Bajaj Finserv Q4 consolidated net up 3% at ~535 crore

Financial services company Bajaj Finserv on Wednesday reported a growth of 3 per cent in its consolidated net profit at ~535 crore in the quarter ended March 31 as against ~518 crore in the year-ago period. It’s lending arm, Bajaj Finance, reported a 43 per cent rise in profit after tax at ~449 crore in the quarter from ~315 crore in the same period last year, due to healthy loan growth.

"There was healthy growth in Bajaj Finance's profit and asset under management. Despite an overall soft credit growth, we did reasonably well," Bajaj Finserv CFO S Sreenivasan said.

New loan book in the quarter grew 58 per cent to ~2,496 crore from ~1,583 crore in the same period last year. Assets under management increased by 36 per cent to ~60,194 crore from ~44,229 crore in the same period last year. Gross non-performing assets stood at 1.68 per cent and net NPA was at 0.44 per cent. Loan losses and provisions in the quarter was ~290 crore as against ~156 crore. It took an additional charge of ~70 crore on account of note ban and non-recurring provisions. Bajaj Finserv's general insurance arm, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance's, profit after tax stood at ~165 crore as against ~208 crore.

“PAT was lower due to lesser amount of profit on sale of investments in fourth quarter of FY17 and further due to inclusion of tax credits pertaining to earlier year of ~30 crore in PAT of fourth quarter of FY16,” the company said.