Kotak Bank Net rises just 7% as auto lending still struggles

Private-sector lender Kotak Mahindra Bank today reported a tepid 7 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 430 crore in the three months to June, driven down by Rs 50-crore write-back of provisions on investments and struggling auto sector advances.
"Our advances have grown 13 per cent year-on-year during the period. This is after taking into account the fact that in commercial vehicles and construction equipment funding we had a negative growth and which still continued into the reporting quarter, and if we take that out, advances grew 20 per cent," the company's President and Chief Financial Officer Jaimin Bhatt told reporters here.

The CV/CE segment witnessed negative growth of 32 per cent at Rs 5,104 crore in the quarter as compared to Rs 7,508 crore in the same period last year, he said, adding "though it has stabilised, growth in CV/CE segment is not comfortable."
On other parameters, the bank reported better numbers.
Net interest margin during the quarter was around 5 per cent, Bhatt said.
The gross NPAs improved to 1.88 per cent against 1.98 per cent, while net NPAs improved to 0.98 per cent against 1.08 per cent, he added.

The net interest income in the quarter rose 9 per cent to Rs 1,002 crore from Rs 917 crore last year.

Advances stood at Rs 56,922 crore, up from Rs 50,539 crore last year. Saving deposits grew to Rs 11,013 crore from Rs 8,057 crore. Deposits were up 17 per cent to Rs 61,407 crore from Rs 52,454 crore.
The capital adequacy ratio as of June 30 stood at 19.1 per cent with Tier I ratio at 18.1 per cent. Provision coverage ratio on non-performing assets stood at 57.2 per cent.
When asked about the plan to acquire some stake of FTIL in MCX, Joint Managing Director Dipak Gupta said the process is still on.
"Kotak Mahindra Bank has only submitted a non-binding bid in April 2014 as part of the process run by Financial Technologies," he said.

Reliance Capital and BSE have also reportedly submitted non-binding bid to acquire the troubled FTIL's stake in the country's only listed commodity bourse, whose promoters have been asked to divest the stake to under-2 per cent by regulators.