Thomas Cook (India) Limited (THOMASCOOK) Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Thomas Cook India Limited Q4 and FY26 earning conference call. As a reminder, all participant line will be in listen-only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions as the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touchstone phone. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Purva Zanwar from 361 Capital Market Private Limited. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.

Thank you, Ryo. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us on Thomas Cook India Limited Q4 FY26 Earnings Confidence Hall. From the company, we have with us Mr. Mahesh Ayur, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and the Senior Management Dean. We would like to begin the call with brief opening remarks from the management and following which we will have the forum open for an interactive Q&A session. I would now like to invite Mr. Mahesh Ayer to make initial remarks, and thank you over to you, Mahesh, sir.

Thank you, Purva. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us as we discuss the Q4 and FY26 financial and operating performance. While this may not be a brief call, this may be a little longer, as we have a lot of topics. This is going to be a little longer one. Before we begin, Thank you very much for joining me on the call today. I have with me Vishal Suri, Managing Director of SOTC, Debasish Nandi, Group CFO of the Towns Cook India. India Limited, Urwashi Bhuthani, who heads investor relationships. Before I walk you through our performance, I think it's important that I set the context because 20… To begin with, on the financial services. The financial services segment reported a strong outcome on the face of a stretched operating environment. If you look at the LRS data as published by RBI for the period April 2025 to February 2026, the three relevant segments of the travel-related foreign exchange, education, and remittance, there is a decline of 3%, 22%, and 5% respectively. Now, in comparison, TCIL reported a 13% increase in turnover for the holiday segment, 17% in the education segment, and 19% in the remittance category. For the quarter in question, the forex revenue increased by 3% to 813 million and EBIT improved by 17% to 392 million with an EBIT margin of 48%. The full year are recorded revenue and EBIT. The growth has been a result of our constant endeavor to increase our reach via an omnichannel Thank you very much. We have expanded our reach by opening five new franchises, one own outlet and one airport counter during the quarter, and also improved our digital penetration, which currently stands at 23% on an increasing transaction base. Our website transaction for the quarter has seen a growth of 65% YOY. Bookings on our app, which is TCPay, so much more than 1% of our website We also saw a 4.9x increase in transaction. Our WhatsApp engagement continues to grow positively with a 2.2x growth year-on-year, albeit on a smaller base. Our reach via QuickCommerce, which is blingy. We are now present in six additional cities, Noida, Kolkata, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, and Chandigarh, and increasing our digital distribution network to 12 cities. A quick update on all sub-segments within the foreign exchange space. Travel-related foreign exchange segment increased 29% in turnover in the quarter and 13% in the year. Again, set in the context with the reduced travel spend as seen from the allowance data, our performance was encouraging. Our approach that one site doesn't fit all with prepaid cards has led to a deep customer segmentation and that along with our distribution is working well for us. Our education business under the retail segment has grown rather positively, especially given the stress in the segment as per the LRS data. Despite the contraction in the overall student segment, we gained market share. We optimized demand that was moving towards alternate destinations. Our relationships with over 800 MAKU education counselors across the country gave us a genuine on-the-ground advantage. Added to that, our partnerships with large NBFCs, namely Credilla, Avance, Poonawalla, FinCorp, under the NBFC umbrella, both gave us reach and credibility to capture the education loan demand, resulting in larger FX fines. On the corporate portfolio, A noteworthy development on our prepaid forex card is that it has expanded today to 28 global currencies from 12 that we are operating till December of 2025, creating India's one of the largest, widest currency portfolio on the prepaid card segment. Our float as we speak stands at about 16 billion rupees on a total prepaid card load volume of 764 million US Moving on to the travel and related segment, I have shared the broader context under which we operated during the year, and in this case, our geographical as well as the political, as well as the portfolio diversity is what gave us room to maneuver. We reported a total revenue of 67,025 million for the year, which is an increase of 4% and our EBIT was down 11% to 2,218 million with an EBIT margin of 3.3%. And this largely reflects the geopolitical impact in our overseas subsidies, which I will speak about in the subsequent paragraphs. which accounts for 27% of the travel portfolio grew by 8% during the year and the quarter and this is despite the shortened and the impacted key booking periods during the year which I referred to in my opening remarks. Leisure holidays saw an 8% increase in the quarter and during the year. This was led by a 17% increase in the short haul bookings during the year and a 21% increase in the quarter. Demand for short-hauled destinations such as China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Japan continues to be very strong. Long-haul growth for the full year while positive remains subdued largely due to the impact of two big seasons impacted by the various evolving geopolitical conditions along with the pressure on supply and pricing. Our domestic portfolio was also impacted during the year from the start due to the Pelgam attack, the unfortunate Air India crash, and the overall uncertainty due to the geopolitical issues and the absence of Kumbh and Kashmir, which got impacted on the domestic front. However, our focus on this segment has been to concentrate on CEREC markets such as Bhutan, Andaman, and the pilgrimage travel, which is Chardham, Kailash, Ayodhya, Varanasi, Muktinath. In fact, SOTC has partnered with Anuradha Codewar to promote Darshans, the spiritual packages portfolio that we operate. Our results are thus a result of our model being agile and proactive initiatives in this area. We pivoted quickly to respond and actively sell alternate long-haul destinations, doubled down on our eastbound short-haul, leaned into domestic travel, and meaningfully expanded our pilgrimage travel proposition. These weren't reactive patches. These were deliberate strategic redirects made quickly and executed well by our teams. The leisure portfolio. the Bhutan Charter ex-Bangalur and Ahmedabad to capitalize on the direct connectivity and growing travel interest to the destination. I am happy to report that the charter flights that we are operating for Bhutan have been completely sold out. We also introduced Trapshore, a pioneering travel protection initiative designed to address the evolving realities of modern travel and provide customers with greater confidence and peace of mind. We also launched an industry-first visa rejection power, a pioneering ground-breaking insurance solution that safeguards travelers against financial loss arising from visa rejections. In terms of forward booking, as we speak, short haul remains the preferred choice and the reasons are fairly straightforward. Airfares, decision-making happening closer to travel date and visa processor are less of a hurdle. In an environment where confidence is still finding a footing. This combination matters more than ever. Geopolitical tensions have materially impacted travel demand with long-haul forward bookings witnessing weakness, spending more than ever. There is a complete drop in volumes in. Which account for 73% of our reported travel number. The full year shows a moderated 2% increase in sales and the quarter declined by 18%. Important for me to reiterate certain events that were present in Q4 last year, which we had also discussed in. of business that was done on the government on the India Mite site, which was not available in the current quarter. We also had about 100 crores of Mite sales that happened in our destination management business in Dubai, which is Desert Adventures, which was not available in the current quarter. If you look at our Q4 result, this is a combination of the above two events as well as the impact of the U.S.-Iran war, which directly impacted our operations in Desert Adventures, which is our destination management unit in the Middle East. To break the B2B travel segment further down, our India DMS portfolio grew by about 5% during the quarter. The business had a healthy Jan and February which was partially offset by the weak March sales as was the case with other units. On the international DMS side, revenue increased by 3% in the year and saw a decline of 24% for the quarter. Let me quickly list down some of the performance drivers here. The impact of the geopolitical instability is visible in the number for our desert adventures operations in the Middle East, which declined by 50 percent in the quarter, along with volume shortfall due to the absence of large mice events. The other entities have helped offset some of the economic growth in the middle of the Noteworthy amongst them is Asian Trails, which is in the Asia-Pacific region, saw their revenue improve by 18% during the year and 6% for the quarter, led by a strong performance Thailand and Malaysia and some part of our China operations. Thank you. East Africa remained strong with revenue growing by 23% for the quarter and 34% for the full year, while East Africa saw an 87% increase for the quarter and 18% for the full year, supported by peak season and sustained momentum from chartered operations and demand from key markets, including USA and India. Coming to the next category in the B2B segment, which is Mice. I have reported a 2% decline during the quarter, and I did elaborate is due to the absence of government events being a one-off event that happened last year same time. However, if you look at the break-up we have provided on a full year basis, our corporate-wise business has increased by 6% and increased by 21% in the current quarter. Having said so, we are seeing our H2 pipeline building up. Thank you. 1 million for the full year, which is a 19% increase YOY and 28% growth in revenue during the quarter. Our air volume recorded a growth of 7.3% biowide in Q4 FY26 and 4.8% for the full year of FY2026, with international air volume growing by 19% biowide in quarter and 7% for the full year. If you look at the non-air part of our business, hotel volumes and transaction grew 7.6% and 10.7% respectively biowide in Q4 FY2026. Before I hand over the call to Vikram for his comments on sterling holiday, I just want to say the environment currently is very volatile, with customer sentiments being very low and travel decisions shortened. We are witnessing a softened forward booking pipeline where in the near short term, the large volumes coming out of long haul will not be completely substituted by short haul and domestic. However, we continue to create offerings both from a product and pricing perspective. mindful of the elevated input cost and give more options for our customers to make that quality decisions. This is the last optimizations to tide over the current geopolitical environment. Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Vikram Lalwani. I'm the Managing Director and CEO of Sterling Holiday Resorts Limited. I'm also joined by my colleague, Mr. L. Krishna Kumar, who is the Chief Financial Officer. It's a pleasure speaking with all of you again, and thank you for joining us today as we present Sterling's performance for the quarter, and the year ended March 31st, 2026. FY2526 marks a defining year for sterling, a decisive inflection point where scale, profitability, and balance sheet strength have expanded simultaneously. We are operating at a sweet spot of scale where incremental growth is increasing margins and cash. Over the last few years, Sterling has consistently demonstrated I am pleased to share that Q4FI26 was another record quarter for us across all key operating and financial metrics. Serling delivered its best ever Q4 number, EBETA, and Profit Before Just a few highlights on the Q4 FI26. The total revenue for Q4 FI26 stood at $1,408 million, registering a double-digit growth of 14%. EBITDA grew 10% at $348 million INR. PBT increased 18% to $207 million INR. With this, we completed our 25th consecutive profitable quarter. Our cash reserve stands close to $3,400 million, while continuing to maintain a completely debt-free balance sheet. The resort business continues to be the key engine driver for Sterling's growth, clearly demonstrating the success of our strategic transformation that we've undertaken a couple of years ago towards a focused, hospitality-led operating model. Room revenue for the quarter grew nearly 40% at 672 million. Occupancy improved to 64%. ARR increased by 12% to 6,347. And the REVPAR increased 16%. A 20% increase in overall prune inventory. Despite weather conditions disrupting Q2, and this being a first full financial year after the sunset of the membership acquisition, for the full year, FI26, Sterling delivered a total revenue of $5,487 million INR. EBITDA stood at 1,701 million. And the margins are healthy at 31%. Profit before tax is at $1,142 million, with PBT margins of 21%. The core revenue generation of the company is now sustainably driven by the resort business and operating hospitality platform, reflecting strength, sustainability, and maturity of a transformed business model. As we had indicated in our earlier earnings calls as well, we expected H2 performance to be stronger than H1. I am pleased to share that this guidance has played out well. The two record quarters in H2. We now have 78 resorts, hotels and retreats, approximately 3,800 rooms across 65 destinations in India. We added nearly one and a half resorts or launched one and a half resorts per month last year and almost 31 to 33 resorts over the last 24 months. A 29% CAGR growth in resorts over the last two years. Our expansion journey continues at an accelerated scale. We expect to cross 95 resorts and 4,500 rooms in 2027, with more than 20 sign-ups in our pipeline actively coming on board. Our focus is on tire-2, tire-3, high-growth business-come leisure corridors. Today, 62% of our rooms are P&L-led, while 38% of our rooms are managed inventory. As we scale further, we are consciously optimizing our portfolio through a judicious mix of P&L-led growth and an asset-light expansion. This strategy is supported by disciplined sweating of our own assets as well over the last few years, which continues to drive sustained top-line and bottom-line acceleration. At the same time, sterling remains future-ready for any kind of expansions, including in greenfield developments across our green land banks. Importantly, we have achieved this. While maintaining healthy profitability metrics with an EBITDA margins of 31% and PBT margins of 21% combined with a debt-free balance sheet. Our cash reserves have grown at a multi-year CAGR of 55%. Delivering high growth with strong capital discipline remains a rare and differentiated combination which we have attained. On the operational front, Sterling continues to strengthen its brand and customer propositions as well. Our customer experience metrics continues to remain strong despite scaling, with 30 resorts and 11 restaurants earning TripAdvisor Excellence Awards. Sterling Kana and Doon Diner, a restaurant at Sterling Massuri, was also awarded the best of best in TripAdvisor. Worldwide top. Thank you. to improve our customer offerings. Having attained meaningful scale, we are now in a planning phase of a complete re-architecture of the brand that should begin reflecting across customer touchpoints in the next. In parallel, as you are aware, the demerger process from Thomas Cook has also been initiated. While we remain watchful of short-term headwinds like weather and impacts on input costs that may impact us, we have the resilience to weather such headwinds as demonstrated in FI26 and are confident that our long-term drivers remain intact. Looking ahead, we believe the transformation phase is now largely behind us. We are entering the next phase of value creation, accelerated value creation. Sterling is now just not growing faster. It is growing better with greater predictability, stronger operating leverage, increasing cash generation, and disciplined capital allocation. We remain extremely optimistic and confident for the year ahead, including Q1 of FY27, and look forward to creating long-term value for all. Thank you once again for your time to listen and for your continued support.

Hi, good evening, everyone. My name is K.S. I'm the managing director and CEO of DigiPhoto Entertainment Amazing. First and foremost, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to present the last quarter and the year performance. As you can see, we've had, we, as Mahesh mentioned, we are one of the most affected in the group due to the current geopolitical scenario. Our quarter for 2026 posted a 194 crore. Thank you. DEI's overall business was 50% depending, was depending, and is contributed from the Middle East region. While the quarter four, Jan and Feb, were trending in the right direction. We were posting about 9% better performance than the same Jan-Feb of the previous year. March turned to be a train smash. This train smashes further quadruple because it is supposed to be our best march in the last five years, as Ram Eid was falling on March in this year. Had it been the norm, we would have posted another 40 to 50 crores over on the top line, and an additional piece, 8 to 10 crores on the bottom line, which would have made our overall year look a lot better. So, having said that... In spite of all the challenges, this was partially offsetted by Far East and APAC operations, where we have posted a fairly healthy, consistent growth. Hong Kong and Malaysia, as markets have done better than the past, we've had some new sites coming on board in that region, too. So that helped us to partially offset the same. Uh, going forward, uh, Looking at this whole thing, we are looking at the time in March also was very little for us to do any correction to save the quarter or the year in any better way. But immediately, the company has taken all possible steps on optimization and cost correction going forward. And that will be seen in the coming quarters as we trend along. We have also a lot of automation and automation that has been implemented within the company and across the market. As I've been always mentioning about our new software solutions, that has finally gone fully live and has been stably operating for the last two months consistently across all our operations. So VC is now 100% alive. This optimization will be directly helping our direct cost on people. on our capture, on increasing our captures, and our sales. The digital sales journey, as we've already implemented, is showing us a healthy trend of traction. We have activated our WhatsApp channel, which is further helping us to boost some conversion, and we are seeing this through the markets that we are open. Middle East right now is slowly just coming out of it. I think what we focus going forward will be approximately a 50% to 60% recovery towards the end of the year. That's how Middle East looks like. While doing that, we will be staying focused on penetrating our existing markets in the Far East and opening new locations within the markets that we're already operating. There by helping us to better our margins and also optimize our cost. We are hoping to see sizable betterment as these quarters go along. Although I would resonate with what Mahesh said, that we do not see this year anyway getting or delivering what it was supposed to. But our aim would be to make sure that we still make money and trend ourselves into the coming year where we can still step up and live up and deliver what we are supposed to be delivering in the year 2026. That's all for my sake. Thank you.

Leah, you can open the floor for Q&A, please.

Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. The first question is from the line of Soumya S. from Insightful Investment. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi. Thank you for the opportunity. So, my question was regarding the Stirling Resort. As we have been adding hotels and, you know, the room, number of rooms has been adding Q1, Q1, Bioware. I just wanted to know if the occupancy, we expect a likeful improvement in occupancy in Q1 and how Q1 has been so far.

Okay. Hi, Soumya. This is Vikram Lalwani. Thanks for your question. So, I'd like to split your question into two parts of answers. One is I'll answer it in form of a Q1 outlook that you're looking at. I think in general, as I said, we are extremely optimistic about Q1. And as we are in Q1 as of now, we see no headwinds, fortunately. And I think we will have, you know, a good healthy Q1. Number two is, having said that in terms of the scale that we've attained, we added 14 results last year and another 14 or so a year before last. And despite that, we've actually started showing improvements in... So, that's the thing. And from a leisure business, again, I've been maintaining that a good occupancy for the entire year, it will be approximately 65, closer towards 70. That's a good optimum. Obviously, it will vary season to season. I think the opportunity is further there to scale, both in terms of supply and to get to the occupancy of 65% to 70% through the year. I hope that answers your question.

Yes, sir. That was great. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I have just one more question. This one is regarding our outbound travel. So, short haul has seen stronger growth for the year. And I just wanted to know if currently, like in Q1, we are seeing the same trend. Because long haul being subdued, I understand what the reasons have already been highlighted.

Samir, I think I cannot... We are witnessing double-digit growth as well. The availability of visa and such things are far more easier.

All right. Thank you so much. That was it.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Heer Gogri from Choice Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.

Yes, thank you for the question. I wanted to understand that the war impact is evident, but even that was in Q4, but overall in FI26, we see India DMS grew only by 3%. Also, domestic B2C grew by 14% in FI26. So, any other reason that you want to highlight apart from the war that is already evident and also following up, how do you see Q1? Do you see any recovery in the travel industry overall?

So, you had multiple questions. So, I'll try and address each one of that. To begin with, I think on the domestic side, I think kind of I alluded to in my opening remark again, the year began with Pell Down, Operation Sindhu. So, that impacted, because Kashmir was a big market for us. It was roughly about 80-20% of our domestic portfolio, which got impacted during that period. Hence, that volume was not available. If you look at specifically at a Q... Q1 or Q4 comparison for FY26 and compare it with the previous year. So, the impact of Kashmir and we also dealt with the Kumbh Mela, which was available in the previous year, which was not transacted this year. So, this is the comparison point as far as the domestic is concerned. So, impact coming from Kumbh that was the previous year and the shortened cycle on Kashmir. I think these are the two large impacts. If I have to kind of exclude that or include that in whichever numbers that you want to do, FI24 or FI26, you'll actually see a growth which will be more like a double-digit growth. Thank you very much. to grow at a double-digit phase.

Okay, thank you. Could you also please talk the same about the corporate and MICE part? I think you mentioned that you're seeing a strong demand there, but are there any expected slowdowns for Q1 with regards to the war impact and any new partnerships that you've had?

So, currently, on the corporate travel side, we aren't seeing any reduction in volumes. They continue to trend at similar trend lines that we have seen in the previous year, which is a 7-8% growth that we have seen. So, I don't think that's getting subdued. On the mice side, yes, as I said, the decisions are getting delayed. So, a lot of it is a wait and watch approach. When that will happen. So my expectation is that a lot of that will come back. It'll happen in Q2.

Okay, got it. And one last question from my side. I think we have a cash net of debt around 800-2,000 stores. Could you highlight how this cash will be deployed or do we have new strategy there? Like I think you mentioned new automation. I think that would be one area. But anything else that we have that management has in mind?

Hi, this is Devashish Nandil. So, to answer your question, yes, you are quite right. We have a large cache, net cache. So, I would rather use the word net cache rather than anything else. And at a net level, yeah, it's about close to about 800, which is the number that we have also talked about. Now, what we intend to obviously... We have some plans for capital expenditure, which is into software, basically technology, because, as you know, travel, not only travel, even other parts of our business, notably financial services and DEI, depends a lot on technology, and therefore there will be increasing investment technology. That's one. We also would like to sort of, you know, We will pay off our debt which will be possible over the next couple of years because there are some long-term loans which are fixed requirement periods. We would be looking at, as you know, we have grown through acquisition. We have grown inorganically in the past. And if there is any opportunity for growing inorganically, we will avail of that. If there is a suitable opportunity which fits our criteria in terms of returns, etc., then we will look for such opportunities.

Okay, sure. Got it. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and want to ask questions. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and want to ask questions. Next question is from the line of Ms. Purva Zanwar from 361 Capital Market. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi. So, thanks for the opportunity. So, my question is on the financial services segment. So, if we see our gross turnover in FY26 has grown by about 8%, with retail turnover up 10%. Yet, our reported revenue declined by 0.5%. Does this indicate increasing margin pressure or deliberate strategy to trade margins for market share gains?

So, Purva, I don't think it's a straight answer like that to say, are we trading margins? No. There are some practicals we take with regards to how we go and acquire, and you will appreciate that when you are in a digital business, some of it is, you know, optically visible to the customer, and hence there is some trade-off that happens. But I think it's more to do with the mix of business that we transact. While the volume will look the way that you said, it's about 8%. On the… Mixed side of it because if you have a concentration on wholesale versus retail, retail versus corporate, Shifts, I think that there is a likely shift that happens on the margin side of it. The second one, and as I said this before, we report our revenue on a net basis. Now, there are these education consultants and franchisee business that we operate where there is the revenue share. So, while we get the gross revenue, there is also revenue share that happens with them, and then those are also reflected in the net revenue that we report. So, again, as I said, there is no margin pressure. Thank you. There are no challenges on margin. Our retail business continues to operate in the range of about 2 to 2.2 percent. Our wholesale business continues to operate about 0.6 to 0.7 percent, and I don't think those margin figures have changed.

Okay. Got it. And second was that earlier, we used to write for around 5% pivot margins in the travel segment. So, given this shift towards short haul from long haul, do we maintain that 5% guidance or it will take time to achieve that?

So, look at it, Riffi Apoorva. You know, whether I sell short haul or I sell long haul. Our gross margins are almost the same. They are not too different. The value of a short haul as compared to long haul is different. So to that extent, as an arithmetic, this number would look lower. And look, this shift is currently happening. We don't know how long this shift will happen. And we've seen gradually more like, you know, a short haul dominated kind of. I don't think the 5% that we've said is our objective to get to is not getting disturbed. Get-backs that may come because of the geopolitical, the cost pressures and stuff like that, because our endeavor also is to push the market, make them travel. So there are some tactical calls we'll take. And as you would have seen in the media, we've gone to the market with attractive price points. We are offering cashbacks and stuff like that. So there are some tactical calls that we take, which does protect, kind of put some pressure on markets, but those are well-planned and kind of tactical in nature. But I think the long-term trajectory on margin remains intact. And also, please remember, when we spoke about the 5% EBIT margin on the travel business, it was also based on our DMS operations getting profitable. We've had this wagery, like you would have seen what happened in Desert Island, this one-quarter kind of impact in the full year. And, you know, these kind of impacts have. So, well, their contributions don't come in and kind of drag the overall EBIT for that. If you have an answer, it's... Thank you.

You got it. Thank you. That's it for now.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Chetan from Systematics Group. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. A couple of questions. First on the foreign exchange part, so in fiscal 26, we have seen comparatively better growth in education and holidays segment compared to the industry. How should we see this going forward in fiscal 27? And RBI has recently issued revised norms for entities dealing in foreign exchange. So any positives or drawbacks for us in this?

Thank you, Chetan, for asking that question. I should have covered that in my commentary. But thank you for asking that. First, let me address the first question, which is on the education segment. As I mentioned, I think it has been one of our strongest... The first year as far as the growth on the education segment is concerned, actually driven by a lot of partnerships that we have had. The NBFC partnership that I spoke about and also the agency network that we have through which we sourced this business. So I think it's been a strong vote for us. Also, we have segmented this market. As you know, we have a prepaid card offering specifically focused on the student segment and a lot of benefits that we have offered to the students specifically targeting this market. So, despite a difficult environment where there have been challenges in the U.S., in the Canada market in terms of intake of students, we have managed to increase our market share in the overall student sector. My estimate is that for FY27, we will continue to see this trajectory because some of these partnerships we have just signed, they have not traded. Largely. What the circular talks about is that we can now undertake capital account transactions by definition trade transaction up to 25 lakh rupees per transaction. So that opens up a new avenue of business for us which currently is outside the ambit and was also was always a domain of banks. Now we can actually be in The second advantage or the positive that I see is that RBI is now not going to issue So what's going to happen is the current universe of 1,500 or 1,700 licenses that are in the market are the only ones who are going to exist. So no new operators are going to come in. So that kind of becomes restrictive in that sense. But also, I think increasingly the message RBI is giving is that they want to regulate a few entities, which is the AD1, AD2, and they have spoken about a new category called as AD3, specific to where they will provide foreign exchange services, which are relevant to the So I think it's kind of redefining the landscape, and I think our bond exchange business should benefit out of this one. Obviously, a lot of fine lines still need to be defined, and I think RBI is kind of actively working on it, and is going to roll out a paper on it, which will give us more direction in terms of how this will be operationalized.

Got it, sir. And so, second question is on DEI. So, the business operates around in 14 countries, with UAE contributing around 50%, which is significant geographic concentration. So, any plan, strategy to reduce this concentration, and which geographies do you believe have the highest growth potential ahead?

Okay. Yes, yes. So I think, yes, we do operate in 22 countries, but in significantly of sizable nature, we operate in about five odd countries, which is Dubai is one among them. Dubai takes 50%. Our strategy right now would be to focus on the other markets where we are already operating, namely Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and a good amount of Egypt and India also, and Thailand. So those are the markets where we are focusing on increasing. We do have options of going to new markets, but this may not be the best time to do that because the cost structures are higher when you start new. We have still bandwidth available within these markets where we can grow further. Singapore, we have heard about 85% market share. We have some more opportunity to grow there. But Malaysia and Indonesia are sizable in nature. In fact, just as we speak, we've signed up about 15 new potential partners in the coming six months that will be opening in between Indonesia, Singapore, China, Macau, and Hong Kong.

Got it, sir. Got it. Thank you, and all the best. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Anil Shah from Insightful Investment. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi. My question is related to Sterling. So, Mr. Lalani, you know, I'm just looking at your presentation, slide 39. See, at the end of FY23, we had about 2,420 rooms, and in FY24, which is, you know, for those 2,420 rooms and whatever addition that you would have done in 24 during the course of the year, we saw the highest EBIT of almost 137 crores, after which we've added almost 1,200 to 1,300 rooms from there, maybe even more, sorry, we've added, we are now at 3,800. But our EBIT continues to actually be steady in terms of 129 crore over the last two years. In fact, a decline from FY24. So, I'm sure there is lots that's going on. One of the reasons which I'm obviously probably is the member ratio at that time was 69% in 24. I mean, the guest ratio was 69, which is going to 75. So, you would have some member fees which are not there any longer. But, you know, we are not seeing growth. While we're seeing number of rooms, number of resorts, our footprints going up, I'm not seeing that percolating to EBIT. Could you just throw some light?

Okay, let me just tell you in three or four factors here. Now, over a period of time, as I said, the revenue stream on member acquisition has actually, we've stopped the member acquisition, so that revenue stream is down. And similarly, on the other hand, we've been trying to ramp up the number of resorts, and each of these resorts do have a ramp-up time involved. I've explained this also a little earlier, that whenever you open a resort, it takes three or four months to ramp up, and, you know, in fact, you get an upfront cost. Even before you start earning the revenues in these resorts. So, there is always a lag of two or three months there. So, in a ramp phase, you will face these aspects of, you know, lead and lag. And we've also substituted a lot of the business model, which is predominantly membership-driven, into now predominantly resort-driven. So, which is now almost 85%, 90% of the overall game. So, in this whole aspects of phase or scale, you know, when you had a couple of, quarter-wise, you had a couple of upfront costs. So, we've actually maintained the EBITDA margin. That's the level there. As I said, now as we keep scaling, it's only going to increase because of the fact that we've actually transformed this whole model here, number one. Number two, you know, while the cost hit earlier, while the ramp-up of the...

New lease resorts happens over a time frame. Some are seasonal in nature like Rajasthan. The depreciation on the ROU asset, which is actually affecting our EBIT, actually it's from month one itself. And the depreciation for these resorts are quite on the higher side. So that is another reason why you will find the EBITDA slightly dropping slightly in FI 25. Other reason is, this is the first full year of where we don't have any membership Thank you. Thank you. Good news is that we are able to hold on to a habit. We are also able to increase our cash flows. EBITDA margin at 31% and 24% of EBITDA margin, I think we are holding on. That is something good for us, which is purely coming from resort business.

We will only build up from there. And as we keep going ahead, the scale will start altering.

So, if we assume that we won't grow, let's say in FY27, and just keep the rooms at 3810, where do you think we can actually make in terms of an absolute EBITDA? It's a hypothetical question. I'm just trying to... Okay, I know it's a little hypothetical.

Let me answer this in a way. See, typically, I'm talking from an EBITDA point of view, all right, first, because that's a real operating story. From an EBITDA point of view, typically, anything between 32% to 35% or 36% is a great EBITDA, all right? And seasonality, it will vary from quarter to quarter, as I said. Quarter one, quarter three will have a different, you know, equation to it. So anything between 32 to 35 percent is actually, that range is actually a very stable range. And we will continue to maintain that stability.

So, if your question is 3810 rooms have to remain constant, where do you get your EBIT from?

Yeah, a bit or a bit, absolutely. You know, sir is giving me margins, which means that I need to now then predict revenues. Now, revenues could be a mix of, some of them are owned, some are managed, some are leased, you know, so.

So, the good, the good, to demonstrate the fact, Q4 revenues, if you have noticed, you would have seen an increase in occupancy, you would have seen an increase in the ARRs. These two factors on a constant 3810 rooms will definitely help us get the revenues up in the current financial year. And we are already seeing that happening in the month of April and to some extent in May also.

And even if you say that 67% of our total equation is P&L led rooms. So it's not over asset light either. It's a well-balanced portfolio and we will continue to keep that portfolio well balanced. So, as in when the occupancy, the AR or the REVPAR scales, this will automatically scale even now at a flat 3,800, and you also have the ramp-ups of those other 14 over a period of year, which will complete one full year also.

My second question is, you know, on the DEI, we obviously, you know, nobody saw this coming, the war and, you know, peak season in Dubai. So we've got a 10 crore, I think an EBITDA or an EBIT loss. Is that something? That's something that's done and dusted, and behind us, we've taken corrective actions to make sure that going forward, we will not see these kind of losses despite the situation and geopolitical remaining constant in Q1, Q2, and so on and so forth, sir.

Well, firstly, the time given was too little. So obviously, March was too late. This happened on the, if you all know the dates, it happened on 1st March, literally 28th February, to be precise. And by the way, so the corrections have been done. Currently, what we look at is overhead corrections on people, low cost, centralization costs of moving certain parts, but all those takes time. It won't happen overnight. Even correction of people take a 30-day period of notice, etc. So, to answer your question, it is not done and dusted, but also it will not be continuing in the same form. It will reduce. We'll have to stabilize it. And as long as we are confident that the business will come back, we can only do as much as required so that we can resurrect quickly. We don't see a quick comeback, but if we see, as I told you all, that we see a 50% to 60% comeback, we are restructuring ourselves out to only sustain and deliver that number, and therefore also go into other areas of optimization, like our IT optimization. We're doing a lot of utilization of AI to reduce a lot of the IT services overhead, balance some license versus owned models for some of the third-party services that we're taking, correcting some property area costs, and marketing and automation on outsourcing. All of these are being done simultaneously. You will see that quarter by quarter the number reducing and then effectively coming back to positive.

Ram, if I may add to this, so Mr. Shah Devosh is here and just wanted to add to what Ram is saying. So we have taken as Thank you. One thing that we can't do much about is the actual situation on the ground in terms of travelers coming into the Middle East, which is the affected area, and consequent footfalls into the relevant parks. The top line is something that we are still dependent on the ground conditions, on ground conditions. So that is something that's not in our hands. Cost side, we will see definitely improvements and as and when. And when it bounces back, it should bounce back stronger, because the changes done at the cost level are of long-term in nature, and therefore should help us over the years. And it's not just one-time improvement.

Sure. Thanks. Yeah, thanks. One last question, if I may. You know, I think in the presentation, we've talked about having cash and equivalents of about 2,600 crores. And somewhere in the presentation, we've also talked about 1,600 crores of float, you know, minus the debt of 277 crores. So net cash with the company as of now should be closer to about 730, 40 crores. Is that correct? That's net cash. Thank you. Is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ananya Khanna from Alpha Alternative.

Hello, sir. So, I have a couple of questions. Firstly, I wish to understand why there was a drop in the performance of the financial services segment at both the top line and the bottom line levels. Secondly, I want to understand how you plan to tide over the impact of monsoon as far as the resort segment is concerned. And the third thing is we could get some clarity on the timeline for the re-merger. That would be great.

So, Tarat, we passed your questions, Ananya, and I think I'll take one part of the question and let Devashish comment on the timelines for the re-merger, and then I'll get Vikram I hope to come back and talk about... Good morning, everyone. I think it's... Environment word. Home season? In case, I buy foreign exchange. You are looking at the full year. You are looking at more like a 9 or 10 month year rather than a 12 month year because it was impacted. Now, with that impact also, it's not just the impact to the business that could have done. It also impacted the sentiments. Obviously, people who were willing to travel, and I can't even anticipate what that number was, they didn't travel or they didn't make the decision to travel. And hence, you know, the business got impacted. But I think the noteworthy part, if you look at the full year performance, We held our EBIT at about 149 crores for the full year, and if you look for the quarter, we actually grew by about 17%, despite the challenging environment in the current quarter. So, I think there are some positives that we have seen. At the same time, there are external challenges which we could not have done anything about. And, you know, a large part of our business... to the market data that I mentioned about the LRS data, which showed a degrowth in the overall market. Our portfolio actually grew. On top of it, if I have just to give a color to our float balances that we have roughly about 16 billion rupees. You compare it with what we had as of December, it's the same number, which means that our, you know, customers are not spending, the money is still living on the card, customers are not traveling, hence the spends are not happening, and that's why the float are accumulating. So, I think it's a reflection that we haven't lost anything out there, it's just that the sentiments have been weak. I think despite that, the quarterly performance has been strong. Deepesh, you want to comment on the… Yeah, thank you, Maj.

So, when we took the board approval, For this particular de-merger project, we said that it will take us 12 to 15 months. The project is currently on track. We have applied to the NSE and the BSE for relevant approvals, and we are in touch with them, answering the queries as we speak. We expect this process to get completed by Q1 of FI 28, which was the original thumb line that we had intimated.

Let me step in here, Vikram, on the question on monsoons. Let me answer that. We can only hope that the rain gods are not too furious since quarter two. But having said that, there are two parts to it. One is an asset protection. So we are undertaking spends to ensure that in the event of... A terrible monsoon, our assets are protected first. That's number one, because in case there is any issues pertaining to that, it would actually cost us a loss more, which will impact us in Q3 to get this repaired. So that is step number one that we are taking care of, and we should be able to take care of that by mid of June. But on the other aspect, Shri Himachal, Uttarakhand, and maybe sometimes even Kerala. It does tend to impact them. But that's why we see over a period of time, in the last three to four years, our approach has also been to... We are having a spread out portfolio through the country. To the maximum possible extent, that's why incrementally every year, we are de-risking the aspects of over-dependence on one quarter or over-dependence on one region. And in the previous... Earnings calls also have mentioned that, that, you know, during, say, the COVID time where Q1, for example, was the strongest quarter for sterling in the past, maybe four or five years ago, actually today is tilted to Q3 because of the fact, while the overall pie is growing, because of the fact that the portfolio has expanded to other areas beyond the hills, say, for example. So... Particular quarter.

All right, so thank you.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Mahavir Kalsiwala, an individual investor. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. So, I am more interested in the MICE business segment, and I just wanted to know how has it performed on a QOQ and a YOY basis as per the revenue and profitability, and also, like, any updates you can give to me about the Q1-related developments in the MICE business you are seeing currently.

Mr. Mahabey, this is Mahesh.

And lastly, can you, like, give me a revenue split or a GBV split in the B2B and B2C segment you have?

As we've said, our B2C business is roughly about 20. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen, for participating on this call. As I said before, FY26 was marked by significant geopolitical disruptions at both the start and the close of financial year, effectively truncating our sales and operating period for our... To be more like a less than nine months. Despite these challenging environments characterized by airspace disruptions, elevated costs, and significant negative currency volatility, the Tamskuk India Group delivered a very strong performance with consolidated income growing by... Looking ahead, while the environment remains uncertain, we are cautiously optimistic that peace will endure. Our focus remains on prudent fiscal management, leveraging technology for increased productivity, and to deliver sustainable growth and value to our shareholders. I am also happy, I just want to mention this point here, that our board of directors have recommended a dividend of 50 paise to a 1 rupee face value share, subject to approval of the shareholders. Thank you so much, and thank you for participating on the call.

Thank you. On behalf of the Thomas Cook India Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.