NSE: CDSL
CENTRAL DEPO SER (I) LTD
Operates India's largest securities depository, holding electronic records of shares, bonds and other financial instruments for investors. The Depository Activity segment — 83.8% of FY26 segment revenue at Rs 960.45 crore — earns from annual account maintenance fees, transaction charges on settlements, and issuer-related charges for companies whose securities it services. As of March 31, 2026, the platform carried 18.01 crore demat accounts across 33.26 crore folios, with assets under custody of Rs 88.2 lakh crore by Q1 FY27. The Data Entry and Storage segment — 15.9% of revenue at Rs 182.81 crore — is run through subsidiary CDSL Ventures and consists of KYC registration and identity-verification services for the securities market; its FY26 revenue fell to Rs 182 crore from Rs 231 crore as SEBI cut the KYC fetch charge by 20% (to INR28) and the creation charge by 75% (to INR5) effective April 1, 2026. The Repository segment — 0.3% of revenue at Rs 3.40 crore — operates through Centrico Insurance Repository, holding insurance policies in electronic form, and remained loss-making at the EBIT level (Rs -8.00 crore in FY26). The business is asset-light with no material inputs; the dominant cost line is other operating expenses (35.2% of FY26 revenue), within which technology spend has now overtaken employee cost at the consolidated level (Rs 162 crore in FY26 versus employee cost at 13.7% of revenue). EBITDA margin stood at 59.3% in FY26 on revenue of Rs 1,144.92 crore. AR · MarketPing reader · 2026-08-02
Revenue streams, as the annual report describes them. Depository Activity (84%), Data Entry and Storage (16%), Repository (0%). Asset-light, quasi-monopoly securities-market infrastructure with regulator-set tariffs
Exhibit 1: Financial summary, FY22–FY26 (all audited; no estimate years)
| ₹ crore · consolidated | FY22 | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 | FY26 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 551 | 555 | 812 | 1,082 | 1,145 |
| EBITDA (ex other income) | 367 | 323 | 489 | 624 | 586 |
| margin % | 66.5 | 58.3 | 60.3 | 57.7 | 51.2 |
| Owners' profit | 311 | 276 | 419 | 527 | 456 |
| EPS, as reported (₹) | 29.78 | 26.41 | 40.11 | 25.20 | 21.82 |
| ROE % · ROCE % | — · — | 22.0 · 29.0 | 27.8 · 36.1 | 29.2 · 37.5 | 22.7 · 29.9 |
| Debt / equity (x) | — | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Cash from operations | 283 | 249 | 386 | 543 | 467 |
| Capex | (14) | (197) | (54) | (124) | (100) |
Exhibit 2: Quarterly performance, last 8 quarters
| ₹ crore | Q2 FY25 | Q3 FY25 | Q4 FY25 | Q1 FY26 | Q2 FY26 | Q3 FY26 | Q4 FY26 | Q1 FY27 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 322 | 278 | 224 | 259 | 319 | 304 | 263 | 293 |
| Profit before tax | 224 | 168 | 126 | 152 | 184 | 173 | 104 | 166 |
| Net profit | 162 | 130 | 100 | 102 | 140 | 133 | 80 | 118 |
| EPS (₹) | 7.75 | 6.23 | 4.80 | 4.90 | 6.71 | 6.38 | 3.84 | 5.62 |
Exhibit 3: Segment revenue, FY26
| Segment | Revenue, ₹ crore | Share % |
|---|---|---|
| Depository Activity | 960 | 83.8 |
| Data Entry and Storage | 183 | 15.9 |
| Repository | 3 | 0.3 |
| Total, before eliminations | 1,147 | 100.0 |
Exhibit 4: Peers — basic industry group, by market cap
| Company | M.cap ₹ cr | P/E | P/B | EV/EBITDA | ROE % | ROCE % | Rev CAGR 5y % | EBITDA m. % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CENTRAL DEPO SER (I) LTD ◆ | 25,644 | 54.4 | 12.81 | 37.7 | 22.7 | 29.9 | 27.2 | 63.4 |
| COMPUTER AGE MNGT SER LTD | 16,813 | 17.6 | 12.73 | 22.9 | 35.7 | 43.8 | 16.5 | 50.5 |
| KFIN TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED | 14,777 | 43.1 | 8.83 | 26.3 | 20.5 | 18.7 | — | 37.1 |
Exhibit 5: Where the company sits in its group
| Metric | Company | Group median | Rank | Better than |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P/E (TTM) | 54.4 | 19.6 | 57 of 58 | 2% |
| P/B | 12.8 | 2.8 | 57 of 65 | 13% |
| ROCE | 29.9 | 16.0 | 7 of 33 | 81% |
| ROE | 22.7 | 11.4 | 16 of 65 | 77% |
| Debt / Equity | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1 of 30 | 72% |
| EBITDA margin | 63.4 | 45.7 | 20 of 64 | 70% |
| Revenue growth | 13.1 | 23.1 | 39 of 58 | 33% |
| Profit growth | 14.9 | 17.6 | 35 of 61 | 43% |
| Market cap | 25644 | 940 | 12 of 69 | 84% |
Exhibit 6: Filings of the last 90 days, with the measured price reaction
| Date · filing | Category | Importance | Next day % | 5-day % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Oct 2026 · Ashish Bhatt retires from CDSL senior management | management changes | medium | — | — |
| 27 Oct 2026 · CDSL schedules November 2 conference call for Q2 FY27 results | board shareholder meetings | low | — | — |
| 30 Sept 2026 · CDSL trading window closed for Q2 FY26 results | compliance | minimal | — | — |
| 22 Sept 2026 · CDSL: Nominee Director resigns from CDSL Ventures subsidiary board | management changes | medium | — | — |
| 22 Sept 2026 · CDSL updates analyst meeting schedule with Dymon Asia Capital | board shareholder meetings | low | — | — |
| 22 Sept 2026 · CDSL appoints Kinjal Shah as new CTO; Amit Mahajan steps down | management changes | medium | — | — |
| 21 Sept 2026 · CDSL schedules analyst calls with Nippon Life and Dymon Asia on Sep 24 | board shareholder meetings | low | — | — |
| 10 Sept 2026 · CDSL schedules analyst meetings with Nippon India MF and HDFC MF on Sept 16, 2026 | board shareholder meetings | low | — | — |
| 10 Sept 2026 · CDSL completes second tranche investment in IIBHL, holds 40 percent stake | business updates | medium | — | — |
| 1 Sept 2026 · CDSL receives 5 lakh ONDC shares, takes 2.20 percent stake worth Rs 5 Cr | strategic transactions | high | — | — |
How to read this document
| Where a broker report shows | This document shows | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A rating (BUY / ADD / REDUCE / SELL) | A state: the latest filed quarter and the measured reactions | an event is a fact; a rating is an opinion that requires SEBI RA registration |
| A target price and upside | The current price and the multiples against the group | a target is a forecast; a multiple is a measurement |
| Estimate years marked E | More audited years; no estimates | MarketPing publishes no forecasts — your own model lives on the Models page |
Sources, method and disclosures
This document is a statistical summary of publicly filed information and market data, prepared by software from primary sources: SEBI results XBRL filed with BSE and NSE, LODR disclosures, shareholding patterns, exchange price data. It contains no research recommendation, no price target and no opinion on the merits of any security, and is not a research report within the meaning of the SEBI (Research Analysts) Regulations, 2014, Regulation 2(1)(w)(vii). Financial statements are as filed (consolidated where the company files consolidated results). Ratios are computed over filed lines. Where a figure is unavailable the table shows a dash rather than an estimate. The business brief is written by MarketPing's reader from the annual report and checked against it; no figure in a table was generated by a model. Nothing here constitutes investment advice, an offer or a solicitation; readers should consult a SEBI-registered adviser before acting. MarketPing is not a SEBI-registered intermediary.