Aditya Birla Sun Life Amc Ltd (NSE: ABSLAMC) Q1 2026 Earnings Call dated Jul. 24, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
A. Balasubramanian — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Prakash Bhogale — Head – Business Planning, Analytics and Investor Relations
Pradeep Sharma — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Meghna Luthra — Analyst
Lalit Deo — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Limited Q1 and FY26 earnings conference call. 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 touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded.
I now hand the conference over to Ms. Meghnalutra from incred Equities. Thank you. And over to you, ma’. Am.
Meghna Luthra — Analyst
Thank you. Amshad. Good evening everyone. On behalf of Incred Equities, I welcome all to Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC’s first quarter FY26 earnings conference call. We have along with us Mr. A. Balasubramanyam, M.D. and CEO, Mr. Pradeep Sharma, CFO and Mr. Prakash Mogle, head of Investor Relations. We are thankful to the management for allowing us this opportunity.
I would now like to hand it over to Mr. Balasar for his opening remarks. Over to you, sir.
A. Balasubramanian — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Meghna. Thank you for the introduction and good evening everyone and thank you for joining today’s investor call. I hope you have had the opportunity. To review our earnings presentation which is available on both the Stock Exchange as well as on our website. Let me quickly begin with the outlook. On economics and an update on the major industry. The global economy is undergoing major changes. In policy framework which could have significant implication for global growth, trade and capital movement. Rising trade tensions and heightened policy uncertainty is expected to weigh on global economic growth and performance.
However, the situation is still developing and despite notable policy disruptions particularly around tariff. Global growth has experienced only a mild impact so far. As far as India is concerned, the macroeconomic outlook remains strong. The economy expanded by about 6.5% FY25 aligning with this long term growth trajectory. And the Reserve bank of India has. Maintained FY26 a growth forecast of 6.5%. This is a commendable achievement given the global volatility and current economic indicators suggest a steady momentum. Favorable monsoon conditions are also expected to. Support agriculture production, rural consumption and also. Keep the inflation in check.
According to both IMF and World Bank. India is projected to be the fastest. Growing major economy in 2020. 5 and key drivers of growth include. Increased government spending, robust construction activities and. Revival of rural demand. In addition to strong growth, India’s macroeconomic fundamentals are stable. Airline inflation has dropped significantly, averaging 2.7% in Q1 FY26 and is expected to. Remain below 3.5% for the full fiscal. Year under RBI 4% target the country’s fiscal position is sound with the government on track to meet its FY26 fiscal goals. India’s external sector is also stable with. The large current account reading showing up a surplus and foreign exchange reserves nearing. A record $700 billion and the Indian. Rupee remaining one of the most stable.
Currencies globally, thereby enhancing India’s appeal to international investors. Within playing under control the RBI has shifted its focus towards supporting growth and has adopted a more accommodative monetary stance and given the favorable inflation outlook and. Current yield levels offer attractive real returns. An easing of monetary policy is expected. To positively influence market performance as we move forward. Despite some global trade uncertainties, we remain. Optimistic about Indian markets given the stable. Domestic growth outlook, healthy corporate profitability and. Strong macroeconomic fundamentals and supportive apparel growth policies.
Moving to the Indian Venture Industry the quarterly average AEM of the industry as on June 30, 2025 stood at 72.13 lakh crores compared to 58.96 lakh crore. As of June 30 June 2024, which. Is a growth of about 22% on. A year on year basis. During the quarter ended 30 June 2025. The industry witnessed strong net equity sales. Of around 1 34,000 crores. The total NFO collection during this quarter were about 6,500 crores, primarily coming from. Equity funds mainly driven by sector Thematic funds and Multi Cap Funds Multi Circle funds which are launched by some of the key competitors in the industry. The industry has had contribution for the June 2025 stood at 27,269 crores growing by 5% on a quarter. On quarter basis, the total number of mutual fundfolios stood at 24.5 crores as of June 2025. The individual average AEM for June 2025 grew by about 21% year on year from 37.47 lakh crore to 48.38 lakh crores contributed around 61% of the total. Industry AEM size and B30 cities with. An average AEM of 13.8 lakh crore for June 2025 accounted for about 18%. Of the total industry AEM coming to ANC performance, we have witnessed a healthy. Business momentum in Q1FY26.
In fact, the net sales for the Q1FY26 delivered strong growth, exceeding the net sales of the entire FY25 of last year, circulating a strong overall positive business momentum driven by improved fund performance across all categories and various ongoing initiatives that. We have been engaging with the market. We also maintain our overall market share over the last two quarters. In fact, this is in line with what we have been highlighting for the last two three quarters, the steps that. We are taking from building the business to the next level and how it’s paying out. I’m also pleased to share that during the quarter we achieved a significant milestone of crossing 4 lakh crore in Mutual Fund AEM, demonstrating our unwavering commitment to the growth that I have laid out in the past. Our overall average AEM including alternate assets stood at 4,43,000 crores growing by 21%. Year on year basis.
Our mutual fund quarterly average AEM reached 4,000 crores growing by 14% year on year. The quarterly equity average AEM stood at 1.8 lakh crore growing by 11% on year. On year our SAP contribution June 20251140 crores with 38.46 lakh crore account 38 lakhs account. Our SAP AEM contributes around 45% of their total AM referral sticking to the asset. In fact, I must also mention the. Sips we have moved to the contribution model. That’s something which I just want to highlight that the total number of Investors. Folio for June 2025 stood at 1. Crore 6 lakhs witnessing 14% year on year growth. On the equity investment front, we are. Seeing consistent improvement in the investment performance. Strong returns delivered across all multiple schemes reflecting enhanced performance driven by the process that you have implemented across the equity schemes and fixed income schemes.
On the fixed income side, the performance remains robust across all categories. We are expanding our product offering with innovative launches to better serve the diverse. Needs of our growing investor base with. One or two funds being planned in the overall pipeline of product. After hosting an exclusive event called Vantage Point and last quarter of last year which brought together the top MFDs across the country, we are now also hosting Regional Growth Summit for deeper engagement and. Mindshare with our distribution partners, empowering them. To amplify our market reach and strengthen our positioning for sustained growth ahead. In fact, we have covered all the key markets which contributed about 80% of. The AEM the last three months. By way of the engagement that we have rolled out.
On the alternate business front, we are also continuously enhancing our PMS and AIF offering across both equity and fixed income to better serve the evolving needs of HNIs and family offices. During our Growth Summit that event that. You have been doing, the entrance amines. Towards our AAF product offering have been very encouraging, thus improving the scope for scaling up the business through MFD’s contribution. Also in this business growth opportunity, following the receipt of the ESIC mandate which. You won last year, we commenced managing the debt portfolio and the AEM stood now about 24,260 crores for the last for the quarter ended June 30th, 2025 and consequently our PMS AIF assets witnessed impressive 8 times growth including ESIC mandate rising from 3,368 crores to about 20,647 crores.
As we present, we have completed the first close of ABL Structured Opportunities Credit Fund Series 2 with the fixed Income Credit Fund and also preparing to launch ABSL India Eco Innovation Fund, positioning us to build a robust and comprehensive product portfolio that effectively addresses the evolving investment needs of our clientele while accelerating growth momentum across our PMS and AIF business. Our offshore assets stood about 10,588 crores for Q1 FY26. Under the Gibbsity platform we have a fundraising underway for the Indy ASG Engagement Fund, ABSL Flexicap Fund for the Inward Remittance and ABSL Glue Chip Fund for the Outward Remittance Fund. While on the one side we continue. To build this piece through our ECSIPS and GIBST platform. We also witnessed free withdrawals from a few large customers in view of the portfolio restructuring which they have undertaken. Taking into account the emerging global political. Uncertainty as well as other challenges on the basis of the ROW and portfolio. Allocations, we have seen some reductions and. Withdrawals on the overseas portfolio.
However, this does not have much impact on the overall AEM as well as on the overall contribution to profitability. On the passive front, our focus remains on building our AEM by launching innovative products in ETF Index funds and fund of funds while driving customer acquisition through our digital platform and distributors. As of June 2025 our total passive assets reached approximately 30,400 crores, growing 22% year on year with our customer base reaching 12.3 lakh four years. Our current product suite comprises 50 distinct. Offerings designed to meet varied investment needs. So that various funda funds that can be launched in the future can use any other product is available as part. Of our bucket in the passive platform. Moving on to the financials. Q1FY26 revenue from operation has stood at 447 crores up 16% year on year. Q1FY23 operating profit is at 254 crores up 21% year on year. And Q1FY26 profit before tax is at least 72 crores up 22% year on year and profit after tax were given. FY26 is at 277 crores up 18% year on year.
With this I would like to conclude and open the floor for any questions. I’ll be joined by Pradeep Sharma is the CFO as well as the Prakash. Whoever I have had. Thank you.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press Star and one on their touch tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue you may press star. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles.
The first question is from the line of Yash from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi sir, thanks for taking the question. Just few data giving questions from my side. One is if you could share the operational revenue from the non mutual fund business and also the ESOP expense for the quarter.
Prakash Bhogale
So yes the other than MF means non operational income on from the alternate Asset is around 32 crores for this quarter and the ESOP around 1.6 crore.
Unidentified Participant
Sorry, 1.
Prakash Bhogale
1.6 crore.
Unidentified Participant
1.6 crore. Okay. And so the SIP AUM share if you could please repeat. I know you mentioned it in the opening remark but I think I missed it. Sure.
Prakash Bhogale
Sip it’s around 84,000.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. So okay. The share. Okay. And lastly just on the market share if you could you know share the divergence between the flow and the stock market share for net equity and equity oriented flows.
A. Balasubramanian
Yeah. On the overall market share we remain more or less flat compared to the last quarter. I think as you all know last year quarter on quarter the fall was continuing. At the same time the fall was getting narrowed as we progressed in various steps that we have taken. And in this quarter more or less. The market share remains somewhat flat backed by the focus equity funds that you have identified. Where we need to get our mind right, full market share that something is working and as a result of that the first quarter net zero. We don’t disclose the number per Se but otherwise when I look at the number first quarter net sales numbers is equivalent to the last year net sales numbers which is an increasing trend that you are seeing and hopefully you are able to maintain this on the base of strategies Explain just explained.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay thank you sir that’s large.
operator
Thank you before we take the next question we would like to remind the participants to press star and one to ask a question the next question is from the line of Lalit from equity securities. Please go ahead
Lalit Deo
yeah hi sir firstly on this side could you give us a segment by deals across equity debt liquid and passive side Second question was on the employee expenses so like this quarter we have seen some sequential decline so could you give. Could you give us the reasons why why there has been a decline in the employees expenses and how should one look at it for the whole year and lastly just a clarification when we say that the overall net sales in this quarter have been higher than the full year but has been higher than FY20 so this is only for the equity segment or this is like all this includes these segments.
A. Balasubramanian
The last question of course is only equity what I. Mentioned and others two question in terms of yield Prakash to answer
Prakash Bhogale
the yield. On the equity is around 6768 basis point it is in the range of around 2425 and equate it is in the range of around 1314 basis. And. The employee employee cost is mainly on account of the variable pace was little bit on a higher side in the. Last quarter.
Lalit Deo
So how should one be look at it like for the whole.
Pradeep Sharma
So actually so this on yearly basis we see this variable pay basis of business performance and all so what number normally if you see the Q4 number. You you will have to analyze it for the full number year so that will be the normal trend
A. Balasubramanian
I think. A broad basis Just to add to what Pradeep just mentioned now employee cost varies that what we have earlier guided one building a team as far as. These HNA team concerns now we already have about 90 members and anyway right. Now we have taken a call we’ll. Go up to 100 team members we’ll stop, we’ll restrict that and see the outcome of this from a broader business outcome point of view Second the alternate side we have been having in mind that to have somebody to build as a business in addition to the existing team of people who could be the driver of this business for the larger growth that’s something we have been thinking of course this headcount would come partially. Little bit in our role a Little. Bit come in the mostly will come in this life role that is we are planning
so it headcount will increase but not actually a significant increase in cost as a result of that and then as an event we gifted this year once we convert that into a into a subsidiary company for which we would take some steps in the current financial year that may warrant some bit of marginal capital investment which is not very significant. But however we have of course have the right set of people at least to carry out the complaint related work. As well as if you have to. Have somebody to build the business that point on it will take anyway that will take about six months for us to crystallize it.
operator
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Tanmay Chaudhary from Mentor Securities. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah hi sir. Thanks for the opportunity. So my first question is on the equity again side like we have seen 7% question so I just want to know like where was it was majorly driven by M2M or we have seen good traction in the net sales also because as far. And you also can you also comment on the market share over the net sales?
A. Balasubramanian
Yeah, of course I explained earlier Tamia on this one of course net sales largely which I mentioned about it’s net sales with adding to the overall amount of market share remains somewhat flat. That’s actually largely on account of one of NT’s is improving on certain segment. There are certain schemes which of course not being favorable from overall investors point of view. Therefore the market share remains somewhat flat. But overall number if you have to look at it given the large size of course the industry itself is so large we still have to go further in terms of showing that in the reflection of the overall market share but otherwise the other way the path path is towards that.
Unidentified Participant
Okay,
A. Balasubramanian
yeah
Unidentified Participant
got it.
A. Balasubramanian
Yeah.
Unidentified Participant
So why one more question on the liquid flow side like income oriented schemes like as. As I can see like around 6 more than 60% of flows or AM comes from the corporate in 30 cities. Right. So how do you see that corporate flows ongoing and are we penetrating more corporates and.
A. Balasubramanian
Yeah sure. So the way we always approach the. Institutional business as the one institution business predominantly is a direct to customer business and we currently handle roughly about 9,000 corporates across the country covering the large state cities. Given the fact that we have an. Established track record in business income space. And also given the fact that our. Engagement the ground level is extremely good when it comes to the question of treasury solutions by the institutional team of about 55 people. And that team now is taking additional responsibility to expand the market in the next 12 locations. Taking the coverage about T20 locations. That’s one we already planned. And we also planned where the team.
Each of the companies about nine, seven. Companies we target to take it about 12,000 companies. And each companies have also got the family officers and promoters driven investment opportunities. They also hold additional responsibility to actually. Reach out to the family offices using that relationship that they built in order to sell some of the others product segmentations including alternate solutions. That is the approach we have taken. That’s the way we also align the. KRA with each of the teams to take full advantage of the presence that we have in the segment. And this opportunity which will be provided to the investors will not only be. In the fixed income solutions. We also seen flows coming in our index fund that we launched last year which is like hold to maturity kind of things where we have seen new attractions. We also launched equal taxation debt oriented. Funds.
After two year period. We have aligned one of our funds. In order to serve the needs of the customers. We are educating these customers in the current low interest rate regime which are the least the minimal risk that they can take. However they can get relatively tax advantage. Kind of return over a period of time Such as balance advantage fund also. We are actually positioning them for them to consider as investing. And last but not the least is. From a family officer’s point of view. We are targeting if an asset class. Could be right asset class within the fixed income space with interest rate being very low. But as we go down the credit. Line credit rating the yields are better and there are people who actually seek those investment opportunities. That is something we are doing in the AIF sector. We have seen recently of closure of fixed income opportunity. AIF fund is largely coming from the. Participants coming from this kind of family office.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, Fair enough. Sir. So just one last question. In the last. In the last ppt the SIP contribution number is bit different from the latest ppt. So is that restated or like. Can you just correct me over that?
A. Balasubramanian
Sure. I’ll just ask Prakash to highlight on this.
Prakash Bhogale
So yes, earlier we used to report SIP book in our presentation. That methodology we have changed to SIP contributions from this quarter onwards. Which is in line with what MPHI has also started disclosing on their website and which other players has also started reporting in the presentation. So that is the only difference. Otherwise from the flow side or on the AEM side contribution, it remains the same.
A. Balasubramanian
Yeah.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Before we take the next question we would like to remind the participants to press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Abhijit from Kotak securities. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi. Good afternoon everyone. The first question is on yields. If I recall correctly, I think equity. Yields are now down one basis point sequentially despite about 7.8percent equity AM growth. So just wanted to double check if there’s been any tweaks with respect to commissions or this is just the normal slab moment.
A. Balasubramanian
Yeah, Abhijit. I’ll ask Prakash.
Prakash Bhogale
No, this is largely on account of increase in the AEM. Only. If you see our AEM has increased to around 1 lakh 80 thousand crores from last year. Last quarter with 1 lakh 69 thousand crores. So there is no tweak in the on the brokerage structures. It is mainly because of the increase in the aem.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, Got it.
A. Balasubramanian
Let’s say if you look at the bottom line, these more or less remain the same. Especially in the operating profit level. If you take the yields are little better than last quarter as well.
Unidentified Participant
Yes, sir. Secondly, in terms of net flows, I think again going back to last quarter, I think we had highlighted that you’re seeing some traction in two, three funds like Frontline, Balanced, Multi Cap, maybe a couple of other thematic funds as well. Anything specific that you want to highlight with respect to the flow movement that we are seeing over the last few months as well?
A. Balasubramanian
Sure. The way we said the entire team, right. From investment to the sales team and also with the distribution partner partners. Given the fact that we have large funds in our bouquet. But we have to identify 7, 8 product in consultation with investment team and. Position that as a product where we. Need to get flows in terms of with respect to the competition. So that’s why we have Large Cap. Fund, Flexigap fund and Multi Asset Gain fund and Balance Outnage fund and Gennex fund. These are the five focus products that we kept. In addition to that we also kept.
Two other product on the thematic side which is the Conglomerate fund and some. Other long term solution product that we. Have is the Bal Ba Bishop Fund Retirement fund. So this is the way we are positioned. The product and entail sales team is also encouraged. And in order to have their engagement. From fund management point of view, in. Order to get higher mind recall, uniform. Push is also being given from the. Fund management side Also right from IH2 the entire team talks only on these 5, 6 products. So that we are able to get. A Higher market share. This is what we are seeing in. Terms of tractions whether it is the flows, whether it is SAP’s that’s why we are seeing actually increased flows. It will take some time for it to see a significant change in numbers. But at least the trend is positive.
In addition to that, despite doing well, Arbor expand is one category where the industry was also growing their size. Navarro growth was relatively less. But we also ensure we also taken. Some good steps internally as to how. Do we manage these funds very effectively. Efficiently so that we can meet the expectation of investors as well as the large allocator of money in the segment also have been allocated have been addressed. So therefore the holistic growth and those segment of the market where the flow is coming at the same time we can get our, our rightful mind share or market share rather there’s one segment. Where right now we are on position. Enough which is a mid and small cap segment. We thought let us focus on reviewing the performance on this fund with respect to the competition and then when the time comes right they will start pushing these funds.
Unidentified Participant
Super helpful. Just one last question on the industry side sir. This recent consultation paper with regards to you know, scheme classifications and you know, couple of other additional points regarding you know, one additional scheme apart from the current one. Any broad thoughts that you can share from an industry perspective?
A. Balasubramanian
Sure. So this was of course it’s come. As a draft paper at this point of time. In fact this is also discussed in the committee and one of the CIO committees, then the operation committee, some of the, some of the draft proposal with respect to the one aligning of the schemes, majority in the industry has accepted it. If I have front end equity which is a 25 years tracker record that we have just creating a brand as front end equity as the name now. That has become a history. Now we’ve made a large cap so. The uniformity has come across the industry. We used to call it blue chip. Now it’s no more blue chip, it’s a large cap. That’s something you all have got aligned. And fully done it done with that.
The second is the fund size become larger than whether we can launch one more fund. The discussion was there at the amphi level as well. In fact AMFE themselves wrote back to Sebi that Danny will completely take away the the purpose of classification and it. Can probably create more confusion in the minds of people than how the portfolio. Constructed, how the expense will be charged. And then I go back to the old system of multiple schemes coming from the same category. This confusion will come there is so therefore there is no. Not even. I mean majority of people who are agreeing with that. But I was felt let us put to the. Put to the public opinion and by way of draft the fruit has come.
My own assumption is given ultimately why the classification has come not in one. In the interest of first the customers. To have better clarity in terms of what product he buys and single product. From each fund houses. I can say that we are one of the old fund houses. We used to have two liquid funds. In the past and because it was size and various things that we used. To do and today I’m going to. Have two liquid funds. And it was then it was a. Concise decision which was taken by sebi. Therefore why that should get reversed now. Will always remain a question mark.
But having said this, I think SEBI is also looking at various thematic funds that is being launched due to have an opinion that how many thematic funds we can create. Unless until you are able to create at least about 60% differentiation between the. Existing funds, the thematic funds this also over a period of time would get curtailed. So therefore this needs to be seen. As to how market in general people. React by this point of time. Members of the industry, majority of them I would say 99% of them or 98, 95% of them were especially on these the same category not fully funded. But still now the draft report has come. All of us will respond to that.
Unidentified Participant
Got it sir, this is super helpful. Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question Star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Meghna Lutra from incrediquities. Please go ahead.
Meghna Luthra
Yeah. Hi. Thank you. A couple of questions. One, what is the yield on the ethics mandate? And two, have we taken any cuts on the distribution commission in recent quarters or do we plan to take some like our peers have done? And what is the pipeline on the specialized investment fund look like?
A. Balasubramanian
First question is which one you think you said? Okay, as is the mandate anyway the government mandate. It only gives you a headline number. No doubt but doesn’t give us the much profit. But we will barely. We’ll of course we’ll have some cost to linker which I call it as. Investment that you have to make to serve government of India. So we’re happy to do that. With respect to the. With respect to the sif, we do have a plan. We already taken approval from our board. To have a separate brand which I can of course share which is called Apex internally validity named and we’ll come with a press release on this very soon. At the same time we have already identified a product opportunity that we can. Create the, in the, in this sal space covering fixed income, covering credit, covering arbitrage plus equity as well as long shot.
So while we have internal capability to. Manage rest of the most of the. Product innovations, we don’t have internal capability to manage the large sorry, what you. Call long shot kind of fund, absolute return kind of fund. We are in the process of analyzing rather looking for people in the process of finalizing very soon that should come on board. And the second question was on the, on the distributor commission. On the distributors commissions. In fact we now taken that call. Given the fact that one as a fund house we have the longer term vision of building scale further which essentially means as long as I’m able to maintain the current margin and the growth aspiration then we must also have a balanced approach with respect to the revenue that we can get as well as the distributions commission that we can pay. To build our size.
Therefore we are not taking the call while we do have a room. I cannot say we don’t have room. But at the same time we don’t take that call at this point of time given the need of the business to grow the business the next level of growth and build scale.
Meghna Luthra
Okay, thank you sir.
operator
Yeah, thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
A. Balasubramanian
Yeah. Thank you. And thank you everyone for joining. And with this we conclude our Q. And A calls and thanks for all your support.
operator
Thank you on behalf of Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Limited that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines.