Firstsource Solutions Ltd

NSE:FSL

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q4

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Firstsource Solutions Limited's Q4 FY '24 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded.

On this call, we have Mr. Ritesh Idnani, MD and CEO; Mr. Dinesh Jain, CFO; and Mr. Pankaj Kapoor, Head of Strategy and Investor Relations, to provide an overview on the company's performance, followed by Q&A.

Please note that some of the matters that we'll discuss on this call, including the company's business outlook are forward-looking and as such, are subject to known and unknown risks. These uncertainties and risks are included, but not limited to what the company has mentioned in its prospectus filed with SEBI and subsequent annual reports that are available on its website.

I now hand the conference over to Mr. Ritesh Idnani. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

Thank you. Hello, everybody. Thank you for taking this time to join us today to discuss our financial results for the Fourth Quarter and Full Year of FY '24. My name is Ritesh Idnani, and I'm the MD and CEO at Firstsource.

I would like to start this call by thanking each one of our 27,940 Firstsourcers, whose passion and commitment to consistently deliver value to customers has indeed been our true super power. It helped us report yet another strong quarter with industry-leading revenue growth that was broad-based and well distributed across verticals and geographies.

I am also pleased to report that we ended FY '24 with the highest ever net new ACV wins in a single year. Despite that, we exited FY '24 with a very robust and healthy deal pipeline, giving us confidence in sustaining the momentum over the coming quarters as well.

Let me now give you some details of our Q4 and FY '24 performance. Let's start with the financial performance itself. Our revenue grew by 7.3% year-on-year and came in at INR 16.7 billion. In U.S. dollar terms, the growth was 6.2% year-on-year and 4.9% quarter-on-quarter at USD 201 million. In constant currency, the revenue grew at an industry-leading 4.2% quarter-on-quarter after growing 3.4% quarter-on-quarter and 3% in the third quarter. We've now had two consecutive quarters of industry-leading growth. EBIT margin was 11%. This is broadly stable quarter-on-quarter and lower by 60 basis points versus Q4 of last year, but up 30 basis points versus Q3 of this year.

Our net profit was INR 1.3 billion and the diluted EPS was INR 1.9 for the quarter. For FY '24, our revenue grew by 5.2% year-on-year and came in at INR 63.4 billion. In U.S. dollar terms, the growth was 2% year-on-year to USD 765 million. In constant currency terms, the revenue growth was 1.1% within our guided range of 0.5% to 1.5%. EBIT margin was 11%, up 160 basis points versus last year and again within our guided band of 11% to 11.5%. Our net profit was INR 5.1 billion and the diluted EPS was INR 7.34.

Let me turn to the deal wins. As you will note, FY '24 has been a story of two halves for us. While our revenues were largely flat in the first half, I'm pleased with the growth acceleration we have seen in the second half of the year. Further, we have picked up on our participation on the cost optimization, revenue generation and technology and process transformation agendas of our clients. We are also proactively hunting for sole-sourced opportunities both in our existing portfolio of accounts as well as a new set of logos.

The success of our strategy is evident in our deal wins in FY '24, that was the highest ever in ACV terms. What's more, in each of the last three quarters including Q4, we have had at least one large deal win. We also added nine new logos during Q4, bringing the total count to 41 new clients in FY '24.

Further, while we enter and expand nature of our business implies the concentration of deal wins from existing clients, I'm also encouraged by the fact that new logos are coming at deal sizes that are over 60% higher than last year. Let me highlight a few notable wins we had in Q4. We have been selected by a large cooperative financial institution in the U.K. for services in the areas of financial crime and compliance. This is a significant size deal and a net new logo for us.

We also secured additional business from a large retail bank, which is an existing client, to provide customer support and back-office services. We added one of the oldest and largest education services company for their transformation initiative. We also won new business for management of low dollar claims denials and follow-up of unpaid insurance claims from one of the top-ranked hospitals in the U.S. We were selected by a major players in the U.S. health care delivery system to manage claims operations, spanning their commercial, Medicare and Medicaid divisions.

Let me now provide you some color from a vertical standpoint. Our focus on creating value for our clients, even as we continue to work on scaling new subsegments in our chosen set of focus verticals, helped us with a fairly broad-based revenue growth in Q4.

Let me now give you a deep dive into our performance and outlook for each one of our verticals. Let's start with Banking and Financial Services. In Q4 FY '24, our BFS vertical was up 1.7% quarter-on-quarter in constant currency terms, though, it was down 3.3% year-on-year due to the base effect in our mortgage portfolio. Elevated interest rates remain an overhang in the sector, but we do find clients who are focused on cost optimization initiatives to drive efficiency in their operations.

As I've highlighted earlier, we've been investing in strengthening our sales and solutions team in this vertical to broad base our footprint in existing clients as well as expand our footprint into adjacent segments. I am pleased with the progress we have made in this direction during Q4. For example, in our mortgage business, our technology-led proposition is resonating well with customers, who are increasingly exploring nonlinear execution models to prepare for potential cyclicality in their business. We also find several of our large clients in this space increasingly amenable to entrusting us with end-to-end responsibilities for functions versus the component-based model of the past.

There is also a growing acceptance for offshore-based structures. We also saw increased volumes in our collection services for the card issuers. With credit card spending reaching record highs and delinquencies also on the rise, we're seeing a positive momentum in our efforts to add new logos in this segment. As you know, we have a very strong presence among retail and commercial banks, where we work with several of the top banks in the U.S. and U.K. A large transformational deal from one of our long-standing clients that we had announced in Q3 is well underway for ramp-up. We also successfully renewed a large engagement with this client in Q4.

We're also engaging more actively with advisers and industry analysts to amplify our value proposition in the segment. We're seeing an encouraging response to our efforts in this regard. We are also targeting new segments within the financial services vertical with specialized service offerings in the areas of financial crimes and compliance. We're also making strides in building societies, next-generation banks and fintech players. During the vertical, we added six new logos -- during the quarter, we added six new logos in this vertical.

While there could be seasonal moderation in business with the card issuers in Q1, we expect it to be marginal. Overall, we are seeing a good buildup in our deal pipeline and outlook for this vertical.

Let me move to Healthcare. In Q4 FY '24, our healthcare vertical was up 5% year-on-year and 3% quarter-on-quarter in constant currency terms. We had two large deals in this vertical in Q3 from our existing customers. These deals have ramped up well. We also added two new logos in this vertical in Q4. As you may be aware, the U.S. healthcare industry saw its most severe cyberattack earlier this year at one of the largest clearing houses that left stakeholders grappling to address vulnerabilities in their operations and mitigate financial damages. Our teams work over time to support our clients manage their processes during this unprecedented disruption.

While we saw a minor impact in our provider business due to a sudden drop in transactions in Q4, it was more than offset by increased volume on the payer side due to changes in regulatory preferences and strengthening of cybersecurity measures across the industry. At a more structural level, the U.S. healthcare market is in a transition phase, working through post-pandemic dynamics in both the workforce and the way patients utilize care.

This is driving up costs and affecting revenue of provider organizations, who are concurrently also facing growing pressure on reimbursements from payers. As a result, their ability to survive and thrive is increasingly dependent on their efficiency, productivity and optimizing revenue capture.

The market for revenue cycle management solutions is estimated at USD 25 billion and is growing at a fast pace of double digits per year on a CAGR basis. We are taking a tech-led offshore-centric approach to gain share in this market from the traditional RCM players who have largely built a people-based business. Our acquisition of QBSS announced today is in line with that strategy. I will talk more about this acquisition later.

In the payer segment, too, falling reimbursement rates have been putting significant pressure on the P&L of major health plans. Consequently, we are seeing a large uptick in transformative initiatives within the payer segment that is reflected in a 60% jump in our ACV wins in this segment in FY '24. And our pipeline gives us confidence that the momentum should sustain in FY '25 as well.

We're also seeing a substantial interest in our Generative AI-based solutions within the payer sector and while the provider sector has historically been slower to adopt GenAI initiatives, we anticipate clients involvements to increase in the coming quarters. Overall, we expect growth to stay strong in the vertical in the near term.

Let me now talk about our Communications, Media and Technology verticals. Our CMT vertical was up 9% year-on-year and 8% quarter-on-quarter in constant currency terms in Q4. While there has been an ongoing transition from onshore to offshore operations in our top client, we continue to win additional business. We had equally strong growth outside of our top line as well with other logos. For us, this vertical is made of three broad segments. Telecom and Digital Media, EdTech and Consumer Tech. Let me give you a little bit of color on each one of these subsegments.

We're seeing a healthy momentum in our Telecom and Media business. As you know, companies in this segment are large, but also mature outsourcers. As such, we are focusing on their transformation agenda and bringing in our entire service portfolio. Our proposition as a disruptive challenger brand is resonating well both within our existing customers as well as new logos. We're seeing a healthy deal pipeline buildup in this segment.

In EdTech, our engagement with ETS is scaling well. We continue to actively engage with multiple providers in this segment globally with differentiated solutions that cover the entire learner life cycle from admissions to graduation. We are encouraged by the progress thus far and the traction that we are seeing with our pipeline conversions. We added one new logo in this segment in Q4.

In Consumer Tech, we continue to expand our footprint amongst the marquee consumer tech logos with a nontraditional service proposition that is seeing good traction in the marketplace. We have a healthy deal pipeline and are hopeful of converting some deals in the coming quarter in this subsegment.

In summary, while movement of specific processes from onshore to offshore in our top client could remain an optical headwind in the near term, we see a healthy trajectory in the overall vertical given the strong deal pipeline. And last, but not the least, on the vertical side, let's talk about our diversified portfolio. Our diverse vertical, which mainly comprises energy and utilities grew almost 50% year-on-year and 7% quarter-on-quarter in constant currency terms. We continue to see a strong demand in the utilities and energy market even as we make fresh inroads with our existing clients in this vertical.

Let me now give you a flavor of our revenues from the geography standpoint. We had a well-distributed growth in terms of geographies within the U.S. and Europe, with both growing at 4% quarter-on-quarter, respectively, in constant currency terms. In FY '24, our business in the U.S. grew 1% year-on-year and Europe grew 5% as the optical impact of on-site to offshore shift in our top client was offset by ramp-up in other large clients. We expect the growth to remain broad-based across both geographies in the coming quarters, given an equally strong portfolio of tailwinds and pipelines across the board.

We have strengthened our sales teams in both geographies, who are working with a dedicated focus on client acquisition as well as expanding our share of wallet within existing accounts. From the macro perspective, companies in the U.K. are facing the dual challenges of an economic slowdown and rising national minimum wages, as such, there is growing recognition of the need to pivot towards offshoring and outsourcing. We are also expanding our sales efforts in the public services sector in the U.K. and are making selective moves in Continental Europe also supporting the European operations of our large U.K. clients.

In the U.S., we expect the growth to be driven by Healthcare, Communications, Media and Technology as well as BFS given the strength of our FY '24 exit deal pipeline.

And now turning to the people side. Coming to our people, in Q4 FY '24, we welcomed 1993 new colleagues bringing our total employee count to 27,940 as of 31st March 2024. Similar to the last quarter, our addition was across geographies. As you may note, we have added 25% to our base over the last three quarters. This is amongst the highest in the industry and reflects the strength of our executable order book. Also, 2/3 of our gross addition over the last three quarters has been an offshore underlying the shift in demand patterns that I've highlighted earlier. Our trailing 12-month attrition rate for the quarter stood at 30.8% offshore and 42.5% on-site compared to 33.8% and 43.3% in Q3 and 42.3% and 44.9%, respectively in Q4 FY '23. We anticipate these metrics to continue trending downwards in the coming quarter, albeit at a more moderated pace supported by the positive outcomes of our employee value-focused initiatives.

Let me now give you a little bit of color on the awards and recognitions and the initiatives that we have been taking on the sustainability front. In Q4, Firstsource was named as a leader as well as an innovator in the 2024 NelsonHall NEAT Vendor Assessment for CX Services transformation, underscoring our capabilities and harnessing the latest in technology and GenAI to drive efficiency, add value and build an enhanced customer experience for the end customers of our clients.

Another analyst, the Everest Group, rated us as a major contender in their intelligent process automation PEAK Matrix assessment in 2024. We were also recognized by Microsoft amongst the first movers in AI for our FirstSenseAI platform. I'm also proud to report that Firstsource featured as a member of the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook in 2024. Over 9,400 companies were assessed for this and yet only 759 companies were included in the 2024 Sustainability Yearbook globally, of which we were one of them.

We remain steadfast in our commitment to operate responsibly and sustainably. During the quarter, we also signed up for the United Nations Global Compact UNGC declaration.

And now let me turn to our acquisition of QBSS. Expanding capabilities by adding adjacencies across our services portfolio is integral to the strategy redesign. Our acquisition of QBSS fits squarely here. QBSS gives us an expanded scale to play in the mid- and back office revenue cycle management market that's growing at double digits per annum and is seeing a rapid adoption of offshoring by healthcare providers looking to optimize their cost structure in the post-pandemic world. QBSS brings us strength in areas such as medical coding, denial management, AR follow-up and clinical documentation. It also gives us access to the physician billing market, which is a new market segment for FSL.

The combination will give us an unmatched ability to offer lower cost, technology-led, higher efficiency, end-to-end revenue cycle management services for hospitals, physician practices and large integrated health systems. This will also allow us to capture the next wave of outsourcing of revenue cycle management, which is going to be technology and AI-led and disrupt other traditional people-based RCM players in the marketplace.

With that, let me turn over the call to Dinesh, who will provide a detailed color on our quarterly and annual financials and related matters. I will come back to talk about our strategic priorities, our long-term growth aspirations as well as our FY '25 outlook.

[Dinesh Jain, executive]

Thank you, Ritesh, and hello, everyone. Let me start by taking you through our quarterly financial first. Revenue for Q4 FY '24 came in at INR 16,705 million or USD 201 million. This implied a year-on-year growth of 7.3% in the Rupee term and 6.2% in dollar terms. In a constant currency, this translates to a year-on-year growth of 4.5%, it follows 2.8% growth we reported in Q3. This is in line with our previous commentary of the growth acceleration over the second half of FY '24.

We reported operating profit of INR 1,830 million in Q4 FY '24, up 1.7% over Q4 FY '23, and this translates to EBIT margin of 11%. It is down 60 bps on a year-on-year basis, but is up 25 bps sequentially, from 10.7% we reported in Q3 FY '24, as the seasonal drag from our annual compensation hike and promotion affected in Q3, which got normalized in Q4, and that's where the increase of 30 bps are coming.

Profit after tax came in at INR 1,335 million or 8% of the revenue for the quarter.

I will now turn to our annual performance. For fiscal year FY '24, we have revenue stood at INR 63,362 million or USD 765 million. This implies a year-on-year growth of 5.2% in the Rupee term and 1.1% in the constant currency term. This was within our guided -- guidance of 0.5% to 1.5% [ term ]. Our operating profit was INR 6,962 million or 23.6% over FY '23 and translates to EBIT margin of 11%, adjusted for onetime charge, which we had in Q2 FY '24.

Our EBIT margin for FY '24 was 11.1% within the 11% to 11.5% range we guided previously. Profit after tax for FY '24 stood at INR 5,147 million. As you will recall, we had other income of INR 1,342 million in FY '23 on account of changes in the fair value of the liability for purchases of a noncontrolling interest and contingent consideration. Adjusted for that, our net profit for FY '24 is higher by 26.8% on a year-on-year basis.

Coming to the other financial highlights for the quarter and the year. Tax rate was 16.2% for Q4. For FY '24, the effective tax rate was 18.3%, which is the lower end of the previously guided range of 18% to 20%. DSO were stable at quarter-on-quarter 62 days in Q4. Cash balances, including investments stood at INR 2,081 million at the end of the quarter 4. This is after the dividend payout of INR 2,406 million, which we paid during the quarter.

Our net debt stands at INR 6,042 million as of March 31, 2024 versus INR 4,398 million as of 31st March 2023 and INR 6,159 million as of 31st March 2023, implying an increase of INR [ 1,624 ] million during the quarter and a reduction of INR 117 million during the year. We also [indiscernible] CapEx, especially in the second half of FY '24 as we prepared for the education infrastructure to fulfill the recent order wins. We have added new sitting capacities in Bangalore, Mumbai and Mexico in Q4. We continue to invest in creating additional capacity given the strength of our dollar wins.

ROCs for the FY '24 is 15.4% versus 13.4% for FY '23. Our hedge book as of 31st March was as follows. We had coverage of GBP 67.2 million for the next 12 months with an average rate of INR 106 to the pound. And coverage of USD 62.5 million with an average rate of INR 84.5 to a dollar.

Let me now share some detail about the acquisition of QBSS, which we announced today. QBSS reported revenue of USD 14.6 million in FY '24. That has grown at a CAGR of 23% over the last 2 years. We are acquiring 100% stake in the company at a purchase consideration of $39.2 million. This includes an upfront payment of $25.9 million, a deferred compensation of $5.6 million and earnout base payment of $7.8 million, which is linked to achieving predefined milestone to be paid over a period of 2 years from the date of closure of the transaction.

We plan to integrate this acquisition during the current quarter itself. We will be funding the transaction through internal accruals. QBSS primarily deliveries services from offshore. As such, it will be both margin and EPS accretive.

This is all from my side. I will hand over back to Ritesh to talk about our strategic priorities and outlook. Ritesh?

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

Thank you, Dinesh. Our FY '24 results reflect the deep trust our clients have in us. During the year, we extended our contract with our top client as their primary outsourcing partner for another 10 years. Another of our long-standing clients, 1 of the top 5 banks, expanded the relationship by selecting us for a large transformational program, making it 1 of the largest deal wins for Firstsource in the last 5 years.

While these are only two headline examples, we have been gaining new business at an accelerated pace across all our clients. I attribute this to two key drivers. First, our scale is just right to gain from the discontinuities caused by the macro shifts. As our clients move from a growth playbook to a growth and efficiency playbook, they are looking for a partner who has a deep understanding of their operating environment, has the ability to bring technology and operations together to deliver business outcomes and has the scale to execute effectively and efficiently. We tick all the three boxes.

Unlike our scale peers, we are not constrained to proactively leverage technology to disrupt existing people-based execution models. At the same time, we have the advantage of having end-to-end capabilities and a strong referral network of our clients, some of whom are amongst the largest players in their respective verticals and are household brands. We today see opportunity to benefit from taking share from both scale players as well as undifferentiated smaller players in the market by virtue of our position in the market as being sized to scale, size to care.

Second, our revamped go-to-market strategy has been resonating well with our customers. As I mentioned in the last earnings call also, we have been doubling down on our investments to reinvigorate our sales engine. Over the last six months, we have expanded our sales team by a third and assigned a dedicated client partner for a defined set of accounts where we see significant headroom for growth. The client partner has clear ownership to identify white spaces, develop a structured account plan, take proactive proposals to customers and work with them to develop a pipeline of large transformational opportunities.

The current strength of our deal pipeline gives us confidence that we are indeed on the right track. You will recall, reinvigorating our sales organization is one of the themes of the One Firstsource framework as outlined as the playbook for strategy refresh across the organization when I had joined. During Q4 of FY '24, we have made meaningful progress across several of these initiatives. Let me highlight a few of them.

One of the key themes of the One Firstsource playbook is to bring technology in everything we do. We are institutionalizing the process of evaluating how we can leverage technology in every aspect of our business, whether it be customer-facing or internal functions. This includes building technology-led propositions to disrupt incumbents in our target set of accounts and infusing our existing frameworks and platforms with the latest technologies to continue to improve their relevance and attractiveness in the marketplace.

During Q4, we also hired Hasit Trivedi as our Chief Digital and AI Officer to lead our efforts in this area. Expanding capabilities by adding adjacencies across our services portfolio is integral to the strategy redesign. I have spoken already about our acquisition of QBSS. During Q4, we also hired Akash Pugalia to lead our expansion plans in the Trust and Safety Services market. We continue to invest in amplifying the Firstsource brand. Our new brand positioning we make it happen that we are announcing today reflects the reinvigoration in our go-to-market strategy that is now more direct, proactive and laser-focused on solving our clients' business challenges by combining our domain-centric team with cutting-edge tech, data and analytics.

We have also stepped up our engagement with industry analysts and advisers. We're putting increased focus on driving thought leadership in the respective domains and capabilities that we excel in, I would encourage each One of you to read the research blog our team has put out on our website. Our commitment to make Firstsource a great place to work for our employees and be an employer of choice remains the top priority. We continue with heightened employee engagement through personalized interactions while also doubling the frequency of townhalls to facilitate greater leader employee engagement across different levels in the organization.

We're also placing a strong emphasis on internal talent development where we have started a program to identify and train employees who can be tasked to seed and build delivery fields for new engagements. The program fostered over 750 internal moves across various roles through such feeding initiatives in FY '24. We are also streamlining our internal processes to improve the onboarding experience of new hires. We continue to work on a skill refresh across levels and expand our leadership training and development programs. This concerted effort yielded a remarkable double-digit reduction in the overall trailing 12-month attrition coupled with an impressive over 40% reduction in the early attrition rate in Q4 FY '24.

As you're aware, we've also been working diligently on cost optimization and driving operational efficiencies over the last six months as part of the One Firstsource framework. To give you some examples, we have improved our span of control by a factor of two over the last six months, even as we stepped up our hiring. We have consolidated our global payroll system to offshore and centralized employee-related shared services. We're using the cost savings that come from several of these initiatives to fund our investments in expanding the front-end sales organization, upscaling our account management teams, building capabilities and amplifying the Firstsource brand.

As we also mentioned in our last earnings call, we have brought forward some of these investments given the strength of our pipeline and our client conversations. Having said that, our intent is to fund these investments mainly through internal cost optimization and efficiency gains. As such, while the interplay of various puts and takes can have our impact on our margins in any specific quarter, we expect that to be in a narrow band, and we remain confident of a structural improvement in margins over the medium term.

In summary, we believe that the quality of our client relationships, our market leadership in chosen verticals and the passion and commitment of our workforce provide us a solid foundation to take advantage of the opportunities caused by the macro and technology shifts. I'm also pleased with the progress we have made over the last two quarters in each of the areas we've identified for a strategy refresh. Our organization structure is now streamlined. Key leadership is in place and our sales engine is executing well. We also remain laser-focused on driving efficiencies in our operations while investing prudently for growth.

This gives us confidence to aim for a USD 1 billion exit run rate by FY '26 on an organic basis and expand our EBIT margin at an annual run rate of 50 to 75 basis points each year over the medium term post the initial investment phase. For FY '25, we expect our revenue to grow in the range of 10% to 13% in constant currency terms. This is net of the impact of residual offshore shift in our top account and the contribution from the QBSS acquisition. We also expect our FY '25 EBIT margin to be in the band of 11% to 12%, including the upfront investments we are making in our business.

This concludes our opening remarks. And we can now open the floor for questions. Operator, over to you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Shradha from AMSEC. Shradha, may I request that you use your handset, please. You are not audible.

[Shradha Agrawal, analyst]

Yes, is it better now?

[Operator]

Yes, please go ahead.

[Shradha Agrawal, analyst]

Congrats Ritesh on a good quarter and exiting '24 on a strong [ demoed ]. So just a couple of questions. Growth in FY '24 in the second half was strong, but if you look at the overall growth in 2024, it was broadly led by just one vertical CMT and on a smaller base by diverse industry. Should we look at the growth strategy in '25 in terms of whether it will be a broad base across verticals, will this [Technical Difficulty] do in favor of one of the verticals?

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

Thank you, Shradha, for the question. If I look at the outcome from Q4 of FY '24, one of the elements that I talked about in my opening remarks was the fact that our growth in the quarter was broad-based across verticals and geographies. Number two, we've added several new logos across industry verticals and not just restricted to one or the other. And number three, we've had a good client traction as well as wins in existing accounts across all industry verticals itself. That gives us confidence that the growth that we will see in FY '25 will be broad-based across verticals and geographies.

[Shradha Agrawal, analyst]

Right. And in terms of [indiscernible] further on deep dive into BFS, how the [ CAT ] subsegment like [indiscernible] playing out. We have seen some stability in the market subsegment over the last two quarters, but incrementally, what are you picking up in terms of growth rates for this particular subsegment in '25 and beyond?

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

So without getting into specifics, Shradha, what I will say is our mortgage business segment was largely stable in Q4. There may be the typical quarterly volatility in that part of our portfolio. But if you look at what we've been seeing, we've been making concentrated efforts to proactively increase our footprint, both from a market segmentation standpoint beyond monoliners to mid-tier and regional banks as well as expand our service portfolio into the servicing and HELOC market and even venturing into adjacencies on the real estate vertical side. We feel that our efforts in those areas are yielding results with some of the wins that we've had in the last two quarters.

So while there may be quarterly aberrations, which are difficult to call out, we think we are well on track in terms of weatherproofing our business from a longer-term perspective and continue to be encouraged by the wins that we are seeing in the financial services side including the mortgage segment.

[Shradha Agrawal, analyst]

Okay. And just one last question, if I could. On this acquisition, what incremental capabilities are we getting from what organically we provide in the RCM subsegment in the Healthcare provider subspace?

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

So if you look at where Firstsource historically placed, we derived a bulk of our business in the revenue cycle side on the front end of the revenue cycle value chain around the eligibility front. And then on the back end around the AR follow-up and collection side of the house, what the QBSS acquisition gives us is actually three sets of things, right? Number one, it gives us capabilities in the mid- to back end of the revenue cycle value chain, particularly around coding, denial management, clinical documentation improvement, so on and so forth.

Number two, it gives us about close to about 1,800 people who are all offshore-based and allows us to enter a segment of the market, which is the physician market that we weren't historically playing in. So now we can provide this combined set of capabilities, which is really end-to-end across hospitals, the physician segment as well as the large integrated health system.

And third, what I'm very enthused by also is the technology capabilities that come with the acquisition because a lot of those are tech and AI led, which allow us to disrupt the traditional revenue cycle management and some of the competitors in the space who have largely built people-based model. So we think this combination allows us to compete very strongly in the marketplace.

[Shradha Agrawal, analyst]

Okay. That's helpful. [Technical Difficulty] our debt number [Technical Difficulty] FY '23. So what does the debt statement should look like for us?

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

Dinesh, you want to take that?

[Dinesh Jain, executive]

I think year-on-year, we have reduced the debt by almost $117 million. Although the last quarter, it has increased. And we believe normally, these are all working capital debt, which we used to take for the support of the businesses. And probably, this will remain around the similar levels for the next year.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Vibhor Singhal from Nuvama Equities.

[Vibhor Singhal, analyst]

Congrats on a great performance. Ritesh, two questions from my side. In your long-term guidance in your -- basically mid- to long-term guidance that you have given in terms of $1 billion exit rate by FY '26. Just wanted to harp upon what is the kind of assumption that you are building upon while giving this guidance? So is it basically just driven by the company level deal wins and the execution that you expect? Or is there also a bit of an element of macro -- favorable macro that comes into play either on the mortgage side or on the Healthcare side or having the businesses that you might be looking in?

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

Yes. So let me start by saying that when I came on board in the very first earnings call, one of the first comments that I ended up making was that we are trying to build a business that's resilient and durable over the long-term as opposed to being exposed to any cyclicality or macro elements and try and minimize that to the extent possible.

As we've provided our medium-term guidance and said that we are looking to get to a $1 billion exit run rate in FY '26, the intent behind that is reflecting the same design principle, which is we want to minimize the impact of the macro. And if there is a macro tailwind, that's a net positive, that's icing on the cake.

Our guidance is today based on how we see the business shaping over FY '25 as of today. I'm happy with the way actually today, we are navigating the macro uncertainties, keeping our focus on supporting our clients proactively in their transformation agendas and identifying opportunities to expand our footprint, both within our existing clients as well as our new logos. And I also feel confident of our revamped go-to-market strategy and the rigor that we are bringing in our execution.

I think it's a combination of several of those things, right? So if you look at the consistent theme that we have seen over the last two quarters and a little more that I've been here, we've had a consistent uptick in our wins. We exited this fiscal year with the highest tailwinds from an ACV standpoint. We still feel very comfortable with the pipeline and the quality of the pipeline that we have. We've had three consecutive quarters of headcount addition. And as you know, in this business, we don't build a proactive bench. So what we see in our headcount addition reflects the pickup in our deal momentum and is a proxy for the strength of our executable order book.

So I'll leave it at that, but I think those are really the variables that make us feel comfortable about providing you the guidance of exiting FY '26 with a $1 billion run rate business.

[Vibhor Singhal, analyst]

Got it. Got it. That was very helpful. And since you touched upon the employee addition in this quarter, the employee addition to the entire year, of course, has been very strong for us. How do you see that going forward? I mean we have got a very good guidance for next year in terms of the revenue growth that we're expecting. Do you believe -- I mean, are these similar run rate of net headcount addition might continue? Or given what we are targeting the growth that we are expecting, the headcount addition might accelerate?

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

Look, I think it's not a very straightforward question to respond Vibhor there. But because our business also has a lot of -- there are elements which might require headcount addition and there are elements where you're able to deliver on the back of the technology platforms that we use to render our services itself, which -- so when you look at that combination, that is there, while we do expect on one hand, we will continue to add headcount going forward also to support the growth that we have forecast for FY '25, it's very hard to say whether -- how is it going to compare to in terms of what we saw this quarter or thereabouts. But what we do feel very comfortable about at this stage is the fact that is the guidance that we've provided for FY '25, and we think the headcount will support that guidance.

[Vibhor Singhal, analyst]

Got it. Got it. That was very helpful. On the margin front, just to basically understand again the medium-term guidance, of 50 to 70 basis point expansion each year post the investment phase. So how do we define the investment phase? I mean, is there a time period that we are looking at? Or are there any milestone that, okay, when we reach, let's say, this much of investment or this is the capability that is when the investment phase ends and that impose that we are looking for that kind of an expansion?

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

So let's start by the guidance that we have provided for FY '25, right? We've given an EBIT range of 11% to 12%, which is within some sense is reflective also of the fact that we do see opportunities for expanding the margin on one hand. But on the other hand, also, if you recall, what we have tried to do in the business is based on the quality and the strength of the deal pipeline, and what we are seeing in the marketplace, we've also brought forward some of the investments that might have otherwise probably played out over a slightly longer period itself.

We think that those puts and takes will continue over -- in the near term as well. But let me give you a broader perspective of how we are thinking about margins, right? I'm very confident about improving our margin trajectory over the medium term without compromising on our growth aspirations or the investment plans. We have multiple levers for that, and we are laser focused on tracking the progress on -- for the same on a regular basis.

For example, the on-site to offshore shift is an obvious one where we have been focusing on for a while now, and you've seen some of that, right? In our offshore revenue share that's gone up by close to 6% in the last 4 quarters, including this quarter. Also, 2/3 of the gross additions that we've had in head count in the last three quarters has been at offshore. So there is a clear shift in demand patterns that we are taking advantage of. We are also working to optimize our sourcing and staffing strategies. We're closely looking at our employee pyramid and how we staff our project delivery team. We're also looking at right shoring the resources across operations and operations support function. Technology, AI, and automation is something we have been looking at actively across the life cycle of an engagement to drive further efficiencies. And we've also been actively looking at opportunities to centralize, automate and offshore roles were relevant and support functions.

I'd also highlighted in my opening commentary about how we are using automation and AI in our onboarding and training process to improve the speed to competency. So given all of these different levers that are in place, I'm actually very confident that we will be able to improve our margins over the medium term with the numbers that I cited of 50 to 75 basis points per year.

[Vibhor Singhal, analyst]

Got it. Got it. If I may just squeeze one last industry-level question. We announced this acquisition in the healthcare industry. We've been doing really well in the industry in which ways. I think there is a lot of other players also, I mean, not just our direct competitors in the industry, but in the broader IT industry itself. Everybody is focusing a lot on the healthcare segment. Do you believe that the competition in this industry is becoming very, very high at this point of time, especially given that everybody expects the healthcare spends to go up post-COVID? So do you see competition going very high? And do you believe this spend is going to continue? Or could it be just some pent-up demand post-COVID that is being addressed at this point of time? And in a couple of years' time, it might just maybe plateau out and we are left with not that bigger demand, but too many players who are competing for that pie?

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

So let me start by giving a macro comment on the U.S. healthcare industry, right? A, I mean -- you all know the numbers better than I do, but if you look at the amount of money that's spent in U.S. healthcare, that's give or take, about 1/6 of the U.S. GDP and continue to go up considerably, right? One of the reasons why that ends up happening is because of inefficiencies, waste and abuse in the system that's there. And a lot of the root cause of that is incentive misalignment between different players in that ecosystem itself, right?

At a more structural level, this market is in a transition phase. It's working. We are working through post-pandemic dynamics in the workplace in the workforce as well as the way patients utilize care itself. This is, in some sense is driving up costs and affecting the revenue of provider organizations who are facing significant pressure on reimbursement from payers.

I mean if you look at the healthcare provider market, most of these companies are either losing money or are very low single-digit margin shops. At the same time, therefore their ability to survive and thrive in some sense is increasingly dependent on their efficiency, productivity and optimizing revenue capture.

That's where I think we have an opportunity with what we bring to bear to impact the provider side of the equation. Now if you take the payer side, different set of issues, right? Medicare rates just came down. So there is this constant theme of falling reimbursement rates, and that's putting significant pressure on the P&L of major health plans. So our ability to impact the MLR and ALR of the healthcare payers is creating opportunities in terms of the transformation initiatives that a lot of these payer organizations are driving.

That, in some senses, is what is contributing to also the ACV wins that we've had in the segment, but also the quality and quantity of our pipeline. And therefore, we feel comfortable that, that momentum should sustain through this current financial year as well.

Now your other comment was that, look, a lot of players are showing interest to the space. What I think holds us in good stead, right, is what I'll go back to an opening comment that I made when I just joined. What differentiates Firstsource more than anything else is the fact that we are not trying to be everything to everybody. We have a set of verticals that we claim, where we are an inch wide and a mile deep. We want to remain in that swim lane and continue to double down where we build deep domain end-to-end capabilities, front-to-back led with technology, data and analytics.

Our ability to bring all of these attributes consistently creates a competitive moat and differentiation for us in the healthcare space, and that's the reason we are able to hold our own against players in the marketplace. I think the other element that also helps us is the fact that we can move nimbly and at speed to respond to the business challenges that our customers in this space are facing and that creates differentiation also. So therefore, we feel comfortable with what we are seeing in the healthcare vertical, both across the payer and the provider side.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Dipesh from Emkay Global.

[Dipesh Mehta, analyst]

A couple of questions. I just want to get a sense on the trust and safety. Now I think we have a leader also for the scaling that business. If you can give some sense about the focus area in that business. And the focus area, which we identified to scale it, what would be the addressable market for the identified pocket of the trust and safety space? Second question is about platform automation and analytics, the service line, which we report. If I look at the overall narrative of tech-led team, the softness is a bit [indiscernible]. If you can give some sense why platform automation analytics service line is showing some kind of [ softness? ]. Third question is about investment pace. I think partly you alluded, but I'm yet not clear, so I just try to get it more clarity. How long do you expect this invest Phase to last? Because you indicated post that phase, 50 to 70 bps expansion in EBIT margin. So whether it is 1 year, 2 year, 3 year investment kind of way, if you can give some sense on it? I have one data question, but I think first, you will answer these three then I can have the data-related question subsequently.

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

All right. Thanks, Dipesh, for that question. Let me start by talking a little bit about the trust and safety space and how excited we are with the addition of Akash Pugalia to lead the Trust and Safety vertical. I want to give you a little bit of color on Akash. He comes to us from Teleperformance where he was running a $1.2 billion business and managing the trust and safety vertical globally. And before that, he was at Accenture, where he led the Global Trust and Safety business. I'm excited that he's come on board to help spearhead our efforts and create a disruptive challenger brand in the trust and safety space.

The trust and safety market is a fast-growing market, more than $50 billion in TAM. And if you look at the way this market has evolved, about 5 or 7 years -- 5 to 7 years back, this market didn't exist and actually came into vogue with the emergence of the big tech players, Facebook and Google and Apple and a few other names, Twitter, et cetera, who wanted support from a content moderation standpoint. So a lot of the work that was done at that point in time was largely people reviewing different content across different media to see whether something was objectionable, abusive, so on and so forth.

With the advent of tech-led solutions and AI, we are firmly in the realm of trust and safety 2.0. Our opportunity out here is on two counts. Number one, this is no longer in the realm of just big tech, but it's a cross-industry play. Every brand in every industry is looking to monitor the content that comes from a reputational risk standpoint as it pertains to the brand itself. We see an opportunity there across all industry verticals. Number two, the entire play is now tech-led. So our ability to offer a disruptive proposition out here allows us to capture the TAM that's there with all industries but also disrupt some of the traditional players who have built the business, which has, again, been people-based.

And this combination allows us to build what I think would be a very credible business. So that's, I think, my response to trust and safety and why we feel excited about the opportunity there.

The second question that you had was around platforms, automation and analytics. I wouldn't read anything into any specific quarter from a number standpoint or a percentage contribution. What I will say is that technology and everything we do is a firm part of the agenda that manifests itself in every deal that we respond to, every existing client that we do work for, where we are trying to see where the opportunities are for us to continuously transform the way we run their operations. And that, in a nutshell, is why we feel comfortable about it. What we've also done in this space is, as you recall, one of my first hires when I came on board was getting a head of partnerships to be the custodian of all the work we do with the start-up ecosystem.

And we're seeing some very good results working with several start-up companies who bring some of their IP, which allows us to deliver cutting-edge solutions which solve specific problems that our clients are facing in each of their domains. One proxy of some of the work that we are doing in the platforms, automation and analytics side is the recognition that Microsoft just gave us as being an AI first mover. So in some sense, it's a proxy, but also a good reflection of the work that we are doing, which is now getting recognized across the board as well. That would be my second -- the response to your second question. If you wouldn't mind, could you repeat the third question again?

[Dipesh Mehta, analyst]

Investment phase, which you indicated, how long it will last, post which you say 50 to 70 bps in 6 months or so?

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

Yes. So let me take a little bit of a step back and tell you where we are making the investments first, right? So we are making investments in broadly three areas. The first is in expanding our sales and accounting, and I spoke about how our sales teams have grown by 1/3 over the last 6 months. The second is on the capability side where we are doing both leadership hires as well as beefing up our solutions teams. For example, we hired Hasit as a Chief Digital and AI Officer to modernize our services and platforms by continuing to infuse them with the latest technologies.

Akash, whom we talked about earlier, joined us with a mandate to grow our trust and safety practice. The third area that we are investing heavily in is in amplifying the Firstsource brand. Aniket Maindarkar, who joined us earlier this year is leading our efforts to expand our relationships and visibility in the industry analysts and advisers community. And you've also seen the refresh in our brand positioning that's more dynamic and in line with our larger aspirations. Our original intent was to space these investments over a period in time, but seeing the positive feedback that we are receiving from customers, we've decided to bring forward some of these.

At the same time, we remain prudent and mindful of our intent on margin management. And also, some of these investments would be ongoing. So it's difficult to call out the exact quarter by when we will be done making investments because the landscape around us continues to evolve. But I do believe a large part of this is front loaded.

[Dipesh Mehta, analyst]

No, I was not looking from a quarter perspective, but I'm looking from year perspective, is it a 2-year journey, 3 years journey, if you can give some sense around it?

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

So what I would say is that in the medium term, which I would define as a 3- to 4-year time horizon, our expectation is that we should be able to get 50 to 75 basis points each year in the medium term itself, in the next 3 to 4 years. So it's not about -- and which would probably play out starting in the next 12 to 18 months, that you'll start seeing some of that playing out.

[Dipesh Mehta, analyst]

So in a way, let's say, this year, we are closer to 11%. If somebody is looking at '27 kind of number, one should look 50 into a number of years. That is one way to look at it?

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

I don't want to get into specific guidance. But what I think you should think about here is that in a medium-term time horizon, we do think there's an opportunity to get margins up 50 to 75 basis points every year. And our current year guidance is also reflective of that and the fact that we do expect it to be between 11% to 12% from an EBIT standpoint.

[Dipesh Mehta, analyst]

Fair point. Last two things, trust and safety, you said content moderation. Now there are multiple areas, right, data security, cybersecurity, conduct behavior, all those things. We would be largely restricting ourselves into content moderation and it is text or video and all those things covered there?

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

It would be all of that.

[Dipesh Mehta, analyst]

Okay. Great. And lastly is about data related thing. Maybe Dinesh can help me out. On the acquisition amortization related charges, how one should look at it?

[Dinesh Jain, executive]

On the location analysis on this one, so I'll come back to you exactly how much we are looking and because this require a purchase price allocation study to be conducted, which will be done in this quarter. Then I'll come back what the value of amortization is.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Manik Taneja from Axis Capital. Sir, you are not audible? Sir, may I request you to use your handset?

[Manik Taneja, analyst]

Ritesh, I just wanted to get your thoughts on a couple of things. One is that you've been talking about new client deals being significantly higher than what we have seen in the past. If you could dwell I think a little deeper into it, is this basically driven by clients' need for optimization or a function of our proactive pursue? That's question number one.

The second question was with regards to the increase in offshore delivery mix that we are seeing for you as well as for the industry. If you could give us some broad sense as to how should we be thinking about the profitability metrics between the local and onshore delivery that we've been accustomed to in the past versus offshore delivery mix? And how should you be thinking about this mix probably over a 3- to 5-year period?

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

Thank you, Manik. So let me address the first question that you had on new client wins. What I will say is there are two or three themes that are playing out. Number one, is the fact that in several of these discussions where we are taking a proactive proposal which addresses the cost optimization, process transformation and revenue growth agendas of our clients, I think we are seeing strong receptiveness. That, I think, is contributing to some of the wins that we are seeing at a much larger value than what we might have seen in the past, where we may not have necessarily taken those proposals that at the same velocity itself.

I think the second thing that we are also seeing is one of the comments that I made is in a lot of accounts where we may not be there, but maybe some of our scale peers are there or some of our -- some of the other smaller undifferentiated competitors might be there and incumbents in those accounts where we may not be present, our opportunity to provide a truly disruptive proposition as a challenger brand, I think, is also yielding results because we are playing on offense and our ability to go out there and win on the back of that is certainly supported with the kind of innovative solution that we are taking to the marketplace itself.

Third, I think what is also helping us in several of these new wins is what I think are the attributes of what Firstsource really stands for, right? In the verticals in which we play, we are deep domain, we are end-to-end, we're tech, data and analytics led. And that combination, I think, is allowing us to provide unique solutions that can help address the expectations of our customers itself, right? And therefore, when we go to any new client situation, that secret sauce, I think, is helping us.

These are the three things that I think are contributing to the value of the deals that we are seeing amongst the new logos that we are winning in the marketplace itself. Your second question was related to the offshore, onshore mix and how should one think about it. I'd say one thing, which is, if you look at the last three quarters, the contribution from offshore has gone up by almost 6 percentage points. And we expect that some of that will continue to play out going forward as well in terms of how we see the outlook for the business.

What we do see also at the same time, and this might sound -- seem a little paradoxical, but I do think it's a competitive advantage, having the local footprint in the U.S. and U.K. or in the primary markets in which we operate is actually, I think, a source of competitive advantage because several of these clients increasingly are caught in an environment where they want to work with a provider who is culturally sensitive and attuned to the local environment. They are mindful of the implications of going out there and offshoring right at the outset. And they might look for somebody to help transform the way they work and then move work offshore as well.

So our local footprint actually in several instances, is serving as a source of competitive advantage. So while I do expect as a secular theme, we will continue to see progress on the contribution from offshore. We do think the footprint that we have onshore is also serving as an advantage. Third is we're also trying to -- with our existing customers, where we may have some sort of an onshore footprint also trying to increase the amount of work that we do offshore and therefore, increase our share of wallet in those accounts. And that endeavor is also yielding results.

So I think it's really a combination of all of these three. It's not one or the other.

[Manik Taneja, analyst]

Sure. And if I can [ call you ] further, basically, when one thinks about the CX opportunity over there over the course of last 12, 18 months, you've seen consolidation amongst the bigger players. Is that driving some sort of growth opportunities for mid-size players like us given the client vendor consultation list that customers may see with some of the large CX players? That's question number one.

And the second related question was, in our case, we've historically had limited presence in Philippines. Do we see this dynamic change over the course of next few years?

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

Yes. So let me address that, Manik. So we see opportunities playing out on three fronts on the CX side, right? Number one, what we are taking in the CX market, which is deep domain for a particular vertical itself. And let me give you examples of that, right? When we are talking to an EdTech customer, we're talking about the learner experience and what we can do there. When we are talking to healthcare payer, we're talking about a member experience and what that means. When we go to a media company, we're talking about a subscriber experience. Each one of these is very, very deep from a domain standpoint and that ability to combine it with the CX capabilities with technology allows us to benefit from the opportunity set that's out there.

Second thing to just bear in mind is also the CX market still, even though it's the largest part of the TAM for the global BPO industry, it is still sufficiently underpenetrated from an outsourcing and offshoring standpoint. There's still a significant part of that business, which is almost 2/3, which is still in-sourced. What I do expect to play out over the next 3 to 5 years is the fact that, that percentage of outsourcing and offshoring will go up. It may not necessarily happen in a linear fashion, but in a nonlinear fashion, taking advantage of some of the technologies that are available in the marketplace.

And we think we can be a beneficiary in that expanded TAM that ends up playing out in that market. So that's the second comment I want to make. The third comment I want to make is we also see opportunities to benefit at both ends of the spectrum. On one hand, we expect to benefit from the large pure-play CX players who may have grown by bulking up and doing acquisitions where, as you rightly called out, there could be concentration risk. And several enterprise clients are fighting that as a cause of concern where they may look to diversify.

The second thing that also is playing out with some of the large players that they may not be moving fast enough to bring the necessary benefits from a transformation standpoint and therefore, playing on defense as opposed to playing on offense. At the same time, at the other end of the spectrum, the CX market also has a long tail of smaller undifferentiated players who are trying to be everything to everybody. We see an opportunity to take shares from both ends of the spectrum, and that in turn will contribute to the growth of our business, which will allow us to build a resilient, durable, tech-led CX business itself, and that's something that we feel comfortable with.

Your second question was related to Philippines. We do expect our footprint in the Philippines to continue to scale up -- in fact, we have just taken an additional facility out there to support some of the deal wins and the pipeline that we've seen in the Philippines market itself. So certainly, that's in line with that expectation.

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Ritesh Idnani for closing comments.

[Ritesh Idnani, executive]

So thank you for joining the call and your questions. I just want to close with a few final comments. As I've highlighted in the past, the discontinuities caused by the ongoing macro and technology shifts are creating market opportunities, and my focus is to use our strong foundation to take advantage of these opportunities. Our revamped sales engine is working well. This is reflected in our deal wins in FY '24 that were at an all-time high. And we've now had at least one large deal win for three successive quarters. Our Q4 closing pipeline is up 25% year-on-year and gives us confidence for the guidance that we have provided.

We are also executing well and we had another quarter of robust hiring. I'm particularly excited by the QBSS acquisition that enables us to upscale our play in the fast-growing offshore revenue cycle management market. Overall, I'm satisfied with our progress on the strategy refresh under the One Firstsource framework, and we are optimistic about realizing our long-term growth aspirations.

That's all from our side and we look forward to interacting with you again in the next quarter call. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. On behalf of Firstsource Solutions Limited's, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.