Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Sammaan Capital Limited Q3 FY 2026 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 touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Aryan Sumra. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Thank you. Good evening. I welcome you all to the Q3 and FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call for Sammaan Capital Limited. To discuss this quarter's business performance, we have from the management, Mr. Gagan Banga, Managing Director and CEO, along with other senior management. Before we proceed with the call, I would like to mention that some of the statements made in today's call may be forward-looking and may involve risks and uncertainties. For more details, kindly refer to the investor presentation and other findings that can be found on the company's website. Without further ado, I would like to hand over the call to the management for the opening remarks, and then we can open the floor for Q&A. Thank you, and over to you, sir. To start off, in this quarter, one of the major developments was the announced proposed merger of our subsidiary, Sammaan Finserve into Sammaan Capital. Post the announcement of the proposed preferential allotment to IFC, this was the next logical step. The consolidation of our lending business and distribution will enable Sammaan Capital to offer a full suite of mortgage-backed loans, and as we had mentioned the last time, expand the portfolio to other type of loan assets for mid-market to low-income India. It will create a structure which will allow Sammaan Capital to pursue the loan products. Sammaan Finserve as a company will continue to exist and whatever other financial services we propose to offer in due course of time, under the guidance of IFC, would be housed prospectively under Sammaan Finserve. We have our AIF platform, which has already built a track record of having lent approximately INR 6,200 crores and having given good returns to investors, and having experience of lending in the top eight cities. That would continue to be the credit platform for wholesale lending. This creates prospectively a very, very clean structure. There is a lending company which is also a holding company, AIF platform for everything wholesale and all other financial services prospectively, which may be pursued to be housed under Sammaan Finserve. As for the preferential issue itself, post the approval from the stock exchanges, we have also received shareholder approval and a CCI approval. We await RBI approval for the preferential allotment and SEBI approval for the open offer. Post that, it will take about 15 days to post the approvals to be received. It will take about 15 days for the shares to get allotted and the monies to be received by the company. We believe that the merger of Sammaan Finserve, proposed merger of Sammaan Finserve, is facilitating an expeditious approval from both the RBI and, and, and SEBI. Both IFC and Sammaan Capital Limited are actively engaged with the regulators for the necessary approvals, and we are very optimistic that this process has now entered its final stages. Moving on to the financial performance of the company. Year-on-year, the net worth has increased by approximately INR 2,000 crores and stands at about INR 22,423 crores. The gross AUM stands at about INR 44,000 crores. The profit after tax for the quarter came in at INR 314 crores versus INR 302 crores. Gearing is stable at about 2.2 times. Gross and net NPAs are also stable at 1.2 and 0.7 times. On a nine-month basis, we made approximately INR 957 crores of PAT. Last year, if you recollect, we had a consolidated loss reported in the September quarter. So the consolidated loss nine months was INR 2,132 crores. Versus that, we have a net profit of INR 957 crores. Everything else is the same. Asset quality, as I said, remains stable. At the end of financial year 2025, our gross NPA was at 1.3%, which is now at 1.2%. Net NPA was at 0.8%, which stands at 0.7%. As we await approvals, we continue to focus on mortgage loans and the asset-light strategy. The idea is to use this time to continue to focus more and develop technology and deeper skill sets, more automation around credit and other processes. The product suite for now is consistent as it has been with the past. The only difference is that earlier we were pursuing the affordable lending opportunity in Sammaan Finserve. Now everything has been consolidated into Sammaan Capital. So Sammaan Capital has four products: home loans for the prime segment at 30 lakh INR, LAP loans at 75 lakh INR, and then the affordable product, where home loans are at 15 lakh INR and LAP loans are at 25 lakh INR. At this point in time, there is no deviation from our asset-light strategy. New co-lending regulations have become effective from January 1. I've shared with you earlier that the scope of the co-lending arrangement is much wider than the earlier model of co-lending. And now it is not restricted to just priority sector. It is far more inclusive. It covers all types of loans. All types of financial entities are eligible, so we can do business with banks, NBFCs or HFCs, all Indian financial institutions. Prospectively, as we transform ourselves in the new regime of having a promoter as IFC, this can also become a very interesting model for us to acquire assets. That will happen when it happens. For now, this continues to be a mechanism where we are integrated with banks. The first two quarters would be relatively slow as we continue to successfully operationalize the co-lending arrangement framework with a variety of banks. We've done it with a few banks where we are already technically integrated, and business volumes have started in the month of January itself, and they will pick up month-on-month to come back to original levels by about May or June of this year. The continuity is fairly seamless with all the partners. And once all of the tech kicks in, we expect on an operating basis, something like a 15%-18% cost saving, in the business that we do on an OpEx basis. The technology platform also relies itself on the e-Mortgage platform that we had created back in 2017, 2018, which we have continued to improve on. And what we have functional is a complete digital lead onboarding system, a digital KYC and document upload system, a digital banking for bank statement analysis and everything else that we need to do a credit appraisal. Which leads itself to a digital underwriting process and now a digital dispersal process also, where there are repayment gateways, e-signing is already happening, and e-insurance is also happening. Sammaan Capital, along with all of its vendors and partners, continues to work with new banks to make sure that this entire system is integrated. And month-on-month, we expect the business volumes to keep increasing to steady again by May, June of next year. We will continue to slowly focus on expanding our branch network, and once the investment process is over, we will continue to rapidly expand the branches. For now, we are consolidating our operations and focusing more on technology, and all of that internal work before we start spreading our wings. The retail mortgage business, the quality of that business continues to be stable. The NPAs as a sector are also stable. If you flip over to page 15, the performance of our, of the pools that we have sold down, either under direct assignment or pass-through certificates or co-lending arrangements of roughly INR 100,000 crores, that lakh, 1.03 lakh crores, now stands at about INR 17,000 crores. About 985,000 crores of loans have come back to our partner banks and financial institutions, and the 90 days past due is all of 0.54%. This is a brilliant moat that the company has created for itself. It has done this at scale with a large number of players, and this would continue to remain a key part of our strategy, even going forward, under IFC. The other priority that the company has had is the rundown of the legacy loan book, even though there have been extremely good developments over the last two-three months, that has not made us move our eye away from that. This year we've already done net collections of about INR 5,000 crores while maintaining the overall asset quality, and I'm quite optimistic, as it was last year, the fourth quarter would be a bumper quarter in cash collections and recoveries. Just earlier this week, we've had major progress in a couple of large recoveries on the IBC front. I'm sure that is going to have a very significant contribution to our numbers in quarter four and quarter one of this year. On the ALM side, we remain reasonably stable. This has been an area of strength for the company from a place where this was right up there in everyone's attention. While it may have fallen off the attention of the market, this remains an area of high focus for the management, and we continue to remain a fairly well-matched asset liability maturity organization. Before moving on to questions, I would also like to address the issue of the ongoing public interest litigation, which I am sure is a matter of concern for all stakeholders. The matter is sub judice, and I am sticking to objective facts in this short update. This is a long-running case, which was first filed around seven years, 6.5 years back in 2019, in the Delhi High Court, against the erstwhile promoter being targeted. The company was a party, so were other statutory and regulatory authorities, such as the RBI, National Housing Bank, SEBI and MCA. The allegations were all thoroughly examined by the regulatory agencies and statutory bodies, and it was found that the loans granted to various borrower groups had either been repaid or remained standard, demonstrating that the loans granted were not dubious. Procedural lapses, which would anyways get identified in any extensive audit process, were also identified, which were done in normal course of business and as is dealt with, these were compounded in conformity with the process prescribed under the law. Since then, the principal amounts have turned nil for all of these cases. The company has received INR 3,017 croress of interest income from these loans. After considering the detailed affidavits and status reports filed by the various regulatory agencies and statutory bodies, in February of 2024, the Delhi High Court had dismissed the PIL. The court had also re-recorded that the regulators and statutory bodies had examined the allegations, found no major violations, and that minor company law lapses had been duly compounded. Roughly eight months after that, about 15 months ago, the honorable, the PIL petitioner approached the Supreme Court by filing a special leave petition. At this stage, as the matter was heard, the Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate, who were not parties before the original PIL in the Delhi High Court, were also added as respondents by the petitioners. The respondent regulatory agencies and statutory bodies, namely the Reserve Bank of India, National Housing Bank, MCA and SEBI, in fresh affidavits before the Supreme Court, again reiterated that multiple inspections, audits and special audits were conducted on Sammaan Capital, where it was found that loans granted to various borrowers stand repaid or remain standard, demonstrating that the loans were not dubious. CBI, in its affidavit, also confirmed that none of the loans availed by the company had ever been declared as NPA or fraud, and therefore, there is no loss caused to public monies in loans granted by the company. These loans, which are subject matter of the PIL, were sanctioned during a period where Mr. Sameer Gehlaut was the Executive Chairman and thus the head of the company, and he was also the controlling shareholder and promoter. In this regard, the Honorable Supreme Court had also clarified via its order, nineteenth November 2025, that as far as the company is concerned, they are not expressing any opinion on the allegations. Since 2023, the company is no longer associated with Mr. Gehlaut. This is in public domain. He is no longer the promoter of Sammaan Capital after an elaborate process of depromoterization. He's not on the board. He's not been a shareholder since 2023, and is therefore in no way associated with Sammaan Capital, directly or indirectly. The allegations are against Mr. Gehlaut. They cannot be attributed to Sammaan Capital. The company has also, from a materiality of distancing itself, even sold the brand name, Indiabulls, back to Mr. Gehlaut's company. Sammaan Capital is not privy to any transaction that may have existed between Mr. Gehlaut and his privately held companies and the borrower groups mentioned in the PIL. The allegations of quid pro quo cannot be attributed to Sammaan Capital and/or its officers, and that is the way I believe the matter is progressing. Following the information provided by the Enforcement Directorate, Delhi Police lodged an FIR to investigate the, and this is important, the quid pro quo transactions between Mr. Gehlaut and the corporate entities, namely Amicorp, Reliance ADAG, DLF, Vatika, et cetera. CBI, in its affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, has clearly stated that all the transactions were done to cause a wrongful loss to the company, that the company is a victim. The CBI has also submitted that there is no need to constitute an SIT as of now. From a perusal of the affidavits filed by the CBI, Delhi Police, EOW, et cetera, and the various other authorities, it emerges that the investigations are being conducted against the erstwhile promoter and five corporate groups, entities who have availed the loan facilities. As per media reports, it also emerges that investigations are being conducted against the erstwhile promoter and the said corporate entities who had availed the loan facilities. No financial loss, this is again very, very important, is possible as an outcome of this PIL to the company, which is Sammaan Capital, given the regulatory closures, loan repayments, and the fact that the company has already earned over INR 3,000 crores of interest and has no principal exposure outstanding to any of the loans mentioned in the PIL, not even a single rupee. The company is represented by leading legal stalwarts, and they've also pinned for the company that we are on a solid wicket as far as merits are concerned. I am certain the stakeholders have been anxious on any fallout of the proceedings of the PIL matter on the preferential issue of controlling stakes to IFC. As is but logical, in any such transaction, board approvals for the transaction and signing of the share subscription agreement are done following a comprehensive due diligence process, including legal due diligence. All materials around ongoing civil and criminal litigations are disclosed and examined as a part of this process. The incoming investors' council also independently verify these litigations and factor in any related contingencies. Of course, in a transaction of this size, and particularly in a matter of the PIL, which has not only been ongoing since 2019, but has been making regular noise in the media since 2019, disclosure and diligence has been comprehensively done. The proposed incoming shareholder is fully aware of the case, and we have also kept them abreast of all the proceedings in the matter. Both IFC and Sammaan Capital are very actively and continuously engaged with the regulators, which is RBI and SEBI, with the stock exchanges, to conclude the process of approval. Just recently, on January fourteenth, which is about, what? six, 17, 18 days ago, the incoming investor, via its investment banker, also released some routine clarifications through advertisements in various publications. We are also together in the process of submitting some information and clarifications, which have been sought by the RBI as part of the process. Both IFC and Sammaan management are hopeful of a speedy conclusion of the preferential issue, and towards this, along with our respective councils, bankers and other advisors, we are all fully focused on obtaining the requisite regulatory approvals. I personally believe that we are at the last leg of this process. While it is unfortunate that Sammaan Capital as a company and the management team over the last six years since this PIL has happened, despite the fact that we have reduced debt of the company successfully by INR 76,000 crores, we paid interest of around INR 55,000 crores. Therefore, having ensured timely cash flow to our lenders of about INR 130,000 crores, our net worth has increased by INR 6,000 crores from INR 16,500 crores to INR 22,500 crores approximately. We have ensured that we lose no monies to these borrowers. We've earned INR 3,017 crores, yet unfortunately, we do suffer both, at the management level as well as at the stakeholders level. I hope you can empathize with the management that we are trying to do our best to make sure that the company continues to make progress despite all, adversity. We are fairly confident that we will bring home this, investment, and we will put to rest this case as far as Sammaan Capital is, is concerned. We are headed in the right direction. At this point in time, I feel safe as far as the company is concerned, and I am fairly optimistic about the future of the company. Rather, I am very, very optimistic about the future of the company, and looking forward to moving on from just being a mortgage lender to a full suite NBFC. On this note, we will open this call for questions. Let's proceed with that. Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Amish Kanani from Knowise Investments Manager. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, sir. Congrats on the good numbers. So one question that, you know, keeps, you know, bothering us as an investor is that with the company being so very well capitalized, post the preferential issue, and we also, you know, intending to continue the asset-light model. In one of the previous conference call you did, you know, allude to a possibility of using the capital for, you know, lending. The question is, you know, how do we look at our leverage post the, you know, transaction? Because we are very, very lowly leveraged. And how are we planning to use, say, profits? Because in one of the earlier conference call, you did, you know, mention that we have a good, dividend payout ratio, you know, because we don't need capital. How do you look at, you know, these two things vis-à-vis our ROE, which we need to, you know, kind of improve upon? Thanks. Sure. So, thanks, Manish, for the question. It's actually a very relevant question from a longer term strategy perspective, and that's this is the stage at which the strategy has certainly evolved. It will evolve into more specifics soon after the conclusion of the transaction. When we say the asset-light model, what it allows us to do is to cover a very wide suite of products. So you can start with products which are in the early 8% range and go all the way up to maybe 18%-19%. For an NBFC to long-term hold loans, which are, let's say, 8%-9.5%, even 10% on its balance sheet, is not really very ROE accretive. But we have distribution, we have scale, and this is something that we have tremendous experience around. As I shared a short while back, we've done business of this sort with banks and other counterparties of over INR 100,000 crores. So we leverage on that experience and continue to earn from that experience, and also sweat our distribution, people, technology, et cetera, that we've built over the years. As our cost of funds reduce, as the ratings probably improve, the leverage, which is about 2.2 times, should settle in the range of 4-4.5 times. That is the go-to long term for the company, which I believe we should be hitting sometime around 2030. In a year or so of the investment, I believe we will be ready to start paying dividends. There is a dividend payout policy of the Reserve Bank of India. Conservatively, we believe that we should be in the 30%-40% sort of dividend payout ratio over a longer term. This is all the calculations of ROA and capital that we have simulated. So yes, we would be a dividend-paying company. That's clearly an agreement of minds between the management and the incoming shareholder. The leverage will increase, but the leverage would increase to widen the product suite. There is no need of leverage on the existing product suite. On the existing product suite, which is more prime mortgage-type assets, it is best to continue to use the low and granular liability model of a bank and leverage on the experience built by the company and continue to thrive using that model as well. Sure, sir. Sir, quick, quick follow-up on the collection side. You did mention that, you know, there were good collections continuing in the month of January as well. So, is it possible, one, to quantify? And if not, should we assume that the targets that we have kind of set out an aggressive target for the second half, should we be easily able to achieve that, sir? Thanks a lot. It's an aggressive target, so I'll not discount the team's efforts to say it'll be easily done, but it will be done. Okay. Thanks a lot, sir, and all the best. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Meet Mewada from Sunidhi Securities. Please go ahead. Hello. Yeah, thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to know the RBI granted the approval of IFC, which is around INR 8,050 crores. So is there any specific condition remaining pending as of February 2026? Niten, we are awaiting the approval itself, so it's not as if RBI has granted and there is some specific condition. RBI will approve the preferential allotment. If we look at other NBFCs and banks, it takes about six-nine months. Our application is about three months old, but we are moving rapidly. And as we were able to get faster than usual approvals from other stakeholders, we are optimistic given the fact that we are an upper layer NBFC and therefore, RBI is familiar with our operations and IFC is also a very large company. Thus, we should be in a position to hopefully expedite the approval process. As of right now, everything is on track, and we are progressing very well. Okay, thanks. And another question is, you know, which is, in which new cities did the company has expanded the e-Mortgage loans, and how many branches added lately in this quarter? So these will be tier three and four type of cities. I wouldn't know the names offhand. And as of right now, our pace is calibrated, so we will look at only adding about 10 branches a quarter. We've made a blueprint as to how do we get to about 400-500 cities very, very quickly over the course of the next two financial years. The pace of the rollout will increase very rapidly post the investment coming through. Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's it from my side. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sambit Roy from Credit Analyst. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations on the quarter. I have two questions. One would be, would you give any projections or any guidance for the next two, three years on the lines of the revenue and cost of credit? So what we've guided on the cost of credit is, on a longer term basis, an annualized credit cost of 100 basis points. That holds true with the existing product suite and the mix that we have of legacy and new book loans. If we are to expand the product suite, obviously there would be associated credit costs, which I'm not in a position to talk about since I've not yet articulated with all of you the widened product suite strategy. So as far as our core mortgage product is concerned, we are fairly optimistic of running it at about 100 basis points of annualized credit cost. As we look at new products and come back to you with a strategy post the investment, we will obviously elaborate the entire ROA tree as to how do we go from the yield to OpEx, to credit cost, to cost of funds, to ROA, to ROE. All of that will be obviously elaborated on. Got it. Anything on the lines of the revenue? Again, Sambit, I think we are very close to a complete strategic shift in the operations of the company. Mm-hmm. So if we are to look at as is where is, it would not be very consequential. Like I said, I'm fairly hopeful of a fairly expeditious process coming through. And in that context, I would say that any revenue guidance or anything of that sort would be more material and relevant once we lay out the whole strategy for you. As I had requested last time, just please allow for the investment to come through. It will take a quarter or two, but the longer term plan comes out post that investment. There's a full detailed business plan that we worked out on and finalized with the investor. We will be more than happy to share very granular details of that business plan with all of you. No problem. And just one last follow-up. As you mentioned about the legacy book, can you mention what, what is the sort of proportion of the legacy book to the growth book? And next two, three years, where do you see the, the legacy book to be? All of that has been detailed in fairly granular numbers. What is the AUM? What is the legacy? What is the growth, the direction in which it is going down? It's all there in the earnings update. In the interest of time, since it's already all detailed, I'll move to the next round, question. Got it. I'm sure the answers are all there. Thank you. Thank you. Let's go to the next question, please. Sure, sir. Thank you. The next question is from the line of ASN Raju, an individual investor. Please go ahead. Good evening, Gagan Banga. So what is the total provisions? What What was the total provisions, and what is the estimated time to recollect all those? So we have given a collection number that out of all the write-offs, recovery, and provisions that we have done, over a period of time we will recover, give or take, INR 4,500 crores. I think of that INR 4,500 crores, we are still on track to net recover. We'd also spoken about the fact that till the time that the legacy book does not become a single digit, as in below INR 10,000 crores. We will continue to use these provisions being released to stay as provisions and to facilitate the recovery, which is what we are doing. So we do recover about INR 400-INR 500 crores per quarter. We package that as provisions, most of it, and continue to carry those provisions. On a net basis, over the next three years, once we are done with all of these provisions and the legacy book has run down, we should be able to cash recover about INR 4,500 crores. Okay, sir. Thank you. All the best. Thank you. We'll take one last question, please. Sure, sir. The last question is from the line of Faizaan Joa d from Singularity AMC. Please go ahead. Hey. Hi, Govind. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to clarify the incremental cost of borrowing for Q3, and some color on the uptick in interest expense as of the last, the current quarter. Thanks. Yeah. So we've done fairly aggressive borrowing at the right at the start of the quarter. We did a large dollar bond issuance, we did a domestic bond issuance. We also did some bank borrowings. So the interest cost uptick is largely to on that account. Right now, we are borrowing at give or take 9%, and we expect, as I said, a movement down to below 8% quickly right after this investment is to come through. On an overall stock basis, we would expect that in about nine-12 months, the cost of funds should go down by about 270 basis points. That's what the goal is, that by the end of March 2027, assuming that we are able to get this done very quickly, by the end of March 2027, the stock of borrowing should be down by a cost of about 270 basis points. Understood. Understood. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for patiently listening to us, for your support, and I hope to get back to you, probably much before the next quarter's release with an update on the investment and the plans thereafter. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Aryan Sumra for the closing comments. Thank you. I would like to thank the management for taking the time out, and I would also like to thank all the participants. If you have any queries, feel free to contact us via MUFG Intime India Private Limited to Sammaan Capital Limited. Thank you. On behalf of Sammaan Capital Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.