Vakrangee Limited has informed the Exchange about Transcript of Analysts/Institutional Investor Meet/Con. Call
Vakrangee Limited “Vakrangee Corporate House”, Plot No.93, Road No.16, M.I.D.C. Marol, Andheri (East), Mumbai - 400093. Maharashtra, W: www.vakrangee.in | L:+91 22 2850 3412/+91 22 6776 5100 F: +91 22 28502017 | CIN: L65990MH1990PLC056669``
October 27, 2022
To,
Department of Corporate Relationship BSE Ltd. Phiroze Jeejeebhoy Towers, Dalal Street, Fort, Mumbai - 400001
Corporate Relationship Department National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. Exchange Plaza, C-1, Block G, Bandra Kurla Complex, Bandra (East), Mumbai - 400 051
Dear Sir/Madam,
Subject: Transcript of the Conference call on financial results for quarter September 30, 2022.
Ref.: Scrip Code – 511431/VAKRANGEE
We enclose herewith a copy of the Transcript of Conference Call held on Friday, October 21, 2022, in respect of the financial results for the quarter September 30, 2022.
The same can also be viewed at: https://vakrangee.in/pdf/Annual_and_Quarterly_Results_FY2022_23/Q2/Conference%20Call%20T ranscript%20-%20Q2%20FY2022-23.pdf
Thanking you,
Yours faithfully,
For Vakrangee Limited
Sachin Khandekar Company Secretary (Mem. No.: A50577)
Encl.: As above
Vakrangee Limited Oct 21, 2022
Vakrangee Limited Earnings Conference Call Oct 21, 2022
Moderator:
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Vakrangee Lim-
ited Q2 FY2023 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all partici-
pant lines will be in the listen only mode and there will be an oppor-
tunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes.
Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal
an operator by pressing “*” then “0” on your touchtone phone. Please
note that this conference is been I now hand the conference over to
Mr. Dinesh Nandwana – Managing Director and Group CEO, Vakrang-
ee Ltd. Thank you and over to you, Sir.
Dinesh Nandwana:
Thank you very much, good day dear ladies and gentlemen, it is
pleasure to greet you all once again on behalf of our Board of Direc-
tors and senior management. We begin by thanking all of you for hav-
ing spare time in joining us here today to discuss our second quarter
earning for the financial year 2023. Today we have emerged as a go to
market platform for the rural India for various business verticals in-
cluding the new Edge Fintech and digital platforms. We are building
India's largest last mile distribution platform and emerging as the
physical plus digital ecosystem with the Pan India presence. Today we
have more than 24,887 outlets spread across 33 States and union ter-
ritories. 595 districts and 5,834 postal codes. Our 82% outlets are pre-
sent in deep rural Tier 4 to 6 locations. This kind of presence makes us
the partner of choice for any new business partners who wish to make
their products services available in rural India. We have a clear focus
on market expansion and this isn't our first mover advantage there by
our plan is to achieve a long term outlet expansion target of 75,000
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Vakrangee Limited Oct 21, 2022
Next Gen outlet within the next 18 months. This will mark our pres-
ence across 100% districts and postal code of the country. And will
make us India's largest last mile rural distribution platform with the
physical presence. Recently we've launched new attractive pricing for
all our Kendra models including the 100% refundable deposit models
for ATM services as well as we introduced our master franchisees ini-
tiative, whereby we are in the process of appointing district level mas-
ter franchisees across the country. We have successfully appointed
master franchisee in 53 districts across 15 states across the country.
These master franchisee would provide on-ground operational sup-
port to the existing franchisee as well as drive new franchisee acquisi-
tion. This would lead to help us scale at a faster pace and expand on a
pan India basis. We believe this master franchisee initiative is a game
changer and receiving our local field presence and operational control
at the ground level, we plan to achieve 100% district coverage over
the next 12 months. These new initiatives would help us scale up a
much faster pace and thereby achieve our long term targets well
ahead of targeted timelines. Since the last quarter we have launched
additional franchisee Commission incentive schemes, these additional
incentives are transitory in nature but would lead to quicker payback
for the franchisee thereby creating positive word of mouth and driv-
ing strong new franchise interest. A strong word of mouth and referral
incentives along with Pan India, marketing have resulted into higher
lead funnel for franchisee acquisition. We have a strong footfall and
brand presence in rural India and our customer trust us with their
day-to-day banking needs during quarter two financial year 23 we
opened 5.5 Lacs bank account 1.7 lacs insurance and pension policies
and did more than 1.93 crore banking transaction with a gross trans-
action value of rupees 9,688 crore. While currently in a nascent stage,
the Indian new banking user base is expected to grow fast at 80% plus
yearly over the next five years there is a huge underpenetrated rural
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Vakrangee Limited Oct 21, 2022
market with whose retail and MSME customer base further. There is a
lack of trust with the current rural customer base. Therefore, physical
presence and assistance is a key differentiator. Going forward we are
well structured to transition into new bank as we plan to launch new
banking services through our Bharat easy mobile super app. Through
this we are focused to evolve into unique online to offline platform
whereby there would be assistance available through the physical as-
sistance network along with digital NEO banking services. Other we
have a strong existing retail customer base in rural India and we are
focused on affordable pricing and unique online to offline consumer
experience. With respect to the proposed demerger of the non-core
banking of E governance and IT ITES as a separate entity, we would
like to update that we have received the approval for demerger from
Stock Exchange and have now filled the application for NCLT approval.
We believe the proposed demerger would unlock the potential of the
core Vakrangee Kendra business in the current listed entity with exist-
ing business of a Vakrangee Kendra physical outlet as well as digital
platform of Bharat easy Mobile super app. Vakrangee Kendra business
is retail centric consumer facing business. It is an asset light high re-
turn on capital business thereby will get the proper representation
post the demerger. We believe this would lead to significant rerating
of the core business and would maximize shareholders value. Over
the last few years we have undergone a huge transformational jour-
ney whereby we have made a transition from non-exclusion store in-
store format outlet to highly recognizable, exclusive branded nextgen
format outlets. We believe we are now well poised and have a clear
visibility for a strong growth journey in the next few years to come.
We have aligned our strategy with one of the existing service partner
to expand our presence across the country in every gram panchayat
level. Commenting on the quarterly result performance, we have wit-
nessed stable operating growth on year on year as well as quarter on
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Vakrangee Limited Oct 21, 2022
quarter basis due to increase in number of outlet as well as our ser-
vices return to normalcy on the business front. Our revenue from op-
eration increased by 12.98% on year on year basis and 3.56% on quar-
ter on quarter basis. Our total number of a Vakrangee Kendra outlet
cross 24,887 which are spread across 595 districts, 32 States and UTs.
Our quarterly gross transaction value cross rupees 129.41 billion.
Where our quarterly number of transition cross 33.04 million. Our
near term profitability has been impacted as we are reinvesting our
operational cash flows for enhancing franchisee incentives. Our mar-
gins have been impacted primarily due to the launch of additional
franchisee incentive schemes. These additional incentives are transi-
tory in nature but would lead to quick payback for the franchisees,
thereby driving this new franchisees interest. The maximum impact
on gross margin due to these incentives has happened and would
keep on reducing over the next few quarters, thereby gross margin
and profitability will keep on improving henceforth in the subsequent
quarters. Strong word of mouth and reference incentives along with
Pan India marketing have resulted into higher lead funnel for franchi-
see acquisition. Further, we have introduced new attractive pricing for
all our Kendra models as well as introduced masters franchisee which
would help us scale up as much as faster pace and thereby achieving
our long term target well ahead of targeted timelines. We are confi-
dent that these historically initiatives shall lead to significant growth
in profitability in long term. Vakrangee digital venture limited is 100%
subsidiary company of Vakrangee Limited. The company has launched
a mobile super app best business platform primarily targeting rural
India, Bharat Easy app India ka super app, currently beta trial version
has been launched. It is currently a beta trial version and we intend to
go fully operational and commercial live in the next 6 – 8 months. We
have made live and activated some of the key services like online,
shopping, total healthcare, online Demat account, opening Cibil credit
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Vakrangee Limited Oct 21, 2022
score rating services as well as the online Pan Card application ser-
vices. A unique differentiator and sustainable competitive advantage
is where by our digital super app platform would be able to leverage
the Vakrangee on ground ecosystem. A vast well diversified Pan India
level physical store network of Vakrangee is a point of physical assis-
tance, especially to consumers to semi urban and rural remote loca-
tions. Vakrangee Digital Ventures shall leverage the vakrangee ecosys-
tem, Strong brand recall Vakrangee Kendra enjoy good positive NPS
among users. Our NPS score is 68% as per Redseer research report.
Access to existing Vakrangee customer base of 25 million active cus-
tomers. Access to existing network of 24,800 plus outlets for physical
assistance and consumer awareness. This unique proposition of digi-
tal, along with physical would help the digital channel to scale up fast
and would significantly reduce the costs related to acquiring customer
physical assistance, order fulfilling and return management of the
online orders. Further, leveraging physical presence would result into
better customer interaction a strong brand recall and better service,
experience and trust for the customer. Our company has been global-
ly ranked number one in the sustainalytics ESG Risk rating ranking in
the software and service industry segment. Over all Vakrangee has
been recognized by sustainalytics as an ESG Global 50 top rated com-
panies. Vakrangee ltd has been identified as a top ESG performer out
of more than 4000 comprehensive companies their societies cover in
the global universe. Vakrangee ltd has also been honored to be in-
cluded in the Year Sustainability Yearbook 2022, published by S&P
Global. The sustainability yearbook 2022, published by S&P Global, is
one of the World Most comprehensive publication providing in depth
analysis on corporate responsibility. This annual ranking showcase the
sustainability performance of the world largest companies in each in-
dustry is determined like there is core in the annual corporate sus-
tainability assessment in 2022, S&P Global had assist over 7500 com-
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Vakrangee Limited Oct 21, 2022
panies across 61 industries this year. Vakrangee has been accepted as
a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact. And we have
mapped our sustainability institute with the United Nations Sustaina-
bility Development Goals. Further, we have appointed Grant Thornton
as our assurance auditor for our assurance of our integrated annual
report. We have recently released our third integrated annual report
for 2021-22, along with reasonable assurance from independent Audi-
tor Grant Thornton Bharat LLP. Global recognition reflect companies’
commitment to further enhance its corporate governance and trans-
parency standards. Company has achieved global recognition across
various platforms folds. Superior ESG performance and long term
business sustainability. Lastly, I would like to again reiterate that our
profit margins have bottomed out and we are all set for sustainable
improved growth going forward. The maximum impact of the strate-
gic initiatives on PAT Margins. PAT margins has already been factored
in and thereby profitability will keep on improving henceforth in the
subsequent quarter, we are confident that these initiatives will lead to
significant growth in profitability in the long run. I would now like to
take this opportunity to thanks our shareholders for their support. We
can now open the floor for Q&A session. Thank you very much.
Moderator:
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question
and answer session. The first question is from the line of Animesh
Sanghvi, an individual investor, kindly proceed.
Animesh Sanghvi: My question is that going forward, does the profitability will get bet-
ter from current quarters? Please provide your guidance on the same.
Also, can you brief on the long term growth plan and the number of
outlets we are expecting in future?
Ammeet Sabarwal: So as we have highlighted also that currently our margins have been
impacted because of the additional franchise incentive schemes
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Vakrangee Limited Oct 21, 2022
which we had provided since last quarter we started in last quarter
and going forward these are temporary in nature. Because primary to
generate a very strong word of mouth and a positive environment at
the field level, doing new franchise acquisition, therefore these are
transitory in nature and over the subsequent quarters over the next
four to six quarters, margins will keep on improving, and this incentive
will keep on reducing, so our profitability will get back on track over
the next few quarters. The maximum impact has already happened,
so every quarter on quarter you will see the improvement coming in
and uh and margin going back to our standard level. So that is what
we expect because we are generating a huge amount of interest for
new franchisee acquisition as well as we have set a very high growth
target in order to reach 75,000 next Gen outlet over the next 18
months. So 75,000 outlets was earlier our target for the five year pe-
riod, whereas what we realized was that we are having a first mover
advantage in place where our brand is known and people know us
very well and since we are also launching a digital super app platform
over and above our physical network so it becomes very important for
us to have a faster expansion at the field level, so the physical plus
digital ecosystem can be showcased as a pan India level kind of pres-
ence. So our target is to have a presence across each and every postal
code of the country across each and every district of the country cur-
rently. They are present in around 595 districts overall target is to
reach across all 740 plus districts. Currently we are present in 5800
plus postal code. The target is to reach across entire 19,000 postal
codes. So for that we had to come out with some kind of incentive
schemes where our existing network becomes very profitable and
very strong, and there is a good barrel model in place. Good word of
mouth in place because in the rural level, what we have realized is the
new franchisee, whoever they largely depend on the feedback that
they received from the existing network. Therefore the profitability of
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Vakrangee Limited Oct 21, 2022
the existing network is very important, and since we are giving a very
good handsome incentives which is over and above the regular Com-
mission it all the most become more attractive and therefore. We are
receiving a huge funnel in terms of new inquiries, we have received
more than 1,50,000 plus EOI expression of interest and therefore if
you see even in the last quarter we have added almost more than
2000 plus new outlet which have on boarded and we have crossed
24,800 plus now and we are having a very strong pipeline in place. So
as these incentives gets normalized and gets back to their normal lev-
el, the dump will be their seen in the gross margins, EBITDA margins
and PAT margin. So therefore what I would say to your query, yes,
profitability will definitely improve every quarter on quarter you will
see the improvement in profitability and maybe in the next three to
four quarters we get back to our normal profitability margins in terms
of the growth target. Long term growth target. Our current focus is to
reach 75,000 source within the next 18 months. That is where we are
targeting in order to have 100% presence in across each and every
postal code of the country in each and every district of the country. So
the first target is to reach this 75,000 stores. Overall we feel the mar-
ket size or targetable addressable market what we say as a Tam is ba-
sically around a million stores because there are more than 6,50,000
villages almost more than three lacs gram panchayats more than
75,000 urban mall or more than a million polling booth. So where we
feel that our Vakrangee Kendra, which is within a walkable distance of
a local community, the overall market size would be maybe a million
outlet, but maybe at least we are still scratching the surface. We are
still only at around 25,000 odd outlets, but at least we want to grow
three times this network in the next 18 months to 75,000 stores. I
think so that is the key milestone which we are focusing on right now.
Thank you.
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Vakrangee Limited Oct 21, 2022
Moderator:
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vipul Mittal, an indi-
vidual investor kindly proceed.
Vipul Mittal:
My question is can you please throw more lights on this master fran-
chise initiatives? How will it impact on the business growth and what
is the future road map for the same?
Ammeet Sabarwal: Thanks for this question. So Master franchise is very interesting initia-
tive which we ventured out. And what we are seeing is that it has
tremendous potential because we have already appointed now al-
most 53 Master franchises in 53 Districts across 15 states of the coun-
try. So it's almost the fair amount of pilot or I would say dipstick.
What we have done and what we have realized is either localized per-
son of that particular district who is already having a very strong foot-
hold, a very strong network in place, and he's there at the local level
as our representative, and his skin is there in the game because he is
earning basically a Commission on the incremental business that the
franchisee does. So therefore all the interest and the intent is com-
pletely aligned with our vision and our interest. So therefore what we
are saying is that a master franchisee at the local level not only brings
us a strong local presence because he's already setting up his own lo-
cal office Master franchisee office at every district level, plus he's
there at the local level to do hand holding of the franchisees for day-
to-day operations, resolving the issues at the local level. At the same
time he's the face he is already conducting seminar. He's conducting
events in order to do new franchisee acquisitions because he also
wants to grow the business because his interests and our interests are
completely aligned. So that is what we are feeling is that this is a real-
ly game changer more for us and what we see is that maybe in the
next 8 to 12 months we will have a pan India presence with the prop-
er office in place at each and every district level location. And I have
this kind of field force in place where the person is an entrepreneur
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Vakrangee Limited Oct 21, 2022
because master franchisee himself is an entrepreneur and he is earn-
ing if the franchisees are earning so his interests are completely
aligned with the franchisee and with us, so that makes us more com-
fortable, more confident, and at the same time he's much more ma-
ture as compared to our normal franchisee because he's a high net
worth individual, he has a strong skill set in place. He's having a strong
team in place, so it is not only master franchisee. Every master fran-
chisee has his complete team in place so they have a spokes for each
vertical plus they have every block level block officer so that in a way
gives me a complete field for on boarded for us in the local language
in the local skill set, because for example if I'm going to the South lan-
guage can be a barrier, but here my master franchise is the local light
of that particular district, so that gives much more comfort even for
any new franchisee coming on board because they have a local phase,
they have a local person. To speak to local, ongoing day-to-day opera-
tional support in place so we feel with the master franchisees in place,
our scalability would be much better. Would be much strong at the
same time our monitoring control and day-to-day operations would
be much more tightly run because the master franchisee is there at
the local level and at the same time the model is built in such a way
that his interest and our interests are completely aligned. So as I said,
he is getting the submission of the incremental business that the fran-
chising network is doing. For him, so that makes it all the more im-
portant that his participation is at the Max. So therefore we feel that
with this master franchisee model in place, initiative in place, so we
will be able to achieve our target in a much more profitable manner in
a much more scalable manner, and definitely it feels very promising
from the experience what we are getting from the 53 district where
the master fantasies have been appointed, the results have been very
encouraging and I think maybe six months down the line we will actu-
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Vakrangee Limited Oct 21, 2022
ally see the fruits of this initiative and we will see a huge impact in
terms of our honor, scalability and profitability. Thank you.
Moderator:
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jitendra Kumar and
individual investor. Kindly proceed.
Jitendra Kumar:
Hi I have seen that Vakrangee is continuously adding new services.
What is the current plan to add more services in the near future, in
which services you see that there is huge potential for the future
growth? Can you please guide on this?
Ammeet Sabarwal: So as we said that basically we have built a last mile distribution plat-
form basically so there any brand, any partner, any service can be
plugged in and we can provide them access to a completely unserved,
underserved or Tier 3 to tier 6 kind of customer base. So if you see
basically the services like banking, ATM, money transfer, insurance or
online shopping, we had Amazon and recently we have just done the
tie up with decathlon. We are currently doing the pilot project for de-
cathlon that is again similar to an online shopping for sports goods.
On the newer services health care services, total health care services
has been very promising. We are adding two more products there ba-
sically. We are also trying to add Agri products, so we had done a tie
up with partner called Big Haat. So where basically complete agricul-
ture products would be available. Through the online portal product,
such as the seeds, pesticides, agri equipment, so those that is that
looks very promising. That will be going live over the next two to
three months. Demat account we had done. We have also recently
done tie up with Anand Rathi so we'll also be making that service
lives, we had the done Pan Card services and Cibil score services also
through the portal and what we are also doing is we are exploring
many more new vertical. So whether it is in the education side or
whether it is on the employment side, getting rural jobs getting unor-
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Vakrangee Limited Oct 21, 2022
ganized job opportunities. So we are exploring those kind of opportu-
nities because that is their target customer base and these services
are more of a requirement in those locations and how we can also
work on the farming and Agri side is where what we are exploring. So
maybe these are some of the new verticals which might get added
over the next couple of quarters, but right now if you see our com-
plete financial services, is there complete ATM is there, complete
ecommerce is there within e-commerce similar to Amazon. We had
done tie up with decathlon. We are doing this big haat which is more
often online for Agri product and we are exploring as I said, two more
vertical which is education and another one is basically employment
generation or a skill development, that is, that is where we are work-
ing on and maybe in next couple of quarters we will be announcing
some tie ups in that space. So I think that is from our perspective we
want to make our store as the most convenient store for that neigh-
borhood. For that's a local village level location. So our tagline, what
we say. Puri Duniya Padosme or Sab Kam Ek Dukan so we are trying to
see what are the things which are not being done at our stores and
what we can bring under one umbrella where our target customer
base suits and which are the more services. But that is where we
stand today in terms of new services, which we are exploring thank
you.
Moderator:
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I would now like to
hand the conference over to Mr. Ammeet Sabarwal from Vakrangee
for closing comments.
Ammeet Sabarwal:
Thank you everyone for taking time out and participating in our Q2
FY23 con call. Please feel free to get in touch with us in case of any
further queries in case of any further details required. My e-mail ID is
a Ammeets@vakrangee.in. It's also available on website, thank you
and good evening. Thank you.
Page 12 of 13
Moderator:
Thank you. On behalf of Vakrangee limited that concludes this con-
ference, thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.
Vakrangee Limited Oct 21, 2022
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