Bank of Baroda Q4 net halves on provisions for bad loans

Bank of Baroda, India's second-biggest state-owned bank, reported a near-halving of its quarterly net profit on Monday, lagging estimates, as provisions for bad loans in the period rose 58%.

The bank's bad loans in the quarter, however, showed some improvement with gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans at 3.72%, compared with 3.85% in the previous quarter, sending its shares up more than 10%.

The Mumbai-based bank said standalone net profit fell to 5.98 billion rupees ($93.76 million) for its fiscal fourth quarter to March 31, from 11.57 billion rupees reported a year earlier.

Analysts, on average, had expected a net profit of 9.58 billion rupees, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Provisions for bad loans in the quarter rose to 18.18 billion rupees from 11.53 billion rupees in the year ago period, the bank said in a statement to the exchanges.