PB Fintech, popularly known as Policybazaar, made its debut on the exchanges today. The stock listed at a premium of 18 percent with the company's market capitalisation crossing Rs 55,000 crore.

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CNBC-TV18 caught up with Yashish Dahiya, Founder and CEO, and Alok Bansal, CFO, to discuss their future plans.

Talking about setting up the offline business and its contribution to revenues, Dahiya said it will be equity contribution accretive, and not just profit accretive; it will be contribution accretive in the longer term. In the medium term, it may have a contribution impact because during that timeframe the processes may not be well set. Medium-term is defined as 6-8-10 months.

"But otherwise, fundamentally, we are not investing in fixed capacity. What we are doing is we are incrementally investing," said Dahiya.

Talking about the companies on their platform, Dahiya said, “In the last 13 years, every year, we have had more companies on the platform than in the previous year. Individual companies, at times, have gone off the platform, some companies come on the platform; that keeps happening on a regular basis. About 11 or 12 insurance companies have invested in our IPO. So that gives you some indication of how good our relationship (is with them) and what they think about us. At any time, we have between 48 and 51 partners. So, consumers have enough choice.”

When asked about their EBITDA loss and if it would continue at the same pace going forward, Bansal said, going forward a large chunk of this loss will come from the ESOP cost. "The way the accounting for the ESOP cost works, you have to take a very large hit in the P&L in the first year itself. We had allocated a lot of ESOPs to our team last year, and that is what is actually creating that delta," he said.

Dahiya added, “Our business is broken up into two clear areas. One is the core areas - the core areas are businesses which we do at scale, insurance, health insurance, motor insurance, savings products, credit products, etc. On those businesses, we always have been margin-positive from day one. And we have a clear sight of how those create profits for us.”

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The company has always done experiments. "This year, we may do more experiments, and next year even more or do less, we don’t know. I think, we are not being valued for our existence today. I don’t think we are valued for our profits today. We are being valued for what we will become five years from now.”

On profitability, Dahiya said, “Our core businesses are profitable as of today. There is not a single doubt. If we don't do our experiments, we are profitable. I think our investors, and we, as a founder of the business, are here to make sure this company becomes stronger and stronger in the future. For that, the experiments are necessary. And those experiments are costly. We will never be significantly loss-making but don't be in a rush for profits, is what I would guide investors, and also don't worry about the long term.”

Dahiya said it would take them about one to two years to turn profitable.

(Edited by : Thomas Abraham)

First Published:Nov 15, 2021 7:11 PM IST