Central Bank of India Q4 loss widens to Rs 2,477cr on high provisioning

Public sector lender Central Bank of India Wednesday reported widening in its losses to Rs 2,477.41 crore in the last quarter of 2018-19 due to a spike in provisioning of bad loans.

The bank had reported a loss of Rs 2,113.51 crore in the January-March period of 2017-18. The bank had reported a loss of Rs 718.23 crore for the third quarter ended December 2018.

Total income grew to Rs 6,620.51 crore in the three months to March from Rs 6,301.50 crore in the year-ago period, Central Bank said in a regulatory filing.

For the full fiscal, the bank's loss widened to Rs 5,641.48 crore, as against Rs 5,104.91 crore in the preceding fiscal. Income during the year also fell to Rs 25,051.51 crore from Rs 26,657.86 crore year earlier.

Gross non-performing assets stood at 19.29 per cent of gross advances at end-March 2019, against 21.48 per cent in the year-ago period. Net NPAs or bad loans stood at 7.73 per cent from 11.10 per cent a year ago.

A substantial amount of Rs 4,523.57 crore was set aside as provisions for bad loans during the March quarter of 2018-19. The provisioning was Rs 4,832.47 crore in the year-ago period.

Central Bank of India said it raised up to Rs 212.54 crore by allotting shares to staff under the Employees Stock Purchase Scheme, pending allotment of shares.

"The Compensation Committee of the board of directors of the bank at its meeting held today approved the proposal for allotment of 78,716,224 equity shares to 26,071 eligible employees under Employee Stock Purchase Scheme," it said.

Disclosing divergence in asset classification and provisioning for NPAs during 2017-18, the bank said there was a gap of Rs 636.20 crore in gross NPAs; Rs 452.80 crore in net NPAs and Rs 1,142 crore with respect to divergence in provisioning.

Shares of Central Bank of India closed 0.36 per cent down at Rs 27.65 on BSE.