Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Mamta Samat from Perfect Relations. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am. Thank you, Kajal. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us on the Shoppers Stop Q3 FY25 earnings conference call. Today we have with us the senior management represented by Mr. Kavindra Mishra, Customer Care Associate, Managing Director and CEO; Mr. Karunakaran Mohanasundaram, Customer Care Associate, Chief Financial Officer. We will begin the call with the opening remarks from the management, after which we will have the forum open for the interactive Q&A session. I must remind you that the discussion in today's earnings call may include certain forward-looking statements and must be viewed, therefore, in conjunction with the risks that the company faces. Please restrict your questions to the quarter performance and to strategic questions only. Housekeeping questions can be dealt with separately with the IR team. I will now request Mr. Kavindra Mishra for the opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Thank you, Mamta, and thank you, Kajal. Hi, good morning, and hope everyone is doing well. Though we have completed our fortnight, I wish everyone and the extended families a very happy New Year. As usual, this morning we will cover the results of Q3 for this fiscal. I have with me Karunakaran, our CFO; JP Hughes, our FP&A lead; and Rohit, who is here with me. We'll also have Biju, our Beauty CEO; and Devang, our interim lead at a later stage. The investor presentation is available on our corporate website and on the stock exchange website. I'm sure you would have read this. Specifically, I request you to go through a sneak peek view of our recently renovated Inorbit Mall and ultimate destination for the customers and marketing campaigns in this presentation. They will substantiate the increase in premium quotient across all formats of the stores. Overall, it has been a good quarter for Shoppers Stop. Before I start setting the context, let me recall my statement which I had made two quarters ago. I said that we will focus on premiumization and make our stores a top destination, focus on consumer choice and profitability by rationalizing the private brands, expand Beauty both in Shoppers Stop and through our 100% subsidiary Global SS Beauty, and have a seamless omnichannel journey for our customers. As I take you through in the next 10 minutes, you will observe all these strategies that started bearing results. Before I dwell in detail on Q3 results, let me start by dissecting the broader market landscape during the quarter gone by, after which I will touch upon our performance and strategic objectives going forward. Overall, for retail, last quarter has been topsy-turvy. The festive period to Diwali was exceptional, but November had slowness. December has been mixed for most of our peers. Inflation continues to be high, though it has tapered down in the last week. Discretionary spending has been lower, and consumer sentiment, though it's better than last quarter, but it's nowhere near the pre-COVID or FY23 levels. On an informal discussion with other peer members, there was a unanimous view that the last quarter was lower than expectations, particularly considering the slowness we had in the first two quarters. Let me take you through the growth levers for the year. Firstly, our marketing campaigns delivered exceptional results. We have developed new IPs in our marketing campaign, such as India Wedding at Shoppers Stop, Winter Magic, and the Big Fat Sale, and I'm proud to say that these campaigns significantly increased our revenue besides retention of customers. Specifically, on India Wedding at Shoppers Stop, we have, as of now, registered 16,500 customers generating a sale of INR 66 crores in the last two months, with an average spend of INR 40,000. There are other campaigns on Beauty which I will talk about in detail in the Beauty section. Secondly, our premiumization journey. We started this journey three years back, and there has been consistent progress in the last 18 months. Our premiumization, as a share of total revenue, was circa 55% two years back, and it has now reached 64%. Let me elaborate in detail. Through our partnerships, we started getting premium brands, and within these premium brands, getting higher price products as well. We launched Dockers, True Religion, Armani Exchange, GANT, GAS, Tommy and CK in the women's wear category, Birkenstock, Bugatti in footwear, Tom Ford, Rabanne, and Lancôme in Beauty, and many other brands across the categories. As you read the investor presentation, you can see the brand-wise details on page number five. In addition to apparel brands, we have increased our non-apparel contribution, particularly in the premiums category. Our share of premium non-apparel brands has increased from 64%- 72%. On Beauty, we have opened high-end Beauty stores such as in Quest Mall, Bangalore T2 Airport, and three Armani stores as well, and along with initiatives such as coffee shops within our high-street stores, gaming arcades, and personal shoppers, has led to increased premiumization for our customers in our stores. From premiumization, I will move to Beauty. Beauty has been our strategic pillar for several years now, and it has been outgrowing this fiscal. More importantly, our Beauty offering in the department stores also increased in the last two years, contributing from 9.5%- 11%, an increase of 150 basis points. Our Showstoppers campaign in November has been a runaway success. We had more than 200,000 makeover events contributing to 35% of our total revenue. We have launched a number of brands such as Kiro, Stila, Prada Beauty, etc., and our fragrances were the star performers by. They grew by around 14%. The other star in the Beauty business was our 100% subsidiary Global SS Beauty. We launched it a year back in full scale, and this is the second year in operation. We have nearly doubled the sales from INR 39 crores last year to INR 77 crores this year in Q3. In addition to this, our EBITDA has grown by four times in the quarter. For year to date, we have achieved sales of INR 168 crores, which is again doubling from the last year. For the full year, we expect the Global SS Beauty business to achieve circa INR 240-250 crores of revenue, and these sales were at distributor price to our retailers. The sales at customer prices will be circa INR 400 crores+, which we have built in the last two years. Presently, we are the second largest Beauty distributor in India, and if we continue this growth, we intend to be the top Beauty distributor in India in the next two years. And lastly, I will discuss Intune. We have opened nine stores and expect to open another 26 stores in Q4. Like our departmental stores, our opening of new stores was impacted by regulatory restrictions. During the quarter, Intune recorded INR 63 crores, and year to date, we have recorded 138 crores of revenue. We are very close to break-even store EBITDA level. I'm happy to say that the progress has been on track, and we are confident that our SS25 full price sales LFL would be higher than the present average. Other than the growth levers above, we are also working on sustainable business strategies that worked in the last quarter, and they are expansion. We have opened 52 stores across all formats for the first nine months and expect to open 32 stores in Q4. Renovation. We successfully completed Malad and opened in December. In addition to this, we have completed the renovation of six stores during the year. We expect to renovate circa 10 stores next fiscal year. Every store addition has increased our premiumization journey with a number of new brands. Capital allocation. Our capital allocation has been prudent, with investments primarily in the departmental stores, SS Beauty, and Intune, besides renovation of departmental stores. Let me talk about the digital journey. We just moved to a new platform, Magento for ShoppersStop.com, and we expect further improvisations in the next two months, including a new order management system in place. With the launch of the latest version of SS.com app, our conversions have increased. In SS Beauty, we have also launched the same delivery from two stores. This is an experiment, and we are working on this project. With all these initiatives, while the market has been muted, we delivered extraordinary results both in the top line and in the bottom line. Our non-apparel sales grew by 7%, and our EBITDA grew by 20%. Let me outline some of the KPIs. Sales grew by 7%. Non-apparel, which includes watches and handbags, continued to outperform with 22% and 18% like-for-like growth. Our customer entry in Q3 declined by 6%, primarily in November. Customer entry was almost flat in October and December. The beauty story and beauty growth have been consistent. We opened 16 stores, nine Intune, six beauty, and one department store during the quarter. Because of regulatory restrictions, especially in North India, we were not able to open the stores as per the plan. Our store KPIs, which include the ASP, ATV, and IPT, all of them have grown, and the increase in ATV, which was at 6%, was led by premiumization. Our EBITDA increased by 20% due to increased revenue, increased gross margins owing to lower obsolescence, and optimized markdown in private brands, and a strong control on costs. Let me put some color on the First Citizen program. Our First Citizen club contributed to 83% with 11.5 million First Citizen customers. Our repeat customers are now at 69%, and it grew by 9% vis-à-vis last year. As you observe, the contribution from First Citizen customers has been continuously increasing from 78%- 83%. Our Premium Black card customers contributed 17% mix, with a whopping 28% growth over the previous year. The First Citizen Black card renewals were at 71%. I'm delighted to share that we had the highest enrollments of First Citizen Black card customers and Silver card customers during this quarter, and this is something which we continuously are looking at driving. HomeStop. With new stores opening in Q2, HomeStop sales have increased by 10%. The festive season combined with our personal shoppers helped us to increase the overall sales to INR 60 crores. We'll increase the presence by opening smaller HomeStop stores and curate the products towards premium category, which will augment our premiumization journey. In my previous calls, we have spoken about personal shoppers and how they improvise on the premiumization journey. I'm happy to share that we have now 450 personal shoppers across 115 stores all over India. We have recruited more than 150 personal shoppers during the year. Our personal shopper contribution has now also increased from 15%- 28%. The ATV of the personal shoppers continues to be 3X of the store ATV, substantiating our premiumization journey. Now, if I talk about the department formats, the department format, which is the Shoppers Stop, grew by 8%. We had closed seven departmental stores and resized three department stores during the year. The stores were closed as they were making losses due to multiple factors and to improve productivity. We also resized three stores. If we had continued to operate those stores, our growth would have been circa 10% this quarter. As I mentioned at the start, we have completed the state-of-the-art renovation of our Malad store. Looking at the initial responses and the very high growth in productivity, we are planning to have similar stores for our high productivity, similar model for our high productivity stores. Now, let me talk about the CapEx, working capital, and cash flow. We added 16 stores during the quarter. We have spent INR 53 crores during the quarter on capital and deposit to these leases. Our working capital reduced by 30 crores against the beginning of the year, and against last year, it has increased by 29 crores, primarily due to increased volume and Intune. We have spent INR 141 crores as CapEx and deposits year to date, and expect to spend further 90 crores in Q4. Outlook. The wedding season will start from tomorrow, post the new Hindu month. We expect the weddings to continue, and I'm confident that our India Wedding at Shoppers Stop campaign will further boost our sales and customers during the quarter. Our investment in experiential retailing will continue. Our USP is on our customer journey, which we have built over a period of time, and with every single thing which we are doing, it is getting strengthened. In addition to Beauty retail, our Beauty distribution has stepped up in the pace in the last two years, and we will continue to invest in this business over the period of time. Our investment in marketing will continue to sustain the loyalty levels. We will continue to have customer-centric personalized communication as well, which will help us to outgrow our KPIs. On the cost, and I think it's very important, we are continuously rationalizing the cost. At the like-for-like level, the cost has increased just by a mere 2%, and that's a testimony of the controls which we are trying to maintain at the cost level. Lastly, with growth levers firing on all cylinders, besides mitigating some of the critical risks, we expect a decent Q4. At the start of, or in my last call, we had spoken that in H2 we will be close to a 5% like-for-like. That was the guidance, and we stick to that number for the coming quarter as well. I will conclude now and take the questions from all of you. Thank you. 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 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 Ankit Kedia from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead. Hey, hi, Kavindra. It's a good set of numbers. Just wanted to know on Shoppers Stop department stores, you know, YTD we are still negative store count. So in quarter four, while we have alluded, we will open six stores. Any store closures expected in quarter four and in FY26? How do you see the pipeline of store opening and store closures? Thanks, Ankit. Thank you for the good feedback. So I think, as we have spoken last time in the last call, getting and rationalizing the stores is one of the most important activities for us. I'm happy to share that I think we are more or less at the end of that cycle because we have taken exceptional efforts in Q3 to reduce or to execute most of the closures which we wanted. I see six stores opening in Q4. In the year FY26, we are looking anywhere between 12- 15 stores opening as a new store count. As I mentioned, I think we are at the end of the cycle of rationalizing our stores, Ankit. So I don't see a lot of stores getting closed or rationalized in the coming year. I think we have done a lot of legwork in this quarter. So any particular geography where the demand was not there, these stores were loss-making, and hence the store closures have come? Could you give some color on what type of stores have been closed? Were they on aging basis, last five-year stores opened, or previous the bigger stores which we were rationalizing? No, I think what we are seeing is that in certain markets, when the market shifts, right, then standalone stores at times are not able to drive that kind of a walk-in. And I think primarily those are the kind of stores which we have looked at, looking at the market opportunity and then saying that, "Okay, we'll take a call." In very few cases, we exit the market. For example, we exited the market in case of the Agra, right? But otherwise, we don't exit the markets. Maybe we move it to a mall store, that kind of a thing. Sure. My second question is on the Beauty business. While we have spoken a lot on premiumization, in Beauty predominantly, we have matched each other premium with Estée Lauder. Despite that, our growth in Beauty has only been 3%. So what are the challenges we are facing despite getting so many brands, despite stores opening? We are at only 3% ex B2B business in Beauty. I will request Biju to answer the question, Ankit. Just to clarify, 3% doesn't include our 100% global. I mean, that's a completely different vertical. So we have not considered that growth in the 3%, Ankit. Right. That's why my question is for the B2C business and not B2B, which is the SS global business. Right. Right. Biju, are you there? Biju? Yes. Yes. I will take that question. Thank you, Ankit. Just to come back and reflect on your question. See, principally, there has been a bit of softness on the masstige or lifestyle segment, the value segment. That is quite the case overall, and that is also reflective in our ecosystem, but for us, what has worked well, and to what Kavindra expressed, is the premium and the premium plus, and particularly in the beauty segment, we also have luxury brands. I think that segment has consistently grown. And because we focus heavily and because Shoppers has become a beauty and Shoppers has become quite a destination for these segments, I think there's an over-indexing of those segments growing quite well. While masstige, the reality is that masstige at the value segment has really seen some pressure. And in that context, we have just launched a private label brand in beauty. What is the positioning of that, and what is the white space you are looking to fill? Because I believe that's also in the masstige category, right? Yes. So excellent question. So basically, as you can see, the landscape in masstige is getting quite crowded in the context of profitability. And basically, opportunity still exists because that is a huge category. So when we did our market mapping, we understood that there is still a good opportunity for masstige brands with value proposition so long as the quality and consistency is good and high. And this is the reason why we launched a new brand by the name Geologie in conjunction with Intercos, because Intercos is one of the largest or the best in class when it comes to manufacturing. So together, we collaborated and 100% made in India because Intercos set up their own factory here in India. So we have embarked on this journey because we think that for consistent growth, we need brands that are able to have quality but good value proposition. So to mitigate the risk that we see currently or the fluctuation that we see in the masstige category with existing brands not being able to scale up profitably, we said that, "Okay, there is an opportunity to enter," and that's where Geologie is positioned. But given that with the marketing muscle of the existing brands and they would be available across channels, and if they are not able to make a profit, and with Geologie only present in our stores and a little bit online, it would be more tougher for us to be profitable, right? Given that the value differentiation is only on product and not on assortment. So basically here, what we are trying to do is we are not going the discount route. And as you know, we are quite good when it comes to the experience part of it. We want to replicate the success that we have seen in Prestige, which is largely the services and the experience part of it, but with a value proposition because there is a set of customers that is eager to try that experience, and there is a bit of a fatigue that is coming around masstige or revolving around discounts. And we want to differentiate Geologie with that set of experiences, and that's where we would focus on. And for the moment, we have launched in Shoppers Stop from a brick-and-mortar perspective, and as you mentioned, most of the online players. But we are also introducing them in the other brick-and-mortar players. So this is just launched, and the expansion is in the pipeline. Thank you, Biju. My last question is on Intune. Intune growth has been a bit soft. We are at around INR 9,000 sales per sq ft run rate, ± INR 500. That's a little muted compared to the market leader. While I understand it's a one and a half year old brand, at what level do you see EBITDA level breakeven for Intune in the next one or two years, and what is a consistent throughput we should model over the next two years for this business? And if you have to say one year older stores, how are they? What is their SSG, and what is their throughput in Intune? Thank you, Ankit. I will try and break this question into two parts. The long-term view on EBITDA breakeven, maybe Karun or Kavindra can touch upon, but the part on the sales productivity, you are right, INR 9,000 is a little muted. If you break that down, we see the network as mature stores and new stores, and we are too young to see a year-old age as mature. For us, even a six-month-old store is considered as mature. So there is at least a 25% productivity increase when you see the productivity for mature stores. Mature stores hover somewhere around 11,000 sq ft, INR 11,000 per sq ft. So there is that journey which is now demonstrated that as the store matures in age, the productivity improves. That's part one to your question. Part two is the overall softness of SPS in Q3. There were some clear reflections that brought it down. One, you may have seen from your last three quarters decks that this is the first time we got into markets where winter came into play, predominantly north and a larger expansion in Bangalore. As a business, we took a conscious call of being conservative on winter because this is the first time Intune was getting into this play. And a pleasant surprise, a blessing in disguise, we outperformed. So as we entered December, softness of availability in winter wear is where these markets pulled us down. We are confident we will get this corrected next year now that we have a demonstration of success. The other thing that we saw which pulled us down a little bit is starting end of November and all through December, a lot of brands in this phase were running discounts in the name of Black Friday or in the name of mid-season sales. We consciously took a call that we did not want to go down that route. We started our EOSS only on 28th December. And in the process, we did see some additional softness. Both these factors were factors that we had cognizance of. That combined with the fact that as the stores mature, the productivity improves, gives me confidence that there is no long-term dissonance as far as Intune's success is concerned. Does this answer the first part of your question? If yes, then I will request Karun to focus on the EBITDA part. Yes, Devang. Thank you for the elaborate answer. Hey, hi, Ankit. On the breakeven part of Intune's stores, Kavindra did cover it in his speech. We are very close to breakeven at the store EBITDA level. You also said that, right? We are just 18 months of operation. In fact, the first six months, we had less than 10 stores. I mean, most of the stores have opened in this year. To answer that question, next year, sometime in Q3, Q4, we should have a complete breakeven, including the SO cost. And from year three onwards, we should make a decent profit, Ankit. So is it fair to assume at a 350-400 revenues and rate, you should breakeven in Intune? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Ankit. That's a fair assumption. Thank you. And all the best. Thank you. Thanks a lot, Ankit. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sameer Gupta from India Infoline. Please go ahead. Hi sir, good morning. Congratulations on a good set of numbers, and thanks for taking my question. Firstly, just wanted to touch upon the store closure part. I understand Ankit also asked it in some way, but I have a slightly different question. So last nine years, if I look at it, including this one, we have closed around 31 department stores. It seems that for whatever reasons, closures are a normal occurrence. Maybe it gets bunched up in a particular quarter, but over a two, three-year period, normally this business will see closures, and that could be due to relocations or some other aspects. So how do you look at it? Going forward, when you say 12-15 store additions, you are not baking in closures. So from a modeling perspective, we should take it as a prudent exercise to bake in some closures. Your thoughts? So thank you for the question. When we looked at the aging of our stores and the profitability, we did a very detailed exercise, and we saw that there are a certain set of stores which we should have taken a call before. And I think that's what we have done. So that's why while they are bunched up together, the discussions or the process started around six months back. I think most of the stores which we have closed now, a lot of them were high street stores and stores which were aging anywhere between seven to eight years. I think we have done a lot of cleanup now. So if I'm talking about next year, if you're looking at 12- 15 stores across, there might be two or three closures or at max, one or two closures at max which will come. Otherwise, a lot of that work has happened as we speak this quarter. Guru, I'll just add only one thing, Guru. Sameer, sorry, Sameer. Sorry, sorry. While you're modeling, what you should also factor in is all these stores are, as Kavindra said, has lost its sheen for a number of reasons. The customers have shifted. There would be a bridge or where it's passing through or a number of reasons. The sales have come down significantly. That's the reason we are closing down the stores. So while calculating the sales per store or something like that, just factor that. I mean, that's the only suggestion I would have. I mean, I think in other words, the stores are getting closed because they have lost that critical mass. So the impact in terms of closures won't be on an average side. The weighted average would be still better is what you're trying to say. Yeah, yeah, definitely. That I understand, sir. Thanks for answering it in detail. Second question is on this LFL growth of 4%. And when I see the SPS also up around 4%, you have mentioned the challenging retail environment. So just wanted to understand how sustainable do you think this LFL is? Is it significantly impacted by the store closures that we have done, like seven in this one year? If you remove them from the base, that is how you will calculate LFL. Or do you see it sequentially improving this LFL growth from here on? I remember last quarter when we started, October was at 9% LFL, so it's already materially deteriorated from that. So just wanted to understand on this aspect as well. So Sameer, if you remember my commentary of last quarter, I said H2 will be around 5%, right? Because what was happening was that October was when all the festivals were getting bunched. Then November had a lower base, and then December again, the weddings took over, right? What we are seeing is that, as I mentioned, we stick to the stance of H2, 5% like-for-like growth. While the market might be tough, there are a lot of these initiatives, the IPs which I talked about, is helping us to get more reason for the consumer to come and shop with us. I think that is the basis on which we are trying to say that, "Okay, this is the way we want to look at our business." I'm pretty sure that that number which we have mentioned, and as we speak, the first 15 days of this month, we are in fact doing better than the average of last quarter. The LFLs continue to remain steady with us, and we have that mechanism in terms of driving consumers through product, brand, and IPs to ensure that we have a higher right to win vis-à-vis our peers. Kavindra, my question is actually a little bit beyond the second half. So let's say the market conditions remain muted, how confident are you with your initiatives to sustain this 4%-5% LFL? Very confident, Sameer, to answer that. Yeah, because this is just the start. So for example, I spoke about Intune at Shoppers Stop. Now, this business was not there with us in certain ways. In the last two months, we have got a revenue of around 60 crore, right? 66 crore. Part of that would be something which would anyway come to us, and part of that is something which is an additional thing for us. This initiative alone should be a 300 crore upside for us next year. Then we have just renovated our Malad store, and we are looking at an amazing productivity there. In fact, our productivity for Malad has gone up by 50%. The SPS and GMROS are higher by 50%. So what I'm trying to say is there are enough reasons and mechanisms by which we are driving this customer growth, and I think this is a new way of our ability to drive LFL, which is not only dependent upon the market because customers are shopping. It's not that the customers are not shopping. With the option of being the location where you get the brands which are not available everywhere else, by having a great mix of categories and by rationalization and focus on prioritization, I think there are a lot of reasons why we can drive this LFL. Great, great, Kavindra. I'll just squeeze in one more question if I may. So this beauty part. So I mean, we've delivered a 3% YY growth. I understand masstige, there are some challenges, but when I look at your peer, Nykaa, they are reporting consistently 20-20% + kind of a growth in this channel, and there's a fair bit of masstige. Actually, their masstige contribution might actually be higher than Shoppers. So why is there such a big dissonance in the top two players in beauty retailing category? You would like to answer that? Yeah, so I'll take it. So basically, you're right. The point is we see the October, November season, October, November, December season heavily focused on promotions and offers, particularly the Black Friday, Singles Day, etc., etc. So obviously, their strategy is quite different from our strategy. And here we are looking at sustainable long-term growth, which is revolving around experiences. And this is largely tied up to the premiumization journey and the expansion journey that we are working around. And hence, we are sometimes constrained to do things on a long-term sustainable model than just to live in the moment. And that is where probably we have not been able to follow the competition. Secondly, we are clear that we are an omnichannel destination, and we want to focus our strategy on that direction. So that is also one of the reasons why we probably did not do as far with what Nykaa did. Got it. But you don't foresee this as a clear shift in the customer buying pattern in terms of retail, as a beauty product basket, more online and more discount-oriented? That's not happening. No. So basically for us, as I said, our strategy is quite focused on long-term sustainable growth. You're right. The market is overheated. And obviously today, it's all about the acquisition of the customer and to continue sustained growth because there is already a pressure to continue to do that. But how long that is going to be sustainable is a bit of a question. And I think, and this is not from the context of Shoppers, but as a beauty expert, it's going to be tough to continue to sustain this type of offers, promotions, and growth. But having said that, at Shoppers, we are very clear, and beauty within Shoppers, we want to be clear that we want to do sustainable growth. Obviously, we are not going to ignore the competitive landscape, but we'll try and do what is appropriate so that we don't get into that desperate measure and get sucked into that situation where then you are compelled to burn to earn. Great. I think this answers my question in detail. Thanks. Thanks a lot for taking all these questions. I'll come back in the queue for any follow-ups. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Gaurav Jogani from JM Financial. Please go ahead. Thank you for the opportunity, sir. And I mean, I would like to congratulate you on the renovation of the Malad store. It looks really fabulous the way it's done. Thank you. So you. So sir, my first question is with regards to the revenue growth for the core business in the standalone. That is, if we adjust for the Intune's revenues in both the quarters, the growth comes to around 3% all. Now, despite net store additions that we have seen on a YY basis there, still the growth remains anemic. It's just 3%. So what are we doing additionally to drive this growth here in the segment on the growth X of the Intune? So Gaurav, sorry, I was not able to understand the question. Was it that the growth minus Intune is that the question you asked? Sorry, I didn't hear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So growth minus the Intune is 38% all if you look at it on the standalone basis. Gaurav, while we are including the Intune, Kavindra, just explain to Ankit also. We have almost closed seven to eight department store stores in the last nine months. In addition to that, we also had Malad. We had to close, particularly during the Diwali season because we were renovating the store. If you exclude those bases from last year and this year, our LFL growth is still between close to 4% because these closures and Malad renovation will be anywhere between 45- 50 crores in the top line only for quarter three. So you have to factor both to get the LFL growth. So the LFL growth of 4%, Gaurav, which we mentioned, is I think amongst many quarters, it's amongst the highest which we have gotten. Sure, sure. And sir, this LFL growth that we are seeing in this Q3 also specifically because there was a better wedding season and a better festive season around. So that was also one of the factors. Do you see this sustaining going ahead in even Q4 and the months ahead given the initiatives that you have taken around the First Citizen, the other parts of the business? Yes, Gaurav. We are very, very confident that what we have done in Q3 is not a one-time phenomenon. There are right from the big, and I think this is something which I have always been talking through all my calls, is that we need to make Shoppers Stop the destination for consumers. We need to give them a reason to come and shop, and there is enough business happening in the market. We need to make the customers come to us. I think we have now got the fundamentals in place, whether it's through premiumization, whether it is through the business, through the brand IPs, whether it's through the mixed beauty, non-apparel. I think we have a very, very strong offering for the customer, a compelling choice, and that's the reason we are very sure that this LFL will continue. It's not one time. Sure. Sir, on the beauty part of the business, while we have been adding the EBOs and the stores there, if you look at the absolute sales in the beauty business, I mean, even at considered Q3, FY23 levels, the revenue growth is around that INR 240-270 crore mark in that range. Would it be prudent to understand that while it would have gone down on a first-store basis and that said, but the focus largely is to drive profitable growth and hence be hit in the short term? Would that be a right understanding? Does this pattern also follow through the overall larger piece of the business, not only beauty, but the whole part of the business wherein the focus would be on a sustainable, profitable growth? If we were to sacrifice some of the growth for it, we are ready for the same. So let me answer the broader thing, and maybe then Biju can also add specifically for beauty as well. See, I think across the last three to four quarters, we have been talking the thesis which is on sustainable, profitable growth. So all the actions which we are doing has to result in a profitability at the end of the day. So whether it's store closures, whether it is rationalizing of private brands, whether it is giving up spaces for brands which are not right. I think we have done this journey continuously. And that is something which, as a team, we strongly believe in, Gaurav. And you can see that. For example, private brands, while the overall top line has come down as a contribution, actually, if you look at it, the profitability, although we don't share a segment by this thing, the contributions actually have gone up substantially. So I think that is the journey in which we are. And on the beauty piece, while Biju can talk about the qualitative piece as a number, the beauty CAGR over the last two years is around 7.5% for us. So I think that's something which is sustainable, and we'll keep on building on that. Biju, you want to add on something, any point here? Yeah, sure, sure. So just two points here. Like for department store, even for beauty, whenever we have a store that is not profitable and we see that in the mid-term, long-term, it is not going to be profitable, we also tend to take the same actions that we do with department stores. That's the point number one. Second, what we have been doing in the last two to three quarters is starting to show results. But as a strategy, when we talk about a strategic intervention, our desire here is to allow the Indian beauty consumers to have the best of the representation. So you touched upon rightly the boutique journey. So the boutique is the best expression, but maybe sustainability-wise, yes, few, but not many. So we have multiple formats. And between beauty within Shoppers Stop, SS Beauty, and boutique, we think that we are feeding in the right strategy which will eventually take us to that bigger, bolder number. So these are the two things that I would like to reflect upon to give you confidence that this is something that we'll continue to do in line with the larger, broader strategy and obviously driving the premiumization, the premium, premium plus, and the dominance in fragrances, etc., etc. Sure, sir. Thank you. That helps. Thank you so much. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Varish Bansal from GE Shipping Family Office. Please go ahead. Sure. Hi, sir. Congratulations for the strong topline numbers. When we speak of, let's say, rationalization on stores from the stores' point of view, are we also doing in-store rationalization? Are we looking at third-party brands and how much area to give to each brand as per the sales they generate? And also, are we looking at the area split between beauty and non-beauty segment within the departmental stores? Are we looking at those factors, or we are just talking about opening and closing of departmental stores? So Varish, thank you for this question. See, I think the question which you have actually asked is that do we keep on looking at how the productive areas are, right, whether it's within the categories and within the brands? So, Varish, happy to share with you that it's a once-in-a-six-month process when we look at how are the brands performing within categories. And if we feel that certain categories are going to do better, then allocate more spaces to them. So I think brand churn is not only at the chain level, but it is also at the store level. So that is one point of view. We have a KPI called GMROS, which actually means the profitability of each of the square feet. And that's something which is very sacrosanct for us, which means that in certain cases, if we feel that certain private brands have no right to win because the GMROS in certain categories are lower, we have also taken calls to reduce and rationalize that space. I think that is, for any retailer, the heart of the business. It's something which we, at the category level, do continuously. I think there's a continuous monitoring of this data point because finally, the space is finite. As a team, we need to deliver the maximum productivity out of it. And we churn the brands also at the store level. Got it. So this is a recent exercise or, I mean, I'm sure you must be doing it from the inception. But recently, anything more that you have done on this space? So it has always been there. See, Varish, it's the heart of running the retail business. So I think this is something which we continuously do. If your question is that, have you seen certain categories perform better? And then have you increased the space? So yes, for example, in certain cases, for example, when we renovated Malad, the spaces for beauty were increased. In certain stores where we see watches have got a right to win, we ensure that that happens. In certain renovations, we feel that the women's Indian wear has to do better or is doing better than women's fashion. We do that. So I think it's a continuous journey, Varish. Got it. And my question is around Intune. Now that some of the stores are matured, what is the average inventory we are keeping in the store or, let's say, the inventory cycle in a particular mature Intune store? Thanks, Varish. The idea is to have anywhere between six to eight weeks of inventory in the store. Okay. So that is the actual number that we are currently at? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Akshay Kothari from JHP Securities Private Limited. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. I had two questions. First of all, is Intune value fashion or is it value fast fashion? And my second question would be, sir, I recently visited the Intune store which has opened at Jogeshwari, which was placed next to Zudio. While I agree that the experience, and I have also visited Shoppers Stop, the experience at Shoppers Stop is amazing. When we visit Intune, and since it is placed next to Zudio, there are a lot of stark differences in the experience. For example, the store at Intune doesn't have automatic doors. In fact, none of the Intune stores have automatic doors. There's their guard who is going to pull up, and then you enter. There are no mannequins. The designing of, you can say, the changing rooms is pretty, pretty like you are entering a cave. I have also visited Vashi and Nalasopara stores. So I don't know whether you are going for just because you are selling the product cheap; are you also looking to offer experience at Intune? Thank you, Akshay. I'll answer the first part of the question first. I think we are at a time when fashion, which is not fast, is no longer fashion. So we are everyone in the business of fast fashion, right? Customers will not forgive us if we are not. And Intune is also in the same boat. Secondly, about your experience, feedback well taken. I think the experience of a customer inside a store is a journey, and it improves over time. I would like to believe that we've improved from the first month to the 18th month. And I would definitely like to commit that as we go along, this is a continual improvement. To the specific points that you raised, well noted. To a point about whether experience is important or not, it is definitely important. Maybe if you got a chance to interact with the staff in the store, a big part of the experience is the way the staff helps you out and the way the staff responds to you. I hope that experience was good for you and that experience was in the line of the Shoppers Stop legacy that, as a company, we've created over the last 30 years. If yes, then all the other points, I think, do keep visiting our stores. I think you will keep seeing significant improvements in experiences. Thanks a lot and all the best. Yeah. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shalini Gupta from East India Securities. Please go ahead. Sir, I had one question. Sorry. I had one question regarding private labels. Now, private label was a focus area for Shoppers Stop for many years, but now I find is that the sales have kind of tapered off because you are probably rationalizing your portfolio, so is it still a focus area, and what can we expect going forward from private labels? Absolutely, Shalini, great question. I think private brands continue to remain the focus for us, but as I said, I think in the other query, I think which Varish asked me, any category, whether it's private or national brands, has to justify the space in the store, which means that the GMROS has to be strong. It's not only about the top line, but it's about the profitability, and I think we have really focused on that. What we have also done is, and as a part of rationalization, we have discontinued non-core categories in private brands. So when you see the comparison, you will see that there are certain categories like footwear, etc., which we used to run, or handbags, which we have ensured that we have reduced them. The core categories actually have become very sharper. And if you visit the stores, Shalini, you will find that the product quality, the premiumization which we are talking in national brands can be easily seen in the way it is there in private brands. In fact, I'm very happy to share that Kashish, which is our women's wear brand, was the number one brand for productivity in Q3. And for men's wear, it was Bandeya. So I think we are actually doing a very, very interesting work in a year where in private brands, the story is less is more. You need to make less merchandise, light merchandise, and get more profitability. That is the journey of private brands. It's not about top line. It's about profitability and able to have products in the categories where you don't have the right to win in national brands. I think that's what we are focusing on. And that will help us to improve our profitability as well as Q3. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Naitik from NV Alpha Fund. Please go ahead. Hi, sir. My question is regarding the expansion plans of Intune. So if you could just mention how many stores you plan to add in FY26 and say FY27 because I believe in the starting, you mentioned that you are planning to add 15-16 overall stores in FY26. So that, I believe, does not include Intune. Yeah, yeah. What we spoke about is the department stores. You are spot on. Let me talk in detail about Intune. We said we have opened 59 stores as of 31st December 2024. We are planning to open another 26 stores in Q4, taking [us] to 85 stores in FY25. That is March 31st, 2025. Next year, we are planning anywhere between 90-100 stores. Some of them have been already contracted with the landlords. And that's our plan right now for 25, 26. Right, right. And sir, my another question on Intune as a format was what kind of payback period do we work with when we are working on, say, 90-100 store additions? What is our thought process behind that? The payback is slightly more than three years right now. But just now, my colleague Kavin spoke about. The stores get matured, we expect the payback also to come down. All right. I got it. That's it from my side. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rajiv from Nuvama Wealth Management Limited. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity. So with regard to Intune, so your earlier target was 50 stores in the second half, right? So what actually happened? Why this? Yeah. So when we opened the 49 stores on 30th September, we said we will open 51 stores in the second half. And we also spoke about in his speech, because of the fog or the smog, whatever you call, there are restrictions imposed by the local government. And we could not open; we were supposed to open 25 stores. We could open only 10 this quarter, taking up to 59. We could not open between 10- 15 stores during this quarter because of the pollution and other things, and that progressively got delayed, so that's the reason we are unable to open 100 stores this quarter. We will be opening up to 85 stores this year. In addition to that, there is a certain productivity that we have in terms of opening the stores, and we would not like to compromise the effectiveness of opening stores by covering up all the backlog in the months of February and March. That is why we've consciously taken a call that 85 is what we will have by March end, but the journey continues seamlessly from 31st March- 1st April, and I think we will hit the 100 mark very soon. Perfect. And in terms of, let's say, getting leases on Intune or other format, has it become slightly more tricky now since more profit revenue linked leases is what we are getting now? No, we have not seen any such shift. I mean, it's a fixed rental. And if the sales go beyond a particular amount, then the variable part gets triggered. So the same model continues. There is no change in that. We have not seen any change. Perfect. That's all from my side. All the best. Thanks. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jay Prakash, who is an individual investor. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good afternoon to everyone. First of all, congratulations for this quarter. Hopefully, you will continue this growth trajectory. My first question is, you have planned for 26 Intune stores and six department stores in this Q4. In the southern part of India, you have a plan for Andhra Pradesh, Telangana. But you have not considered anything about in Tamil Nadu. If you talk about Tamil Nadu, it is one of the top GDP contributing states as well as per capita income also. It is higher. Have you done any geographical study and things? Why have you not increased the stores beyond Chennai, cities like Coimbatore or any other southern part of cities? So, Mr. Jay Prakash, thank you for your remarks and the question. Actually, eventually, definitely, we will come into Chennai and TN as well because, as you said, it's an important market. And our CFO also comes from there. So I'm sure he will put enough pressure on us to do that. I think as a start, we actually started with a cluster approach for Intune. So we are just trying to populate for the Hyderabad, Telangana, Andhra market. And slowly, we will see TN also coming next year, right? Yeah. Yeah. My second question is, how about your short-term borrowings? It keeps increasing from INR 105 crores to 174- 177 crores. Sorry. Your voice is not clear, Jay Prakash. Are you talking about the borrowings? Yeah, short-term borrowing. What borrowings? I'm sorry. Short-term borrowings keep increasing from last three years from INR 105 crores to 174 crores- 177 crores. Okay. Let me probably just take a minute to explain. So we have INR 149 crores as a cash credit limit with the banks. And that has been consistent for many, many years right now, probably for seven or eight years. And you know, after the gap, all these cash credits are classified as short-term borrowings. We also have INR 80 crores as a term loan, 50 from Kotak and 30 from HDFC. So any repayment that comes within a year is also classified as a short-term borrowing. All I want to say is, I mean, there are borrowings. And the short-term borrowings and long-term borrowings are completely fungible. There is no difference as of now. On your next question, has the borrowings increased? Yes, the borrowings have increased. If you've seen our first quarter results, the first half results, the profits were slightly lower. But we continued our expansion plan in terms of Capex. And we also increased the number of Intune stores. On the Capex, we will be spending around about INR 230 crores this fiscal. On Intune working capital also, we will be spending about INR 50-INR 60 crores. So whenever there is a gap between our expansion plus working capital increase, reserves is the EBITDA. We have to borrow. But we are reasonably confident that this year is one of the worst years. From next year onwards, our EBITDA should be equivalent to the capital plus the fixed service plus the working capital. And we should be able to easily manage that. Okay. Fine. Thank you. And last part, as an individual and as a retail investor, I was expecting some long-term benefit from your company. That last dividend was in 23rd July 2019. And rights issue was on 2020. Since then, there was not. Is there any discussion on the table about for dividend or bonus or something to the investors? We do discuss from time to time. But I mean, normally, these things happen at the year-end. We just completed the quarter three. So if there is any such discussion, then obviously it would be available to the public domain. There was no such discussion in Q3, Jay Prakash. Fine. And one more thing is that I expected you your strategy should be more bringing that the people who are going to college, that kind of age category that is around 19-2 5 are the first time who are going to job. And those people must visit the Shoppers. Accordingly, you have to cater them with products for their Intune because they are the ones going to come back again and again. And also, they will be your ambassador. That is, those youth people will purchase some good things. Obviously, they will bring more people to your stores. So I need that your product portfolio must include those satisfying or catering those categories. And thank you for the opportunity. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you. And thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Jay Prakash. Thank you, Mr. Rajiv. Thank you, Mr. Rajiv. Thank you, Mr. Rajiv. We will work on that. Thank you. The next follow-up question is from the line of Naitik from NV Alpha Fund. Please go ahead. Hi. Hi, Hi, sir. My follow-up question is again on Intune. If you could give me a bit of the store economics, like the store sizes, CapEx, and OpEx that you plan to along with inventory in the new stores that you are going to open. Sorry, I didn't understand. Yeah, again, we could not understand. Are you saying that you need the store economics? Yeah, yeah, yeah. On Intune, the store economics that we plan, like the size of the stores that we are planning to add and what are the Capex and Opex that would be required and inventory that would be required in store, etc. The size of the store is around 5,000 sq ft. That's always been our guidance. ± a normal tolerance that's available. I think as far as the overall economics are concerned, Karuna did mention sometime that the ideal payback period is three years. So everything is back-calculated, keeping in mind what a three-year payback affords us to spend on. I think we are pretty much industry benchmark as far as Opex standards are concerned. There is no number which significantly deviates between us and any of the other markets. So I'm pretty sure that we will have those benchmarks available. So is there anything specific? Yeah. CapEx is between 1,600-1,700, depending upon the stores. Again, Kavin spoke about inventory at the stores, which is between six to eight weeks of inventory. I mean, they are fairly consistent with every other value format you can see in the industry. Got it, sir. So even for Intune, the average size is 5,000 sq ft, right? Yeah. Our average size is 5,000 sq ft. You are right. Got it. Got it. Thank you, sir. That's it from us. Thank you. Thank you. you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as the last question. On behalf of Shoppers Stop Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.