Lakshmi Vilas Bank CEO sees bad loan additions falling sharply

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian private sector lender Lakshmi Vilas Bank Ltd expects bad loan additions in the second-half of the fiscal year to be less than half of the about 9 billion rupees ($138.2 million) it added in the first six months to September, Chief Executive Parthasarathi Mukherjee told Reuters.

Mukherjee said he expected the bank's gross non-performing loans ratio to "start dropping from here onwards", from 5.5 percent at end-September.

The bank reported a surge in bad loans in the September quarter, leading to a plunge in profit.

Mukherjee, however, said he was not worried as 85-90 percent of the bad loans added in the quarter were from the bank's so-called watch list, which it had predicted to turn sour. The watch list for potential troubled loans have reduced to about 17 billion rupees at the end of September, the bank said.

Mukherjee said he hoped for a 15 percent rise in the bank's loans for the full year ending March 2018.

($1 = 65.1450 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)