UCO Bank net loss of Rs 2134cr in Jan-Mar as NPAs rise significantly

Government-owned UCO Bank today reported a nearly four-fold rise in its net loss at Rs 2,134.36 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 2018.

The Kolkata-headquartered lender had posted a net loss of Rs 588.19 crore in the corresponding quarter of the year 2016-17. Compared sequentially, the net loss was up by 110 per cent from Rs 116.43 crore in December quarter of 2017-18.

Income during the March quarter also declined to Rs 3,424.65 crore from Rs 3,906.74 crore, the bank said in a regulatory filing.

The bank had to raise its provisioning for bad loans to Rs 3,133.52 crore for the quarter against Rs 1,577.60 crore reserved in the year-ago period.

On yearly basis, net loss of the bank rose to Rs 4,436.37 crore from a loss of Rs 1,850.67 crore in fiscal ended March 2017.

Income during the fiscal also fell to Rs 15,141.13 crore from Rs 18,440.29 crore a year ago. Full year NPA provisioning were hiked to Rs 7,343.38 crore against Rs 4,414.68 crore.

UCO Bank said the board of directors at the meeting held today decided that no dividend will be declared for 2017-18.

On asset front, gross bad loans or non-performing assets (NPAs) hit a high of 24.64 per cent (Rs 30,549.92 crore) of the gross loans as on March 31, 2018 against 17.12 per cent (Rs 22,540.95 crore) a year ago.

Net NPAs rose to 13.10 per cent (Rs 14,082.07 crore) from 8.94 per cent (Rs 10,703.39 crore).

The board also approved issuing "150,00,00,000 equity shares to raise tier I equity capital up to Rs 3,000 crore from market sources in one or more tranches during the financial year 2018-19," the bank said.

The money is to be raised through various options like follow on public offer, qualified institutional placement, preferential issue.

Stock of UCO Bank closed 1.60 per cent up at Rs 19.10 on BSE.