PNB Housing Finance reports net profit of Rs 379.7 cr in Q4FY19; up 51%

PNB will raise Rs 10,000 crore via NCDs and upto $1 billion by ECB route

Mortgage lender PNB Housing Finance on Thursday reported a robust 51 per cent growth in profit after tax (PAT) in Q4FY19. The housing finance company reported a net profit of Rs 379.7 crore in Q4FY19 as opposed to Rs 251.6 crore in the same quarter last fiscal.

The disbursement of the company, however, saw a marginal dip of 2 per cent to Rs 8,562 crore in Q4FY19 from Rs 8,739 crore in the same quarter last fiscal. After the IL&FS crisis, NBFCs and HFCs have been struggling with loan disbursements and have been selling off their loan portfolios to banks via securitisation. The mortgage lender has securitized Rs 7,337 crore of loans so far and the outstanding securitized pool of the lender was at Rs 10,699 as of March 31,2019.

PNB Housing Finance's capital to risk asset ratio (CRAR) stood at 13.98 per cent at the end of March 2019, of which Tier I capital was 11 per cent and Tier II capital was 2.98 per cent. The regulatory mandate is 12 per cent. Its CRAR was 14.49% at the end of December.

While the current capitalisation level is adequate with sufficient cushion over minimum CRAR required according to regulations, the company is planning to raise capital to achieve target growth. 

The mortgage lender, in its board meeting, has approved the issuance of secured and un-secured non-convertible debentures (NCDs) totalling Rs 10,000 crore. Moreover, approval was also granted to raise funds by external commercial borrowing route upto $ 1 billion.

The company said, it borrowed incrementally Rs 30,858 crores in FY19 with over 55 per cent mobilised post the IL&FS crisis. However, it has maintained Rs 7,000 crore cash and liquid investments as of March, 2019.

The net interest income (NII) registered 13 per cent growth in the fourth quarter to Rs 610 crore from Rs 541 crore. The assets under management (AUM) of the company saw a 36 per cent growth to Rs 84,722 crore.

The company reported a 41 basis points (bps) dip in net interest margin from 3.59 per cent to 3.18 per cent as the average cost of borrowing for the company went up by 47 bps in the fourth quarter.

Gross non-performing assets (NPAs) for the company stood at 0.48 per cent of their loan assets as on March 31, 2019, against 0.33 per cent as on March 31, 2018. Net NPAs stood at 0.38 per cent of the loan assets as on March 31, 2019 against 0.23 per cent as on March 31, 2018.

“FY18-19 was a challenging year with tight liquidity, which impacted the overall Indian financial and real estate sectors. Amid such environment, we continued our focus on maintaining adequate liquidity, balanced ALM, efficient operations and robust asset quality. We would continue to maintain a balanced approach to business, with focus on asset quality, and improving profitability”, said Sanjaya Gupta, Managing Director of PNB Housing Finance.