Crizac Limited

Vikash Agarwal

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Naitik Mohata

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Naitik Mohata

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Vikash Agarwal

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Vikash Agarwal

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Vikash Agarwal

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Vikash Agarwal

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Vikash Agarwal

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Vikash Agarwal

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Vikash Agarwal

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So, how much penetration do you think is still there in the UK side and where we are looking at the US business and right now, due to that macro headwind, we are not looking into it.

— Ashish Pareek

And that should bring down the concentration further down and bring risk lower.

— Vikash Agarwal

So what is our outlook on that and will that lead to our concentration risk to reduce?

— Naman Golchha

But you are right, UK is trying to make immigration a bit difficult for people who are trying to abuse it and not making it difficult for genuine students or people who want to go for a genuine work.

— Vikash Agarwal

While institutions which are very well-established with their agency network, it is very difficult to get a partnership.

— Vikash Agarwal

So do you think there is a risk of immigrants and international students going down in UK?

— Dharmil Shah

Though there is always some risk and that's one of the reason why we are diversifying into multiple destinations in case any of those risks comes in.

— Vikash Agarwal

Q

Hello sir, congratulations on a very good set of numbers. I have actually three questions. First, I would want to know that because of the change in the H-1B visa rules in the US, is there a sentimental change in students going to the US and does it impact our business in a positive or a negative way? That's the first question. Second question is, the margin guidance of 25%, what we've been maintaining, given this quarter margin being a light quarter, we have done significantly better margins. So, would you like to change the margin guidance? Third question is, what was the number of universit

Vikash Agarwal

Sure. Thanks for your questions. With reference to H-1B visa, yes, there is some sentimental impact for US education. But for us, the number or the revenue contribution from US operations is very low. So for us, any kind of negative news for US is positive. Reason being, the students who want to study abroad, instead of choosing US, they are choosing UK as a destination or one of the destinations. So, you will see better numbers because of H-1B impact. Coming back to profit margin guidance, though this quarter we have done pretty good, we believe the guidance what we have given should be equal

Q

Okay, sir. First of all, congratulations on a very good set of numbers. The first question is that in terms of you, in earlier course you mentioned that Q-1 and Q-2 combines around 30% of your total revenue and 70% of the revenue comes from the H-2. So, should we go ahead with these assumptions in FY '26 given some disruptions in the US front? The UK and Canada obviously have picked up. So just like to know this is one first question.

Vikash Agarwal

In terms of our guidance, yes, I believe H-1 constitute roughly 30% and which is in line with what has come out. And we believe the ratio should remain broadly similar for second half. Okay. And my second question is that you mentioned that last time, I know you have mentioned that you are exploring a lot of, because the student loan services is one of the most growing sectors in Indian perspectives. Okay. I have personally experienced also. So, you mentioned actively exploring. So, is there any, have you taken any step in this direction? Yes, we have signed up with more than 7 or 8 NBFC and b

Q

Thank you very much, sir, for this opportunity. So, first up, I just wanted to understand what would be our geographical composition of student right now? I mean, from which country, how much percentage placement we are doing right now?

Vikash Agarwal

In terms of geographical composition, India would contribute roughly 50% as of today and same goes for rest of the world, which is quite diversified And rest of the world mix would be? I mean, top three, four and… Africa would be the biggest one followed by South East Asia and China. South East Asia and China. So, Africa would be how much? Contributing almost roughly 25%. Roughly 25% Africa. And South East Asia and China would be what? 5%-10%? Remaining 25%. Come again. Sorry, your voice is… Yeah, I mean, we haven't done our exact calculation but the balance will be coming from South East Asia

Q

Yeah, congratulations, sir. Just one question on the platform. Technology platform, how is that coming around? Can you share more insights about how some of the applications now have become faster? Number one. Number two, on the mix from the university or country-wise if you can give us revenue share or an outlook on that?

Vikash Agarwal

In terms of platform, we have added a lot of capabilities like automation and AI. Last time when we had a meet, we mentioned that we are looking at adding those ones. So, those capabilities are already integrated and this is a continuous process and we are adding more and more AI to our platform to make agents' and students' journey more comfortable, more reliable. In terms of country mix, from a source country perspective, roughly Indian application would be 50 while rest of the world would be same. In terms of revenue, most of the revenues would be coming from UK, roughly 90%-95% because qua

Q

Thank you, sir. So, my first question would be, as you mentioned that any negative news on the US is actually positive for the business. But I just wanted to understand, so, US is such a huge market and we are not present over there. So, that would have been interesting which would be a growth driver actually for us. And, we are present in UK for such a long time, I think since the inception of business. So, how much penetration do you think is still there in the UK side and where we are looking at the US business and right now, due to that macro headwind, we are not looking into it. So, your

Vikash Agarwal

Yeah, I mean, coming to your question step by step, USA, our concentration is very low, lower than 1%. So, the impact has not been with the company. It takes between one and three years time for a company to penetrate into any new destination country. So, yes, penetration for US is slow because of the headwinds and negative news. But since our base is very low, we are not much affected for that one. The numbers which has gone down for US is getting compensated with UK. In terms of growth left for UK, at the moment, globally, our percentage share for UK would be closer to 3%. This can grow sign

Q

First of all, I didn't get the chance to congratulate you at the last con call. So, Dr. Vikash, Mr. Christopher and Mr. Manish, congratulations for coming up with the IPO with the company which was established in 2014 and with the market cap of INR5,000 crores. It's a commendable achievement for the entrepreneur. So, sir, I wanted to know, like, what is your USP and what you are seeing for the Crizac to grow, say, in next three or five years? That is my first question, sir.

Vikash Agarwal

Sure. Thank you, Devendra, for wishes. With reference to ASP, our service, our portfolio of universities, our distribution network across the globe are very unique. And it provides universities with very diversified student numbers, which most of the universities want. In terms of growth, at the moment, UK is our biggest destination market. We want to expand into multiple different destination markets. We want to expand into more and more source markets as well. Both these things would give a lot of growth in terms of both the revenue for the company. Thank you, sir. And my second question is

Q

Thank you for the opportunity, sir. So I have two questions. First, is it possible for you to provide us with the data of how many agents are actually with us and how much are active? And second question is regarding the recent FTA speech that Mr. Starmer gave that in the future the UK universities will be set up in India. So what is our outlook on that and will that lead to our concentration risk to reduce? And increase in India? Thank you.

Vikash Agarwal

Thanks, Naman. In terms of our active agents, it's roughly 4600 as of today. With reference to FTA, it is a very positive news for India-UK corridor. And we believe that should help companies to grow in this sector. With reference to setting up of universities in India, we believe it will take some time for it to mature. But this will help our vision of making India as a destination country. Since we already have a very strong distribution network outside India, we should be able to recruit good number of students both from India and outside India to recruit for these campuses. Having said tha

Q

There was some mistake in the slide. They are uploading the revised slide in the next half an hour. Rajakumar Vaidyanathan: Okay, the Slide 5 is correct…

Manish Agarwal

The revenue is correct. The totaling is wrong. So it is showing an incorrect path. But they will revise in the next 15-30 minutes. Rajakumar Vaidyanathan: Okay, thank you. Not a problem. Sir, the question is your EBITDA margin has gone up from 25% to 39%. And given this is a lean quarter, I just want to know what is driving this improvement in margin? There are two components which has helped in this quarter. One, if you remember last quarter we had roughly INR4 crores of losses because of forex. Now that we do our hedging and the pound has cooled down, so we have gained roughly INR4 crores as

Q

Thank you for the opportunity. I had two questions. One being your cash flow from operations is negative. So can you please help us understand why is that so?

Management

Sure. Because I see two line items, big line items that are affecting your cash flow. One is trade payables, which is a negative INR95 crores figure. And the second is other financial liabilities, which is a negative INR56 crores figure. So please explain this. And number two, I just wanted you to throw some light on your business model, since I'm new to the company. So I believe you're a platform company. And as I observed from 2021, your revenues have gone from INR100 crores to almost INR800. But your margin has remained flat, which is unlike a platform business. Usually we see significant o

Q

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity. Sir, I would just like to know the distribution of say a student from India going into the UK. Typically, what percentage of students go via agents and what percentage go directly, meaning approach the university directly?

Vikash Agarwal

Hi, Ganesh. Thank you for this one. Though there is no fixed data, but based on the survey done with the university, roughly 60% to 70% of the students go via agents while 30% to 35% go via direct online application. If we see our basic business model, that would be to connect the students to the universities. So one is the student acquisition strategy via agents. Do we have any exclusivity with agents or with the universities is my second question? We connect agents to the university. No, we don't have any exclusivity with either the university or the agent, but these agents typically work wi

Q

Yes, so thank you for giving me the opportunity and congratulations on a very good set of numbers. Most of my questions were already answered. So can you just throw some light that you are expanding to the multiple newer geographies like Dubai, New Zealand, Ireland and etcetera? So like most of the universities are offering the scholarship and multiple schemes to the newcomers. So how are you seeing this trend at your particular platform and the application traction to these newer geographies and the particular universities from the different areas?

Vikash Agarwal

Thanks, Azharuddin. With reference to our expansion to different areas, yes, universities do give scholarships and we help students to get those scholarships. Expanding into different regions is actually helping students to have multiple choice of destination country and they can plan their study abroad without getting affected for any disturbances. For example, US announced some curves. So that would have disturbed the foreign dream of students going to USA. But now with expansion of multiple geographies for us, we can offer alternate options to the same student and that is helping the studen

Q

Yes. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, we are hearing about that UK is also tightening the immigration rules for the students. So how we -- how are you seeing it on ground?

Vikash Agarwal

Hi, Axay. UK is tightening immigration rules more for work than for students with reference to increasing maintenance or other recommendations from white paper that has been announced almost six months, seven months earlier and it is already baked into the growth. Okay. So the students who are going there is also expecting to work post-study there. So it is impacting them also indirectly. I want to understand it in greater detail. I understand. What they have done is, for example, for ILR, like leave to remain in the UK, they have increased from five years to 10 years. Usually a student does n

Q

Hi. Am I audible? Hello. Am I audible?

Vikash Agarwal

Yes, Rishabh. Yes.

Q

Hi. Hi. I just have one query around your growth. In your RHP, one of the line items you had was to grow and deepen your agent network in China. I see that your agent network has grown from around 11,500 to some 13,500 total agents. Just wanted to clarify, is there a bias towards China? And just understand where are you all, how is there a lot of focus on this plan to increase student flow from China?

Vikash Agarwal

Yes. We are growing in China. In fact, Christopher currently, who is our CFO, CEO of the company in UK, is in China at the moment. So both in terms of number of agents and the number of students going to UK has grown for China and we still are quite bullish for China. But China is an as-developed market. In fact, the most developed market, better developed than India from education, consultancy point of view. They have big companies, similar size as that of Kaiser. So the growth pathway would be slow. But it is in line with our projected growth. Got it, got it. Cool. And that's it from my end.

Q

Hi, sir. Thanks for taking my question. So my first question is, if you could give us the conversion rate on the one application that we have processed. And second, adding to the same is, where is this growth that we are seeing coming from? If you could give us which regions are relatively doing better and leading to, say, 25% of growth that is important. So that would be helpful.

Vikash Agarwal

Sure. Naitik, with reference to conversion, standard conversion is between 8% and 10%. Again, it depends upon where the application source is. If it is, let's say, China, the conversion can be 25%, 30%. While if it is, let's say, Africa, the conversion rate is typically 5%, 6%. What was the second question? Second question is, some color. Second question I asked is some color on, where is this growth coming from? Yes. I mean which zones are… The main growth is coming from Africa at the moment, where the percentage growth is a bit higher compared to any other geographies. Got it. So my second q

Q

Good evening, sir. Hope I'm audible.

Vikash Agarwal

Yes, Chinmay. Yes. Sir, today, first question is, can you throw some light on how you go about partnering with universities? I mean, how do you select them? And typically, how much time does the tech integration take at your end? Chinmay, partnering with universities can take as low as a single meeting to as high as multiyears. In some cases, we have seen trying to become a partner from last six years, seven years. So it depends upon institution-to-institution. Destination which are less popular, for example, Middle East, it becomes easy to partner with them, because they want to expand into I

Q

Good evening sir. I actually recently started tracking this company and the top line growth really grabbed my attention. So can you please throw some light like what are the main growth drivers?

Vikash Agarwal

Hi Utkarsh. Thank you. The main growth driver is expanding into multiple geographies and destination market which is helping us increase our number of students thereby increasing our top line. And can you also tell me about the threats from any competitors like universities are building something in house to grab? There will always be a competition so there are multiple companies, but the sector is very big and there is a room for everybody to grow. So we are growing. The sector itself is growing almost quite heavily plus at the moment our growth is only from India and some of the places outsi

Q

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. My first question would be on the UK market where the bulk of our revenues are coming from. UK as you mentioned is tightening rules for immigration. Do you think in the next 2 years to 3 years the numbers could actually come down in absolute way because we have seen this play out in Canada and ANZ as well. So do you think there is a risk of immigrants and international students going down in UK?

Vikash Agarwal

Sure. Thanks Dharmil. UK is trying to tighten its immigration for non-genuine students. So, for example, they have increased the language requirement for students who wants to apply for job in UK. So they have made it 6.5. They have increased the maintenance requirement so that the student who goes and study there they have sufficient money and are not only dependent upon part time job which can affect their outcome of studies. So what they are trying to do is, they are trying to make UK as a destination where right kind of students go and study and not people who want to use study as a route

Q

Hello.

Management

Q

Sir I wanted to know slightly going back in the past in FY '23 and 24 our growth was a little flat. It was you know INR473 crores revenue going to INR530 crores revenue. Is there any specific reason what had happened in those years? That is my first question.

Vikash Agarwal

Hi Naitik. The INR535 crores you are mentioning is not full year. It was I think for two quarter or three quarter. The final figure was 635 which is in line with our standard growth. Okay. And then my second question would be from what I understand the main cost in our cost structure is the commission that we pay to the counselors who have helped us get the students admission. So the other bigger cost head is employee cost. So I just wanted to understand that how do you see the employee cost going ahead in the next 2 years, 3 years in absolute terms? Will it grow, will it remain stagnant or yo