

Meghna Luthra

Got it. That's helpful.

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Prayesh Jain from Motilal Oswal.

Please go ahead.

Prayesh Jain

Hi. Just wanted to understand from you on the ground realities as to what's really transpiring on the ground with respect to SIP momentum, direct versus distributed.

Are we seeing any momentum change towards more distributed rather than direct, any color? Because we've seen SIP kind of plateauing.

I know, Navneet, you've always been saying that this 30,000 crore number itself is a very good number, but as analysts, we always look at even small drops as something which is a slight negative. Just trying to see as to what's really kind of happening on the ground.

Secondly, even on the debt and liquid front, we've seen loss of market share. What are we trying to do to kind of arrest that or improve that?

Those were my two questions. Thanks.

Navneet Munot

Sure. First on the question on the SIP.

If you look at the industry, June '26 number was Rs 318 billion, 31,800 crores. If you compare with June '26, this was 27,300.

It is a 17% YoY growth in a year which has been quite volatile and we have seen series of global events which have impacted the market. In last 10 years, I'm sure you said that there is a marginal dip even on a month-on-month basis, but look at the last 10 years' trajectory.

We have moved from 3,000 crores per month to 30,000 crores per month. During this period, we have seen so many market cycles, rate cycles, geopolitical shocks.

There have been sharp corrections in market. There have been phases of muted returns.

Through all of this, monthly SIP contributions have sustained and moved higher. I've quoted this many times that this is like India's 401(k) movement, and investor behavior is very different than what I've seen as a fund manager or as a CIO for a long time, where retail flows would ebb and flow with market sentiment.

There used to be a time when typical question from a distributor or investor would be, "Should we invest now or should we wait?" After a year or two, it would be, "Should we book profit now or should we wait?"

Now it's very different. I think it's becoming a habit, and habits once formed, you would appreciate they tend to persist.

I think our view has been and it's been very consistent that penetration relative to formal savings base is still low, and which means the runway from here is very, very long. Another factor which I'm sure people know but not giving enough credit is the role of investor education.

I think the AMFI's initiative and the efforts of individual AMCs like ours, look at some of the investor education initiatives we have taken to really spread the message far and wide to every strata of society across to every nook and corner of the country. The message has been very consistent that if you ride out the short-term volatility and stay invested through cycles, long-term outcome would be very rewarding.

Having said all of this, I think we remain watchful of how investor behavior evolves in a more extended market downturn. If the downturn persists for several quarters or years, because that is one scenario this cohort of investor has not really been through yet.

Jury on that is still out, but my sense is that a large part of these flows are very structural.

Prayesh Jain

Got that. Any color in terms...

On

Navneet Munot

liquid, yeah, on the debt side, last two consecutive quarters we have seen significant outflows. I mentioned earlier, maybe the volatility in interest rates, I think what's been happening on the crude oil, geopolitics, currency, and all of that.

We have seen very decent flows in the liquid fund in this quarter. I think that as an industry, we need to work a lot more.

How do we make debt funds more attractive to retail investors? Earlier industry was more institutional, less retail.

I'm talking about let's say a decade back. It used to be more institutional, less retail.

It was more fixed income, less equity. It used to be more lumpsum flows, less of SIP.

It used to be metros, less of other cities and B30. There are structural changes, dynamics.

In this entire period, the one thing somewhere it seems that we need to do a lot more work is how do we make debt funds more attractive for investors. There are several cohorts.

Look at the retirees, you look at several people who just want a regular income, a more protection of capital, how do we make our products more attractive. Recent categorization circular by the SEBI has given us newer opportunities on lifecycle funds, etc., and in the industry, we are all working hard, how do we position that to our investors.

Prayesh Jain

Thanks. Just last question, what are the product launches...

Navneet Munot

One more thing that in last couple of years, we've seen investors participating in debt through hybrid funds, asset allocation products. The popularity of multi-asset fund, balanced advantage fund, equity savings, all of these categories are the ones through which the investors are participating in fixed income.

Prayesh Jain

What is the line of product launches across mutual funds, SIFs, PMS, AIFs?

Navneet Munot

You're aware over the last couple of years, we have significantly expanded our product bouquet on active funds, on passive side, both index and ETFs, both market-cap-based indices and smart beta products. We have launched couple of sector and thematic funds.

On the PMS side, we have hired senior resource and have launched product on that in PMS, in the process of raising money in a Category III product. We've got the approval.

We have mentioned earlier about our private equity, venture capital fund of funds. On the SIF side, we have hired a senior resource for our SIF efforts.

In fact, today only our board has approved our first SIF offering, which will be a SIF equity and its top 100 long-short fund, which will be launched in the near term. This is just the start.

Our aim is to build a full suite of SIF products over time. The whole idea is that our aspiration is to be consistently be the trusted investment partner for every investor across life stages, across income levels, across investment sophistication, and be it actively managed fund, passively managed fund, SIF, PMS, private equity, private credit, we would be present across all segments in a full-scale platform.

Prayesh Jain

Great. Thank you so much.

Navneet Munot

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Swarnabha Mukherjee from 360 ONE Capital.

Please go ahead.

Swarnabha Mukherjee

Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity.

I had a couple of questions. One is in terms of the yield.

The yield increase, and apologies if I'm repeating because I joined a little bit late. The yield increasing, I just wanted to understand from your side that whether the increase is more outcome of shift from TER to BER or also there is some component of the 5 basis point pass on there?

Anything you can give some color on, and whether we should consider this to be the baseline number now and then think about the gradual dilution that we see with increasing AUM playing out from this level. If you could give some color on that.

In terms of how we broadly expect the yields to kind of come off going forward if there any color you can give, that would be helpful. That is the first question.

Second is in terms of the SIP number. What I understand is that our trends have been fairly in line with the industry, how the numbers have moved over the quarter.

As we move ahead in June, and I think I just wanted to understand the trends that you are seeing in terms of SIP and overall net flows, how it is affecting and do we have any levers to basically increase our market share in terms of SIP flows if you could give some color on that? These would be my questions.

Thank you, sir. On

Navneet Munot

the first, I mentioned earlier that we have moved to a new regime. Earlier it was TER, which included levies, to BER, which is BER plus statutory levies.

Our approach has been that the changes, how do we offset through the impact, whatever it is, through optimization of commission structure on the one side and prudent management, of course, both direct as well as indirect costs. All I would say is that we've been able to maintain our margins.

There has been, as I said, accounting change and a new structure. Wouldn't really read out much in terms of quarter-on-quarter little bit of movement.

Our endeavor has always been to ensure that distribution partners are fairly compensated for the efforts that they put. We believe in our long-term partnerships.

At the same time, ensuring that we maintain decent margins. The second question on the SIP growth.

You have seen over the last several quarters, the growth in the systematic book versus the industry, while industry itself has seen a healthy growth, and within that, we've been able to gain market share. One of the biggest focus for the fund house not only in last few years where SIP flows for the industry has grown, but for the longest period, we would have been one of the earliest players in the asset management industry to talk about the benefits of long-term investing, to promote the concept of SIPs much earlier than many others.

Reaping the benefit of that and trying our best to optimize through every single channel.

Swarnabha Mukherjee

Right, sir. Got it.

Helpful, sir. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ankit Bihani from Nomura.

Please go ahead.

Ankit Bihani

Hi. Good evening, team.

I have two questions. Given that India currently remains an underpenetrated MF market, and AMCs have so far been able to defend their margins through distributor negotiations, do you think this pricing power with distributors is sustainable over the medium term?

Let's say we entered into a scenario wherein the markets do not deliver significant returns over a medium term. Does that economics change?

This is my first question. My second question is how do you see the opportunity in the alternatives evolving in India over the next 5 to 10 years?

What role does HDFC AMC aspire to play in this market? Those are my two questions.

Navneet Munot

Sure. First question on, see, the economics between asset manager and the distributor doesn't change depending on the market.

As you said, if the market is muted, then whether there is a shift in the pricing power between the manufacturer and the distributor, not necessarily. As I mentioned earlier, for us, we look at it as a partnership.

They bring in investors, they manage the investors, they do the hand-holding through ups and downs of the market. At our end, we deliver returns in line with the expectations.

It's a healthy relationship evolved over decades, and we ensure that there is a win-win for investor, distributor, or advisor, and us. Your second question on the opportunity in alternatives.

As I said, these are very early days of financialization of savings in India. I think all the factors, be it formalization of the economy, digitalization of the economy, digitalization of finance, financialization of savings, and one important aspect, financialization of assets, which you are seeing the growth of REITs, growth of InvITs, growth the way we have seen even on the commodity side, the way gold and silver funds grew.

I think there are tremendous opportunities in the asset management. One healthy and good encouraging trend has been picking up of the SIP habits.

I've quoted this several times that we are transforming from a nation of saver to a nation of investors. There is a large savings pool, and over a period of time, it's going to get more and more into the investment form.

There would be opportunities similarly on the alternative side. There is a large investible listed universe, but there are large number of companies in the unlisted space, which over a period of time will grow and get ready for listing.

Before that, there are opportunities to participate in that growth through private equity or venture capital. Private credit market is hugely underpenetrated, very early days.

Over a period of time, there are tremendous opportunities for flexible and the private credit funding for large number of corporates in India across whether it's mid-market or large corporates for variety of structures. Similarly, on the segregated accounts, be it the global investors, be it institutions, family offices who are looking at more sophisticated bespoke solutions.

As a house, we are building capabilities across the board. See, what is our biggest strength as a house?

Over decades, we have demonstrated great capability on the investment management, on risk management, and on product management. The whole idea is that without getting into the specific about whether it's on the mutual fund platform or alternative platform, whether it's active or passive, whether it's large institution or retail, whether T30 or B30.

A lot of time, the industry discussions are institutional, retail, distributed versus direct. At HDFC AMC, the core capability is investment management, risk management, and product management.

We want to be one-stop solution for all kinds of investors and building capability. We have built a large team.

We have got now 40-plus investment professionals on the mutual fund side. It's not about the headcount, it's about the experience.

Most of our fund managers have experience of 20, 25 years plus. Even all our analysts have seen multiple cycles, they are highly experienced.

We have now got six people on the private equity, VC side, investment team, six on private credit side, eight on PMS across both debt and equity. We are building a lot of capability on the investment business side, similarly on the risk management, and as I said, product management.

We have hired investment specialists, which we already had for mutual fund, but now we have investment specialists for on the client side, the interaction, whether it's an alternative side, on the PMS side. I talked about a couple of products that we have been looking at.

I see tremendous growth across all segments in India, and we want to participate in those opportunities.

Ankit Bihani

Thank you for answering my question. Just one last question.

If I look at the gold ETF or silver ETF, one of our competitors is able to charge 4 times or 3.5 to 4 times the TER what other players are able to charge. I suppose that has got to do with the liquidity they're able to provide or the impact cost would be lower in them.

How do we expect to narrow this gap because this looks like a very distinct advantage that one AMC is able to have over so many other players?

Navneet Munot

It's not 3 or 4 times. Our industry is highly competitive.

I'm sure be it investors or be it distributors, I think they all compare each other. Of course, a lot of pricing is capped by the regulation.

Within that, wherever there is competition in some of the fixed income funds or the ETFs, etc., I think we all do the right benchmarking and always try to optimize our margins everywhere.

Ankit Bihani

Yeah. Thank you for answering my question.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Mohit Mangal from Centrum Broking.

Please go ahead.

Mohit Mangal

Good evening, everyone, and thanks for the opportunity. My first question is basically looking at your distribution mix.

I was looking at the bank share that has come down from 16% in Q1 '26 to 14.7%. Now I know that you have said that fin techs have kind of grown faster than the banks.

Do you think this trend will kind of continue or banks will kind of grow faster than the fin

Navneet Munot

techs? Fin techs 5 years back, the numbers were negligible.

Particularly by building the SIP book, now they have become very significant. Now that if you look at the overall net flows, a large share is coming through the SIPs, and which is where they focused in last couple of years, and they've become very, very significant.

Of course, the total adds to 100, somebody's share will go down. Not that banks have not been growing.

In fact, a couple of them have been growing decently, participating in the growth. There is let's say another channel which has also grown significant in last couple of years, which would impact the relative share of the other participants.

Mohit Mangal

All right. The bank's flow market share continues to be around in the...

Navneet Munot

Yeah.

Mohit Mangal

My second question is basically on strategy on kind of growth. What we have seen over the last few quarters is that our market share has kind of remained broadly stable with some kind of a marginal decline as well.

Whereas in this competitive intensity, we have seen kind of few of players growing. Do we have kind of any internal targets to grow higher or any strategy towards that would be...

Navneet Munot

Our endeavor is to ensure that we have scale. We optimize our market share everywhere.

At the same time, we try to grow the market as a leading player across asset classes, across products, across channels, across geographies, on and so forth. Have that with the quality, and by quality, a lot of focus on individual investors, a lot of focus on building the new markets like B30, etc., trying to penetrate more among the existing investors, on and so forth, and keep the industry-leading profitability, and have a fair balance between the scale, quality, and profitability.

Over a longer period, as I mentioned, that idea is to be a best-in-class platform. We have always been, and continue to strengthen that platform.

I talked about the people's strength, we have the processes, we have one of the longest track record in terms of the alpha track record of actively managed fund and got large bouquet of passive funds, the work that we are doing on PMS and alternatives, and continue to grow all of this with a very tight control on the cost. That is what we have always done and then aspire to do that continuously.

All

Mohit Mangal

right. No, that is helpful.

My last question is on the employees. Basically I'm looking at your...

Operator

Mohit, sorry to interrupt. The audio is not clear.

Can you please speak through the handset?

Mohit Mangal

Is it better now?

Operator

Yes. Yes, thank you.

Mohit Mangal

Basically I was looking at your employee count, and it has increased by around 92 over the last 1 year, while our number of branches are kind of remained stable at around 280. Just wanted to know, will this kind of employee count increase further as well?

Navneet Munot

No, a good part of that increase is, I told you about building some of these new platforms, hired people and on the international business, on PMS, alternatives, even on our domestic mutual fund side, of course, on the institutional sales, in our digital, AI, marketing, across functions. As I said that, we won't shy away from investing in the business.

One of the biggest investment that we make is people, right? Hiring the best possible talent and ensuring that we provide them the best possible environment to make the most of the opportunity which is in front of us.

Mohit Mangal

Understood. Thanks, and wish you all the best.

Navneet Munot

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Dipanjan Ghosh from Citi Bank.

Please go ahead.

Dipanjan Ghosh

Hi, good evening, everyone. First, few questions from my side.

If I look at your other expense data, that growth seems to be a little bit on the higher side. Just wanted to get some color on the granularity of that other expense.

I understand your cost ratios are quite top-notch, but still just from a quarter perspective, there was any one-off or anything out there. Second, especially from a fin tech channel perspective, we now have maybe 3 to 5 years of data for customer vintage.

During this market volatility that has been there intermittently over the last almost 12 to 18 months, in terms of customer churn or customer wallet diversification across different schemes of products versus the traditional channels, what has HDFC AMC observed on some of those fronts, if you can give some color on that? Finally, I joined the call a little late, I don't know if you mentioned the product-wise yield on the mutual fund side of the business for the quarter.

Sanjay Bhandarkar

Hey, hi, Dipanjan. Naozad here.

I'll take the first and the third. We covered the question on operating cost as well.

If you see the increase in operating expenses quarter-on-quarter, that is from March quarter to the June quarter, it's largely driven by CSR expenditure. To explain a year-on-year increase, it's a function of what we spent on CSR as well as certain IT and tech spend.

There is no one-off in the sense, but as I explained in the call earlier, the CSR expenditure is linked to when our partners require the money. It is not evenly spread through the year, is all I would say.

There's no one-off there. On the yields, we did mention the yields earlier, but I will repeat them for your benefit.

Equity was 58, debt is 28, and liquid is 13. Active equity is about 61 basis points.

Navneet Munot

Your other question was on...

Sanjay Bhandarkar

The

Navneet Munot

lot of incremental retail participation is coming from fin techs, especially the younger and first-time investors. The way people discover, evaluate, and invest in mutual funds is changing, and fin tech platforms are at the center of that shift.

I was just seeing fin techs have registered 8.6 million SIPs in this quarter. To put this number in context, if I remember correctly, in FY19-20, total number of SIPs they would have registered would be close to 400,000.

There has been an tremendous growth over the last 4 or 5 years in terms of bringing in incremental new investors, particularly through the SIPs. We made the decision early to treat these platforms as genuine partners, and that orientation is paying off.

We are seeing good traction both in terms of SIP registration and overall flows. Your question on the behavior of investors, see, we have seen significant growth in the number of investors.

Good number of them are first-time investors. In another question pertaining to SIP flows and sustainability of that, I mentioned that we have to maybe watch the behavior over the next several years how some of these first-time investors behave.

Efforts from them as well as from the industry, from all the players is on doing the right kind of investor education and ensuring that investor behavior has more long-term orientation.

Dipanjan Ghosh

Got it. Maybe it's one small follow-up, Naozad.

If I understood correctly, you mentioned equity including index was around 58 for the quarter. I think last quarter was around 56.

Firstly, are these data points correct? Secondly, if it's correct, then is the increase quarter-on-quarter driven largely by mix change or is there something else in that?

Naozad Sirwalla

I think this question has been answered twice by Navneet already, but if you... As

Navneet Munot

I mentioned earlier that we have moved to a new regime, and I've explained that before. Don't read too much from one quarter to another.

Yeah.

Dipanjan Ghosh

Got it. Thanks, Naozad, Navneet, and the team, and all the best.

Naozad Sirwalla

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Piran Engineer from CLSA India.

Please go ahead.

Piran Engineer

Hi, team. Congrats on the quarter.

Just wanted to clarify on one statement that you made, sir. What is the contribution of fin techs to SIPs?

Did I hear 8.6 million?

Navneet Munot

The new SIP registrations, yeah.

Piran Engineer

8.6 million in just a quarter?

Navneet Munot

In terms of that...

Piran Engineer

It sounds too high. That's why I'm asking.

Navneet Munot

No, last couple of years, it's been an exponential growth.

Piran Engineer

No, fair. There are 100 million SIPs today outstanding.

In one quarter, one channel...

Navneet Munot

No, that could be the same person moving from one fund to another fund. I'm talking about the gross number, yeah.

Achha,

Piran Engineer

okay. Yeah.

Just broadly, how big would fin techs be for you as a channel? In fact,

Navneet Munot

I think the direct number that is shown includes three things. One is that if somebody has come through fin tech in the direct plan, because fin techs are also Some of them are in regular plan, some of them bring money in direct plan.

It includes somebody coming on our digital assets, be it an app or portal or walk-in in branch, and third is through the RIAs. I don't know whether we give further breakup because industry already is so much of data is in public domain.

Piran Engineer

Fair.

Navneet Munot

We have a healthy market share. That's what we have a healthy market share that I that I mentioned, yeah.

Piran Engineer

Understood.

Navneet Munot

Yeah.

Piran Engineer

Do you notice any difference in the behavior of investors who come directly versus through distributors? By behavior, be it the type of investments, amount of churn that they do or the average ticket size, etc.?

Navneet Munot

AMFI has published handbook, and there, if I remember correctly, the data revealed that investors who had come through distributors have a more longer-term AUM. This trend of lot of investors coming into the direct plan through the fin tech channels has been a more recent trend, and as I mentioned earlier, that we'll have to see the behavior over a longer period of time to arrive at any conclusion.

Piran Engineer

Understood. Just sir, lastly, in your conversations with both distributors and investors, why do you think flows into mid-caps and small-caps are still dominating despite valuations, whereas large-caps have totally dried up?

I'd just like to hear your thoughts.

Navneet Munot

The way we look at our industry, one is an institutional response and one is a market response. Institutional response is our fund managers, our investment specialists, all of us would give views on the market, would give views on the way we have positioned our funds, the views on valuation, and what investors should be doing.

The second is a market response, what investors do across cycles, across different phases of the market. I think over a long period of time, we have seen outperformance of mid-cap funds and small-cap funds.

Off late, that has become more pronounced. Maybe yeah, investors who have lesser allocation have been participating.

The second thing, I think I mentioned earlier that if you see the net flows and see the SIP flows, a very large part of the flows, almost 75% plus of net flows would be on account of the SIP flows. There is a large SIP book in these segments.

Automatically, you will see that in the overall net flows. As the SIP book is more longer term, I'm saying.

Piran Engineer

Got it. Okay.

That's it from my end. Thanks, and wish you all the best.

Navneet Munot

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Shreyas Pimple from Nomura.

Please go ahead.

Shreyas Pimple

Hi. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

I wanted to understand if the ESOP expense has been accelerated in this quarter. We have taken around 23 crores of ESOP expense versus earlier guided 67 crore for the entire year of FY27.

Naozad Sirwalla

I'll take that. That's largely because we granted a bunch of stock options under the new plan in the last week of June of last year.

The last year number is for 9 months largely, the amortization. This quarter-on is for the If you see on a quarter-on-quarter basis or your previous quarter this quarter, the number is the same.

Shreyas Pimple

Right. There is no change in the 67 crore for the entire year FY27, right?

Naozad Sirwalla

No. Last year was for a 9-month period.

Maybe for the benefit, and we typically do that, I will actually spell out the non-cash expense that is expected based on the current ESOPs that have been issued. For FY27, the total non-cash cost would be around 79 to 80 crores.

For FY28, it will be 63 crores. For FY29, 41 crore.

For FY30, 11 crores.

Shreyas Pimple

Okay. Thank you so much.

That explains. Another thing on opex was that you had earlier guided that opex growth of 12% to 13% ex of this non-cash charge.

Do we still stand by that?

Naozad Sirwalla

See, typically, I would encourage for you to look at costs on an annual basis rather than on quarterly trends. I think the way we would like to focus on this is that we try and keep a very close eye on our net operating margin as a basis points of AUM.

We've typically operated in the 33 to 35 basis points range. That's the objective for us to stay within that corridor.

That's the way we look at the business from overall basis.

Navneet Munot

We have been running a very, very tight ship and have always been, I think, very prudent when it comes to spending. Having said that, we will not shy away from investing in the future.

I must say this, because in a growth business like ours, and the opportunities that I outlined before, the real risk is underinvesting, and we will not underinvest.

Shreyas Pimple

Yep, that's very clear. The second question was in terms of performance.

The performance has drastically improved in the month of June, the 1-year performance in equity versus previous 3 months of a little bit of subpar performance in equity. What has in your view accelerated this improvement in performance?

Navneet Munot

Let us understand this better. I can spend all day showcasing how good our performance has been over time.

We have one of the longest track record of performance across large number of funds. We always tell our investment team whenever I interact that it is not about the columns on the left side of performance sheet, which is generally the short tenure, but columns on the right side, 3-year, 5-year, 10-year, 20-year, because that will create the wealth for the investors.

Is there a way to improve numbers there by willing to overlook what happens in near term? We are all for it, and that is the way we have built our business over decades.

We have always believed and said that we would like to build a track record of consistent performance, but consistency doesn't mean outperforming every single quarter. I've spent good part of my life as a fund manager and CIO, and I've always maintained that in this business, periods of relative underperformance are an in-built, inevitable part of generating long-term outperformance.

Having said that, I shouldn't sound defensive as if performance is not good. In fact, as I said that I can spend the full day showcasing you how good the performance has been.

Weighted average AUM basis continue to be in the top two quartiles over 2-year, 3-year. Even if you extend the lens to 5 years and beyond, we would be in several of the funds in first or second quartile.

Let me pick up the sheet and our Balanced Advantage Fund is in Q1 over 3, 5, 10 years. It's a fund above 1 lakh crore.

It has been a very popular fund among investors. Another large fund, Flexi Cap Fund is in Q2 in 1-year, Q1 over 2, 3, 5, 10 years.

Another fund over 1 lakh crore is a third fund, a large fund is in Q2 in 2-year, 3-year, and Q1 in 5 and 10 years. Large Cap Fund, which actually has a lower market share than our overall equity market share, it is Q2 in 1-year, Q1 over 5 years, and I see opportunities for us to grow in that segment.

Another category which has grown for us, Focused Fund is in second quartile in 2 years, it's in Q1 over 3, 5, 10. In fact, one of our fund which Anand is managing, who's been with us for 20 years, Value Fund, this fund is 7,000 crores or so in a category which would be close to 2 lakh crores or so, it's in second quartile in 1-year, 3-year, 5-year, 10-year, and we have a lot of potential to grow there.

I can go on, but all I would say is that investors and the distributors, the one who actually allocate capital, they don't judge the fund on one or two quarters. There are funds which are doing well on those quarters also.

I don't want to sound defensive, but investors look at performance over a meaningful time horizon. We remain committed.

We have shown the performance track record over a very, very long period of time. Remain very confident about our investment team, about our processes, philosophy, risk management, and everything.

Look at the client addition that we had for several quarters, the folio addition that we had. I'm sure they all appreciate the performance that we have delivered, and a lot of that growth would be attributed to the performance that we have been delivering.

Shreyas Pimple

That is very helpful and clear. Sir, just last participant, you mentioned that the large part of the net inflow has been coming from SIPs.

Can that be really compared, because SIP is a gross number and there can be redemptions out of that as well?

Navneet Munot

Our industry has made it clear that the SIP number which are disclosed by the AMFI is the money in the bank and the number of investors who have credited that. AMFI is disclosing both number of investors who have kind of put that money and the amount of money that has come.

There is no meaning of gross or net when it comes to the SIP flows. People who have accumulated money by doing SIP over a longer period of time, if they redeem or switch that money to some other fund, that's a different thing, and we should not mix up those two numbers, SIP flows versus if any redemption has happened on that count.

Shreyas Pimple

Understood, sir. That is very helpful.

Thank you so much for answering my questions.

Navneet Munot

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Raman KV from Sequent Investments.

Please go ahead.

Raman VK

Hello, sir, can you hear me?

Navneet Munot

Yes.

Raman VK

Hello?

Operator

Raman, can you hear us?

Raman VK

I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Hello?

Operator

Yes, we can hear you, but a background noise from your line. Can you move to a different place, please?

Raman VK

My connection is very bad. I will just make it quick.

What percentage of the other income is MTM revenue, like mark-to-market gains?

Navneet Munot

Other income largely is a function of the gains that we have on our balance sheet, the equity and the debt investments that we have. Almost all of it is mark-to-market, other than several realized gains where we have sold some investments.

Raman VK

Understood. Thank you, sir.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Smita Mohta from Maas Ventures.

Please go ahead.

Smita Mohta

My query was, sir, that out of the unique investors' folio of 17.1 million, how much was the new folios addition as a percentage YoY growth? From that, what is the percentage of AUM for growth?

Secondly, some commission which was...

Operator

Smita ma'am, sorry to interrupt you, but we are losing your audio.

Smita Mohta

Okay. I just wanted to ask that I hope you've got the first thing of my query, right?

The first question. Second is your fees and commission is...

Hello?

Navneet Munot

If you can repeat that.

Smita Mohta

The first question is that out of the unique investors of 17.1 million, how many is added during this quarter, that is what percentage of folio has been added, or growth YoY? Second of all, out of this folio, what is the growth in the AUM QoQ?

Your fees and commission, which has risen 54%, is it going to continue every quarter because of this directive from the government? Last of all, out of the basket of products which you have, which is more margin accretive?

As you said about the digital AI, is that going to reduce your total cost in your business? How is it going to help you out?

These are few of my questions.

Navneet Munot

See, on the

Naozad Sirwalla

number of folios,

Navneet Munot

last 1 year, industry folios have grown by 15%, and our growth is 28%. Last 3 years, industry has grown by 23% CAGR, our growth has been 37%.

I can quote the number on unique investors also. Against the CAGR of 17%, we have grown by 34%.

In last 1 year, industry is up 12%, adding 6.6 million investors versus our growth of 25%, adding 3.4 million. Your second question was on the...

Naozad Sirwalla

The only thing is we don't disclose the value of these additional new customers or anything. We give the total AUM growth only.

Your

Smita Mohta

fees and commission, sir?

Naozad Sirwalla

The fees and commission expenses that you see in the P&L is first of all, it's a very small amount. That's largely the function of brokerage that is paid on PMS and alternatives.

Smita Mohta

Will this continue QoQ, this kind of expense?

Naozad Sirwalla

It is only 2 crores in absolute terms. Secondly, as the PMS and AIF business will increase and as the business grows up, the brokerage on that will be sort of continued to be paid.

Navneet Munot

The only thing, ma'am, is the brokerage is a subset of the fees we make. The fees we make is substantially higher from that.

Brokerage is paid out of the fees we make.

Smita Mohta

Your digital AI will not reduce your cost in this entire cost?

Navneet Munot

I think the way it works is the fees that we make on this, if we make fees of Rs 100, that Rs 100 gets added to the revenue. If we spend Rs 20 out of that as commission, that 20 gets visible in the expenses on a separate line.

The Rs 2 crore is the expense. On that, we would have made substantially higher fees, which goes into revenue from operations.

Smita Mohta

Was there any NFO in this particular quarter?

Navneet Munot

This is not to do with NFO, ma'am. This is not a mutual fund business.

This is for portfolio management services and alternative investment fund business.

Smita Mohta

Got it. Out of the basket of products which you have, which is more margin accretive to you, sir?

Navneet Munot

Equity business for us makes maximum money, second comes debt, and then comes liquid funds. That is the way our margins tend to be.

More in equity will actually enhance our overall margin.

Smita Mohta

Right. However, out of 88.7 million in equities, we have seen that your total investment basket is 11.8% only in equities, major is in debt instrument, which has gone down.

Navneet Munot

So... Ma'am, that is our treasury book.

The one you are referring to is our treasury book. Our fees are on the assets that we manage in mutual fund business.

If you can look through our presentation, it actually lists down our AUM breakup, and it'll give you how much percentage of our total business that we do, which is 9.3 lakh-odd crores, how much of that is in equity, how much of that is in debt, and how much is in liquid. These three things generate fees for us.

The 8,000 crores that you are referring to is our treasury surplus, which is in our balance sheet. On that, we are very, very cautious investing that capital, and hence large part of that money is invested in debt.

Smita Mohta

Got it. Do you think your margins would be stable and the AUM growth would be same as done in the earlier quarterly basis going ahead, just a guidance?

Simal Kanuga

We don't hazard a guess on our growth numbers at all, ma'am.

Smita Mohta

Oh, thank you.

Simal Kanuga

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Anand Bhaskaran from AV Anand Capital.

Please go ahead.

Anand Bhaskaran

Good evening. Can you hear me?

Navneet Munot

Yes,

Naozad Sirwalla

yes,

Anand Bhaskaran

yes. Just one small question.

Do you have any plans launching your own PMS products, because so far, most funds have been from other third parties. Any plans to launch your own PMS fund or AIF fund, which is managed on the house?

Navneet Munot

No, of course, investment management is not outsourced. We have fund manager and the strategy we offer to our investors, both discretionary as well as non-discretionary and advisory.

It's our own product.

Anand Bhaskaran

Okay. Just give me the margins that you make from let's say PMS to mutual funds, what will be the main difference in terms of margins?

Navneet Munot

I mentioned earlier that on the alternative side, margins would be slightly better than the mutual fund business. The mutual fund equity business, like-to-like comparison.

Management fees would be between 80 to 90 basis points, but it'll depend on each product. PMS, the discretionary book would be in line with the margins that we earn on the equity side.

The non-discretionary piece is quite different because the non-discretionary side that runs on very tight economics. Those are some of the provident fund mandates, etc., which have a very tight economics.

Otherwise, the discretionary book would be broadly in line with equity margin, and alternative side would be slightly better than mutual fund equity business.

Anand Bhaskaran

Okay. The last question, in terms of the entire mutual fund categories, in US, the most leading fund categories, the index funds and ETFs in general.

In India specifically, because now it is kind of a nascent market compared to let's say in America, what do you think industry as a perspective, what do you think is India's growth format is in terms of what sort of categories of mutual funds would be the leading thing in India specifically?

Navneet Munot

I think as a country, we are underinvested in equities. In Western world, we have seen capital moving from active to passive, and within that, in US, the taxation has played a role in making ETFs relatively even more popular.

In our opinion, India will have a different story to tell. Beyond asset allocation, investors in India will allocate to both categories and further allocate to products within those respective categories.

I see that happening on a daily basis.

Anand Bhaskaran

Perfect. Thank you so much.

Navneet Munot

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nikhil, individual investor.

Please go ahead.

Hi, sir. Thank you for taking the question.

I wanted to check with you, now that buybacks have become relatively attractive, what are our plans in terms of weighing buybacks against dividends? That's my question.

Thank you.

Navneet Munot

I think our chairman answered that very eloquently in our annual general meeting.

Sanjay Bhandarkar

The board has heard the request; also it was addressed on the AGM as well. It's the prerogative of the board to decide what it does on buybacks and dividend both.

Thanks. All

Navneet Munot

the best.

Operator

Thank you. That was the last question.

I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Navneet Munot for closing comments.

Navneet Munot

Sure. To sum up, our closing AUM stood at Rs 9.32 trillion, actively managed equity-oriented AUM at Rs 5.93 trillion.

We have 28% penetration in the MF industry in terms of unique investors. Beyond mutual funds, our alternatives platform has scaled to Rs 148 billion, and our international business out of GIFT City continues to build steadily.

We remain very constructive on the long-term opportunity. Financialization of savings in India is still in its early stages, and our focus remains on delivering consistent outcome and building capability for the long term.

Thank you for your time today.

Operator

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

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