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Shriram Finance Ltd
Earnings Call Analysis
Q2-2025 Analysis
Shriram Finance Ltd
In the second quarter of fiscal year 2025, Shriram Finance successfully navigated through a challenging economic landscape, reporting significant growth in key financial metrics. The company achieved a year-on-year disbursement growth of 15.51%, totaling INR 39,974 crores compared to INR 34,605 crores in the same quarter last year. Their assets under management also saw a robust increase of 19.94%, standing at INR 2,43,042.55 crores as of September 30, 2024, up from INR 2,02,640.96 crores a year ago.
Profit after tax grew by 18.3% year-on-year, reaching INR 2,071.26 crores versus INR 1,750.84 crores in Q2 FY '24. Their earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter stood at INR 55.09, up from INR 44.67 a year earlier. This growth reflects the company's strong operational efficiency and effective cost management strategies, as evidenced by a cost-to-income ratio of 27.95%, which is slightly higher than the previous year’s 27.34%.
The company demonstrated improvement in asset quality, with gross Stage 3 loans decreasing to 5.32% from 5.79% a year prior, and net Stage 3 loans also reflecting a positive trend, standing at 2.64% against 2.80% previously. Their credit cost for Q2 FY '25 was 1.84%, down from 2.02% in Q2 FY '24, indicating effective risk management practices in place.
Despite overall positive performance, some segments experienced slowing growth. The gold loan portfolio witnessed a year-on-year growth rate of 12%, which signifies a decline from previous quarters largely due to a reduction in loan-to-value (LTV) ratios to around 60-65%. This decision addresses the need to maintain regulatory compliance and asset quality, given market conditions.
Management emphasized a strategic pivot, focusing on bolstering short-tenure products such as personal loans and two-wheeler financing while maintaining a cautious approach in risk-sensitive sectors. They expect the commercial vehicle segment to grow approximately 17-18% in the coming quarters, indicating confidence in infrastructure-driven demand.
Looking ahead, the management expressed optimism for the upcoming quarters, aided by expectations of recovering economic activity bolstered by government spending on infrastructure and positive monsoon outcomes. They anticipate further improvements in asset quality and aim to reduce gross Stage 3 loans to around 5%. Furthermore, the Reserve Bank of India's steady policy stance may provide a favorable environment for maintaining margins.
The board announced a stock split, reducing the face value from INR 10 to INR 2, aiming to increase liquidity and accessibility for retail investors. Furthermore, a generous dividend of 220% was declared, reflecting the company's commitment to returning value to shareholders.
Overall, Shriram Finance's performance in Q2 FY '25 showcases a resilient business model capable of adapting to market challenges and seizing growth opportunities. Their proactive approach to risk management, focus on strategic segments, and solid asset quality position them favorably for future growth amidst an evolving economic landscape.
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Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Shriram Finance Q2 FY '25 Earnings Conference Call.
[Operator Instructions]
Please note that this conference is being recorded.
I now hand the conference over to Mr. Umesh Revankar, Executive Vice Chairman. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good evening friends from India and Asia. A warm welcome to all of you. Greetings also to those who are joined the call from distant part of the world.
To present our Q2 FY '25 earnings call today, I have with me our Managing Director and CEO; Mr. Y. S. Chakravarti; Managing Director and CFO; Mr. Parag Sharma; S. Sunder, Joint Managing Director; and Sanjay Kumar Mundra, our Investor Relationship Head.
It has been a good second quarter of the year for Shriram Finance. Let me first look at how Indian economy has performed. India's economic grew at 6.7% in the April-June quarter, FY '25 over the growth rate of 8.2% in Q1 of FY '23/'24. This figure reflects a deceleration from 7.8% growth seen in the previous quarter of FY '24, and 8.2% in the corresponding period last year.
It was the slowest expansion in the last 5 quarters to a sharp slowdown in government spending as the long awaited general election drove several usual government activities to some part.
On the retail -- on inflation -- in retail inflation CPI rose to 5.49% to 9-month high in September, higher than 3.65% in August. This is highest retail inflation rate since 2023 -- December 2023, when it was 5.69%. Food inflation, a persistent challenge rose 9.2% annually compared to 5.66% rise in August.
The wholesale price index inflation for June 2024, touched 16-month high of 3.36% after scaling 2.61% in the previous month of May '24. In fact, since February '24, the WPI inflation has surged from 0.2% to 3.36%. Lastly, on the back of spike in wholesale food inflation and manufacturing inflation turning around from negative to positive.
On RBI policy, RBI in its MPC meeting held on October 9, '24, decided to keep policy repo rate unchanged at 6.5% for the tenth consecutive time. However, RBI changes stance of monetary policy to neutral from withdrawal of accommodation. The MPC has projected real GDP growth for 2024/'25 to 7.2%. This number remains unchanged from last projection. Also taking various factors into consideration, the CPI inflation for '24/'25 has been projected at 4.5%, the same as projected in the previous policy.
On the rural economy and monsoon, as per the IMD, the Southwest monsoon this year was 8% over its long-term average. However, the rainfall is likely to continue in October and November with above normal monsoon rainfall expected.
About 35% of the country received excess rainfall and slightly over the half, that is around 54% receiving normal rainfall. Despite a slow start, rainfall picked up in pace, helping the farmers with sowing. Overall, farm productivity is expected to be higher, which should help attain year-long rising trend in food inflation.
The good rain in June to September has pushed up Kharif sowing to almost 111 million hectares against normal acreage of 109.6 million hectares, according to the latest data released on September 27.
On GST collection, the GST collection for the month of September grew 6.5% year-on-year at INR 1.73 lakh crore, while it witnessed a dip compared to INR 1.74 lakh crore in August '24.
On the OEM sales side, this quarter has been soft for the automobile industry. Commercial vehicle, total CV sales in Q2 FY '25 pipeline by 11% to 2.21 lakhs units against 2.48 lakh units in Q2 FY '24. However, the half -- H1 FY '25 is declined by 4.2% to 4.45 lakh units as against 4.64 lakh units in H1 FY '25.
With CVs, M&HCV sales recorded a decline of 12.2% in Q2 FY '25 and it stands at 82,409 units as against 93,874 units in Q2 FY '24. LCV sales too recorded a decline of 11% in Q2 FY '25 and stands at 1.38 lakh unit versus 1.54 lakh unit in Q2 FY '24. Passenger vehicle sales in Q2 FY '25 recorded a decline of 1.8% in Q2 with 10.55 lakh units being sold against 10.74 lakh unit in Q2 FY '24.
Two-wheelers recorded a growth of 12.6% with sales of 51.79 lakhs unit in Q2 FY '25 as against 45.98 lakh units sold in Q2 FY '24. 3-wheeler registered a growth of 6.6% with 2.09 lakh units sold versus 1.96 lakh units sold in Q2 FY '24.
Tractors marginally declined with 2.08 lakh unit as against 2.19 lakh units in Q2 FY '24. Construction equipment remained flat with 27,382 units sold versus 27,478 units sold in Q2 FY '24.
During -- in the Board meeting, we also had 2 major decisions by the Board. One, we have gone ahead with the stock split wherein the face value has now INR 2 instead of INR 10. That will be 5x that the that split into 5. And we also -- Board also has recommended -- sorry, the Board has declared a dividend of 220% that is INR 2 per share for the first half of the year.
Now I request Y. Chakravarti to take through the operational performance. Thank you.
Thank you, Umesh, good evening. Good morning, and good evening to all the participants in the call. I welcome you to -- all of you to our quarter 2 financial year '25 earnings call, and I trust you had the opportunity to review the results and the related investor presentation, which has been posted on the website of the stock exchanges.
We have registered a disbursement growth of 15.51% year-on-year. Our disbursements in quarter 2 FY '25 this year aggregated INR 39,974.09 crores versus INR 34,605.61 crores in quarter 2 FY '24. Our asset under management as of 30th September 2024, registered a growth of 19.94% over Q2 FY '24 and 4.11% sequentially.
Our AUM stood at INR 2,43,042.55 crores as against INR 2,02,640.96 crores a year ago and INR 2,33,443.63 crores in Q1 FY '25. Our net interest income has registered a growth of 16.37% year-on-year in quarter 2 FY '25. We have earned a net interest income of INR 5,606.74 crores in Q2 FY '25 this year as compared to INR 4,818.18 crores in Q2 FY '24.
Our net interest margin was 8.74% as against 8.93% in Q2 FY '24 and 8.79% in Q1 FY '25. Our profit after tax grew by 18.3% in the current quarter -- sorry, in Q2 FY '25 over Q2 FY '24 and by 4.58% over quarter 1 FY '25. We have registered a profit after tax of INR 2,071.26 crores for Q2 FY '25 as compared to INR 1,750.84 crores in Q2 FY '24 and INR 1,980.59 crores in quarter 1 FY '25.
Our earnings per share for the quarter stood at INR 55.09 as against INR 44.67 in Q2 FY '24 and INR 52.70 in Q1 FY '25. On our asset quality, gross Stage 3 in Q2 FY '25 stood at 5.32% and net Stage 3 at 2.64%. These numbers does show an improvement over the corresponding period of 5.79% gross and 2.8% net in Q2 FY '24 and 5.39% gross and 2.71% in Q1 FY '25.
Our credit cost for Q2 FY '25 stood at 1.84% as against 2.02% for Q2 FY '24 and 1.87% for Q1 FY '25. Our cost-to-income ratio was 27.95% in the quarter 2 FY '25, as against 27.34% recorded in Q2 FY '24. Our cost to income ratio in quarter 1 FY '25 was 27.45%.
Regarding our subsidiary, Shriram Housing Finance Limited, as you all know, the Board of Directors of the company in its meeting held on May 13, 2024, had approved the proposal for disinvestment of the company's entire stake in Shriram Housing Finance Limited. This is a debt-listed nonmaterial subsidiary of the company. And in this regard, the company has entered into the share purchase agreement, inter-alia with Mango Crest Investments Limited, (an affiliate of Warburg Pincus. The company's investment in Shriram Housing Finance Limited has been classified as Noncurrent Assets held for sale and disclosed as discontinued operations in the financial results.
However, Shriram Housing's AUM as on Q2 FY '25 exhibited a growth of 40.87% and stands at INR 15,236.26 crores as against INR 10,816.03 crores in Q2 FY '24. The net interest income registered a growth of 15.5% in Q2 FY '25 over Q2 FY '24. Net interest income for Q2 FY '25 was INR 112.46 crores as compared to INR 97.43 crores in Q2 FY '24.
Shriram Housing Finance registered a profit after tax growth of 36.87% in Q2 FY '25 over Q2 FY '24. PAT for the quarter of this year was INR 66 crores as compared to INR 48.22 crores. The retail stood at INR 1.83 against INR 1.48 in Q2 FY '24.
Shriram Housing's gross Stage 3 for Q2 FY '25 stood at 1.22% and their net Stage 3 came in at 0.93%. In comparison, these numbers were 1.08% on a gross basis and 0.83% on a net basis in Q2 FY '24.
I shall now request our Managing Director and CFO Mr. Parag Sharma to inform you about our resource raising activities, after which our Joint Managing Director, Mr. Sunder will brief you about accounting and regulatory assets. Thank you.
I'm Parag, the total debt outstanding as of September '24 is INR 2,07,820 crores, broken up into term loans of INR 51,123 crores, which is 24% of our liability. Securitization is INR 34,467 crores which is 16% of our liability. Our external commercial borrowing both from the loan and the bond route is INR 31,752 crores, which is 15% of our liability.
Domestic capital market bonds, subdebt constitute INR 40,281 crores, which is 19% of our liability and retail deposits, which is INR 15,196 crores, which is 24% of our liability. So well diversified liability mix. And that mix has been in line with the previous quarter and also as of March '24.
We also do direct assignment transaction for some of our asset classes and that outstanding is close to around INR 3,000 crores, which will be an off-balance sheet item. The cost of liabilities is 8.97%, 1 basis point up from the June '24 quarter, and slightly down from the March '24 number. The leverage ratio stands at 3.99%, which was 3.79% in June and as of March, it was 3.83%.
The liquidity coverage ratio was healthy at 234%. June, it was close 225.19%. We always maintain more than 3 months of liability repayment into liquid assets, and that is slightly more than INR 17,000 crores and 3 months liability is around INR 16,700 crores, which includes the retail liabilities also.
The incremental cost of fund has been in line and slightly lower than the liabilities cost on the balance sheet. So that indicates that there could be -- we can maintain the liability cost of debt or maybe slightly can improve over a period of time.
The ALM buckets continue to be positive. And up to 6 months, the cumulative surplus will be around more than INR 35,000 crore, and up to 1 year will be INR 50,000 crores. These funds mobilized this quarter has been, I would say, strong and securitization and direct assignment transaction has been in excess of INR 10,000 crores.
We have also done an ECB bond, which was concluded during end of September, which was INR 4,000 crore. And bank borrowing continues also to be strong, more than INR 5,000 crores borrowed through the bank loan growth and NCDs has been at around INR 7,000 crores.
With this, I hand over to Sunder for his comment on the...
Thank you, Parag. The employee count, as on 30th September was 77,764 as against 75,813 in June quarter and net increase of 1,951 employees. The -- some data points on the ECL. The Stage 1 PD was 9.06%. And the Stage 2 PD was 20.98% and the LGD stood at 38.59%.
Coming to the disbursement segment-wise, the CV disbursements were INR 15,004 crores. Passenger vehicles was INR 7,595 crores. Construction equipment was INR 2,267 crores. Farm Equipment was INR 899 crores. MSME was INR 6,875 crores. 2-wheeler INR 2,555 crores. Gold was INR 2,697 crores, and personal loan was INR 2,081 crores, totaling to INR 39,974 crores.
With this, we'll just open up for the questions, and we'll be happy to answer your questions.
[Operator Instructions]
The first question is from the line of Chintan Joshi from Autonomous.
Can I ask on a few different areas. The first question would be that we have seen slippages and gross Stage 3 loans increasing kind of multiple players in the sector. What would you say is the reason that you haven't seen a similar deterioration?
Slippage has actually improved as a percentage...
I'm trying to understand why it has improved, while everybody else is seeing a deterioration...
Okay. As an industry, if you look at, there are deterioration in certain geographies and certain segments. Mostly, the -- as RBI has been talking, unsecured loan, MSI loans, and that too in certain geography, there has been little higher slippage. I feel it is basically the local economic activity being a little weaker. That could be the reason.
Okay. Secondly, can I check, operating expenses have increased 8% quarter-on-quarter. Is there some reason for that? Any one-offs in there to flag?
There were some fees paid in the current quarter due to increased 2-wheeler and other loans wherein, which was sourced through the direct sourcing agents. And there were also some costs incurred on our branding front. So apart from this, it was a normal increase.
So do you think there shouldn't -- we shouldn't expect similar increases in the next few quarters?
Yes. It will not be to this level, but there will be some increase, no doubts.
Some inflation, yes. And then finally, and a quick one, how do you think asset quality and cost of risk can develop over the next 6 to 12 months? What is -- what do you see in your portfolio that gives you reasons to -- what are the risks that you see? And what are the trends that you see in your portfolio?
So we don't really see any further -- there will be improvement in our asset quality. There may not be anything adverse now because the economic activity being very strong, the foundation of the country and -- is very strong and government spend on the infrastructure is likely to improve in the next 2 quarters. That will help the economic activity to improve.
And the festive period with good monsoon and good Kharif crop and better MSP price, all are likely to help -- be very positive for the next 2 quarters. I don't really see any possibility of deterioration. So I -- we are targeting to improve our Stage 3 to around 5% level.
The next question is from the line of Avinash Singh from Emkay Global.
So a couple of questions.
Sorry to interrupt, sir, could you come a bit close to your handset?
Is it better now.
Yes, sir, go ahead.
Yes. So couple of questions. The one would be on, again, continuing on the stress part. So I mean, you named like the MFI and a few other segments. But the personal loan segment also is seeing a bit of a rise in stress. Now in this backdrop, your portfolio seems to be doing fine.
Now, the thing is that, what kind of growth you are seeing there and if at all, any sort of color on future delinquencies in this PL segment? So that is your first question.
And if you can just help us with kind of growth in this used CV segment or RCV segment, how do you see growth panning out for the rest of the year in that segment?
This is Chakravarti here. On the PL side, most of the stress that is visible in the market today is in your BNPL and the small ticket personal loan space. So even within the industry players where you have a larger ticket personal loans, basically for prime and super prime segment of customers, the stress is -- there is -- the portfolio is performing well. And as far as Shriram Finance is concerned, 97%, 98% of my disbursement goes to my existing customer, either he's a 2-wheeler customer who has finished 75% of his loan tenure or personal loan customer who has finished repayment of his 1 loan and coming for a second loan.
So we don't see -- I mean, the quality of the portfolio is not the reason why we have slowed down, but it is also just to give a comfort to -- I mean, so since there is a lot of concern around on portfolios, on personal loan, we have actually -- what we did was we have tightened -- further tightened our criteria for giving loans to our existing customers. And that's one of the reasons why you see that slowdown. But going forward, we will wait for a couple of quarters before the industry and the regulator gets comfort, and then we will increase this portfolio.
And as far as growth in CV is concerned, I think we should grow our CV portfolio anywhere from -- next 2 quarters should grow at 17%, 18% comparably.
The next question is from the line of Gopi Nandan Reddy from PNR Investments.
Sir, is there any area where we have noticed any pain points that are coming up? I mean, I'm asking this question given the current situation in other companies where everywhere we can see the stress. Is there any area where either tractors or anything else where there is an increase in problem areas?
See, none of the asset-backed loans that we don't -- we see any issues. And as I was telling you, there is a geography-specific and segment-specific challenges. See 1 of the areas which we -- is a little where you see the challenges are where people are overleveraged, that individuals are overleveraged and there is excessive lending to them. That is -- in few locations, there were challenges. So...
I'm asking for our company. Sorry, I'm asking for our company, sir.
Our company, no. We don't see any.
The second one is not a question, sir. Just an advise, this initially introduction about the Indian economy, all these things in this information world, it is flooded, sir, everybody is already aware. We better have question and answers in that time. That is my advise.
The next question is from the line of Shubhranshu Mishra from PhillipCapital.
Two quick questions. The first one is we've got the number of customers on Slide #13, which is around 90 lakh customers. But I guess that is the outstanding number of customers. How many customers do we bank on a monthly basis? And of those bank customers, how many customers would have more than 2 trade lines, not necessarily with us, but a bureau report, which would be accessing for these customers. So how many are these monthly bank customers would have more than 2 trade lines? That's my first question, sir.
The second one is the fact that we have a lot of customers in rural areas and semi-urban area, these are areas where we are seeing certain level of stress, whether in unsecured credit cards or personal loans or MSI or the other exposure. It sounds a little out of box, that our customer segment is absolutely immune to this. So wanted your qualitative views on this. And the third part is, sir, if you can just repeat the disbursement mix. So that's just a data keeping question.
As far as the disbursements are concerned, I'll just repeat it, commercial vehicle, INR 15,004 crores. Passenger vehicles INR 7,595 crores, construction equipment INR 2,267 crores, farm equipment 899 crores, MSME INR 6,876 crores, 2-wheelers INR 2,555 crores, gold INR 2,697 crores, personal loan INR 2,081 crores, totaling to INR 39,974 crores.
And as regards to your first question regarding that [indiscernible] so that I would suggest that you contact Mr. Mundra offline, so he will be able to help you out.
Again, 2-wheeler, gold and total, if you can repeat, sir, it was a little fast for me.
2-wheeler was INR 2,555 crores. Gold INR 2,697 crores. Personal loans INR 2,081 crores.
And total, sir?
INR 39,974 crores.
The next question is from the line of Siddharth from [indiscernible] Financial Services.
So my main doubt I had was that you would be focusing more on short tenure products like personal loans and 2-wheelers for improving the bottom line growth rather than the AUM mix. So I would just like to have your views on the personal loans because it has declined. And on previous quarters, it was mentioned that this would be the last quarter of decline in personal loans. So could you just let me know your views on that?
No, no. As I said, it's probably -- as I told you, once we are able to give the comfort to the market and the regulator that our portfolio is doing well, we will grow. So these 2 quarters, we should improve the disbursement.
Okay, sir. So -- and if I may know how better are the margins for personal loans?
Sorry, how...
How the margins are expected to improve for personal loans?
No, no, no. See, margins, personal loan is what -- personal loan portfolio entire portfolio is about 3%. So even if I improve the margin by 100% also, it is not going to create a big dent on the overall. But as a stand-alone thing, I think we should be able to manage -- maintain our average yield, which are around -- I mean, we have a product going from 12% up to 27%, 28%. So it's in -- basically, the mix will remain the same.
[Operator Instructions]
The next question is from the line of Chintan Joshi from Autonomous.
Sorry, I thought there will be more questions. Can I come back on your expectations for your net interest margin over the next year? And also, how do you think with the RBI rate cuts, how do you think your margins will behave?
Net interest margin should remain at present level. As far as the RBI rate cut and the -- that is something very subjective. So it depends upon when exactly RBI will look for a rate cut. So we -- as of now, we feel that it is unlikely to be before February. So only then we'll be able to address that. So I don't really see any immediate improvement in our funding cost.
And if we get a 50 basis point rate cut, what would your sensitivity be to your NIMs?
See, obviously, when there is a rate cut, when the banks start passing on that benefit to us, that benefit will accrue to us. So it will come at a lag. So we can't be telling it in advance.
The next question is from the line of Kunal Shah from Citi Group.
So on yields, have you seen improvement actually in this particular quarter? Maybe is it because of the mix change or something? Because on a calculated basis, it seems to be an improvement.
See, I don't think there is any improvement. Yield remains same...
More or less same, Kunal.
So yields remained same. So there is no -- maybe neither in terms of the pass-on benefit or repricing of fixed rate book that has happened, yes, because cost of funds are just stable. So I just wanted to check on the yield side.
No, it's more or less same, not much of a change.
Okay. And secondly, in terms of an update on maybe the interactions with the rating agencies, yes. So maybe in terms of the upgrades or something? Yes.
Parag?
Yes, I think the dialogue is continuously on with them. We are impressive upon the improvement in asset quality and the diversity of our mix on assets and liabilities both. But I think, yes, we are -- as of now, we have -- I think we'll keep our fingers crossed and keep the dialogue on. Let us see when we are able to prevail upon NIM.
Yes, because it's been quite a consistent performance all through. So not sure in terms of maybe when does that happen with respect to the rating upgrade, yes.
The next question is from the line of Raghav Garg from AMBIT Capital.
My first question is on the gold loan portfolio. Why has the growth come down again in this quarter? It seems to be a 12% Y-o-Y and there seems to be a decline quarter-on-quarter.
Primarily, it's come down because we have reduced our LTVs on gold to about around 60%, 65%. So that's one of the primary reasons why the disbursement has come down.
Okay. As opposed to what before...
About 70% to 73%.
Okay. And what was the reason for that, sir? I mean, why did you...
What is happening is -- so since most of the gold is a bullet payment, there is principal and interest to the be repaid. What's happening is they are breaching the 75% LTV norms within a short period of time. So -- and we are actually providing the moment it breaches the 75% LTV norm, we are actually classifying it as an NPA, but the regulator advised us that, that since a lot of cases, it is happening, they are advised us it is better to reduce rather than provide. So we've done that.
Sir, I'm sorry, why is it that they are breaching the LTVs norms of 75%? I didn't get that?
See, basically, your exit LTV, your LTV -- the norm is 75% of the loan to value of the gold. That is an exit LTV that is prescribed, not entry. So your accumulated interest plus principal, cannot cross 75% at an exit time and if it crosses, you actually keep -- you need to classify it as an NPA and call the customer or try to auction of the gold.
So since it is happening -- because your LTV is about at 72% and it is touching 75% quite fast, the regulator advised, why don't you actually -- instead of providing, why don't you reduce the LTV. So we took the advise and reduce.
Sir, you mentioned -- just to clarify, you mentioned the 75% LTV norm for NBFCs, that's the exit LTV, when you close the loan...
No, no, no. Even for banks. It's the same for NBFCs and banks.
Okay. Understood. And sir, another question on the vehicle finance bit the other 2 large auto NBFCs, we've seen slippages increase quite a bit. It has happened for you also, but I think this increase in slippages a bit lower. Is there something that you're doing on the ground to push your branch people to collect or just to perform better on collections versus what the other auto NBFCs are doing or the trends that they are seeing?
I mean, [indiscernible]. I don't know about the other NBFCs, but I think -- also majority of the portfolio would be new vehicles, whereas for us, majority of the portfolio is used vehicles, one. Two, basically, what we see on the ground is basically better -- improved utilization of the vehicle because lesser turnaround time and improved load. So typically, the per day running kilometers has increased for most of these vehicles. So cash flows also have improved. So that is also 1 of the reasons why we're able to handle -- manage the delinquency that is there like at these numbers.
But sir, I mean I think at the start of the call, there was a comment that the government spending has reduced. And generally, what you see is that it tends to impact the operators as well. So you're saying despite that, the cash flows and the general load carrying momentum has been good for the operators in the ground, is it?
No, no, no. See the comments were aimed at when we are talking about the new vehicle sales, right, MHCVs, particularly for medium and heavy vehicles and also LCVs, whether that is for new vehicle sales.
I think the 1 thing -- 1 factor that is going on positive is for used vehicles is there is -- today new capacity -- excess capacity is not coming into the market. The existing capacity is being utilized better. And in fact, used vehicle prices are holding very steady.
What happens is when the government is spending on infrastructure, the additional demand comes for new vehicle sales. And therefore, the additional demand did not come because government has spent less. But otherwise, the existing portfolio, existing -- what we call the customers have sufficient business, and it's quite profitable. Therefore, the asset quality also is improving -- behaving better.
The next question is from the line of Gopi Nandan Reddy from PNR Investments.
Sir, we have been giving consistent results of late from the time the companies are merged and become Shriram Finance. Is it -- Is the improvement in consistency in the performance attribute -- how much is it attributable to the economy -- economic situation that is right now? And how much is it for any changes made in the way we are executing things? What are all the changes that we have done that are giving this consistency. That is what it is.
See, basically, when economy is doing good, all the parameters of any company which is dependent on economy will do well. So that is a natural, what I call, a linkage you can establish. Otherwise, company has been there as an entity for nearly 50 years. The financial -- Shriram in the financing -- so we have our own DNA, our own strong culture, and that has been helping us to understand the environment, understand the customer and respond to the customer much better. So we have been improving over the period and we will continue to improve.
Okay. The next question is, as somebody already asked when it comes to rating agencies, what is it that they are expecting us to improve upon for rating upgrade? Is there anything specific or just we don't know?
There's nothing specific. They'd like to see overall progress. Now -- they waited for 1 year to complete post-merger, whether this merger will go through smoothly and efficiently, which we have now demonstrated. Probably, they would also like to see this macroeconomic advantage to continue for some more time before they consent to further improvement.
Okay, sir. Sir, one last question. Do you see that the merger benefits is at all played already or we have some more steam left in cross-selling kind of things?
See, we have not reached all the branches with the products. The MSME gold has not reached to all the geography, all the branches. There is some more scope for improvement.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. We have reached the end of our Q&A session. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Umesh Revankar, Executive Chairman, for closing comments.
Thank you all for joining. As you know, second quarter is normally a tricky quarter because excess rain or shortfall in rain makes a big difference in Indian economy and the overall credit demand. With good rainfall and good output in the rural agri output, I think we can expect a better half in the October to March. So with the hope that things will further improve, credit demand will further improve, we would like to say bye and catch up next time. Thank you very much.
Thank you. On behalf of Shriram Finance Limited, that concludes this conference. Thanks for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.