IndusInd Bank falls to a 6-month low, down 20% in 3 weeks

The stock was trading lower for the fifth straight day, down nearly 2% at Rs 956.10, quoting at its lowest level since May 17, 2021.

Shares of IndusInd Bank continued trading lower for the fifth straight day, hitting a six-month low of Rs 956.10, down nearly 2 per cent on the BSE in Thursday’s intra-day trade. In the past three weeks, the stock of private sector lender has fallen 20 per cent despite the bank management strongly refuting allegations around the evergreening of loans, citing media reports as "inaccurate and baseless".

The stock was trading at its lowest level since May 17, 2021. It had hit a 52-week high of Rs 1,241.85 on October 28, 2021.

On November 5, 2021, Economic Times reported, whistleblowers, several people, including a group of senior employees of the IndusInd Bank arm, Bharat Financial Inclusion (BFIL), have alerted the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the board of the private sector lender about lapses in governance and accounting norms to allegedly 'evergreen' loans running into thousands of crore since the outbreak of Covid-19.

For clarification purpose, IndusInd Bank, in a press release, said that the allegations made by certain anonymous individuals purportedly acting as whistleblowers, as published in the Mumbai edition of The Economic Times on November 5, 2021 titled as “Whistleblowers Raise Loan Evergreening Issue at IndusInd Arm” are grossly inaccurate and baseless. CLICK HERE FOR FULL REPORT

On Monday, November 22, 2021, Microfinance lender Spandana Sphoorty announced that it has appointed Shalabh Saxena as the new managing director and chief executive officer (MD & CEO) of the company. Ashish Damani has been appointed as the President and chief financial officer of the company.

On November 23, IndusInd Bank raised objections to the appointment stating that Saxena is yet to resign from BFIL. “The certain transactions relating to BFIL are subject matter of an ongoing review and the continued employment of Shalabh Saxena and Ashish Damani at BFIL is critical to the closure of such process. Accordingly, they cannot be relieved from the services of BFIL, until completion of the said review,” the Bank said in statement. CLICK HERE FOR FULL DETAILS

Analysts at Emkay Global Financial Services believe that IndusInd Bank made 3 mistakes in the ILFS case – first being in a denial mode about the underlying problem, then miscommunication and under-provisioning.

As far as provisioning is concerned, IndusInd Bank has come a long way and carries adequate contingent provisions over & above specific PCR. But it could have done better in terms of communicating about management changes in BFIL and a technical glitch in the MFI book, which led to allegations of evergreening in the MFI book (which otherwise has always been an area of suspicion), the brokerage firm said in November 7, 2021 report.

Analysts believe that the bank’s turnaround story remains intact, but it needs to work more on strengthening credit underwriting/risk management and communication with stakeholders to sustain the long-term rerating.