Piramal Capital and Housing Finance Limited (PCHFL), the housing finance arm of Piramal Enterprises, on Wednesday said its loan book will almost double in size after its merger with Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL).

Share Market Live

NSE

Speaking to the media after announcing the launch of their upcoming Rs 200 crores non-convertible debentures (NCD) issue, Piramal Group's Chief Financial Officer Rajesh Laddha said that once the PCHFL and DHFL merger is completed, the former's loan book will from Rs 32,354 crore as of March 31, 2021, to almost Rs 60,000 crores. Laddha said the overall lending book of the group, including PCHFL, will grow to approximately Rs 70,000 crore after the merger.

" Piramal Capital & Housing Fin Ltd is in the process of acquiring DHFL... DHFL will become a 100 percent subsidiary of Piramal Enterprises Limited (PEL) post acquisition," Laddha said, adding that the company is in the process of closing the deal at the soonest possible, and the implementation of steps for the acquisition was underway.

Piramal Enterprises Limited plans to eventually demerge its pharma businesses into a separate entity and only hold the financial services business, the company said.

" The wholesale: retail mix of our loan portfolio will change to 50:50 immediately post the merger with DHFL (from 91:9 as of FY20)," said Rajesh Laddha in a response to CNBC-TV18's query on the synergies.

"The acquisition of DHFL will get us scale...we get over 4 lakh active customers in mass market which is our focus area... DHFL will get us a branch network of 250+ branches, lead to decline in cost of funds," Laddha said.

PCHFL's loan book stood at Rs 32,354 crores as of March 31, 2021, with the non-retail book at Rs 27,922 crores, and retail book at Rs 4,431 crores as of FY21.

"DHFL acquisition will help diversify portfolio, and expand retail book," said Jairam Sridharan, CEO of Piramal Capital.

Piramal Capital and Housing Finance Limited's resolution plan for DHFL was approved by the lenders of the bankrupt mortgage company in January this year, and by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal in June. Piramal Group had earlier said it was hopeful of completing the acquisition at the earliest, with lenders expecting to deal to be closed by the third quarter of the fiscal.

(Edited by : Anshul)