UBI 'serious' to recover money from Kingfisher

State-owned United Bank of India (UBI) has said it is making serious efforts to recover an estimated Rs.400 crore loans made to the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

The bank already has declared its guarantor, Vijay Mallya as a willful defaulter after the dues to the bank were not repaid.

In the recent AGM of the Kolkata headquartered bank, managing director and CEO P. Srinivas said: "We are fighting a legal battle against them (Kingfisher Airlines) beyond the consortium and we have already declared their corporate guarantor as willful defaulter."

He was responding to a query raised by a shareholder about the bank's stance with Kingfisher Airlines.

"We are extremely serious about recovering our money from not only this particular account but all the NPA borrowers," Srinivas said.

During a reply to the shareholders over an issue with the bank's capital, he said: "The resolution for capital issue is an enabling one, which will help the bank to raise capital as and when the need for further capital is felt and the market also supports the move."

As per the amended SCR Rules and SEBI norms, the bank as a listed entity has to ensure at least 25 percent public shareholding by August 2017.

The lender also said it will be focusing more on the small-medium enterprises (SME) and retail segments during 2015-16 after successfully meeting its given targets under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna (PMJDY)

To strengthen its focus on the SME and retail banking segments, it has created an SME processing hub - a single window for dealing with the SME proposals in addition to the existing retail processing hubs

The bank, where the government holds 82 percent share capital, had made a turnaround by reporting Rs.256 crore net profit during 2014-15 against a net loss of Rs.1,213 crore in the fiscal prior to it. It had reported a robust 46 percent growth in its operating margin.

The gross NPA (non-performing assets) have come down from Rs.7,118 crore during 2013-14 to Rs. 6,553 crore in 2014-15.