Peerless Posts First Profit Since 1995

A drastic reduction in manpower and expenses and improved housekeeping enabled Peerless General Finance & Investment Co Ltd (PGFIL), the giant residuary non-banking company (RNBC), to report its first profit since 1995.

PGFIL has achieved net profit of Rs 34 crore, chairman D N Ghosh told shareholders at the company's annual general meeting Saturday.

Currently guided by a high-profile board that also includes former Hindustan Lever chairman S M Datta besides Ghosh and managing director S K Roy from the company's founding family, PGFIL has reduced its workforce from 4,500-odd to 2,700.

It has cut commission paid on collection to 5 per cent from more than four times that percentage in the past.

PGFIL aims to reemerge as one of the largest and most cost-competitive retailers of financial products in the country. It has recently tied up with a large private sector insurance major and more such alliances are in the pipeline as the company intends to aggressively market products of other companies as long as they do not cannibalise Peerless products.

The company has completely wiped off the deferred obligation of Rs 771 crore created on its balance-sheet in March 1996. PGFIL has a deposit base of Rs 7,00 crore and has a target to reach positive net worth by March 31, 2003, to comply with Reserve Bank of India guidelines.

PGFIL still has a net deficit of Rs 400 crore, lower than its peak net deficit of Rs 1,400 crore in 1995, but both the chairman, and Roy, said at the AGM that wiping out the deficit looked attainable.

Simultaneously, PGFIL has expanded its field force. Large investments have been made to create an information technology backbone to capture information on customers and manage its 150-strong branch network.