IFCI to raise Rs 3,000 cr from debt to fund business growth

The country's oldest public sector financial institution IFCI plans to raise Rs 3,000 crore from debt, including bonds, during the current fiscal to aid expansion of its loan book.

The company is looking at fresh lending worth Rs 6,000 crore, including take-out finance where IFCI will pick up stake from other lenders during 2018-19.

"On an average, we will be targeting loan sanction of Rs 500 crore per month during this year. To fund this we have to raise Rs 3,000 crore from debt," IFCI MD and CEO E S Rao told PTI.

Besides, the lender expects to recover about Rs 2,000 crore from the resolution of non-performing assets (NPAs) during the current fiscal.

IFCI has also lined up some of its non-core fixed assets including commercial real estate for sale in 2018-19 provided they fetch good value, he said.

The net NPAs or bad loans of IFCI were at Rs 5,100 crore at the end of last financial year, March 31, 2018, he said.

Rao also said that Bhushan Steel resolution has brought to the firm Rs 329 crore and there is more in the pipeline.

Of the 12 large NPA accounts with over Rs 5,000 crore, identified as bad loans by Internal Advisory Committee of RBI for undertaking resolution under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) last year, IFCI has exposure in 6 such cases, he said.

The accounts referred to National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) under IBC are: Bhushan Steel Ltd, Bhushan Power & Steel Ltd, Essar Steel Ltd, Jaypee Infratech Ltd, Lanco Infratech Ltd, Monnet Ispat & Energy Ltd, Jyoti Structures Ltd, Electrosteel Steels Ltd, Amtek Auto Ltd, Era Infra Engineering Ltd, Alok Industries Ltd and ABG Shipyard Ltd to NCLT.

Together these accounts have total outstanding loans of Rs 1.75 lakh crore.

For the fourth quarter ended March 2018, IFCI has reported widening of loss to Rs 566.64 crore as against the loss of Rs 317.90 crore (FY'17) due to higher provisioning for bad loans and write off.

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

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.