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Punjab National Bank’s board has authorised the management of the public sector lender to go in for partial stake-sale in PNB Housing Finance.
It has also approved a plan to offload its entire stake in Principal PNB Asset Management Company and Principal Trustee Company Pvt Ltd to Principal Group. This decision follows exercise of the call option by Principal Group.
Sunil Mehta, Managing Director and CEO, PNB, told BusinessLine that the quantum of partial stake-sale in PNB Housing Finance would depend on market conditions.
“We don’t have any ready number on how much stake reduction we want to do. We have a window of about 9 per cent. As a promoter, we have to retain 30 per cent and we will do it. PNB Housing Finance will continue to be a core associate of PNB,” Mehta said. Currently, PNB has 38.80 per cent stake in PNB Housing.
Mehta also said that PNB may not even go for any stake sale in its housing finance arm if the right pricing is not available in the market.
PNB MetLife Mehta said PNB may in the next fiscal look to take PNB MetLife India Insurance public.
“We are not looking to exit. In India, insurance penetration is still very low and a big market is still available. We may look to take the insurance venture public. No final decision has been taken as yet,” Mehta added.
With 30 per cent stake, PNB is currently the single largest shareholder in PNB MetLife India.
Q2 results PNB on Friday reported a 2 per cent increase in net profit for the second quarter ended September 30, 2017, at ₹560.6 crore compared with ₹549 crore in the same quarter last fiscal.
On a sequential basis, the net profit zoomed 53.5 per cent from the previous quarter’s bottomline of ₹343.40 crore.
Net interest income in Q2 increased 3.5 per cent to ₹4,015.2 crore. Operating profit stood at ₹3,279 crore, a year-on-year increase of 20 per cent.
Mehta said fresh slippages in the quarter under review stood at ₹3,500 crore, much lower than the slippage of ₹6,649 crore in the previous quarter.
Net interest margin improved to 2.62 per cent from 2.56 per cent in the previous quarter.
As on September-end, the gross non-performing asset (GNPA) ratio fell to 13.31 per cent against 13.63 per cent as on September 2016.
Net NPA ratio dropped to 8.44 per cent from 9.10 per cent in September 2016.
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