Bajaj Finance’s results in the September quarter (Q2), the third consecutive quarter of weak performance, suggest that recovery may be pushed to FY22. Despite the Street’s muted expectation, the 36 per cent net profit decline (worst since FY15) marred by elevated provisioning was a huge let-down. Q2 numbers missed estimates on multiple counts — asset growth, net interest income (NII), and net profit growth.
The stock was volatile, falling nearly 5 per cent intra-day after the results were announced, before closing with marginal losses (down 0.88 per cent), perhaps taking confidence from the non-performing assets (NPA) number, which was better than