Better asset quality, low base boost BoB net threefold

State-run Bank of Baroda Tuesday reported a net income of Rs 471 crore in the December quarter on lower base and better asset quality, even though the lender set aside higher provisioning for bad loans.

The city-based bank, which is taking over Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank in a government-imposed move, had reported a net profit of Rs 112 crore in the year-ago period.

During the reporting quarter, NPA provisions rose to Rs 3,416 crore, from Rs 3,155 crore, including Rs 919 crore in additional provisions above the mandate, managing director and chief executive PS Jayakumar told reporters. However, total provisions came down marginally to Rs 3,067 crore from Rs 3,538 crore a year ago.

Gross NPAs improved marginally to 11.01 percent from 11.31 per cent, while net NPAs also came down a tad to 4.26 percent from 4.97.

The core net interest margin improved to 2.69 percent, helped by better spreads from international operations which stood at 1.99 percent.

Fresh slippages was Rs 2,933 crore, including Rs 1,169 crore from the crippled IL&FS Group to which the bank has and exposure of Rs 4,677 crore of which Rs 1,169 crore is to the parent company and the balance to the subsidiaries.

The bank still has a watch-list of Rs 8,500 crore.

The bank expects a recovery of Rs 1,200 crore from first two lists of the NCLT accounts referred by the RBI in June 2017 (12 largest 12 accounts and the 28 accounts listed in December 2017.)

Capital adequacy ratio stood at 11.67 percent with CET 1 at 8.65 percent.

"The growth in the quarter was all round. This trend will continue going ahead and we will emerge stronger in by the end of this financial year," Jayakumar said.

He said the bank's exposure to DHFL, which has been named in an alleged Rs 31,000-crore fraud in a media report, is around Rs 4,000 crore.

"We do appropriate level of due diligence before we give credit. It is not so simple that somebody comes to us and we write a cheque for them. We will relook at our exposure to the mortgage lender," he said.

The bank counter ended the day with a gain of over 4.2 percent at Rs 113.85 on the BSE which witnessed a choppy trade ending the day with an under-20 bps loss.

(This article has not been edited by Zeebiz editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)