Union Bank of India plunges nearly 10% as Q4 loss widens to Rs 3,370 crore

Shares of Union Bank of India plunged as much as 9.65 per cent to Rs 71.60 apiece in the intra-day trade on Wednesday after the state-run lender said its net loss widened to Rs 3,370 crore in the fourth quarter of 2018-19, mainly on account of higher provisioning.

The company had registered a net loss of Rs 2,583.38 crore in the same quarter of the preceding fiscal. 

The asset quality of the bank remained poor with the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) standing at 14.98 per cent of gross advances at March-end 2019 against 15.73 per cent as of March 31, 2018. Net NPAs eased to 6.85 per cent from 8.42 per cent.

The bank's provision coverage ratio as on March 31, 2019 stood at 66.24 per cent, as against 57.16 per cent a year ago. 

As part of the risk based supervision as per RBI directive, the bank has reported divergence in gross NPAs of Rs 867 crore in 2017-18; divergence in net NPA of (-) Rs 1,414 crore and divergence in provisioning stood at Rs 2,281 crore. 

At 10:58 am, the stock was trading 9 per cent lower at Rs 72.10 apiece on the BSE. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading 204 points or 0.55 per cent higher at 37,523 levels.