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City Chic Collective Limited (CCCHF) Q4 2026 Earnings Call August 23, 2026 7:30 PM EDT

Company Participants

Philip Ryan – CEO, MD & Director
James Plummer – Chief Financial Officer

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Presentation

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Krista, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the City Chic Collective Full Year 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Phil Ryan, Managing Director and CEO. Phil, please go ahead.

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Philip Ryan
CEO, MD & Director

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. I’m Phil Ryan, the CEO of City Chic Collective, and I’m joined today by our CFO, James Plummer. This morning, I will run through the presentation, starting with the key highlights and business update. James will then take you through the financials, and I’ll come back to discuss the FY ’27 trading update and outlook before opening up to questions.

Moving to Slide 2. FY ’26 was another important year for City Chic, and I’m very pleased with the progress we have made. Underlying EBITDA increased to $12.3 million, up 92% on the prior period. This was driven by the continued execution of our strategy across customer, product and cost discipline. ANZ revenue was up 7.6% and trading gross margin dollars were up 8.2%. This shows that the strategy continues to gain traction even in the consumer environment that remains challenging due to the cost of living crisis. The continued improvement in margin demonstrates the success of our strategic focus on product elevation and pricing discipline with average selling price increasing a further 4.5% in FY ’26. Cut for Curves is our Fit Promise to our customer. It’s at the core of our brand and remains our key strategic differentiator.

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New Delhi: The country’s equity derivatives market has taken on a notably younger profile, with traders under 30 making up 43% of individual participants in FY26, a sharp rise from 31% four years earlier, according to a study.

However, the younger cohort also recorded a higher incidence of losses, the study by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) revealed.

Around 89% of traders below 30 were loss-makers in FY26 compared to 81% of participants above 60.

The changing age profile is part of a wider transformation in the retail derivatives market, which has increasingly drawn investors outside India’s largest cities and from relatively lower-income groups. About three-fourths of individual derivatives traders belonged to the annual income category of below ₹5 lakh. This group accounted for 43% of turnover, but 53% of aggregate losses, the regulator said. Around 88% of traders in this income category incurred losses, compared with 81% of investors with annual income of above ₹1 crore.

The geographical spread of derivatives participation has been equally striking.

Read more: Mcap of four of top-10 most valued firms erodes Rs 87,960 cr; Airtel takes biggest hit
Investors from smaller towns (B30) accounted for about two-thirds of individual traders and nearly half of derivatives turnover in FY26.

The study noted that B30 investors account for only about one-fourth of individual mutual fund assets, pointing to a markedly higher derivatives risk appetite relative to their broader investment behaviour. The study also examined the relationship between derivatives trading and the size of investors’ underlying equity portfolios.

Cathy Hepworth, who heads $1.5 trillion asset manager PGIM‘s emerging-markets debt team, doesn’t hesitate when asked about her highest-conviction theme across the developing world: “Carry, carry, carry.”

She’s referring to a popular but often risky trade in which investors borrow cheaply in currencies like the US dollar, Japanese yen, or euro, and put the money to work in higher-yielding currencies like the Turkish lira, where interest payments on bonds or money-market funds can be as much as 40% or higher.

Carry trades funded by the US dollar are on their longest winning run since 2008, yielding positive returns for a seventh successive quarter.

“It’s a carry world,” said Hepworth, who joined PGIM in 1989 and helped establish its emerging-markets debt management effort in 1995. “There’s a ton of money looking for yield.”

Read more: West Bengal plans incentives to spur industrial investments

The emerging-market carry trade has returned about 22% since the end of 2024, according to a Bloomberg gauge of eight major EM currencies, handily beating all other major classes of global bond trades. Investing in US Treasuries has earned just 5.9% over the same period, while dollar bonds from developing world governments returned 14% and EM corporate debt 10%. Returns have been amplified by a dollar that’s weakening against major emerging-market currencies outside Asia and cheapening versus low-rate peers like the euro and Swiss franc also used to fund carry trades. That makes for a heady mix in Colombia, which offers a 12% bond return with 45% spot appreciation. Even in Turkey, where the lira has lost 26% against the dollar, yields above 32% on 10-year local bonds have kept investors in profit.

ET Intelligence Group: Symbiotec Pharmalab plans to raise ₹150 crore through a fresh issue to repay debt and ₹1,607 crore through an offer for sale. The promoter group’s stake will fall to 33.3% after the IPO from 36.4%. The company is engaged in the development and manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), nutritional ingredients, and specialty products.Over two-third of the revenue comes from international markets with Europe contributing nearly 30%. Top five products contribute nearly 63% to revenue, signalling product concentration. The valuation is attractive compared with peers. Given these factors and market leadership in some of the products, investors with high-risk appetite may apply for the long-term.

Business

Incorporated in 2002, Symbiotec Pharmalab has a global leadership position in corticosteroid and steroidal-hormone APIs in volume terms in FY26, with a global volume market share of 38.2% in corticosteroid and 23.8% in steroidal-hormone APIs According to Frost & Sullivan. It was the only company to have a presence across the top 10 corticosteroid and steroidal-hormone APIs in FY26. The company has a backward-integrated platform with approvals from the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA), European Union Good Manufacturing Practices (EU-GMP), Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, Korea and other global organisations. APIs continue to be the primary revenue driver, contributing more than 96% to total revenue in FY26, while newer initiatives such as complex injectables and contract manufacturing (CDMO) offerings make up the balance. As of FY26, the company operated two API manufacturing facilities and commissioned two additional plants, expanding fermentation capacity to 700 KL and adding complex injectables capacity of 20 million vials annually.

Financials

Between FY24 and FY26, revenue from operations grew 10.2% annually to ₹869.1 crore, operating profit before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) increased 14.5% to ₹232 crore and net profit rose 4.8% to 109.9 crore. While EBITDA margin expanded to 26.6% in FY26 from 24.5% in FY24, operating cash flow remained volatile, rising to ₹174.6 crore in FY26 from ₹47.3 crore in FY25, compared with ₹187.5 crore in FY24. It reflects heavy capital expenditure and fluctuations in working capital, particularly inventory and trade payables.Read more: Pride Hotels steps up expansion, plans Rs 1,000-cr IPO by December

Valuation

Symbiotec lacks an exact listed peer due to a niche in steroidal hormones and advanced drug-device formulation. Considering the post-IPO equity and net profit for FY26, the company demands a price-earnings (P/E) multiple of up to 58. For other API or biotechnology manufacturers such as Concord Biotech, Divi’s Laboratories, Cohance Lifesciences and Laurus Labs, the P/E range is between 63 and 110.