Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the post PVR-INOX merger call hosted by Axis Capital Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in listen only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then 0 on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Ankur Periwal from Axis Capital. Thank you, and over to you. Thank you, Yashaswi. Good evening, friends, and welcome to PVR INOX Limited's post-merger conference call. The call will be initiated with a brief discussion by the combined management of PVR INOX on the merger, followed by an interactive Q&A session. Management team will be represented by Mr. Ajay Bijli, Managing Director, PVR Limited, Mr. Sanjeev Kumar, Executive Director, PVR Limited, Mr. Nitin Sood, Group CFO, PVR Limited, and other members of the senior management team. Over to you, Mr. Bijli, for your initial comments. Thanks very much. Good afternoon and welcome everyone to our analyst investor call. I'm delighted to update that we have successfully completed all formalities relating to the merger of INOX with PVR within record timelines. The new PVR shares issued to INOX shareholders have already started trading from yesterday. The coming together of PVR and INOX brands marks an exciting chapter in our journey and creates the largest ex- film exhibition company in India with 1,674 screens across 358 properties in 114 cities, India and Sri Lanka, and an aggregate seating capacity of 3.56 lakh seats. We are confident that this merger will allow us to better serve our customers, expand our reach, and create new opportunities for growth. Moving forward, as the appointed date is fixed as 1 January 2023, we will be reporting combined financials along with the auditor results of Q4 FY23. Our focus for the next few months will be to successfully integrate the two businesses and realize the anticipated merger synergies over a 12 to 24 months time frame. This will require a lot of hard work and dedication, but we're excited about the opportunities that lie ahead. We've engaged Korn Ferry, a leading HR consultancy firm, in assisting us with the HR and cultural integration. We've announced the Day 1 organizational structure. I will lead the company as the managing director, and Mr. Sanjeev Kumar, my brother, has been appointed as the executive director. We will be supported by the following leadership team from both PVR and INOX. Mr. Alok Tandon, Co-CEO, Central, East and West regions. Mr. Gautam Dutta, Co-CEO, North and Southern regions. Mr. Nitin Sood, Group CFO. Mr. Kailash Gupta, Deputy CFO, PVR Limited and CFO, PVR Pictures. Mr. Kamal Gianchandani, Chief Business Planning and Strategy Officer, PVR Limited and CEO of PVR Pictures. Mr. Pramod Arora, Group Chief of Growth and Business Development. Mr. Renaud Palliere, CEO, The Luxury Collection. Mr. Jitender Verma, Chief Information Officer. Mr. Rajender Singh Jyala, Chief Programming Officer. Moving on to the content side, we recognize that 2022 was impacted on account of underperformance of Hindi films and lower number of Hollywood film releases. Last year, the Hindi film industry experienced a turbulent year with significant fluctuations in box office collections. The focus has shifted towards the content quality rather than solely relying on presence of stars. There's now greater acceptance of multi-language content, with simultaneous releases in multiple languages becoming the norm. This trend is a positive development for the industry as it opens up new markets and audiences while also encouraging filmmakers to prioritize content quality. The lineup for 2023 is looking very promising. We have big release slate for the next 12 months across Hindi, English and regional films. From Hindi, after the huge success of Pathaan, we have two more movies starring Shah Rukh Khan releasing this year. Jawan releasing in June and Rajkumar Hirani's Dunki releasing on December 23rd. We have two big movies starring Salman Khan, Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan in April and Tiger 3 in November. We have two Ajay Devgn movies, Bholaa in March 2023 and Maidaan in May 2023. Other big movies from Bollywood include Bawaal starring Varun Dhawan in April 2023, Adipurush starring Prabhas and Saif Ali Khan in June 2023, Satyaprem Ki Katha starring Kartik Aaryan and Kiara Advani in June 2023, Dream Girl 2 starring Ayushmann Khurrana, June 2023, Yodha starring Sidharth Malhotra in July 2023, and Animal starring Ranbir Kapoor in August 2023. From Hollywood, there are several tentpole planned for release. 2 movies from the Marvel Comic Universe, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in May 2023 and The Marvels in July 2023. 3 movies from the DC Comic Universe, Shazam! Fury of the Gods in March, The Flash in June, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom in December. We have sequels from super hit franchises like Fast X in May, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts in June, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in June, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One in July 2023, and Dune: Part Two in November. Other notable releases include Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer in July. Regional cinema too has some strong releases. Jailer with Rajinikanth in April, Bhola Shankar Starring Chiranjeevi in April. Salaar starring Prabhas in September. PS-2 in September. Leo starring Vijay Thalapathy in October. Indian 2 starring Kamal Haasan in October, amongst others that will get released during the year. Looking ahead, we will be opening 180-200 screens every year over the next 2 years across strategic locations in key markets. We are confident that PVR INOX will continue to grow, innovate, and reimagine the movie-going experience to make our brand aspirational and accessible. We believe that the future is incredibly bright, and we look forward to sharing our progress with you over the coming months and years. Thank you once again for joining us today. Should we begin with the question and answer session? You can begin with. Yes. We will now begin the Q&A session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on the touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have our first question from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama Institutional Equities. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks and congrats finally on the full merger. My first question is on the FCH, wherein you have highlighted that in India you're still at 51% versus global average at 70%. You have already been doing very proactive work here. Going ahead, what can be the differentiated factor here? I understand the non-veg bit, I understand the home delivery bit. My question was more on the home delivery and, say, pre-ticketing. How big is the opportunity? You have given the data versus rest of the QSR. Lot of your consumption here is because of the captive audience. Beyond your captive audience, how big is the opportunity? Your pricing versus a normal Zomato offering or Swiggy offering, the pricing is a big challenge, right? Are you doing some proactive work in terms of the pricing bit, the home delivery? The idea came up during COVID and we had actually worked extensively to get a new menu, a new brand on Zomato and Swiggy, which actually in terms of pricing was extremely price market competitive. We are not selling the F&B products at the cinema pricing, but it is very, very competitive with that. Having said that, this merger sort of gives a much larger footprint to this idea. Now we can actually try this experiment across many more locations. These are kind of early days. We are also learning this new way of doing F&B business. This is great incremental food business for the cinema. It will take some time for us to make it more sizable as an independent entity. More locations means more delivery and being able to sort of feed a larger consumer base. No. My question was. Sorry. No, Abneesh, no, go ahead please. My follow-up question there was, say internally, I'm sure now with merger done, would you have a number internally that, okay, three years, five years down the line, home delivery bit or whatever you mentioned of a separate brand with a much more affordable pricing. Do you have a number on that, at least internally, that this percentage of F&B revenue has to come from there? Are you doing, for example, cloud kitchens in a big way? Or is it being largely done through your own stores currently? It's currently all being driven out of our cinema. We've taken an outside view that technically 5% of the FCH contribution should eventually come from such an initiative. As I said, this is gonna be a couple of years down the line that when we can get there. To your point, did we take a target? Yes, there was. For each cinema, and we've got not one location technically in a, in a certain location. Every five kilometers there could be a cinema, and every cinema would possibly have a micro target where we will like to contribute at least 5% of the cinema FCH coming out of a home delivery. As I said, these are early days and we are kind of consolidating and learning as we are moving forward on this. Sure. My last question on the F&B aspect is, you have a 20% gap or 19% gap is versus the global average. If you see general customer perception is that, already popcorn and cola and all products in your multiplex is quite expensive, and you're already sweating the current real estate within the multiplex is quite well. How does that gap bridge? Is this gap more because of the per capita income what India has? Whenever that per capita income goes up, then this gap can be bridged because this gap is a big gap, right? 70% of ATP international average. That's a positive, isn't it? It shows you that there is headroom to grow So it'll be delivered by volume rather than value. We still believe we can improve the strike rates. We still believe that we can improve the variety of offerings. We are also looking at, you know, not necessarily selling everything post-ticketed. We are also looking at pre-ticketed. That pre-ticketed doesn't mean only home delivery. Pre-ticketed also means that, you know, you can enter the premises and buy concessions. A lot of our cinemas don't allow entry, you know, unless you have a ticket. We're planning to open up a lot of cinemas as well, so that, you know, even people who have not come to watch a movie, they can also buy some of our USP products. There's a lot of, you know, strategies that we have in mind. Some of the box offices are getting converted because a lot of tickets are getting sold online now. A lot of real estate is dedicated to box offices. We don't need such large box offices, so some of them are getting converted to. And we've already done those pilots. In Ambience, Gurgaon also we've done it, where the concession stand is also opening outside, and some of the box offices are converted into F&B outlets. I think there is a lot of, you know, initiatives being taken to take this up further. Sure. My last question is essentially on the cost and CapEx bit. You have mentioned CapEx will come down by 10% to 15%. Wanted to understand that, is it just because of economies of scale? Because already PVR itself was very large, right? INOX is adding more to that, but still want to understand that bit. Second is, EBITDA synergy of INR 225 crores. What are the low-hanging fruits here? You have mentioned 12 to 24 months, and you have mentioned 3, 4 factors which will drive this. What are the low-hanging fruits here in terms of quicker, turnaround? Nitin, do you want to talk about the low-hanging fruits? Abneesh Roy, like you said, we started work on the synergies very recently. The teams have started to get together. I think the big focus area will be to drive the revenue synergies up. F&B is gonna be one of our large area, where I think the focus is gonna be to drive long-term synergies. There is a difference in the HK levels between both the circuits. How do we bridge that? That's gonna be the big focus area. Obviously, box office, synchronization of programming across common circuits where we have cinemas for both PVR and INOX. How do we synchronize programming to ensure that we have shows which are complementary, which give opportunity to consumers to watch a film every 20 minutes instead of competing on showtimes? How do we ensure we synchronize pricing and not compete in some of those common circuits? Advertising revenue. I think these three big revenue pickers are gonna be there. I think on the cost side, our big focus is gonna be supply chain. I think both the teams have done a lot of work on cutting down their independent costs during the pandemic. From here on, I think the focus will be to get supply chain synergies given the size and scale and the volume. F&B costs, reduction of F&B costs given the significant volume of buying that we will do. Any duplicate overheads, you know, which we can immediately rationalize will be the quick wins. Balance of the stuff will take some time. We will also, t hat's the reason we've guided about a 12-24 month of effort, before we realize the full potential synergy. Hopefully later part of the year we should start seeing some of the synergies paying off. Sure. Thanks a lot. That's all from my side. Thanks a lot. Great. Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Jinesh Joshi from Prabhudas Lilladher. Please go ahead. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, I have a question on the cost synergy bit which you just highlighted recently. In terms of avoiding a duplication of work, which you just mentioned, what all areas have we identified? Maybe we may not need two teams for programming or for that matter, even for negotiating with the mall owner. Basically any specific area that you would want to highlight over here, which can result in decent amount of savings due to employee redundancy? No, not really. We won't want to highlight. We started work. I think it will require a great amount of organizational effort between both the companies to integrate both the organizations. I think for us that's gonna be the big priority right now, integrating. We both operate on different technology platforms, different ERP's, different operating systems. I think next 6 to 9 month effort will be to try and integrate and put everything on a common platform, post which some of the synergy integration will play out, faster. No specific guidance on any specific area as such. I think we started work. I think we believe there will be savings in each element of cost, but it's slightly premature for us to comment, you know, on anything specific right now. Sure. Will the benefit be front-loaded in year 1 or will it take some time to realize, that follow-up? Secondly, also I would like to know when does our term with BMS and Paytm end, and also for INOX. Secondly, with respect to that, unless that term ends, there will be no upside from bridge negotiations, right? Sorry, I'm not, I'm not able to hear you clearly. Your voice is breaking in between. What I was saying is that will the benefit accrual, for synergy will be front-loaded in year one or year two? That is one. Secondly, I also wanted to know when does that term end with BMS and PVR and also for INOX? Okay. On question number one, like I guided earlier, we think it will be a 12 to 24 month effort to realize the synergy. No, I don't think there will be frontloading of the synergies. It will take minimum 5 to 6 months of work before synergy start reflecting in. Yes, there will be some part of the synergy of the at INR 125 crore annual synergies that we've guided, which will flow in year one. Exactly what that quantum will be, you know, I think as we go along during the year we'll be in a better position to guide. Some of these synergies will move into next year. As I said, there is 6 to 8 months of work involved in putting a lot of stuff on the ground, actionable condition before those synergies start reflecting. On your second question, on the our contracts with online aggregators, PVR's existing contract ends in end of April, and INOX's existing contract ends end of March. End of March 2024, sorry. Got it, sir. Thank you so much, and all the best. Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Arun Prasad from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead. Thanks for the opportunity. Some of the questions on the quantification of the synergy I think are covered already. I would like to focus on some of the qualitative aspects of the synergy. Right. Probably today we'll be unable to quantify it, but it will generally give us a positive data probably over 5 to 6 years. What are those qual things which is currently we are not at quantify, but something which we are working. If you can highlight it some more, sir, it will be great. No, I didn't get your question fully. Can you once again repeat? When you say qualitative aspects of the integration. Of the synergy benefits. Basically, Some of the things which we can quantify, probably we have done it. For example, I don't want to say example, but if to put it in other words, say extension of the OTT windows or some of the things that, you know, probably you can do with the mall developers. Anything else apart from this which you can know, which is a long-term kind of a merger synergies that we should be aware of? I think the focus will be with the combined size and scale to work on all areas to improve the operating efficiency of the circuit that we have. That would relook at, you know, some of the existing contracts, et cetera, and practices we have. It will also include relooking at our CapEx outlook in terms of average per screen spends. It will also look at, you know, figuring out a way to better manage our rental costs, try to make more and more variable costs and reducing CapEx intensity in the business as we move to more tier two, tier three locations. All of that, you know, will be part of the long-term strategy and the plan. Like I said, It's still early days. We will be working on a lot of it, and maybe next 3 to 6 months we'll be in a better position to share a lot more, as we work together, on the combined entity. Okay. Actually, specifically, I would like to ask something on the OTT window. Is there any beyond a certain days or weeks, is the benefit of extending the window, is there or it stops at certain level, say 6 weeks, 9 weeks or 3 months? What is our current read on this? It's our current window for Hindi films, which is predominantly the content that we play in our theaters, is 8 weeks. This is the same as the window that used to exist pre-COVID. Currently both the content creators and exhibitors, which is PVR INOX, we are comfortable with this window. The same window applies to Hollywood films. The Hollywood films, the window tends to be a little longer because the Hollywood films come from the studios mainly, and these studios tend to follow the international windows, which are usually longer than 8 weeks. As far as regional films are concerned, the other non-Hindi Indian films, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi, we play films in almost 12 languages. Windows vary from 4 to 6 weeks. It's our endeavor to push these windows towards eight weeks. We would not like to make any sort of firm, you know, we'll not like to make a firm specific window, spell out the firm specific window at this stage. The endeavor for this year remains that we would want to sort of increase the windows for the non-Hindi Indian language films. Actually, I was asking specifically beyond 8 weeks, is there any benefit or you don't tend to see any benefit on the falls or occupancy in your multiplexes? It's a bit of a subjective issue, and, you know, for different films, the answer would be different. For bigger films, which show longer legs at the box office, the longer window is definitely beneficial. You have to appreciate, it's beneficial to both parties, right? Even the content creators benefit from a longer run if a film is having a long run at the box office. Therefore, you know, quite often we find that the content creator is more than comfortable to increase the window for a big film, especially the ones which are doing well at the box office. Yes, the answer is yes, we benefit from a longer window, especially for bigger films. More often than not, it's the content creator who's forthcoming with a longer window. Can the content producer change it after the release of theatrical release? Isn't it already agreed between the OTT before the release itself regarding the window? Yes. They can. They, the content creators tend to have considerable leverage with the streaming platforms. In a counterintuitive fashion, even the streaming platforms benefit from a longer run of a film at the box office. Quite often even they are comfortable to increase the window. Okay. Okay. Understood. Okay. My second question is on the now that we have a stronger balance sheet, are we thinking of anything about smoothening the volatility on account of, you know, depending on this content, can we do something related to reducing the volatility, content volatility? No, we are constantly in dialogue with our content partners, requesting them, informing them of our trends and various data points that we are monitoring and collecting, to ensure that content creators make more films for theaters, and they also continue to release them in a steady fashion. There is a constant dialogue on this front. As far as volatility of performance is concerned, our business, the inherent DNA of our business is peaks and valleys. While we as exhibitors and content creators, producer, distributors, all of us want more consistency, but the fact remains that this is not a business that we can see on week-to-week basis. We have to see it on a slightly longer duration. Our experience has been that, when you see it for a slightly longer duration, things tend to even out. All right. Very, very helpful. Thank you very much for this. Thank you. A reminder to participants to press star and 1 to ask a question. We have our next question from the line of Girish Pai from Nirmal Bang Equities. Please go ahead. Thank you for the opportunity. This number of 180 to 200 screens seems a fairly large number considering the low occupancy levels we've had in the last 9 to 12 months. Do you think the new screens are cannibalizing your older screens? And do you think you can work with a slightly lower number of new screen openings just, you know, before you kind of go more aggressive on that, I mean, to see that your occupancy hits a certain decent number of 35%+ thereabouts, which you did achieve in the past. It's only been, i t's only been 12 months since we have opened after COVID. You know, it's too early to take these occupancies as a normal, settled occupancies, which is business and what we've been attracting over a period of time. These decisions have been taken where it takes about 4 to 5 years for a, 3 years minimum, maximum 5 years for a mall to come up. These decisions were taken earlier. All the projects that we sign and the screens that we open are very carefully selected in terms of what are the market gaps where a product like PVR or INOX is not there, which are the malls which are being developed by quality developers like Phoenix or DLF or Lulu or Prestige. These are all destination malls, in catchments and cities where there is no presence of high quality, cinema viewing experience. This 12 months is too short a period for us to start having palpitations about our business. It's a, it's a, you know, we are comparing say 80 years of pre-COVID period to 12 months of post-COVID period. It's too early to draw any conclusions. We believe in the long term, you know, prospects of this business. We believe that all these screens are in great locations. Quite a few of them are in South India as well. In fact, the ones that we've opened, quite a bulk of them are in South India as well, where again, the multiplex penetration is very low. Still, there are a lot of single screens there. Now, mall developers are, you know, building shopping centers and malls in a lot of these towns in South India as well. That's where, you know, PVR or INOX becomes an integral part of attracting footfalls. This is not just CapEx being done without any thought. Each and every property has a return criteria. Each and every property has a qualitative criteria. Before we start in, you know, investing capital. Plus also these projects have got bunched up together because for a long time, you know, the activity has stopped. Now ever since, you know, the world has opened up, the malls and shopping center construction has also expedited. New retail formats are coming up. You know, existing retailers are increasing their footprints in the malls, and new brands are coming up every day in the country. In fact, the footfalls are increasing in all the malls as well. Offline sales are better than online sales now. PVR is very much PVR and INOX are pretty much part of this upward trend in the shopping center development. Okay. My next question has to do with the synergies. It's interesting that you mentioned that F&B would be the key one to focus on. I thought probably advertising would be the easier one to kind of an easier win to get because there's a fairly large differential between the INOX Leisure, erstwhile INOX Leisure ad revenue per screen versus the PVR ad revenue per screen. Wouldn't that be an easier win for you to get, compared to F&B? Yeah, Gautam is, I'll let Gautam answer that. Gautam, can you take? Actually, advertising definitely a lot of work needs to be done. We are very, very confident that, you know, coming together of PVR and INOX is gonna really open up the market for us. There is definitely some amount of low-lying fruit in terms of price correction and discounting correction that could happen. Having said that, we are just waiting for a couple of movies back-to-back to start doing well. We got a lot of advertisers back during Pathaan and now with Ranbir Kapoor film. Even South has seen an influx of all the large advertisers coming back. They are now definitely showing interest. I think the journey of getting synergy numbers is definitely on the cards, and I believe within the next quarter or so, these synergies would start trickling in. But it'll be largely the H2 of this year where, you know, we'll be able to start scratching the surface and getting ready for the big bang numbers. Okay. My last question has to do with the per screen fixed cost structure. How do you foresee that going forward? In which particular, you know, spend head do you see, costs kind of coming down on a per screen basis? No, it's too early for us to say or comment on anything. I think at this stage, like I said, bulk of the savings, if any, will be on removing duplicate costs and, you know, getting the supply chain benefits. At cinema level, I don't think there is any material difference in our cost structure. I think, in corporate and regional costs, as we integrate the organizations, there will be some savings. The big focus area right now, I think in the next nine months, is to integrate the organizations right, given the complexity involved and, you know, the synergies will follow post that. Okay, one last question if I can squeeze it in. Any specific item on the balance sheet which comes out as an adjustment or some extraordinary item which one should be aware of post the merger? On the balance sheet? Right. Is there any good way? Transaction-related cost, there will be some stamp duty cost, which will be one-off, which is relating to the transaction. Nothing else other than that. I think both the organizations have been running and, you know, as we announce the numbers for this quarter, obviously there will be, you know, synchronization of accounting policies, restatement of some of the balance sheet items to bring them to common accounting principles. That's about it, which is required, which is typically a part of any merger exercise, but nothing other than that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Alia sgar Shakir from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead. Thanks for the opportunity. I had a question on our occupancy. L ast couple of quarters, we noticed that discretionary spends, across, you know, multiple states have been pretty weak. Do you think that would be a reason, because of which our occupancies may have got impacted? I understand that some of the movies have done very well, but then, you know, maybe, frequency of, you know, the footfalls is what, maybe gets impacted probably, and therefore it gets bunched up into specific movies that do very well. Any, any thoughts on particular states that may have done well or not done? If you could share any caller through your surveys that you may have done. It's generally said about the entertainment business that this is a recession-proof, cricket-proof business. We, you know, genuinely believe that that statement is true because when we look at, you know, we have this one property in Sri Lanka, and Sri Lanka is a known fact has gone through some serious financial crisis. The numbers that we've seen in the calendar year 2022 have been the best numbers that we've had in Sri Lanka property. Although it also opened in 2019, so there is not much of history. What I'm trying to say is that in spite of a very deep-rooted financial crisis- Cinema has continued to perform in a fantastic fashion. In India, I think the problem has been more to do with the number of Hollywood films. There was a reduction in quantity, and definitely there was a decline in the performance of Hindi films, which is staple diet as far as pan-India national chains like PVR INOX are concerned. Also the mid-level films, you know, films which were doing INR 50-60 crores of box office, they showed underwhelming performance. Like I mentioned earlier, our business has seen these sort of phases earlier, also let's not forget that COVID was one of the biggest break in this habit of movie-going, cinema-going, that we've had in this country or anywhere else in the world. Cinema-going is a habit. I mean, bulk of our business comes from people who come back to theaters frequently, watch a lot of films in a year. As a result of this break, we've seen some disruption in Hindi films, as far as this year is concerned, also some greater disruption in the mid-segment films. We also believe that the bounce back will be very sharp. The reason I'm saying that is that when you look at the Hollywood situation, when you look at the North America box office, the films which have released this year, and I'm referring to the mid-segment films like Puss in Boots, which is an animation film, Creed III, which came out recently, M3GAN, which came out recently, another horror film, A Man Called Otto, which is a very small speciality film, almost like an art house film, Cocaine Bear, which has no star cast to boast of. Scream VI, which came out this last Friday, and it's turned out to be the biggest Scream in the entire franchise. Like pre-COVID, this is the sixth Scream, and this is the best outing Scream series franchise has had. The resurgence in the box office, especially in these mid-level films. The big, you know, the tent, tentpole films like, Avatar, you know, and, you know, the similar category of, Marvel films or DC films, they were doing well in any case. It's the mid-level films which were suffering because of this break in the habit. Those films are coming back in a very, very sharp manner in the North American market. We believe our market is ripe for a similar resurgence. It's a matter of time when you would start seeing a jump in occupancies as far as the mid-level films are concerned, as far as the Hindi films are concerned. Also the quantity of Hollywood films is slated for an increase, later this year. We don't believe it's, you know, the discretionary, spends because our business traditionally has been recession-proof. We believe the business will continue to be recession-proof. In fact, if anything, it will grow more, in times when there is, you know, some sort of a financial crisis. People would need more escapism. People will tend to go out more with their families and friends. Yeah, that's what we would like to share. Understood. This is very, very detailed and helpful. Thank you so much. Thank you. A reminder to participants to press star and 1 to ask a question. We have our next question from the line of Pulkit Chawla from Emkay Global. Please go ahead. Hi, thank you for the opportunity. First on the screen expansion plans, how are you currently looking at adding screens in metro cities versus say Tier Two or Tier Three cities? Is there some preference for some particular region as well, like you mentioned the South? Second, I think, with the merger now complete, will you be looking to get more aggressive with PVR Pictures with a larger reach in this for you now? I mean, out of the 200 screens that we are looking at opening up this year, 44% are in the metros, and actually a majority of them are in the South. I think about 30%, 35% or 40% almost are in the southern region where the business remains robust in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra, Telangana and Kerala. There the business still remains very robust. Regional movies are doing well. There's a lot of focus of screen additions in the southern region. In Tier One, we have about 38% screens coming up. Between Tier Two and Tier Three, about 17 odd percent screens are coming up. Of course, between both PVR and INOX expansion, we're also looking at some new cities that have yet not had a multiplex experience. You know, India is a very large country, an under-screened country. We are looking at places like Patna. We're opening sometime soon Ajmer, and some very small places in South India also like Tirupur and Narsipatnam, these are the places which are yet to see a retail and a multiplex revolution. These are some new places both in South and other parts of the country where we're also focusing on screen expansion. The second part was PVR Pictures. We're getting some good opportunities for PVR Pictures also. We are looking at scaling up both our English and Hindi and even regional business. English films, of course, we sub-distributed Everything Everywhere All at Once and The Whale, which won the Oscars just yesterday. We have a lineup of Lionsgate films for the whole year. We're releasing John Wick on the 24th of March, which is a very big franchise amongst many other English films. On an average, we release at least 1 film every 2 weeks. Hindi films, we've had a big hit in November with Drishyam 2, which did an all-India box office about INR 250 crore. We're following that up now in March, end of March. 3rd March, we have Bholaa with Ajay Devgn once again. We're in talks with various other producers, Hindi and regional, for augmenting our local film distribution business as well. There are a lot of opportunities coming our way. Thanks. That's it from me. Thank you. Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Preet Malde from Centra Advisors LLP. Please go ahead. Preet Malde, you are unmuted. Can you please go ahead with your question? Yeah. Am I audible? Yes. Okay. The approach of INOX and PVR has been different historically when it comes to opening up new properties. INOX has more or less refrained from paying a high premium for premium properties, and PVR has not, if we look at it historically. How will our approach be from now on when we'll start operating as a singular brand? I mean, that's not entirely true. I think in the INOX portfolio also there's been a lot of premium offerings and products like Insignia. There's an Insignia in Mumbai in Nariman Point. Metro Cinema is very premium. In Gurgaon, there's an Insignia which is very premium. I think both companies have had a mixed bag of products and, you know, cinema classification. And going forward, I think we're looking at each and every city, each and every catchment within the city, the mall specifications where we are housed, the catchments around that mall, and then therefore looking at decisions of premiumization versus making a mainstream cinema. I think by and large, you know, we are looking at providing a very good high standard of cinema regardless of whether it's an Insignia format or a LUXE format or a Director's Cut, which is a super luxury format. We're looking at providing a very good high standard of cinema, both in terms of interiors and experience, you know, and we have many formats also IMAX 4DX, MX4D, Playhouse, Kiddles, which we're looking at deploying at various cinemas across the country, current and forthcoming as well, in order to make the experience, you know, as good and as comfortable as possible for the patron. I think you just misunderstood my question. I was not talking about premium viewing experiences, but all in all, properties that attract a higher footfall. PVR is ready to pay a higher premium for such properties, and INOX has usually refrained from it. If we look at it by EV per screen perspective, we can see that we can see the difference. How will our approach be from now on? That's what I'm asking. Okay. No, sorry. I mean, I think again, going back there were some properties by INOX also that are slightly higher, you know, premium tier. Going forward, we have a very robust pipeline now actually. We already have about 160 odd screens under fit-out. Going forward also we have, you know, 150, 160 odd screens that we'll be taking for handover sometime soon in Q2 of next year. I think, you know, the market has found its more of a solid level, so to speak now. Going forward, we are getting better deals and better developments to build these multiplexes at just market rates and reasonable rates and nothing which is too high or too premium. Because, you know, I think these developers also realize that they want a good product and a premium product for their malls. And we're providing that, you know, and providing the footfall that's required to mitigate the malls. Okay. The new screens that will be starting, how will they be brand? Will it be brand as INOX PVR or a specific INOX or PVR or a PVR INOX combined brand? I think as of now, all the pipeline that we are executing over the next 6 months, because it's already under fit-out, will open on a as is basis. PVR screens will open as PVR. INOX screens will open as INOX. I think it is a new handover that we will take now, which will open 6, 9 months later. There we will have the question of, you know, rebranding coming into play. I think we are deliberating on that. The going in position was, you know, to brand everything as PVR INOX. That's what we had, you know, announced when we did the merger. But, you know, to be honest, we need to think through the brand strategy as we go along. But at least in the near term, next 6 months, whatever is opening will open as is with the existing branding. Okay. Makes sense. Thank you so much. Thank you. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to management for closing comments. Over to you. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to thank you for taking out time for the call, and if you have any follow-up questions, you can write to us. Thank you. Thank you. On behalf of Axis Capital Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.