L&T Finance seeks to expand its loan book to Rs 10,000 cr

L&T Finance Ltd (LTF), the financial services arm of engineering major Larsen & Toubro, would increase its loan book size to Rs 10,000 crore from Rs 6,200 crore by March 2011, said a senior official of the company.

Speaking to Business Standard, G K Shettigar, Assistant Vice-President, LTF, said the company has set a target to increase its loan book size to Rs 10,000 crore by March 2011. The growth drivers would be equipment, commercial vehicles, farm equipment, micro finance and corporate finance, he added.

According to him, of the total mobilised funds, 42 per cent was from banks, 35 per cent from QIBs and 20-23 per cent from retail. “We would like to change this ratio to 30 per cent each, while the rest will be through internal accruals,” he added.

Larsen & Toubro has so far infused Rs 636.69 crore capital into LTF since its inception.

LTF not only plans to become one among the top three lenders for commercial vehicles and farm equipment, but also wants to retain its number two position in construction equipment financing, according to Shettigar.

The company is also planning to start financing small commercial vehicles of one tonne capacity.

L&T Finance to rename DBS Cholamandalam
DBS Cholamandalam, which was bought by L&T Finance for Rs 45 crore, will be renamed as L&T Mutual Fund (MF). “We have received the approval from ROC, Chennai,” said N Suryanarayanan, Manager and Company Secretary of LTF.

The company, according to him, will shift its register office to Mumbai from Chennai, where the new chief executive Sanjay Sinha is based. DBS Cholamandalam has around Rs 2,600 crore assets under management.

In an advertisement published some days ago, LTF had given time existing investors of DBS Cholamandalam MFs till February 15 to exit from their investments before LTF formally takes over the charge of the asset management company. He informed that none of the existing investors wished to exit from DBS Cholamandalam.