January 27, 2024

Institutional equities business proves to be a drag on Motilal Oswal Financia's Oct-Dec topline

25 January 2024

The sequential performance of leading brokerage and financial services firm Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd in the December quarter was marred by a fall in broking business income from its institutional equities business segment, according to information disclosed by the management in its post-earnings investor call on Wednesday. Motilal Oswal Financial reported that its brokerage revenue fell 8% on quarter to 5.36 bln rupees in Oct-Dec.

The management of Motilal Oswal Financial told investors in the call that during the December quarter the retail broking business was flattish on a sequential basis but the institutional equities business saw "lower volumes." The firm's total brokerage revenue of 5.36 bln rupees made up for slightly above 50% of the total revenue.

The institutional equities segment of the broking operations of the firm provides extensive research on more than 250 companies covering 21 sectors, as per information in the company's post-earnings investor presentation. This segment currently caters to around 840 institutional clients.

Motilal Oswal Financial is a full service brokerage firm earning from fees charged to retail, corporate, and institutional investors on their trading in cash and derivatives segments of stock exchanges, commissions from mutual fund distribution, and non-broking charges in institutional deals. As of Dec 31, Motilal Oswal Financial had around 8,22,000 active clients on the NSE. The Motilal Oswal Group of which it is a part also operates in investment banking, asset management, wealth management, private equity, and housing finance businesses.

Compared to the year ago period Motilal Oswal Financial's revenue from broking business rose 23% but was significantly below the total revenue growth of 36%. The other major revenue-earner for the brokerage firm in its standalone operations is interest income which comes mainly from financing margin trading by equity traders and other sources.

In Oct-Dec, it recorded interest income of 3.54 bln rupees in Oct-Dec, 12% more than the previous quarter and 68% up from the year-ago quarter. It made up for 34% of the total revenue of the brokerage firm.

In its investor presentation Motilal Oswal Financial said that it was among the "top three brokers in terms of gross brokerage", and was aiming to further improve its market share in the fast growing market.

The flattish revenue growth on a sequential basis from retail broking in Oct-Dec was on the back of the average daily turnover in the stock exchanges rising by just 8%. Motilal Oswal Financial said its retail cash average daily turnover market share went up by 42 bps on quarter to 7.5%. It further said that its share in the futures and options premium for the last month of the December quarter was 8.7%.

January 14, 2024

The danger that confronts us is still our own sprawling discretionary administrative state, soon to be boosted and camouflaged by an unaccountable international bureaucracy.....

https://brownstone.org/articles/the-whos-managerial-gambit/

By Bruce Pardy, Jan 11 2024

"....They locked people down, closed their businesses, made them wear masks, and herded them to vaccination clinics. In some countries, people endured the most extreme restrictions on civil liberties in peacetime history.....

The WHO proposals are a shell game. The scheme will provide cover to domestic public health authorities. Power will be ubiquitous but no one will be accountable. Citizens will lack control over the governance of their countries, as they already do. The danger that confronts us is still our own sprawling discretionary administrative state, soon to be boosted and camouflaged by an unaccountable international bureaucracy.....

The WHO proposals will protect power from accountability. National governments will be in on the plan. The people are the problem they seek to manage. The new regime will not override sovereignty but that is small comfort. Sovereignty provides no protection from your own authoritarian state...."