Mortgage financier Indiabulls Housing Finance on Thursday reported an 11 percent dip in its net profit at Rs 286 crore in the quarter ended September due to a decline in its loan book. The lender's profit after tax stood at Rs 323 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal. Total loans disbursed as of September 30, 2021, under the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) stood at Rs 176 crore, amounting to only 0.27 percent of the loan book. Gross NPAs have stood to 2.69 percent in the second quarter of the financial year 2021-22 from 2.21 percent in the previous quarter of the year-ago period. In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Gagan Banga, Vice Chairman and Managing Director at Indiabulls Housing Finance, discussed the earnings fineprint.

The company has set up a base for the growth trajectory to begin starting next fiscal. Banga believes the assets under management (AUM) will now stabilize in the second half of the year and stop degrowing.

“From fiscal 2023 onwards, the AUM should be steadily growing at 15-20 percent,” he said.

Three years ago, a large portion of Indiabulls’ disbursals were retail but a huge contributor to its profitability was the wholesale book.

“Over the last few quarters, the focus transformed completely,” Banga shared.

Also Read:

Optimistic of things picking up; see normalcy returning in coming quarters: Sundaram Finance

In the month of September, Indiabulls Housing Finance did disbursals of about Rs 325 crore around co-lending.

“This quarter, we should be able to do about Rs 1,000 crore and next quarter around Rs 1,500 crore of co-lending, which should be about a third of our disbursals and the balance two-thirds would be what we will do about our balance sheet to subsequently securitise,” he explained.

All parts of the revived business model are working, he noted.

“The balance sheet is extremely strong, we are in a good position to take advantage of the favourable macro,” Banga noted.

Also Read: Maintain overweight stance on India; bullish on top life insurance cos, select NBFCs: BNP Paribas

“We will continue to remain a specific niche player focusing on the self-employed segment, which generally is a largely underserved segment; focusing more on tier-III to tier-V locations, which also continue to remain underserved. I don’t have any business to be lending to a salaried employee of a very large IT services company in Bangalore or Mumbai. My business is to lend to what is a relatively underserved sort of a borrower who builds their track record,” he explained.

For the full interview, watch the accompanying video.

Catch all market updates here.

(Edited by : Dipikka Ghosh)

First Published:Nov 12, 2021 12:45 PM IST