Persistent Systems Limited (PERSISTENT) Earnings Call Transcript

Forum is present. Let me start the proceedings of the meeting. As an introduction, I am Anand Deshpande, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of the company. On behalf of my fellow Board of Directors, I'm delighted to welcome all of you to our 36th Annual General Meeting. As we gather here to reflect on our past -- the past here discuss our progress and chart the course of the future. This AGM provides us with an opportunity to engage in meaningful discussions, address your queries and share our vision for the company's future. Today's meeting is organized as a hybrid meeting. Yet it is really good to see so many of you in this auditorium today. I'm also happy to share that several members who could not be here in person have joined this meeting online. Let me welcome them as well. As we get started, let me start by introducing our Board members. Let me start first with all the independent directors who have joined us online. Signing in from New York, we have Independent Director and Chairman of the Nominations and Remuneration Committee; an Executive Committee and member of the Investment Committee. Dr. Ambuj Goyal. Thank you, Ambuj. Signing in from Los Altos sales in California, we have independent director and member of the Executive Committee and Investment Committee Ms. Anjali Joshi. Signing in from Santa Barbara in California, we have independent director and member of the Nominations and Remuneration Committee, Mr. Dan'l Lewin. Thank you, Ambuj, Anjali and Dan'l for joining this meeting. Both Daniel and Anjali have joined us from California. So it's really early in the morning for them. It's 3:30 in the morning right now. So thank you very much for taking the effort for being here in this audit. Now let me introduce you the independent directors who are on stage. We start with Pravin Kadale, Independent Director and Chairman of the Audit Committee, Risk Management Committee, Executive Committee and Investment Committee. Next, we have Avani Davda, Independent Director and Chairperson of the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee and member of the Audit Committee, stakeholder relationships and ESG Committee, Executive Committee and Investment Committee. Now let me invite Arvind Goel Independent Director. He is the Chairman of the Stakeholder Relations Committee and the ESG Committee and also a member of the Risk, Nominations and Remuneration Committee. Then we have Dr. Ajay who is an independent director and member of the Audit Committee, Risk Management Committee and the Nominations and Remuneration Committee. Let me introduce you to my fellow colleagues. We have Our CEO, Chief Executive Officer, Sandeep Kalra and our Chief Financial Officer, Vinit Teredesai. And finally, let me introduce you to our very dynamic Company Secretary. Mr. Amit Atre. We have several distinguished guests in this auditorium. I want to call out some of them. Let me start by acknowledging the presence of Mr. S.P. Deshpande or Dada, who is here. He is a promoter of the company, and I'm a former Director of the company as well. Let me also introduce Mrs. Sonali Deshpande. She is the Chairperson of persistent foundation, and we will learn more about some of the activities of the foundation. -- as we go on today. It's a very heartening thing today that we have several former directors of Persistent Systems here present in person. We have Mr. Pradip Bhargav, Kiran [indiscernible] and Sunil Sapre here as well. We also have Rajesh Konarski, who is also a former CFO of the company. Thanks for coming. I didn't see Rohit or [indiscernible] but maybe he's here somewhere, maybe he's online. Okay. We also have very special guests here today. I must welcome Manas. He is the founder and CEO of Nagaro and you'll hear more about Nagaro as we share some of the updates today. We also have Mr. Pratik Agarwal, who is the Chief Financial Officer of Nagaro. Thank you very much for being here to be part of our shareholders meeting. I'm sure they'll be very excited to see you and meet you. We also have [indiscernible] who has come all the way from Germany. He ended this morning. She is a partner from Hengeler Mueller, our legal advisers in Germany. And thank you for coming. We also have present in the auditorium, several members who are responsible for ensuring that our business runs on time and is run effectively. So I would like to introduce Mr. Swapnil. Swapnil is a partner for BSR and company LLP. They are our statutory auditors, and they have been statutory auditors since the 35th Annual General Meeting which was held in July 2025. Thank you, Swapnil. We also have Tejashree Joshi and Kastav Deshpande. They're partners from Joshi Apte and Company are tax auditors. We also have Mr. S.V. here in person. Mr. Sridhar Mudaliar, Shital Joshi and Minakshi Deshmukh. So SV [ Dulkar ] is SVD, which is the company, SVD and associates, our secretarial auditors. They have been our secretary of auditors since financial year 2025, '26. They are also the scrutinizers for today's meeting. So thank you for being here. I want to thank Mr. Sanjiv Yadav. I guess he's not here, but maybe he is online. He represents NSDL, who have provided us with this e-voting platform and the video conferencing platform for today's meeting. So I want to thank NSDL for doing that. I also want to welcome and thank Sandeep Pawar of MUFG Time India. They are the registrar and share transfer agents for this company, and they have been our partner since very beginning of -- ever since our IPO. So thank you for being part of and supporting us all through this. Thank you all for joining this on video. Now I would like to -- as we get started, I want to share a short video about persistence activities during the last 1 year. And while that is playing, I'm going to request the directors to please come in front again, and we'll clear the stage so that you have a clear view of the video. Can we play video, please? Thank you. [Presentation]

So it's been a very exciting year, as you noticed. So I'm going to read the Chairman statement. So dear fellow share owners. It's a privilege to share with you Persistent 36th annual report. This is an opportunity for us to reflect on how far we have come, consider the changing world around us and above all, acknowledge the trust that has made this journey possible. When we started Persistent in 1990, we had limited resources, but what we had was curiosity, determination and a willingness to learn. We believe that if we remain useful to our customers and create value for them, then business would grow. . More than 3 decades later, those fundamentals remain unchanged. Trust is earned every day project by project and commitment by commitment. Behind every customer relationship our teams working diligently to solve problems, meet commitments and go the extra mile. Their dedication, professionalism and care have helped Persistent earn the confidence of customers around the world. This year, artificial intelligence has become central to all business conversations worldwide, like Internet and mobile computing before it. AI represents transformational technology, taking us beyond automation towards systems that can support interpretation, judgment and decision making and reshape how organizations operate, innovate and compete. At Persistent, we believe enterprise intelligence rests on 3 elements: the core technology on which intelligence is built and runs the business context that enables it to understand an organization and the coordination layer that translates insights into action. The real opportunity lies in building an intelligent enterprise grounded in its own data, customer relationships, business processes and accumulated expertise bring these elements together responsibly and with appropriate attention to privacy, security and governance, will enable organizations to create differentiated and lasting value. This transition aligns very closely with persistence heritage and strength. For more than 35 years, we have helped customers navigate major technology shifts by combining deep engineering expertise with an understanding of enterprise systems and data. Our role now is to help customers bring together technology, business context and coordinated action, turning intelligence into meaningful outcomes. I'm enthused by how our people are responding to this moment. Technology changes rapidly, judgment, creativity, integrity and perseverance endure. The ability to learn, adapt and solve meaningful problems has always been central to Persistent culture. Institutions become stronger when learning is part of their culture, Persistent University and our broader investments in workforce capability remain important pillars of our strategy. The future will belong to organizations that learn continuously, and we remain committed to building one. In FY '26, we continue to grow consistently marking our 24th consecutive quarter of growth. This reflects the trust of our customers, the strength of our strategy and the commitment of our people. I thank every employee for their professionalism, resilience and the care they bring to work every day. I also acknowledge their families and the support -- whose support makes these achievements possible. I remain deeply grateful to our customers. Many of these relationships have evolved over years and in some cases, over decades. Technology cycles change quickly, but relationships built on trust, performance and shared success endure. Growth also brings broader responsibilities. Our commitments extend beyond business performance, to sustainability, governance, innovation and community impact. Recognition through the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices and other ESG benchmarks reflects our effort to build a responsible resilient and sustainable business that creates value for all our stakeholders. What gives me confidence in the future is the quality of our people, the trust of our customers and values that have guided us for more than 3 decades. Throughout our 36-year journey, our shareholder owners, all of you here have remained true partners and Persistent growth story. I deeply appreciate your trust and confidence. Finally, I thank our customers, partners, vendors, communities, for the role each of you continue to play in the company we are building together. In the end, companies are built by people, relationships and shared beliefs sustained over many years. We have been very fortunate in how we have been able to build this. As we move ahead to the next part of the meeting, let me invite our Company Secretary, Amit to the podium to share more information about how to run this meeting seamlessly. Amit, please.

Thank you, Anand, and welcome shareholders to the meeting. I would like to inform the members that the annual report for the financial year 2025, '26, Notice of the AGM, the register of members, the register of directors and key manager and personnel, the register of shareholders of Directors and key manager personnel, the register of contracts or arrangements in which directors are interested, the register of proxies a certificate from the secretary auditors regarding implementation of ESOP schemes and copies of newspaper advertisements about VC facility and AGM are available online and in physical mode for inspection by the members during this meeting. Online copies are also available on the company and NSDL portal. As the meeting is being held in hybrid mode, the facility for appointment of proxies by the members attending this meeting through video conferencing is not available. However, members attending this meeting in person are allowed to appoint proxies. The proxy register is also available for inspection. The company has received and considered 1 proxy form received in accordance with the provisions of the company's at 2013. I have a small request to you -- to make -- those who are attending this meeting in person and have not submitted their attendance slip at the registration counter are kindly requested to submit the same after the meeting to mark your attendance. The attendance slips will be provided outside the auditorium after the meeting. I would like to now invite Sandeep to the stage to share the highlights of the year. Thank you.

Thank you, Amit. So before I start, I would like to welcome you all once again and for being our shareholders and for your support over the years. If we can have the next slide, please. So we would like to start with highlighting how the brand of your organization has grown over the last several years actually in the last year, we were recognized as the fastest-growing brand in IT internationally. Let's see the video. . [Presentation]

This is one achievement we are all very proud of. And I'm sure many of you would also be. All of this is backed by the consistent effort by our team members globally. Over the last several years, we are among the fastest-growing company in terms of our revenues and hence, being recognized by the brand finance side. It comes on the back of this last 24 sequential quarters of revenue growth. We also announced our results yesterday, and I'll talk a little bit more about it later, but that '24 just became '25, and we are confident of maintaining that growth as actually going ahead. Now if you were to look at it, this is in terms of the percentage growth year-over-year. It is roughly 17.4% growth year-over-year in dollar terms and in rupee terms, it translates into roughly 23.5% on a year-on-year basis. From a profitability perspective, not just did we grow our revenue by, let's say, 23.5% in rupee terms, we grew our profitability from an EBIT and PAT perspective by 31.5% and 33.2%, which meant basically we operated better and more efficient as the year went by. We are also proud to say as we have gone by through the year, our total team strength today stands at -- for the financial year-end stands at 27,500 plus. We also added 3 new locations, Estonia in Europe, which becomes a new delivery location for us. Abu Dhabi in the Middle East, where we are trying to expand our business with the different institutions, including banks and other local companies in the Middle East and in China, where we have started servicing global customers as we win more global contracts. Just to remind all of you, here is what we do for living. We work across 3 different industry verticals, software high-tech, where we are working with the likes of Microsoft, Amazon, Google, IBM, Salesforce, doing work with them as in doing work for customers with them and also doing product engineering for all of these in their own way as customers to us. The second big segment for us is banking financial services and insurance so whether you look at the largest global banks or you look at some of the largest banks in India or in Europe, they are customers to us, and we do a bunch of work for them across product development or platform development, data analytics or even things like managing their AI infrastructure as we move ahead. The third large segment for us is Healthcare Life Sciences. And when you think about healthcare life sciences, many of the equipment that you may use for doing diagnostics, whether it is blood work, whether it is things at a higher end, in hospitals, bedside and so on. that segment to pharma, to payer, payer are nothing but insurance companies, large insurance companies in the U.S. and so on and providers which are large hospital systems. We are very proud to say your company works with 2 out of the 3 hospital systems in the U.S., and we have touched their systems right from patient, acquiring the patient through the life cycle of monetizing the patient journey and providing services to them over the last 15 years. So if you look at the Fortune 500 side of it, we count 20 of the 50 and many more among the Fortune 500 as our customers. Our largest customers happen to be among the Fortune 5 from a healthcare perspective. From a technology perspective, IBM happens to be our largest publicly known customer. So whether it comes to technology or it comes to healthcare, some of the world's leading brands work with us and we provide services to them for many, many years. While we provide services to our customers, there's an ecosystem that we leverage. These are the largest technology companies in the world with bring technology, whether it is cloud, data, now generative AI or agentic AI to market. We count Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Salesforce as our technology partners overall. And in the data domain, we count Snowflake and Databricks and many more as our partners. And these are partnerships that we have nurtured over the years. And we when go in front of customers, we go jointly with many of these partners. Let me show you a video of how Microsoft right from their CEO, Satya, Nadela, to the senior folks talk about us in public forums. [Presentation]

Now Anand talked a little bit about the AI part. And from the AI perspective, if you're curious what we as a company do, we are working across 3 different vectors. On 1 side, we are developing AI-led product development life cycle platform called Sasa. And this is used by us in delivering services in doing product development for independent software vendors, the technology companies. are in the enterprises, large banks, large financial services institutions, health care companies in doing their application development and so on. . The second pillar of it is the enterprise data readiness. When we embark on the AI journey, the AI journey is as good as the underlying data and the systems supporting that. Some of the biggest programs that we're doing for Fortune 100 companies are on making them prepared for the enterprise AI implementations as they go along. Last but not the least, are the vertical specific or horizontal specific business use cases where we use our platforms like Iora to deliver those services. So to summarize, there are 3 platforms, 3 different use cases where we are investing heavily to understand the enterprise context and deliver services on to them in a very differentiated way from our bigger peers, our peers across the landscape with a mid-tier European, U.S. heritage and so on. On the back of all the capabilities that we built, we continue to be recognized by various people like ISC or partner or Everest, many other significant analysts and advisers who the customers look to for understanding the capabilities of various vendors in our ecosystem. So I'm very proud our team has delivered very well on the capability build, getting the recognitions on the back of that recognition, building the business and delivering the growth that you see. Not only have we done that, and as Anand mentioned in his opening speech, we have also built our journey on the ESC initiatives in the various theaters, various markets that we play in, whether it's India, we also have the Persistent foundation now in the U.S. So we pretty much contribute to the society in the different markets, different geographies where our customers and where our employees are. We're also very well recognized for building the high-performing workforce for the future. We have invested significantly in developing Persistent University right here in Pune in Hinjawadi. It's 1 of the biggest investments that we have done over the last several years. If any of you wants to visit that, we are happy to host you. It has classrooms, which are equal or better than a Harvard of this world. It has off-line, online, both kind of trainings available to our employees. On the back of all of that, we have been awarded many of the awards for being the best companies to work for the best companies in terms of the investor confidence, the most honored company by Extel and so on. From our initiatives. We are also tying up with multiple universities, whether it is in India, whether it is in the U.S., whether it's the likes of IIT Khadakpur, IIM Ahmedabad or whether it is the school of engineering in Milwaukee for various talent related activities and also sourcing talent from them for our own growth as we go ahead. Some of the other things that we have invested in deeply in our client relationships. We have tied up with universities like Dartmouth, where we have taken our senior management from our customers for understanding what is happening in the AI world having them not only listen from the academia, but also from their peers and our leadership in forums, which are very curated, small and which encourage trust pollination across industries of ideas from our customer base. Similarly, we have worked with the Major League cricket in the U.S. like you have the IPL in India, Cricket is becoming famous in the U.S., and we are the AI reimagining partners for the SF Unicorn, which is 1 of the bigger teams in the U.S. On back of all this, we have won several recognitions for our leadership Anand has been recognized as for the Lifetime Achievement Award at CNBC TV18, similarly Anand has won multiple awards, it's just a representative set of awards, whether it's the SEP Award here in Pune and being named as the best CEO and multiple more. So just to conclude, all of this progress is what has translated into another year for us in FY '26 in terms of sustained business performance. We have also announced our results for Q1 '27. This is the first time we are doing our AGM after announcing our Q1 results. Usually, our AGMs were done before. So let me also recap what we have announced yesterday as our results for Q1. So for Q1, I'm proud to say we've continued our growth journey. We have delivered among the best results in our industry from an Indian listed or even a global landscape. So we grew our yearly revenues at 16.1%, delivering a quarterly revenue of $452 million. On the back of that, we also won a significantly large deal with 1 of our largest technology customers. This is $125 million on an annual basis and $650 million on a yearly basis. In simple terms, what it means is our growth journey for the next several quarters is intact, and we have more and more to deliver. So from that perspective, rest assured, FY '27, it's not a guidance. looks to be a fairly good year for us as we move ahead. So if you were to look at what we have said so far, we delivered a very good year in FY '26. We've delivered a Q1, which is good from a revenue perspective. We have delivered good bookings from Q1 perspective that will lead to good revenues in FY '27. And now we are looking for the next how do we build the Persistent of the future, which will last for the next 5, 10, 15 years. And that's where we are proud to say, and Manas is here. Pratik is here. We are happy to join hands with Nagarro, and I must say this -- this is not a company that was looking for being acquired. We looked around, we wanted to grow our capabilities. We wanted to grow our footprint in Europe and many other geographies. We scouted in the market for the companies that we could look at partnering with for building our future. And that is how we approach Nagarro proactively, and I'm proud to say we have been able to make it work, and we look forward to building our next a very comprehensive global company, $2.9 billion in revenue. 46, 000 professionals globally as we come to, obviously regulatory approvals and other things have to be done. But as those happen, we'll be a truly global company with a much bigger footprint multiple verticals added like industrial and consumer capabilities like SAP, et cetera, extended to us and vice versa. So we are confident with the management team that we are inheriting from Nagarro as the transaction happens, will only become bigger, stronger and be able to deliver even more to our aspirations and to your confidence. So with that, I will stop. Sincere thanks to all of you for being here and for your support in this journey. And I hand it back to Anand. Thank you.

Thank you, Sandeep. It's been really exciting to see the growth of the company and all the work that we did during the last year. Now let's move to the next part of the meeting, which is the business segment of the Annual General Meeting. The notice convening 36th Annual General Meeting, the directors report the audited financial statements for the year that ended on March 31, 2026, have been with you for some time. Therefore, I take them as read, there are no qualifications or observations in the auditor's report to the consolidated and stand-alone financial statements for the year that ended on March 31, 2026. So they are not required to be read here. So we'll keep moving. The secretarial audit report does not contain any qualifications or observations. So it is not required to be read. There are 12 resolutions for your consideration today. And I'm going to read them out 1 by one. The first 4 resolutions are proposed as ordinary businesses and are being voted as ordinary resolutions. The first 1 to receive, consider and adopt the audited standalone financial statements of the company for the financial year ended March 31, 2026, the reports of the Board of Directors and auditors thereon. Number two, to receive, consider and adopt the audited consolidated financial statements of the company for the financial year that ended on March 31, 2026, and the report of the auditors thereon. Number three, this is regarding the dividend, to confirm the payment of an interim dividend of INR 22 per equity share and to approve the payment of the final dividend of INR 18 per equity share for the financial year 2025, '26. This aggregates to a total dividend of INR 40 per share. And our share is INR 5 per share, just -- as I'm an interested party in the next part of this business, let me invite Mr. Arvind Goel who is the Chairman of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee, to chair the meeting for the next agenda item.

Good evening, everyone. The resolution #4 is to consider the appointment of Dr. Anand Deshpande, Chairman and Managing Director, who retires by rotation and being eligible offers himself for reappointment. Now I request Anand to chair the meeting for the next agenda.

Thank you so much. The next 7 resolutions are proposed as special businesses and will be voted as special resolutions. So let me start with Resolution 5. To appoint Avani Davda as Independent Director of the company, not liable to retire by rotation to hold office for a second term of 5 consecutive years from December 28, 2026 to December 27, 2031. Number 6, to reappoint Mr. Arvind Goel, as an independent director of the company, not liable to retire by rotation to hold office for a second term of 5 consecutive years from June 7, 2027 to June 6, 2032. Next, we have Resolution #7 to reappoint Dr. Ambuj Goyal as an Independent Director of the company. not liable to retire by rotation, to hold office for a second term from June 7, 2027 to October 31, 2031. Number eight, to reappoint Mr. Dan’l Lewin as an independent Director of the company, not liable to retire by rotation to hold office for a second term from June 10, 2027 to April 30, 2029. . All right. Now let's move to the next set, Resolution #9 to consider and approve the acquisition of Nagarro through Galaxy Germany Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of the company, it should be the direct acquirer in this transaction. Number ten, to consider and approve the creation of security and provisions of corporate guarantees to be given by the company on behalf of Galaxy Germany Holdings. Number 11, to consider and approve the creation of a charge, pledge, hypothecation and/or mortgage by the company, in respect of the loan given to Galaxy Germany holdings. Now this is the last one. The next resolution is proposed as special business and is being voted as an ordinary resolution. So for this, it is to consider and approve the material related party transactions that we've had. Now we are coming to the most exciting part, which is the Q&A section. So to help me assist through this process, let me invite Rashi to stage.

Thank you Anand. Good evening, dear shareholders. Today, we will be taking questions from speaker shareholders who have preregistered to speak at the AGM and are joining us virtually. We will also be taking questions from the shareholders who are present here in the auditorium. For shareholders attending this meeting online. You may post your questions in the Q&A box any time during this meeting. You may also ask your questions on X, formerly known as Twitter with #persistentAGM2026. We will read out questions received through the Q&A and x feed during the meeting. we will collate your questions, group them into categories and answer them by category. Let me take you through some instructions to facilitate your participation in today's meeting. Since this meeting is hybrid, we will be swinging between speaker shareholders joining virtually and between the shareholders and the live audience. We will also be reading out questions we received from the Q&A and x feed. For speakers joining virtually, we will call out your name and unmute your audio. So please look out for your name. If there is any trouble with the connectivity at the speaker's end, we will ask the next speaker to ask their question. You will be placed back in the queue, and we will try to call you again once other speakers complete their turn. We will request the speakers to be crisp and to limit their speech to 3 nits. Please note that the company reserves the right to limit the number of shareholders asking questions depending on the availability of time at the AGM. With that, let's go to the speaker shareholders who have registered to speak and have joined us virtually. Our first speaker shareholder is Jaydip Bakshi.

I'm Jaydip Bakshi from the city of Kolkata. First of all, I convey my thanks to our company secretary for giving opportunity and enter Secretary team for keeping in touch before this start of this AGM. So the initial speeches along with the video clippings, was informative and congrats on second for the performance, which is well highlighted in Page 16 of our annual report. And thanks once again for the dividend also. However, strengthening the capabilities in this AI era, the current revenue driven by the AI-led projects and pipeline for the AI-led engineering solutions for the next coming 2 to 3 years. What are the initiatives to drive diverse of our scale operations in this emerging market? And what is our client retention rate and how are we positioned from our peers and continue with your Persistent foundation and the CSR activities and return to the society is always great and congrats once again for the awards which we have received and also for the enviable stewardship, which is mentioned in Page #37 and also sustaining the carbon neutrality. Thanks for the opportunity, and I've supported the resolutions and continue with our growth momentum in the next area of technology with digital trust. Thank you, sir, for the opportunity. Thank you, ma'am. .

Fair question, sir. The next speaker shareholder we have is Samrat Sarkar.

Am I audible?

Yes. Yes, sir. You are audible. .

Okay. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for this opportunity, and thank you for consistently delivering beyond our expectations. The following 4 questions. Number one, I had earlier met that Persistent had a revenue target of $15 billion by FY '31. Is this taken into consideration for the new Nagar acquisition or now the goal stands revised -- number two, where do you see our operating margins to sustain in the midterm after accounting for the Nagarro acquisition. Number three, what was our employee appreciate in FY '26? And lastly, you have mentioned about data shift towards the nonlinear platform-led economics. So can you throw some light on what that implies. That's it from my side, my best wishes to all of you. Thank you so very much. .

Thank you for your question, sir. We will now take questions from our shareholders here in the audience. please raise your hand. And if you have a question, our team will get you a mic. And the only request I have is, please state your name before you ask the question so we can capture where the question came from. And one second. Okay. So we have Mr. Vinayak Bapat, who has volunteered to start the question off. Can we please get a mic over here, please?

Thank you. Good evening everybody, brother shareholders, Board of Directors and some other ex directors and also the guest from Nagarro -- sorry. As shareholders, it is my duty to kind of bring to the management's attention, the concerns that shareholders typically carry, which have not been probably addressed here in the book annual report even to us, maybe for a strategic reason or whatever -- which management knows best but I'm confident that under Anand's leadership, we will have very forthright answers both coming either here or a little later. Now there are 2 resolutions for the accounts. One is for stand-alone accounts and other 1 is for the consolidated accounts. Before we take those I thought I should also add a few things, which need your attention. Undoubtedly, this is the movement persistent was built for this is a phrase from the Chairman's this thing. As they say, our time has come now. And it's come and it's good that everyone is in good health and chair and vigor to take forth the agenda that is being laid out because it means another Himalaya to climb from -- because 25 successive quarters, thanks to Kalra's leadership in the last 4 years, we are seeing some outstanding results. Years ago, I had a small concern, I used to tell Anand. Why is EBITDA going less than 23, 24, one fine day he told me we are okay with looking at 17 or 18, in the last 10 years, we are in that range. It is commendable. It is not an easy task to maintain an EBITDA at that level consistently. So as we said, Persistent stands apart. The CMD's letter says that they give value for 36 years and all on building trust and customer retention. Very disciplined execution. And they've got 30,000 certifications for artificial intelligence and machine learning. I do not know whether the IT industry in India or global, where we rank with that achievement. It is the fastest-growing IT Services brand as we saw -- and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the Nagarro acquisition should not lead to a dip because such type of performances are rare. And I come from a company called General Electric, where we used to have AAA rating. So these things will have an impact on your rating. And we are only AA plus and stable. I would endeavor the CFO to ensure that we move to AAA to successfully integrating Nagarro. The ISO 42001 certification how many companies are there in India or globally who have also achieved this? I -- like last year, I always complained that my CMD is underpaid. I want my brother shareholders to seriously look at this. You cannot have a company where people who report to the CMD are paid much, much more than our CMD. It is not -- he's not contributing. It's very modest and unassuming person. See, uneasy lies the head on which the crown rest that itself is good enough for him to merit very healthy and compensation. And I urge the Nominations and Remuneration Committee to prevail upon the Chairman because he's interested in this resolution. So he will keep himself out. So the others should vote and give what we shareholders will be happy with because I feel guilty at the end of the day, when I see my dividend check, I feel guilty. Okay, I have not compensated 1 of my directors adequately. It's not right. So I'll keep making this pitch. Maybe I'm the only shareholder who keeps making this pitch, but I don't mind because I feel that it's the right case. The other thing in the managerial compensation, there was a lot of disparity -- the company's performance has been outstanding. And we see that CMD gets only 8% raise. CEO gets 12.3%. And my CFO get 44%. And my Independent Board of Directors, they get 57%. I think Someone told me I got some feedback that the 57% for the independent directors was after a lapse of time. So are the current independent directors earning some bread, which belong to the previous independent directors. No, we have to be very clear on these things. The company has got enough resources. No 1 can say, [Foreign Language] this is not acceptable. We have to be -- raise our governance standards and be on the dot. Because such sort of disparities for -- I'm a third-party person. I read only the annual report. Then you feel [Foreign Language] you feel odd, no. When you see 200 other companies, which have different ways of compensating and we are different. So I think either it needs inclination in the notes. See the annual report is our document it is our way of presenting ourselves to the world. We should make the most of it and be elaborate and explain our position so that doubts should not arise in shareholders' minds. I'd like to share with my other shareholders. I compared Infosys, TCS, HCL, Tech Mahindra and Persistent. We are small. Some of the other 4 are very big. But 1 thing which caught my attention. How our employee productivity, thanks to the CEO, has been outstanding TCS revenue per employee was $51,000 in '26. Persistent revenue per employee is $60,000. What does it tell me? Keep my work, the work which I am doing is right at the top. We are getting high value work and our clients are paying us that much. That is what I monitor on this. This dollar revenue per employee where does it rank me in my Indian companies? And I'm very happy to see we have overtaken TCS. And not for one. Last year also, we were better than them. Last year, TCS was $50,000 per month -- per employee, and we were $57,000 -- so we are consistently doing well. And that we have also overtaken Tech Mahindra. Tech Mahindra is also a few times bigger than us. So what I'm trying to say is we are there. That top line, which CEO put up for 25 quarters shows a whole lot of numbers on the bottom line where we are outstanding. There were a few inconsistencies I noticed, and I think it is CEO, Kalra's later. The dollar revenue increase in the Board report and a dollar revenue increase in your letter. There is a distinction. If you do the arithmetic, the Board report comes 18.9%. And that is on page 164 where you will see 18.9%. Whereas what Kalra has referred to in his letter to us is 17.4% so I think someone in the finance and secretarial team should pay a little attention to detail. And before he hands out his letter, [Foreign Language] because he has got so many things on his head. Very often, someone told me it is constant currency. Now I looked at various exchange rates [Foreign Language] constant currency. So okay, it is an invention of the IT thing. We understand it is like the Indian basket of crude, which is a mix of everything. So this was 1 important when I brought it your notice, no offense meant by friend, your contribution has been super outstanding. Now 1 request. You see a concern, which I mentioned to both company Secretary and Chairman, we are at the cusp of a large acquisition. We cannot let him go. So the shareholders should say we would like to have his term extended for another 5 years with his performance bonus now linked to the Nagarro delivery. He is been good, and I'm quite hopeful that he will stay with us. But that's the need of the hour. Now immediately, my dividend got reduced by INR 5 per share. Now someone will say [Foreign Language]. But you see the Board, when people sit in the board, inherently, [Foreign Language] but more than the interest watch out for currency appreciation. The euro has depreciated by 37%. I've got the numbers, 16% in this quarter. So my query to you, CFO is why don't we take $1 denominated loan, not a euro loan -- euro currency loan because all our income is in dollars. So you have a perfect hedge -- you don't have to hassle yourself [Foreign Language] don't get into that, please. It will be a good saver. And Kiran is here -- he's a bank Treasurer. He's a guruji on foreign exchange. Kiran, please give guidance. 0 regulatory fines Amit you and other regulators who were too good, too good. It's a pleasure to come here and participate in a company like this. I talked about rating also. Now I will come to the acquisition. Gentlemen from Nagarro. CFO and MD. Please do not misunderstand me, but it is my duty to do a searching question of my board, and they will surely reply to all my concerns. You see we are taking a debt of roughly INR 16,000 crores between INR 13,500 crores to INR 16,000 crores which ranges 1.5x of net worth to nearly 2%, if you take the higher side than students. Now as any banker or anyone would say [ 221 ] is the Beyond that, you call it over-leveraged. . Now we need to work with our analyst community and try and ensure that in the interim in the 6-odd months until we consume this until the revenue stream starts coming. That is why everyone is thing is believing. When the revenue comes -- everyone will say, Kalra is the best CEO in the whole world. It's a fact, till then [Foreign Language] and that is where the currency depreciation will wipe us out. INR 16,000 crores is a of money. Even if you take a 10% depreciation, it will knock us out. It's a lot of money, INR 1634 crores. So I really want to -- there's a saying sales or revenue top line is for vanity, EBITDA brings you to sanity and the reality is cash. So we have to convert this acquisition into as good a cash flow as Persistent because it's not for lack of effort. We have an option, not Nagarro, but we can invest in people. It may take longer, but the run rate is so good. The run rate, thanks to his team and you all put together is very good quarter 1 results. We're fantastic on top line. We are fantastic on EBITDA. But I think we had a loss. So that really dragged down the entire profit. But FX loss is a cash outflow. So our debt equity will be hampered. It leaves us very little room for any other -- either a bad calamity or something. We have no headroom to borrow. We are so tight. So we should look at some innovative financial instruments. -- by which this indebtedness also remember, Dhirubai and Reliance Petroleum. That is all a hint. If you need details, I'll help you. I am always here, I'm a shareholder. BUt I'll help you. Productivity. Productivity, we are better than Nagarro. The revenue per employee EBITDA per employee, PAT per employee today is good. So 1 feels Nagarro I think the management has to be a little more forthcoming. Maybe you are bound by some obligations or something. But if I have the satisfaction that the cash flows from a will take care of the interest and the currency depreciation. This is a win-win. If the management is convinced on the audit committee is convinced on it, I think this is a good proposition. Otherwise, I was really concerned with all the debt equity and things which is going on. And we have 3 or 4 living examples, I need to share them. One is HDFC Bank, HDFC merger. From INR 1,500, HDFC Bank for the last 4 years is so much down. We are not a group. We are 1 company, this thing. So we have to ensure that our share doesn't get hammered. Not to say that all was trade in it, but still, if the share is at its peak or somewhere in that vicinity, everyone's comfort level is high. Second is Suzlon. There was a company from a which bought a German company for integrating 7 years later, they had to sell that company. And that resulted in Suzlon's huge dip. Otherwise, it was very promising wind energy country. We have to learn from that. Another thing is JLR when JLR was acquired by Motors, the bankers to JLR ring-fenced JLR, saying that dividends, these debt, other from JLR will first be used to fund JLR. Hence, Tata Motors today is in debt and JLR is okay. If you see the 2 balance sheets and P&L, you will notice that. And fourth is also [indiscernible] from the Tatas. Pravin Karla might help you. But what I as a shareholder is seen and what we have badge. When Chorus was bought by Ratan Tata, it was 24 million metric tons of steel Today, it is hardly 7. And there's nothing left of Chorus. It's been dismembered and dismembered and dismembered and dismembered and sold out. So these are lessons . That corporate India has gone through. We have to learn from them, and we should ensure that we carefully steer our way and stay away from them. With these few words, I rest my case and thank you for a patient hearing. .

Okay. Any other members in the audience who would like to ask their questions to the executive team. Please raise your hand, and we'll get a mic over to you.

I don't have any major questions. The and to congratulate Mr. Sandeep Karla. I think you are the highest pace exhibit is her execute India. Nearly INR 268 crores, I what I read in the paper. So congratulations, and I'm sure about the Karla and Sandeep under the leadership of the 2 persons -- our company is not only the other global print is a global leader -- leader in the future that I'm sure about it. And even though Mr. Bapat, states about INR 16000 crores is, okay, it's a burden, but I'm sure the very good work and our people are working very nicely for this company, definitely, we come up from this loan and in future. Our company is, again, very good cash reach company like this. And might be Mr. Bapat says about the Chorus and I'm from the debt yet 17 years back, that TCS is only the service company, so the Tata Group, what I know because Persistent is 1 of the very good brand in the service, and that will definitely in going positive results. Okay. Thank you, sir.

Any questions, please raise your hand. Okay. I have a question that's come online that I'd like to -- Yes, please. We get the mic.