LIC Housing net up 47%

Mortgage lender LIC Housing Finance, on Thursday posted a net profit of Rs 314.8 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, up 47.4 per cent compared to Rs 213.51 crore in the same period a year ago.

The company attributed the result to the 71 per cent rise in retail loan disbursements to Rs 6,461 crore during the quarter. Total disbursement for the quarter under review, stood at Rs 6,794 crore, 34 per cent higher than the corresponding period a year ago.

“We have resumed lending to project developers and during the last quarter disbursed around Rs 237 crore as project loans. During 2011-12 we expect to disburse around Rs 24,000 crore,” said LIC Housing Finance, Director & Chief Executive, VK Sharma.

Last December, the company had stopped financing project developers for a month, as a precautionary move after it was hit by a multi-crore loan scam late last year. The total real estate exposure of the company stood at around Rs 5,000 crore, on a total loan book size of Rs 51,090 crore and exposure to real estate would be in the region of 10 percent of the total book size, he added.

To support this growth, during 2011-12, the company plans to raise Rs 25,000 crore as debt and may also raise some equity capital through share sale.

“We will take a call on raisng capital either by issuing shares to qualified institutional bidders or by issuing global depositary receipts, but the final call will be taken during the second quarter,” Sharma added.

The total income of the company during the quarter under review was higher by 44 percent at Rs 1,392 crore.