Punjab & Sind Bank posts net loss of Rs 258 cr in Dec qtr

Public sector Punjab and Sind Bank has reported a net loss of Rs 258.25 crore in the third quarter ended December 2017, owing to over two-fold jump in NPA provisioning.
It had reported a net profit of Rs 77.51 crore in the corresponding October-December period of 2016-17.
Operating profit of the bank, however, was up at Rs 353.13 crore for the December quarter of 2017-18 against Rs 277.10 crore in the same period a year ago, the bank said in a regulatory filing.
Total income of the bank increased slightly during the quarter to Rs 2,178.69 crore as against Rs 2,158.1 crore in the same period of 2016-17.

The bank parked aside Rs 417.51 crore for the quarter as provision to cover non-performing assets, up over 2.02 per cent from Rs 206.92 crore it had set in the same quarter of previous fiscal.
Overall provisions and contingencies jumped multi-fold to Rs 588.52 crore during October-December 2017-18 from Rs 175.77 crore in the third quarter of the previous fiscal.

There was an uptick in bad loans as gross non-performing assets (NPAs) rose to 10.95 per cent of the gross advances by end of December 2017 from 9.40 per cent year ago same period.
Net NPAs were 7.20 per cent, as against 6.84 per cent.

In the December quarter, it provided Rs 314.42 crore - the full requirement for the fiscal - in case of select accounts covered under the provisions of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).
Further, incremental provision of Rs 63.85 crore has also been done in doubtful NPA accounts, it added.
Besides, the bank has made an incremental provision against standard advances/NPA (for security reasons) of Rs 125.54 crore as at December 31, 2017.
The lender said the board of directors at the meeting today has approved to raise Rs 785 crore by issuing preference shares to the government.
The board also okayed to mop up Rs 1,215 crore through follow on public issue or rights issue or qualified institutional placement or preference issue in one or more tranches by end of March 2019.