Andhra Bank net down 15%

However, total income and advances rise

Andhra Bank reported a decline of 15.2 per cent in net profit to Rs 257 crore for the quarter ended December 2012, as compared with Rs 303 crore in the corresponding quarter the earlier year.

Sequentially, net profit was down 21 per cent as compared with Rs 326 crore in the September quarter. Total income for the quarter grew 9.8 per cent to Rs 3,469 crore from Rs 3,158 crore in the corresponding previous quarter. Growth in advances and deposits was 14 per cent compared with the year-ago period.

Operating profit for the quarter declined 7.2 per cent to Rs 712 crore from Rs 768 crore in the same quarter of the previous year. Expenditure went up 15.3 per cent to Rs 2,757 crore from Rs 2,391 crore in the year-ago period.

Chairman and managing director B A Prabhakar said the fall in net profit was mainly because of higher provisioning, which included about Rs 30 crore for the impending pay revision.

Growth in advances was slower, partly because of a self-imposed restraint in offering short-term loans to large and mid-corporate segments, a major contributor to slippages this year. Demand for project financing was low, he said.

Total provisioning contingency saw a 7.9 per cent decline to Rs 285 crore as compared with Rs 309 crore in the corresponding previous quarter though provisioning for non-performing assets (NPAs) rose 278 per cent to Rs 149 crore from Rs 39.5 crore in the year-ago period.

The bank has so far restructured Rs 3,318 crore of loans. The corporate debt restructure pipeline is gradually coming down, signalling a turnaround in asset quality, said Prabhakar. Despite the slippages, the bank could maintain a net interest margin (NIM) of 3.35 per cent, he said.

Gross NPAs were Rs 3,302 crore (3.4 per cent of total advances), an increase of 75 per cent over the Rs 1,884 crore in the corresponding previous quarter.

Net NPAs saw a further surge in the third quarter and were Rs 2,023 crore (2.3 per cent) as compared with Rs 943 crore (1.2 per cent) in the corresponding previous quarter.