ICRA downgrades IFCI's borrowing programme to BBB+ with negative outlook

Rating agency Icra today downgraded long-term borrowing programme of IFCI by a notch from 'A-' to 'BBB+' with negative rating outlook due to continued deterioration of the state-owned financial institution.

The rating downgrade considers the continued deterioration in IFCI's profitability and capitalisation ratios despite the sizeable divestment of non-core investments, resources and cost control measures undertaken by the company during FY18, Icra said in a statement.

In addition, Icra also downgraded a short-term rating on commercial paper from A1 to A2+ with negative rating outlook.

For the fourth quarter ended March 2018, infrastructure term lender reported widening of loss to Rs 566.64 crore due to higher provisioning for bad loans and write off.

The state-owned lender had posted a net loss of Rs 317.90 crore in the same period of previous fiscal.

There was a write off and provisions for bad assets to the tune of Rs 1,111.18 crore during the March quarter, more than double from Rs 499.63 crore in the year-ago period.

Income from operations, however, increased to Rs 734.33 crore during January-March period of 2017-18 compared to Rs 577.53 crore in same period a year ago, IFCI said in regulatory filing.

For the full fiscal, the company's net loss more than doubled to Rs 1,008.51 crore from Rs 458.49 crore in 2016-17.