LIC Housing net rises 43%

On the back of a Rs 80 crore write-back, LIC Housing Finance on Monday reported a 43.19 per cent rise in net profit to Rs 305.69 for the quarter ended December 31, 2011. In the same period last year, the housing finance arm of the insurer, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), reported a net profit of 213.49 crore.

“We were making excess provisions on standard assets and non-performing assets over National Housing Bank’s norms. Under the revised the provisioning policy of the NHB, the company has reversed the excess provision of Rs 78.89 crore during the quarter which added to profits,” V K Sharma, chief executive of LICHF, said.

However, the net interest income (NII) was down by fell 5 per cent to Rs 326 crore on slower loan disbursements to developers. LICHF's disbursement to developers stood at Rs 154 crore in the October-December quarter compared with Rs 411 crore a year ago.

“So far in the current fiscal we have provided around Rs 700 crore loans on this account. We aim to disburse Rs 3,000 crore developers loan in FY12. That will help align our net interest margin. We will retain our NIM in the range of 2.7-3% in FY12,” Sharma said adding the company has recorded a 27 per cent growth in overall loan portfolio to Rs 58,707 crore.

In the individual loan disbursement was up by 8.3 per cent to Rs 4,568 crore from Rs 4215 crore reported in the corresponding quarter last year.

The net interest margin for the quarter stood at 2.7 per cent and the gross non-performing asset ratio remained flat at 0.63 per cent.