Muthoot to start mutual funds, vehicle finance business this fiscal

Plans to grow non-gold loan portfolio to 20 per cent of business

Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC) Muthoot Finance Ltd is expected to start its mutual funds business and vehicle finance business during this fiscal year as part of its plan to gradually grow its non-gold loan portfolio.

Managing director of Muthoot Finance, George Alexander Muthoot said the effort was to grow the non-gold loan portfolio.

"At present, almost 90 per cent of our portfolio is gold loan, with the rest coming from housing finance, microfinance, and the Sri Lankan subsidiary. We are planning to bring the gold loan to 85 per cent by the end of this year and to 80 per cent during the next year," Muthoot said.

The company has received in-principle approval to launch the asset management company and would set up the business in six months. At one point of time, the company had private placement debentures of around Rs 120 billion, which means there is a lot of investors loyal to Muthoot for several decades and the mutual funds will be targeting these customers.

The vehicle finance company is expected to be launched in the next quarter, starting from Telengana and Andhra Pradesh. The company is also looking at launching a Loan against Property portfolio, though it would not be a major thrust area.

Commenting on the outlook, Muthoot said the company has reported a good growth during the first quarter of the year and would expect the growth to be at around 20-25 per cent during the whole year. The gold loan business has been seeing better growth, with the economy picking up, at around 20-25 per cent during the fiscal. The total Assets Under Management (AUM) to around Rs 850 billion by the end of the financial year, of which eight per cent would be housing finance business.

"We are seeing the economy picking up and demand growth. If there are no surprises, we expect to clock in a 20-25 per cent growth during this year," he said.

The company registered a 10 per cent growth last year.
 

During the quarter ended June 30, 2018, the net profit of the company grew 42.7 per cent to Rs 4.91 billion as compared to Rs 3.44 billion during the same quarter of previous year. The total revenue stood at Rs 16.32 billion as compared to Rs 13.77 billion during the same quarter of last year, an increase of 18.5 per cent. The company has 600 branches in Kerala, of which only three has been affected ba y the floods during the last month and it is not expecting major impact from the disaster, Muthoot said.
 

It has received the board's approval to raise around Rs 50 billion by way of private placements of redeemable non-convertible debentures, he added.