UTI Asset Management Company Ltd

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the UTI Asset Management Company Limited Q4 and FY '26 Earnings Conference Call.

From the management, we have with us, Mr. Vetri Subramaniam - Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Vinay Lakhotia - Chief Financial Officer and Head (Corporate Strategy) and Mr. Sandeep Samsi - Head (Investor Relations, Marketing and Corporate Communications).

We also have with us the Investor Relations team from AdFactors PR.

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 ‘*’ and then ‘0’ on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded.

Before we begin, I would like to mention that some of the statements made in today's discussion may be forward-looking in nature and may involve risks and uncertainties. Please note, the disclaimer mentioning these risks and uncertainties are on the disclaimer slide of the Investor Relations presentation that has been shared earlier.

I would now hand the conference over to Mr. Vetri Subramaniam for opening remarks. Thank you and over to you sir.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us today on this call. Our financial results, presentation and press releases have been shared on the stock exchanges as well as on our website and we trust you have had the opportunity to review them.

Today, I am joined by my colleagues, Vinay Lakhotia, CFO and Head of Strategy, and Mr.

Sandeep Samsi, Head of Investor Relations, Marketing and Corporate Communications.

Before I take this opportunity to provide you with a brief perspective on the market scenario, our performance and our way forward, I would like to take a moment to thank UTI Shareholders, Board and Trustees for the confidence and trust they have reposed in me in continuing to build on UTI's legacy. Having been closely associated with this organisation for nearly a decade, I believe we have built a strong foundation across our investment capabilities, distribution and technology.

Our focus now is to accelerate growth from this base to improve our growth and continue delivering long-term value to all the stakeholders.

The year FY25-26 has been a year of resilience in investor behavior, even as markets have witnessed volatility.

FY25-26 continued to witness strong retail investor participation, total mutual fund folios at approximately 27.39 crores as of March 2026. Retail mutual fund folios, equity plus hybrid and solution-oriented schemes increased to around 20.82 crores. The industry's average assets under management reached Rs. 79.46 lakh crores as of March 2026, demonstrating steady expansion driven by both market performance and sustained inflows. Retail AUM stood at Rs 42.89 lakh crores, and this underlines the growing contribution of individual investors to the overall mutual fund industry. SIPs continue to be a key driver of flows and investor discipline.

The monthly SIP contribution stood at Rs 32,087 crores in March 2026 while SIP AUM reached nearly Rs 15 lakh crores accounting for 19.94% of overall MF industry AUM. While there has been some moderation in inflows across certain categories in recent months, investor participation remains broad-based. Industry equity mutual fund inflows stood at Rs 40,450 crores in March 2026. This is remarkable and indicates continued interest in equities as an asset class inspite of intermittent market volatility.

Let me now move on to talk a little bit about our company’s performance and I will take you through performance highlights:

The Financial Year 2025-2026 has been a year of strong execution across our core strategic priorities from strengthening retail flows, deepening distribution relationships, scaling our product franchise and investing in technology-led operating leverage. We have also undertaken several structural initiatives to strengthen the operating platform and expanded our geographic presence in a calibrated manner while maintaining net zero incremental costs by managing branch operations efficiently.

We have significantly improved our supervisor-to-feet-on-street ratio from approximately 1:1 to 1:5 over these recent years with one manager now overseeing around 5 relationship

Page 3 of 17 managers. Our total employee strength, which stood at 1,402 employees as of March 2024, is now at 1,248 as of March 2026.

UTI Group's total AUM stood at Rs 23.42 lakh crores as of March 31, 2026. Our mutual fund AUM reached Rs 3.88 lakh crores compared to Rs 3.39 lakh crores last year. In FY26, we added 7.16 lakh new investors as identified by their PANs, taking our total folio base to 1.38 crores.

During the year, our gross new SIP registrations crossed 14.5 lakh of which 76% were through digital channels.

On the product side, we successfully launched the UTI Multicap Fund which mobilized about Rs 1,000 crores with strong participation across banks, national distributors and MFDs. In addition, our UTI Arbitrage Fund crossed the Rs 10,000 crores AUM milestone during the year.

Our passive business continues to scale well with ETF AUM at Rs 18,963 crores and Index Fund AUM at Rs 5,934 crores, aggregating to Rs 24,897 crores during the year and we continue to maintain leadership position in the Smart Beta category.

We expect our momentum in this passive business will continue to be supported by a robust pipeline of new launches during the coming year.

On the institutional side of our business, which falls under our PMS division, both the EPFO and CMPFO concluded the process of appointing new portfolio managers through an open bidding system. For the third consecutive term, UTI AMC was selected as one of the portfolio managers for EPFO.

In the case of CMPFO, we were chosen as one of the two portfolio managers for the second consecutive term. Both mandates have been awarded for a tenure of 5 years.

Switching to our pension fund business, our pension business grew during the year with total AUM at Rs 4.02 lakh crores, representing a 11.8% increase year on year, while the private sector pension AUM grew by 46% year on year. This continues to remain an important strategic growth area for us. An important area of focus for us through the year has been digital transformation and productivity enhancement. Our digital business initiatives have delivered strong outcomes, including a 234% increase in revenue, 33% increase in transactions, and a 31% reduction in cost per transaction.

We recently launched one of the industry's first AI-powered contact centre solutions, VAANI, which has already automated 59% of our inbound calls. This has materially improved customer response time and service efficiency. We also launched an in-app WhatsApp payment facility via CAMSPay and are the first AMC in India to offer this service to investors to transact and engage in live chat via WhatsApp and make payments.

Page 4 of 17 To bridge the gap between complex financial insights and reach a diverse investor base, we also launched an industry-first AI-translated vernacular initiative with the launch of our monthly fact sheets in Hindi. We are also translating our fund manager communications into eight regional languages – Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam – to provide our views in regional languages for our pan-India audience. As mutual funds go deeper and deeper into the heartland of India, we think being able to provide communication in different languages will hold us in good stead.

From an investment performance standpoint, we continue to remain focused on process consistency and disciplined execution. In fixed income, 50% of our AUM ranked in the top two quartiles over the one-year period and 60% over the three-year period. Similarly, our hybrid strategies and value-oriented strategies have continued to show strong long-term performance in the equity space.

Our passive strategies have a consistent track record of low tracking difference, which is very important in terms of the investor outcomes. Our equity research coverage has further expanded in line with the growth in the market. This strengthens our ability to identify opportunities across market segments.

Overall, FY25-26 has been a year when we have strengthened our business across distribution, product capability, digital infrastructure, and institutional trust and I would add also a very significant people refresh.

Going ahead, our foremost strategic priority is to grow our mutual fund AUM while building a more resilient, diversified, and scalable franchise, all to be done while maintaining strong cost discipline.

With that, I will now request Sandeep to take you through the operational and financial performance of the company in detail.

Thank you sir. I will speak about UTI AMC's performance during the 4th Quarter and for the Full Year ended 31st March 2026.

UTI was able to capture a market share of 5.5% of the gross sales of the industry during this quarter and market share of 6.1% of the gross sales for the financial year FY26.

Our equity quarterly average AUM for March 2026 stood at Rs. 95,824 crores, rising by 5.46% as compared to the quarter ended March ‘25. Our quarterly average AUM for the index and ETF funds stood at Rs. 1,76,673 crores, up by 24.86% in the 4th Quarter. ETF and index funds' annual net inflow stood at Rs. 24,897 crores. In FY25-26, we added 7.16 lakh new investor PANs, taking our total folio base to 1.38 crores.

Page 5 of 17 Our SIP AUM witnessed a growth of 5.91% over the corresponding quarter of last year, reaching to Rs. 39,813 crores as of March ‘26. The SIP inflows for the 4th Quarter stood at Rs. 2,457 crores. The SIP gross inflows for UTI mutual funds witnessed a year-on-year growth of 13.42%, with an average SIP ticket size being Rs. 3,381 for March 2026.

For the full year, SIP inflows were Rs. 9,442 crores, higher by 13.42% as compared to Rs. 8,325 crores in FY25. The active SIP folios as on 31st March 2026 stood at 29.53 lakhs, a 9.71% growth as compared to March ‘25.

On a standalone basis, the core income i.e. sale of services for FY26 amounted to Rs. 1,255 crores as compared to Rs. 1,180 crores for FY25. The normalized core PAT for FY26 is Rs. 460 crores as compared to Rs. 447 crores in FY25. The normalized PAT for FY26 is Rs. 643 crores as against Rs. 653 crores in FY25. The employee cost of Rs. 437 crores includes the one-time item on account of revision of family pension benefit of Rs. 25 crores incurred in Q2 FY26. Excluding this one-off item, the normalized employee cost is Rs. 412 crores.

On a consolidated basis, the core income sale of services for FY26 amounted to Rs. 1,539 crores as compared to Rs. 1,445 crores for FY25. The normalized core PAT for FY26 is Rs. 452 crores as compared to Rs. 492 crores in FY25. The normalized PAT for FY26 is Rs. 511 crores as against Rs. 731 crores in FY25. The employee cost of Rs. 553 crores include the one-time item on account of revision of family pension benefit of Rs. 25 crores incurred in Q2 FY26. Excluding this one-off item, the normalized employee cost is Rs. 528 crores.

On UTI Pension Fund Limited, our 100% owned subsidiary UTI Pension Fund Limited has recorded a growth of 12% year-on-year in its AUM, reaching Rs. 4 lakh crores as on Q4 FY26 and currently it manages 24.36% of the NPS industry's AUM.

UTI International, which represents our international business interest, has an AUM of USD 1.74 billion i.e. Rs. 16,144 crores as of 31st March 2026. Our international clients are in more than 30 countries and they are primarily institutions, pensions, insurance companies, banks and asset managers.

One of our flagship fund, the India Dynamic Equity Fund, domiciled in Ireland, has an AUM of USD 540 million i.e. Rs. 5,012 crores as of 31st March 2026.

On UTI Alternatives, it has an AUM of Rs. 5,280 crores. It currently manages five active funds across performing credit and multi-strategy themes. Structured Debt Opportunity Fund-II has exited all the investments and made the final distribution in Q3 FY26 at an above benchmark performance with an IRR of 13.4%. UTI SDOF-III has an AUM of Rs. 609 crores and the fund is currently in the investing stage.

Page 6 of 17 During the 2nd Quarter, UTI Alternatives launched the fourth fund of the SDOF series. This fund has been planned as a Rs. 1,500 crores fund plus with a Rs. 500 crores greenshoe option with a current AUM of Rs. 674 crores. UTI Multi-Opportunity Fund-I has an AUM of Rs. 1,598 crores.

Currently, the fund is in the investing stage.

UTI Real Estate Opportunity Fund with its commitment of Rs. 187 crores is currently in fundraising and investing stage.

I would now request the Managing Director and CEO for his concluding remarks.

Thank you, Sandeep, for sharing the operational and financial updates of the company. I am also pleased to inform you that at the board meeting today, UTI AMC has declared a dividend of Rs. 40 per share for the Financial Year ‘25-26. The same is subject to the approval of shareholders at the ensuing Annual General Meeting. We would like to open the forum for questions and answers. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. We will take our first question from the line of Gaurav Jain from ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund.

Thank you for the opportunity. My question is on the expenses side. There is some one-off you called out in Q4 FY26, but I could not understand the thing completely. But then, on reported numbers, what we are seeing is year-on-year there is a sharp increase. So, if you can help us understand what is the one-off and for FY27, how should we build or think about the employee expense and also the other expenses bit because if you look at FY26, I don't think there is much one-off in the other expenses bit. That for the full year has also grown 15%, which is on the higher side. So, if you can help us understand, how should we think on both from FY27 perspective?

Yes. Hi, Gaurav. Vinay here. So, on the employee cost, there is a one-off on account of VRS and family pension. The total quantum of that is close to around Rs. 130 crores that we provision in the Q3 of this particular financial year. Plus, on account of Labour Code, there has been an impact of close to around Rs. 4 crores as well, because we have to provide for an additional liability of Rs. 4 crores. So, total employee cost that you see is close to around Rs. 412 crores at a standalone and Rs. 528 crores at a consol level (excluding Rs. 25 crore of one-of expenses for revision of family pension, incurred in Q2FY26). In terms of guidance for the next financial year, because obviously there will be a benefit on account of VRS, the run rate on a quarterly basis should be around Rs. 90 crores to Rs. 95 crores for the standalone entity and Rs. 125 crores to Rs. 130 crores on the consolidated firm. Obviously, because we are building capacity expansion into all the three lines of business. With respect to the other expenses, yes, it has increased at 15%. And I would say some of these items are not actually a cost, but as an investment that we are doing in our business, both on the digital front as well as on the physical front. On the digital front, we have upgraded our IT infrastructure, especially with respect to the cloud infra. And

Page 7 of 17 because of that, there is an additional expense line-item of close to around Rs 8 crores. And on the physical part, since we have expanded close to around 90 UFCs in the last one and a half years, that has obviously increased our costs. The guidance for the other administrative expenses, it should increase close to around 7% to 8% for the standalone entity and maybe 100 or 200 basis points more for the consol entity. Since for UTI Pension Fund, we are expanding into newer geography. So, for the consolidated one, it could be in the range of around 10%.

And for the standalone, it's around 8% for the other expenses. Gaurav, does that answer your question?

Yes, sir. Just one follow-up on the employee expenses. So, basically Q4, when I am looking at the consolidated employee expense, it is Rs. 132 crores. That is the normalized run rate, what you are saying, post VRS, and there is no one-off in this.

Yes, for Q4, there is no one-off in this.

In that case, sir, on a year-on-year basis, at the consol level, even after VRS, we are at a 14% increase, right? I mean, Q4 to Q4, Q4 FY25, our employee expense was Rs. 116 crores. Q4 FY26, we are at Rs. 132 crores. So, that has still grown at 14% even after VRS.

Yes, the sum is on account of additional provision on variable pay and quarterly incentive. And as I told you, at the consol level, since we are expanding into all the three lines of business, there have been additional recruitment in all three. That is why it is increasing.

Okay. Sir, my next question is to Vetri Sir, that post taking over as CEO, if he can help us understand what are the three- four areas or aspects that he plans to work on for the coming year, and what is his roadmap that he wants to guide us for, how he wants to run the company from here. That will be helpful, Sir.

So, Gaurav, before that, let me clarify the run rate. For standalone, it's close to around Rs. 90 crores to 95 crores per quarter. And for the consol, it's around Rs. 125 crores. Over to you Vetri.

Page 8 of 17 up 38% of the workforce. And if I go back five years, it used to make up 5% of the workforce.

So, there's a very dramatic people refresh, which has taken place. My sort of callout to the internal team is to make sure they are well equipped, they are trained, they have best-in-class support, be it from our data platform, be it in terms of technologies available to them, to be able to raise their productivity and their efficiency, so that we can raise our share of gross sales, net sales, and achieve a much higher level of AUM without in any way having to add further costs on the people front, particularly within the context of the MF business. So, the single line agenda is growth. If I were to drill down into the second line agenda, it would be to sort of grow our share of SIPs disproportionately, because I think that is the key to growth, particularly on the active equity side of the business. And we know that is a much higher yielding part of our business mix. And clearly on top of these two, all the technology refreshes that we have done are allowing us to engage effectively with the young cohort and in the digital space. You know, if you look at the new SIP signups, which are happening, I would say given on which data point you look at, more than 50% of the SIPs are now originating digitally. So, all the investment that we have made in digital is something that we hope to use once again to be able to increase our growth rate. But single line agenda, grow the business. Second, manage the cost, increase the efficiency and use all the other tools that I mentioned.

Very helpful, sir. Thank you, and all the best. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Naman Maheshwari from Shanghvi Family Office. Please go ahead.

Okay. So, very well captured on the single focus of growth as an engine. Since last three, four years, we had not witnessed a sharp correction led by so many headwinds into the market. But this could have been a good time to acquire customers, right? March to some extent was pretty risky for the overall equity market. So, how did we see the customer acquisition going during this time? And what were the major schemes that are engaging interest of SIP buyers? Also, do you collect the data of first time SIP buyers with you? Or how do you track that if you could give some light on that? So, those are some questions.

Yes, so, Naman, you are right, there was a lot of volatility, which came into the market. And we are very happy to see that investors have been consistent in their SIP. While generally, March sees a higher number of SIP closures, because you know, people achieve the target, people have started their SIP in the month of April and close it in the month of March. But overall, there was not a very high amount of redemption pressure that the mutual fund industry saw.

Page 9 of 17 from the fintech platform for the Gen Z investors. And they generally take their first investment at around Rs. 1000 - Rs. 1500 SIP.

This is Vetri here, just to add to what Sandeep said, one of the numbers that we are now tracking closely, and we are also putting that into our sales metrics so that we know what those numbers are, and we know what strategies we can use to drive it is the new customer acquisition, which to us basically means, are we getting a customer with a PAN number, which we earlier did not have in our MF folio base. So, the idea is to target that number. I mentioned that last year, we added 7 lakh PANs. So, this year, we are targeting to grow that number significantly. So, a lot of the activities that we are doing in the digital space, as well as on ground including B30 cities, etc., as an example, women investors as an example, is to widen that pool, because that has been our historic legacy. But also, we think that is a great way to create the customers, who as they grow, you will grow with them. What we also have now with our salesforce marketing automation is the ability to communicate with these clients using our salesforce marketing automation and being able to cross sell and upsell opportunities to them.

We implemented the salesforce marketing automation sometime in the middle of last year, early days at this point of time, but we are starting to see that driving engagement with those customers helps you make them think through their investments better and also gives you that opportunity to upsell and cross sell. So, new customer acquisition is certainly a key part of that.

And now with digital, there is an ability to target and communicate appropriately with them to raise your share of AUM with them.

And actually, I didn't mean to ask you from this SIP stoppage, actually, I wanted to understand that did you witness any sharp inflow from first time SIP doers in the market was in March, when there was extreme volatility? So, did that help you fast track some customer acquisition by educating them rightly, because we have a very strong feet on street, right? So, that is what I wanted to understand. That did it accelerate during this volatility window, right?

Not so much, because sometimes, sharp market correction also pause people's thought processes. Plus, March, as I mentioned, is a period when people look at SIPs and renewing their SIPs. So, however, one good factor that we saw that when in the month of February, the number of new SIPs which we opened were quite good. So, even in the industry level, but industry level, the numbers were slightly lower, we did better than the industry in that sense.

So, volatility has been helping in terms of getting new investors because now they look at the market being at a lower level and starting their SIP, but not so much in the month of March itself. So, maybe because of the sharp volatility which we saw in the market.

So, again, Vetri here, I don't think there's a specific call out on March per se. But you know, we track our SIPs, which are sort of, let's say, cancelled or seized vis-à-vis the total SIP book, and the new SIPs that we are adding. And we also compare how are our performances relative to the industry, because the same number you also get from AMFI. I would say in general, we have seen our numbers have been slightly better in recent months. But I would not call out something which is particularly distinct in terms of a trend.

Page 10 of 17 Okay, sir. Fairly understood. Congratulations and all the best for the upcoming quarters.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Meghna Luthra from Incred Equities. Please go ahead.

Thank you, sir, for giving me an opportunity. Sorry I joined you a little late. I am not sure if these questions have been asked. What would, I mean, can you please explain the impact of the revised SEBIs new norms from 1st April?

So, the TER on account of exit load has been cut by five basis points. And obviously, there have been some rationalization in the base TER as well. But as a fund house, we are of the view that whatever impact is there, that will be passing on to the intermediaries. So, we don't foresee any challenges as far as this rate cut is concerned on our AMC yield.

Okay. Got it. And sir, secondly, what do you see as the yield impact going forward for the year?

So, it's a combination of actually what are the assets mix is as well. So, maybe a basis point or two dilution could be there because ETF and index fund is going at a slightly higher yield. And on the fixed income side as well, there is a stronger appetite for a low-duration product, which has a slightly lower yield as compared to a high-duration or a credit-yield fund. So, maybe a basis point or two dilution in the overall yield number per se for Financial Year 26-27.

Sorry, just to add on that, Vetri here. You know, from my point of view, the most critical line to grow is the revenue line. Of course, I would like my higher-yielding products to grow faster. But eventually, from our point of view, there is a cost base that we have. And anything that helps us grow the top line faster, we are happy to take it. There is a separate challenge of can we raise our share of higher-yielding products relative to what we have in passive. We know our share of passive as a percentage of our total AUM is much larger than some of our peer groups.

But managing yield for the sake of managing yield is not a thing that I am in favour of. I would rather manage revenue. But yes, certainly we would like to raise our share of net sales coming in from active equity schemes.

Got it. And sir, on the employee front, are we seeing this as a normalized run rate or how do we see employee costs from here on?

So, given some guidance on the employee run rate going forward, at least for the standalone entity, it's close to around Rs. 95 crores per quarter. And at a consol, it will be closer to around Rs. 125 crores per quarter. Higher on the consol side because we are building capabilities in all our subsidiary lines of business.

Got it, sir. And lastly, sir, on the pipeline of the products, what is there for the coming quarter, sir what can we expect?

Page 11 of 17 Yes. So, we are going to file multiple passive funds with the regulator. And now we have received the board approval. So, some of the funds that we are going to file with SEBI are UTI NIFTY 500 Index Funds, both on the index side and the ETF side, UTI BSE Index Sector Leaders, again, both on index and ETF, UTI NIFTY India New Age Consumption, and UTI NIFTY India Internet Fund. So, these are the four funds with both index and ETF side.

I can just add to what Sandeep was saying. Our focus has been only on the core diversified categories, which is why you see even in the last, I would say, three, four, five years, we stayed away from launching a flurry of sector and thematic funds. We are continuing to be guided by that principle. We will launch in the passive the full bouquet because we think of those as access products, where from our point of view, we are providing access to themes and sectors which investors are welcome to take and pursue. But in the diversified space, we have covered the core categories and there's no interest in doing anything beyond that. We do plan to, however, launch at least one fund in the SIF category during this current year. It's a process in terms of getting all the board approvals and regulatory approval and I think if you see the industry data, it is clear that there has been some action in SIF, but it's not that the growth over there has been particularly dramatic. But we think we have one or two good product ideas and certainly we would like to launch one of them during the current year. So, I think that would be the target over there. Separately, we have also received permission from the IFSC, which is GIFT City. We already had our subsidiary, which is UTI Alternatives had their license in the GIFT City, but that was for wholesale, what they call a Non-Retail FME license. We have now just last week received the approval for Retail FME. So, we will intend during the course of this year to also use GIFT as a two-way solution, both for partnering products which domestic investors might want to invest overseas, as well as providing vehicles in GIFT City for global investors who might want to invest through that route into our domestic funds.

Okay, got it. And so lastly, on the float front, what would be the share of the banking channel in total equity and hybrid?

Just give me a second, Meghana. The share would be about 1.5%.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Mohit Mangal from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead.

So, actually, I was looking at your PPT and I was actually a little surprised that your equity net flows both on quarterly and yearly has been kind of negative. Though from 2025 to 2026, we see some kind of moderation. So, what are our strategies to improve the net sales within the equity space? Our hybrid is doing well, that is fine. But within the pure equity space, what can we do to increase our market share as well as bring it in the positive territory?

Yes, so let me answer that, Vetri here. There are two key things you need to do. One is, of course, as I mentioned earlier, we need to raise the SIP book, right? So, that is the key metric for our sales team now to raise the SIP book. And that is where I believe you will be able to build the most sustainable level of both flows as well as over time, it builds into a lot more

I understood. This is helpful. I was actually looking at, I mean taking this forward, and I was looking at your employee number, your employee number has reduced, but your sales team has kind of increased. So, that is something basically within your strategy to increase your net sales. I mean, should we refer to it that way? Sorry, will you repeat that question?

Yes. So, basically, I was looking at your number of employees, your number of employees were around 1400 in Q3, that got reduced to 1250-odd, but your sales was around 775. But that's around 799. So, I mean, just wanted to understand that you are increasing your core sales team members, but at the same time reducing your overall employee strength as well. So, that's the right way to look at?

That's the right way to look at it. Because I think historically, if we look at our workforce, I won't just say Q3, but if I go back a little bit in time, the ratio of people who are actually responsible for bringing in business relative to those who are in, let's say, corporate related functions who are not really people who are bringing in the money, that ratio was not a very favourable ratio for us. So, what we are trying to do through all of the people refresh that I mentioned is

Page 13 of 17 essentially correct this. Of course, there will always be a large investment team, there will be a large assurance related team, obviously, the CFO and those kinds of control functions as well.

But it needs to be more balanced than where we used to be. Having said that, I don't see the RM count going up too much further from here. I think we have reached a stage where with 260 odd UFCs as we call it, I think we are pretty much fully staffed to the extent we require.

Lastly on the international piece, basically it was not a good year and also the last quarter was not a good. We had strategies earlier as well to grow this piece as well, going forward into FY27 should we look at this subsidiary?

There are points in time where nobody is interested in the country, and there are other points where they want to bring the money back in a flood. So, right now, I would say it's just to hold our ground. And where possible, we are looking to bring in some of our institutional clients into our alternative products. So, we actually started this last year itself. But you know, it takes a while to get global investors completely to understand the domestic alternative product.

Thankfully, UTI Alternatives having returned money on two of its strategies during this year has a solid track record. So, I am hoping whatever traction we see in the alternative space will help the international business sort of overcome some of the headwinds in their P&L account. But the larger challenge of India being seen negatively is a headwind that we have no way of overcoming right now.

And this should make sense. Lastly, on SIF, basically I mean, if you can just elaborate on how do you see this piece and will the yields be similar to that of mutual fund? A little bit on that would be helpful.

I think too early to call that out. I think if you can do something which is genuinely differentiated in terms of risk and reward to the investor, my intention would be then to price that at a superior yield to the mutual fund. But if you are offering something which is more in the nature of a plain vanilla structure, which is only slightly differentiated from the traditional MF product, then your yields may not be different. So, I think it's still evolving. There's a whole series of long

Page 14 of 17 short opportunities which are available in that SIF space. Some of them over time, once we have the ability to execute them in a way that it makes a material difference to the investor, right? I mean, I can charge higher fees if the investor ends up with a risk-reward ratio or with a return which in his mind is superior to what he's getting from the MF product, then of course, I would like to earn a higher yield. But I think it's still very early days over there to give you a guidance on that. But if I can offer a product with superior risk return, long short, etc., of course, I would certainly like to retain a higher yield for myself.

Understood. So, are we kind of exploring that area, is there anything in the pipeline?

I think the first product will be just a little bit more than a plain vanilla product, and so, I would not expect it on the first product. But we are trying to launch some in that long short space over time, and it is still in the testing phase which could use quant. If we launch that successfully and we are able to build a track record, then certainly we would like to position that as a differentiated product and we would like the benefit of that to reflect in our yields. But if you just look at the market, I am sure, you will be able to see the data yourself, I think it is in the very early days, this space is still evolving in terms of what does the product offer and does it really meet the need of the investor which the traditional mutual fund product is not able to offer. I don't think we have solved this both ways. I think the whole industry is trying to figure this out.

Right. No, I think that's helpful and very clear. Wish you all the best, sir.

Thank you. Next question is from Vijaya Rao from BOB Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Yes. Thank you, sir. Please provide us the yields breakup of the segment, equity, debt, liquid and ETF. And secondly, your funds are a little underperforming. What are you doing in this respect so that your overall AUM grows a little smartly? These are two questions from my side.

So, Vijaya, I will provide the yield breakup. Equity and hybrid is 75 basis points. ETF and index fund put together is around 8. Cash and arbitrage around 10 basis points. And income fund is around 18 to 19 basis points. So, combined put together, depending on our asset mix, is weighted average yield is around 32.

Yes. And the second question, sir, can you give color on how your funds are performing? If not, then what are you doing to have more funds in the first quartile?

Page 15 of 17 I can really control number, not AUM, are distinctly positioned from each other. So, that is something that I think we have established quite well in terms of saying what is in our value- oriented strategies, what is in our blended strategies, what is in our quality growth strategies.

I would only say our biggest problem has been more in the quality growth, which to my mind is more a function of the season of the market. Of course, there are things that we could have done better in terms of stock picking. That's a continuous process. But essentially, the season did not match what those funds were trying to do. In the GARP side, which is the blended side, you could say there is some scope to improve execution. Those are tinkering that we continue to do. But I feel very positive that maintaining this diversified set of funds which are operating across the spectrum may not result in all my funds being in top quartile at the same point of time. But at the same time, it gives me a platform which is a lot more sustainable through market cycles. So, I think that's a conscious choice that we have made, that we would like the platform to be diversified. We will tolerate the cycles that come. We will back our fund managers through the cycle. We engage with the marketplace to explain how these funds are differently positioned. We engage with the market to try and explain to them how they can exploit the positioning that we have developed for each of these funds to be able for them to meet their investment goals and their aspirations. So, to my mind, that's the way to do it rather than saying that I would like all the funds to be in top quartile. What I have seen as a fund manager, if you aim for the first quartile, you will get there at some point of time. But when the market season reverses, it directly causes you to swing to the back foot. So, I am approaching this as a business platform and saying, how do I build diversity across my platform, which will make my business less cyclical and more sustainable.

Yes, true, sir. Very helpful. I was more inquisitive about the measures you are taking. Yes, that's helpful. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Mahesh A, an individual investor. Please go ahead.

My question is to Vetri Sir. So, I want to understand more of balance sheet perspective. We hold almost Rs. 4,000 or Rs. 4,500 crores of cash and investment on our book at consolidated level, and this equals to almost 35% - 40% of the total market cap. And when I look at the listed AMCs, this is significantly on the higher end. So, I want to try to understand, how do you look at this investment and cash flow from a strategic perspective? And is there any way you are planning to create value for shareholders through this part of the balance sheet, as in any buyback plans given the valuations are on the lower side and also the latest buyback reform announced in the budget. So, how do you see this significant portion of our balance sheet?

Yes. Okay. Thanks, Mahesh. Well, I mean, we have that amount of cash on our books also because we are a very old institution, and we have built up that balance sheet over time through the good work that we have done in terms of serving investors, and that's where that cash balance has come from. But as you would be aware, in recent years, whatever we are generating in terms of profits, we are pretty much paying that out in large measure back to the shareholders by way of dividend. So, we will continue that policy. There is no need to add to

Page 16 of 17 that cash pile. But we also believe company of our kind, there is a need to have some investment or rather some liquidity on the books, some cash on the books. There could also be opportunities down the road in terms of M&A, etc. So, we will not add to that cash in the future because we will keep dividending out. But no other plans to do anything dramatic with the cash at this point of time.

Okay. And just to follow up on the dividend side, the last couple of years, we declared some special dividend as well in addition to regular dividend. And this year, I believe it's all the regular dividend. But going forward, do you have a guidance on a percentage of profits that we intend to declare as dividend? Or is it volatile that we saw in the last couple of years? So, how do you give guidance on the dividend policy going forward?

Well, if you look at the trend line, I am not discussing policy. But if you look at the trend line, I think including what we have just announced today, which is Rs. 40, I think roughly we are at about 95% almost in terms of a trend line. I think that's a good way to think about it. The trend line itself is suggestive of--our basic view that there is no need to add any more cash on our books. We have enough liquidity for any corporate optionality that we might want to preserve.

Anything that we generate in the businesses, we are happy to just give it back to shareholders.

This is not a capital-intensive business.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Mandira A from Invesco. Please go ahead.

So, I joined a little late. Could you help me with industry is reaching approximately Rs. 80 lakh crores. How is UTI positioned to capture the larger share and expanding its pie?

Got it. And secondly, what trend are you seeing in investor behaviour during the volatile market? Is there any change in the ticket size or the participation pattern?

Yes. So, as we discussed that we have seen over a period of time that investors have become more resilient, and they understand that this cyclical or volatility which is there in the market will go away eventually. And they believe in the long-term growth story of India. So, we don't

Page 17 of 17 see so much of redemption pressure that we used to see in earlier years because the investors are now aware how these markets are functioning. Having said that, March is generally a period when you see a lot of SIPs getting closed because of multiple reasons. One is people start their SIPs in the month of April, and their natural cycle closes in the month of March. People look to change their SIPs because they would have done some portfolio readjustment. So, those things will always happen and that will show a higher redemption of SIPs in the month of March. But overall, if you look at the trend and especially if you see the month of February, the trend has been very encouraging where we saw a drop in the number of SIPs which were being stopped at the industry level. And that number was even better if you look at the UTIs overall SIP book.

Got it, sir. That was really helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Prisha Shah, an individual investor. Please go ahead.

Good evening, sir. I just have one question basically on the industry side. So, we have been seeing there's a lot of competition in this AMC space with Fintechs and everyone coming with their products now. So, in such a competitive environment, how are we seeing the key distribution on UTIs and is there any sustainable visibility over there?

Yes. So, if you look we have been doubling down on our distribution, especially with the banks as well as with the Fintechs. And these are two segments which are growing and especially the Fintechs because there are a lot of new Fintechs which are coming, and the younger generation find it very easy to invest through a Fintech platform. So, we have increased our engagement with them and we are seeing good traction coming especially from the Fintech platform.

Yes, sir. That answers my question. Congratulations on the good set of numbers.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I now hand over the call to Mr. Vetri Subramaniam for closing comments. Over to you, sir.

Thank you for that Yashashri. Thank you, everybody, for joining us here on this call today. I hope we have been able to provide you an insight into what our thoughts are and how we are looking to move ahead in the future and look forward to engaging with you again next quarter. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining the call. In case of any queries, feel free to connect with AdFactors Investor Relations Team. You may now disconnect your lines.