Gaja Alternative Asset Management (NSE:GAJA) Q2 2027 Earnings Call

0:02 Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Gaja Alternative Asset Management q two h one FY twenty seven earnings conference call. As a reminder, all parts and lines will be in a listen only mode, and there'll be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Devakat Pingley from Thank you, and over to you. Thank you so much. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the earnings call of Gaja Alternative Asset Management Limited. The company has published its results and uploaded investor presentations on the exchanges earlier today. Before we start, a disclaimer.

0:48 Some of the statements made in today's earnings call may be forward looking in nature. Such forward looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which can cause actual results to differ from those anticipated. Such statements are made on management beliefs and assumptions based on information currently available to the management. Audiences are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward looking statements while making their investment decisions. On that note, let me introduce you to the management today. We have with us Mr. Ranjit Shah, Executive Vice Chairman Mr. Gopal Cheng, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer and Mr. Arvindav Jain, Chief Financial Officer and other members of the team. Without further ado, I'd like to hand over the call to Gopal Jain for his remarks.

1:35 Thank you, and over to you, Gopal. Good evening, everyone. I'm Ranjit Shah, Executive Vice Chairman. And with me are Gopal Jain, Managing Director Imran Jafar, Executive Director and Abhinav Jain, Chief Financial Officer. Once again, good evening, and thank you for joining our results call for the second quarter and the first half of FY 'twenty six'twenty seven. These are our second quarterly results as a listed pure play alternatives asset management company and the first in which a quarter end balance sheet reflects the proceeds of our IPO. Some of you joined our first call in September, and some of you are engaging with our business for the first time. We have, therefore, kept the same structure as our last call, a short introduction to who we are and what we do, the key highlights of the quarter and the half year and a slide by slide walkthrough of the investor presentation, which covers how our platform operates and earns.

2:37 Let me start with who we are. Gaja Alternative AMC is a fund manager of AIFs and an adviser to offshore funds that invest in high growth, innovation led mid market companies in India. Since 2005, we have raised four funds in our flagship strategy with more than INR 4,200 crores of committed capital, invested across multiple market cycles and generated an average gross multiple of 3.8x across our mature funds. We are now raising a fifth fund for our flagship strategy while diversifying into a new strategy, secondaries. For those who are new to the company, a word on why we are public.

3:22 India's savings pool is growing fast as the growth of the mutual fund industry shows. Yet alternatives, meaning private equity and venture capital investments in unlisted businesses, remain accessible to a very small share of investors because alternative investment funds are restricted to qualified investors. Listed Alternatives AMC changes that. Any investor can now own the manager and with it, the economics of every fund the platform raises. This follows a proven global playbook. Listed alternative asset managers have created substantial value for their shareholders since they began listing nearly twenty years ago.

4:08 And institutional ANCs are very much preferred by institutional LPs or fund investors, making fundraising faster and less expensive. We covered the IPO in detail on our last call, so I will only recap it. We listed on 08/26/2026. The offer was INR $5.50 crore, including a fresh issue of INR $4.50 crore and was subscribed 32.8 times. The net proceeds are being used to make sponsor commitments to Fund IV, Fund V and Eastgate secondaries and for general corporate purposes. And Slide 23 of our investor presentation shows how much of that has been deployed so far. How the IPO has strengthened our balance sheet and what that means for our capacity to grow is one of the main themes of today's call, and I will come to it in the highlights.

5:07 Let us look at the key highlights for the quarter and the half year ended 09/30/2026. You would have read the press release, the investor presentation and the financials, which were uploaded earlier today. I refer to Slide three of the investor presentation and to the income statements on Slides 18 to 20. Firstly, for the second quarter, total income was INR 65.5 crore, up 26% on the first quarter and profit after tax was INR 64.7 crore, up 138% on the first quarter and 54% on the same quarter last year. In the first half of twenty sixtwenty twenty seven, we earned a total income of INR117.3 crore compared to INR110.4 crore in the first half of last year, a growth of 6% and a profit after tax of INR 91.9 crore compared to INR 62.1 crore, a growth of 48%.

6:09 And for the twelve months ended September 2026, total income was INR164.8 crore, a growth of 5% year on year, and profit after tax was INR111.8 crore, a growth of 28%. Our cost to income ratio for the half year was 29% against 38% a year ago. Our first half performance shows the strength of the underlying franchise, and I would draw out four things. First, income came from three of our funds. During the quarter, we earned income from Fund IV, Fund III and Fund II. Carried interest from a significant exit in Fund two contributed to growth in performance income, which rose 55% over the first quarter.

6:59 Fee income was largely flat at INR 15 crore for the quarter. Second, profit after tax grew 48% over the first half of FY twenty five'twenty six, and the Board has today declared an interim dividend of INR 50 per share or 10% of the face value. This follows the final dividend of 75 per share or 15% for FY 2026. This quarter's profit includes a write back of INR 15 crore from a lower provision for tax on our sponsor commitment gains revised on the advice of our new auditors, PricewaterCoopers. Third, we have strengthened the balance sheet. Net worth now stands at INR $110.06 crore as of 09/30/2026, up 92% from INR 574.6 crore a year ago, and we are nearly debt free.

7:56 Our strong balance sheet now earns treasury income, a fourth pillar of growth alongside management fees, carried interest and gains on sponsor commitments. Fourth, a significant part of our net worth INR $6.90 crore is in cash and liquid investments, which gives us a greatly enhanced capacity to raise new funds. At a sponsor commitment of 8.4% of fund size, which is the level of our commitment to fund four, that capital gives us the capacity to sponsor approximately INR 8,000 crore rupees of new funds. Every rupee of that capital when raised earns management fee and carried interest for the company, and the sponsor commitment itself earns the full return of the fund. Our two new funds, Fund V and Eastgate Secondaries Fund I, are making steady progress towards their capital raising targets, and we will say more about them when we come to Slide 15.

8:56 I now refer you to Slide four of our presentation, which sets out the six things that define the company: twenty two years of building a leading alternatives platform, a first quartile track record across all our funds, a global investor franchise of about 300 limited partners across more than 20 countries, a listed platform with robust governance and access to capital, a strong financial profile with a cash rich balance sheet and high profitability and a multi strategy road map with our flagship private equity strategy and secondaries both live. The charts on the right show the financial progression. Total income has grown from INR104 crore in FY 'twenty three-'twenty four to INR165 crore for the 12 to September 26 and profit after tax from INR45 crore to INR112 crore with the BAT margin rising from 43% to 68%.

10:01 Net worth has grown from INR332 crore at the end of twenty twenty three-twenty twenty four to INR1106 crore at 09/30/2026, including the IPO proceeds. Return on equity for the twelve months to September 2026 was 13%, and we will come back to that ratio when we discuss Slide 22. I will draw your attention to the next slide, Slide five. For those of you who are new to the company, Slide five shows the Board of the listed company, our leadership, our advisers and the Board of our Mauritius entity, and we would like to spend a moment on each. Our Board is chaired by Mr. Upendra Kumar Sinha in a nonexecutive capacity.

10:46 Mr. Sinha has spent over thirty eight years in public policy and financial markets, including as Chairman of SEBI and as Chairman and Managing Director of UTI Asset Management and Chairman of AMPRE. Mr. Pitri Pal Singh, Haldia, Non Executive Director, is the Founder of Prime Database and Praxis Consulting and has served on committees constituted by the Ministry of Finance, SEBI, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the NSC and the BSC. Mr. Shailesh Haripakti, an Independent Director, brings over thirty years in governance and audit and serves on the Boards of several leading listed companies. Mr. Manish Sabharwal, a Non Executive Director, is a Co Founder of Team Lease and has served on the Board of the Reserve Bank of India.

11:38 Doctor. Arindran Bhattacharya, an Independent Director, spent over twenty years at the Boston Consulting Group, including as Managing Partner of the India business And Nishita Kakar Mehra, an Independent Director, is a cofounder of Catalyst and brings twenty years of experience in leadership development and executive coaching. This is a highly experienced Board of Veterans in their respective fields. They provide independent perspectives on regulation, governance, strategy, finance and human capital. On the executive side, the defining characteristic of the team is continuity. The three cofounders have worked together since 2005. The investment leadership is supported by Sushin Chopra and Dheeraj Devta, both partners of the firm and Abhinav Jain is our Chief Financial Officer.

12:30 The average tenure of our senior leadership team is seventeen years. We're also supported by three operating and strategic advisers, Sanjay Patel, Chairman of Apollo Enterprise Strategies in New York Asim Chandra, Co Founder of immersa.ai and formerly Senior Vice President at Adobe Systems and Himanshu Shah, formerly Senior Director at Gaja Capital. The Board of our Mauritius entity includes two directors, Riaz Karimji, Founder and Managing Partner of Surya Capital and Saurabh Banerjee, Portfolio Manager at Columbia Threadneedle Investments. Let's move to Slide six, where we will take a minute to explain the structure. Public shareholders own shares in Gaja Alternative Asset Management Limited in the same way as any other listed stock.

13:22 The company is the asset manager. It earns management fees, carried interest, income from its sponsor commitment and treasury income on its own balance sheet. It retains all of these economics. The company manages AIFs and offshore funds across two strategies. The flagship strategy comprises four invested funds with a fifth registered with SEBI now raising. Fund one is realized, funds two and three are exiting, and Fund four is investing. And all four, as I said earlier, ranked first quartile against the industry benchmarks. The second strategy, Eastgate Secondaries has one fund, which is also raising. In future, we may add other strategies and funds, which the same AMC will develop and manage.

14:13 The structural point is that the shareholder is not buying exposure to a single fund vintage. The shareholder is buying the manager and therefore, participates in the economics of every fund the platform raises. Moving to Slide seven, this slide covers the market opportunity. AIF commitments in India reached INR 16,900,000,000,000 in FY 'twenty six, having grown at a compound rate of 29% a year since FY 'nineteen. Crystal projects growth of 25% to 27% a year to FY 'thirty, taking commitments to INR41 trillion to INR44 trillion. Over the same seven years, bank deposits grew 2.1 times and mutual fund AUM grew 3.3 times, while AIF commitments grew six times, making AIFs one of the fastest growing financial asset classes in the country.

15:12 On Slide eight, Slide eight is new this quarter and it covers the next wave of capital for alternatives, which is domestic institutions. The chart on the left puts the size of the domestic pools in perspective. Bank deposits stand at INR 260,800,000,000,000, mutual funds at INR 81,500,000,000,000, retirement pools, meaning NPS, EPFO and APY at INR 45,000,000,000,000 and AIF commitments at INR 16,900,000,000,000. Each of those larger pools is beginning to open up to alternatives. The NPS has been permitted to invest in Category one and Category two AIFs since January 2026 and it started making active commitments to AIFs in October 2026.

16:03 Insurers are permitted to invest within regulatory limits and their exposures remain nascent. Banks are permitted to invest and the RBI's easing of norms in January 26 is driving penetration. And the number of ultra wealthy individuals in India has grown 63% in the last five years, with managed wealth expected to nearly double by 2030. The emergence of domestic capital has the potential to make India one of the dominant alternative markets globally. On Slide nine, one of the key differentiators of Gaja AMC is the sponsor commitment, and sponsor commitment is where alignment becomes measurable. Our sponsor commitment across funds is INR $5.89 crore, including the two new funds, which represents 7.1% of total fund size.

16:58 Fund by fund, that is 6% of Fund two, 4.4% of Fund three, 8.5% of Fund 48.4% of the proposed Fund V and 7% of the proposed Eastgate Secondary Spun one. These levels are substantially above the minimum thresholds prescribed under the SEBI AIF regulations. This is significant for two reasons. First, our investors can see that we take the same risk they do. That helps us raise capital through our own network and lowers the cost of fundraising. Second, the sponsor commitment earns the entirety of fund performance without fees or carried interest, which improves the unit economics of the platform. The IPO has changed the scale at which we can do this. We have said that we plan to raise our sponsor commitment to 10% of fund size over time, and as Slide 14 shows, the cash and liquid investments on our balance sheet gives us the capacity to sponsor approximately INR 8,000 crores of new funds at an 8.4% sponsor commitment.

18:06 I now request Imran Jafar, Executive Director, to take the next two slides on key differentiators. Thank you, Ranjit. Good evening. I'll start at Slide 10. Our investment approach combines sector focus with a repeatable active ownership model. We invest across four sectoral teams within Indian mid market private equity, intelligence software automation, deep tech and AI, financial services, consumer and education, employment and employability. These are large growing sectors with strong macro tailwinds. We have added each sector carefully and gradually after deep research and coverage of the market. The value creation playbook is applied consistently across our investments.

18:56 We focus on mid market private enterprises with headroom to scale. We invest in partnership with professional entrepreneurs and management teams. We engage actively on strategy, talent, sales, finance and governance to help these companies scale, and we prepare these portfolio companies for strategic and financial exits. I'd like to take you now to Slide 11 to talk about our another key differentiator of the funds business, which is our diversified LP franchise. Our investor franchise is the engine of future fundraising. We have two ninety eight limited partners invested across Gaja Capital's existing funds. Our wider global and domestic investor network stands approximately 900 investors with relationships across India and more than 20 countries.

19:49 These investors include leading development financial institutions, sovereign wealth funds, leading Indian banks, top insurance companies, established domestic and overseas family offices and specialized fund of funds focused on deep tech and AI. These relationships built over two decades help us maintain a low cost of distribution. Because we raise most of our capital directly through this network, we rely less on distributors and intermediaries than would otherwise be typical for a manager of our size. Thanks, Sangraan. I now request Mr. Gopal Jain, MD and CEO, to cover the next few slides on our business model and growth strategy. Thank you, Ranjit. I'll first cover Slide 12, which covers our business model and the multiple income streams.

20:40 In addition to management fee, carried interest, and income from sponsor commitment, treasury income is emerging as the fourth pillar of our income. We have been saying so far that we have three pillars to our business. During this quarter, a fourth pillar has emerged. What is unique about Project Capital is that a 100% of each of these streams, namely management fee, carried interest, and income from sponsor commitment comes to the AMC and a 100% from each of the funds that we manage. For the twelve months to September 2026, fee income was 61.3 crore rupees or 37% of total income. Performance income was 85.4 crore rupees or 52%, and treasury income was 18.1 crores, 11%.

21:34 First, let's talk about our fee income. In our business, in the private equity business, specifically AIF category two businesses, management fee is fixed and is earned on the initial committed capital. After a few years, it is earned on the net invested capital of every fund we manage. Secondly, carried interest. Carried interest in simple terms is the share of the fund's profits. It is usually calculated above a hurdle rate, and we receive this carried interest from the fund as a manager. We earn carried interest with full catch up. This is again a unique aspect of our funds across all our funds. Also, are two typical methodologies.

22:20 One is the American waterfall. The other is the European waterfall. We use the European waterfall methodology, which is calculated on the fund as a whole rather than deal by deal. What that means is, first, we have to return the fund along with the hurdle, and then we start earning the carry. What this does is it makes the structure immune to clawbacks. Third, income from sponsor commitment. What is that? This is the return that we generate on the company's own capital committed to the funds, and we earn this capital free from management fee and carried interest because after all, we can't be paying fee and carried interest to ourselves, so we capture the gross multiple on invested capital in our funds.

23:10 Our valuation approach here is comprehensive and conservative. The funds are regulated by SETI. This is a SETI prescribed network, is audited at multiple levels, and we have been doing this for close to twenty years. Every quarter, we have been reporting the value of our fund to our investors, and we have a stellar track record in terms of timeliness, accuracy, and process. Fourth and finally, our treasury our treasury income. This is the return on the surplus cash and investments held on our balance sheet before they are drawn into sponsor commitments. We will explain shortly how this has significantly expanded during this quarter.

23:55 We manage this capital rather conservatively in liquid and debt investments. I'll now move to slide 13. Slide 13 talks about our business model and how the income streams build across a fund's life. Slide 13 shows how the three operating streams build over a fund's life through the four stages of raising a fund, investing a fund, building value in our companies, and exiting. Let's start with management fee. Management fee is recurring in nature, and we earn this through the fund's life. It is initially on the total invested capital, and then it declines on to come computed on net invested capital.

24:43 Income from sponsor commitment, the second stream, accrues through the fair valuation gains over the investment cycle until the fund is fully exited. The sponsor typically ends up earning more than the underlying investors because it gets the gross multiple on invested capital. Carried interest is earned during the exit period. It is earned after the principal has been returned, the initial committed capital, and after the hurdle rate has been crossed. So if you see this slide, you will see that you can see three different income streams, and this is useful... Highly useful from a modeling perspective, this slide. Our various funds today, Ranjit had mentioned that we want income this quarter from three different funds, are sitting at different points on this timeline.

25:32 Fund four is investing. It's building value. Fund three has begun exiting. Fund two is substantially realized and is generating carried interest. This is why this this quarter, our income comes from all of these three funds. Let me now move to Slide number 14. We've spoken about the IPO. But this quarter, we will capture and through this slide, we will capture what the IPO has done to our platform. It has significantly strengthened the platform. It has put us in bold position In terms of building a leading alternatives platform, the net worth of the company has increased to 1,106 crore rupees, of which cash and liquid investments amount to 690 crore rupees as on September 26.

26:27 What this, in a very rough back of the envelope way, you can easily calculate this, translates into is a fundraising potential of approximately 8,000 crore rupees. We've used 8.4% sponsor commitment, and we've calculated this 8,000 rupees. Beyond capital, this listing has strengthened three areas that drive the platform. The first is institutional fundraising because listed, transparent, and well governed manager has the profile that both domestic and global institutions look for. Second is attracting talent because the listed platform and brand helps us attract senior talent as we build out the flagship and new strategy teams. Our currency in terms of stock becomes more valuable.

27:14 The third is developing new strategies because now we have a greater ability to commit long term capital to seed and develop them, greater ability to raise capital, greater ability to attract deals. Enhanced fundraising superior talent and the ability to launch new strategies, this forms the flywheel that builds a multistrategy platform. I'll now move to Slide number 15, which describes the platform that we are creating and the new funds in our pipeline. Every new strategy leverages the GAJA platform built over twenty years, our brand and our track record, our ability to attract capital, talent, deals, our global investor and domestic LP franchise, our sector coverage and deep flow, and our team operations and governance.

28:05 We've described on this slide the two funds that are in our pipeline, and those are in the market in the 2026, 2027 time frame. Fund five is a continuation of our established flagship strategy. We have received steady approval for seeking commitments of 2,500 crores. It will be a closed ended fund, and initial term will be ten years, extendable by two. The fund is making steady progress towards its capital raising target. Please note that funds of these kinds typically take eighteen months from launch to final close, but start earning management fees from their first close. Also, all subsequent investors pay a catch up on the fee, which is they end... They pay fee calculated from the first close even if they come into a subsequent close.

29:00 Our strategy has essentially remained unchanged, though it has evolved over years, reflecting the growth in the Indian economy, the increasing of the Indian economy, the increasing size of mid market companies. We currently invest in mid market companies, which at an entry have enterprise values of up to 2,000 crore rupees and have the potential to scale up to save 10,000 crores in enterprise value. With ownership structure being either growth stage minority or participation in management buyers. Arguably, no other firm has done more management buyers than Gaja Capital. I'll come to the second funded market, which is the Eastgate Secondaries Fund one, our entry into secondaries.

29:50 We are seeking commitments of 1,500 crores for a fund with a close ended term of five years, extendable by another two years. The strategy here is to provide liquidity to general partners, namely managers of Indian private equity and venture capital funds. We are targeting List A GPs. We are targeting List A companies within these List A GPs. We will acquire stakes in portfolios of private companies. The case for East Cape rests on four simple points. A large cohort of maturing private equity and venture capital investments, this is generating substantial deal flow for us. A secondary market in India that is nascent and therefore an opportunity for us to be a first, this gives us considerable headroom.

30:40 The ability to acquire at portfolio level discounts and a shorter tenure product that can support better internal rates of return. During this quarter that we are reviewing, we've strengthened the Eastgate investment team with a senior hire who brings over twenty years of full cycle private equity investing experience. I'm happy to report that the fund is making steady progress towards its fundraising target. With this, I'll hand it over... Hand over the rest of... Call to Aminav Jain, partner and CFO. Thank you, Gopal. We are on Slide 16 now. This slide sets out the performance of each fund. Fund four, our most recent fund, held its final close in 2023 at INR $17.75 crore and has made nine investments, two of them during the quarter.

31:37 It is 87% deployed and is tracking a gross multiple of 2x, which corresponds to top quartile performance for its vintage. As the fund is still under deployment, that multiple is not representative of mature performance. Fund III is fully deployed across 10 investments and partially realized at a gross multiple of 1.9x and it tracks top quartile for a vintage in which industry returns are moderated by COVID-nineteen. Fund II is substantially realized at 3.8x and carried interest from Fund was a significant driver of the growth in performance income for this quarter. Fund one is fully realized at 5.6x. All four funds ranked first quartile against their industry benchmarks.

32:23 We now move to Slide 17. I would like to draw your attention to take you through the highlights on the Slide 17. I would like to draw your attention to Slides 18, 19, 20, which set out the quarterly, half yearly and trailing 12 income statements in full. You will also see a snapshot of the balance sheet on Slide 21. On Slide 17 are the key financial highlights, and I'll take you through those one by one. First, total income. For the quarter, it was INR 65.5 crore, up 26% on first quarter and for the half year, 117.3 crore, up 6% on the first half of last year. Second, profit after tax.

33:09 For the quarter, it was INR 64.7 crore, up 138% on first quarter and 54% on the same quarter last year. For the half year, it was INR 91.9 crore, up 48%. Third, the network. As at 09/30/2026, it stood at 1,106 crores rupees, including the IPO proceeds against $5.74.6 crore rupees a year ago, an increase of 92%. Fourth, performance income. It was INR 46.2 crore rupees for the quarter, a growth of 55% over the first quarter with carried interest earned from point two being an important contributor. For the half year, it was INR 75.9 crore against INR 78.5 crore in the first half of last year, reflecting the timing of realizations in the two periods.

34:00 Fifth, the cost to income ratio. For the half year, it was 29%, down from 38% as total expenses fell 17% from INR 41.6 crore to INR 34.6 crore, while income grew 6%. Sixth, the tax. The consolidated results for the quarter include a reversal of deferred tax charge of INR 15 crore that Gupal described earlier. It arises from a revised estimate of potential tax liability on fair value gains of our sponsor commitments. Profit before tax, which it does not affect, grew 13% in the third quarter and 20% in the half year. Seventh, earnings per share. Annualized EPS for the half year was INR 15.1 on a weighted average share count, up 38% from INR 11.

34:50 I will now turn to balance sheet on Slide 21. Total assets stood at 1,176.5 crore at as of 09/30/2026, again INR 677.1 crore a year ago. Noncurrent investments, which are mainly our sponsor commitment in the fund, rose 34% to INR 459.6 crore. Cash and bank balances rose to INR $4.50 crore and current investment to INR 165.4 crore. Net worth was INR 1,106.2 crore against INR 574.6 crore a year ago and INR 665 crore as of 03/31/2026. Warrants have fallen from INR 33.5 crore to 0.2 crore, so we are nearly debt free.

35:39 Slide 22 contains some key financial ratios. Return on equity for twelve months to September 26 was 13% against 19% a year ago. The IPO proceeds were on the balance sheet for only five weeks of the period and are currently earning treasury returns rather than fund returns. This moderates the ratio until the capital is deployed into sponsor commitments. Book value per share rose from 49.7 to INR 77.4, a growth of 56%, reflecting both retained earnings and primary capital raised at the IPO. Earnings per share for the trailing twelve months on a weighted average basis rose from INR 7.8 to INR 9.3, a growth of 18. I will now cover lastly the slide on use of proceeds.

36:25 Slide 23 shows the use of proceeds against the objects of the issue of the fresh issue of INR $4.50 crore, INR $3.72 crore was earmarked for sponsor commitments to funds four, five and Eastgate Secondaries Fund one and INR 78 crore for general public purposes. As of 09/30/2026, approximately 10% of sponsor commitment allocation and approximately 80% of the general corporate purposes allocation has been utilized. The sponsor capital commit... Sponsor commitment capital will be drawn as the new funds close and call capital, and until it... Then it is held in treasury. I would now like to invite Ranjit to say the closing remarks. Yes. Thank you, Abhinav. So I'd like to close with four takeaways. Firstly, in the first half of FY 'twenty six, 'twenty seven, we earned a total income of INR117.3 crore and PAT of INR91.19 crore.

37:18 Income came from three of our funds. Profit after tax grew 48% over the first half of last year, and the Board has declared an interim dividend of INR50 per share, following a 15% dividend for FY twenty five-twenty six. Second, we have strengthened the balance sheet. Net worth now stands at INR $110.06 crore, and we carry no debt. Third, our balance sheet now earns treasury income, a fourth pillar of growth alongside management fees, carried interest and gains on sponsor commitments. And fourth, a significant part of our net worth is in cash and liquid investments, which gives us a greatly enhanced capacity to raise new funds and Fund V and Eastgate are making steady progress towards their targets.

38:06 With that, we would now be delighted to take your questions. Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on your touch tone 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'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have the first question from the line of Sharan Blay from IN360. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations for the great set of numbers and especially during the difficult phase of this market.

38:58 Sir, I just wanted to know on LTM numbers, fee income stands at 61 crores, and it does not cover the OpEx of 63 crores. So the fee business runs on roughly breakeven, and all profit comes from the carry. So so I I just wanted to note two things. One is, is the fine three above the whole... So so... Sorry. Is the fine three above its hurdle today? And the second question is, if not, then gross exit of multiple on invested capital, does it need before you earn your first rupee of carry? Thank you. So first of all, let me explain that we don't book carry on an accrual basis.

39:49 Some firm... Firms do that, but Gaja Capital does not. We only book carry on realized basis. So the IRR of the fund does not matter. What matters is where is the fund in terms of liquidating that particular multiple on invested capital. So first, the fund has to return its principal. It has to return its hurdle, and then Gaja Capital starts earning carry. Let's take your questions one by one. You refer... Let's go to slide number 20 where the LTM numbers are. Your first point was, does our fee income broadly cover our expenses? Our fee income is 61.3 crores. Our total expenses are 63.4 crores. I'd say they roughly cover that.

40:37 If you take fee income plus treasury income, you will see that it significantly covers the total expense of the company. Performance income is in two parts, sponsor gain, which is the gain we earn from our sponsor commitments, and carried interest, which I explained is only on a realized basis. Currently, we are earning carried interest from fund two. We expect we are in a transition phase where we come to the end of fund two. We are earning sponsor gain from fund three and fund four, and we are making a transition where over the coming years, we will start earning carried interest from the subsequent funds. Hope this answers your question.

41:27 Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on your touch tone telephone. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on your touch tone telephone. We have our next question from the line of from one of Financial Consultants. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. The question was more on the investment engine side itself.

42:14 I just wanted to get your views on from where you sit, where you're seeing the most interesting investing opportunities in India and where you are putting money? Could you give us a sense of your portfolio in terms of what is going to the table for these companies and talk a bit about where you think India is heading and what your world view is with respect to this? Thank you, Aman. There's a lot in that question. But let's just remind you about where the funds invest. So like I mentioned when we were talking about the key differentiators, our opportunity set is mapped to four sectors: intelligence software, automation, deep tech and AI is one sector where we see a lot of opportunity growth opportunity set growth The second is financial services.

43:05 The third is consumer. And the fourth is EEE or education, employment and employability. Slide number 10. This is Slide number 10. So if you look at this opportunity set, we have roughly 2,300 companies mapped to these sectors that I just described in our database. This is roughly growing at 25% every year, but the newer parts of this opportunity set, which is deep tech and AI, intelligence software and automation are growing at twice the rate, largely driven by the activity at earlier stages by early stage venture capital, but also the entrepreneurial activity we see in those sectors. So that's where we have invested in Fund IV, and that's where we expect to invest in Fund V. I hope I've answered your question.

43:58 You asked a question on world view. We really invest in India. We think India is a... Is an independent asset class. Of course, it is integrated with the rest of the world. And for the longest time, for close to twenty five years, we believed that that, you know, you prosper by investing in India. So in fact, many members of our team have been investing for... I've been investing for thirty five years. And every time the market gives us an opportunity to buy India, we just buy more of India. So we've been a perennial bull on India, and this strategy has served us very well. We are perennially looking for high quality assets to buy at fair prices and partner with good management teams. India is growing at, say, a nominal rate of 11, 12%, but really what we are seeing through our companies, which are at the, you know, front edge of many of their sectors, are much higher growth rates.

44:52 We are seeing the emergence of an innovation economy, and this is the reason why we are really excited as we come closer to begin investing from our new funds. Thank you. Any further questions, Aman? No. That answers my question. Thank you. Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on your touch tone telephone. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Yep. Thank you, Byron. And since there aren't any further questions at this time, we will close this call. But we, as a management team, look forward to interactions with investors, and we hope that we can communicate our business as we move along and as we grow.

45:56 Thank you so much. Thank you. On behalf of Gaja Alternative Asset Management Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.