L&T Finance Holdings reported a 15 per cent increase in year-on-year consolidated net profit at ₹237 crore in the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2016, as compared with ₹206 crore in the year-ago quarter.

In the financial year ended March 31, the financial holding company’s net profit was almost flat at ₹857 crore (₹855 crore in FY15).

The board of directors of the company recommended dividend of ₹0.80 per equity share of face value ₹10 each.

The Larsen & Toubro-promoted company, which is registered with the Reserve Bank of India as a ‘non-deposit taking, systemically important, core investment company’, has seven wholly-owned subsidiaries, including L&T Finance, L&T Infrastructure Finance Company, L&T Investment Management, L&T Capital Markets, and L&T Housing Finance.

Loan disbursement Year-on-year (y-o-y), loan disbursements were up 20 per cent at ₹10,688 crore in the reporting quarter. Loans and advances grew 22 per cent y-o-y to ₹57,831 crore as on March-end 2016.

Dinanath Dubhashi, Deputy Managing Director, said the company moderated its growth in the farm equipment business due to the challenging environment in this sector.

However, the growth has been led by healthy disbursements in key areas — operational projects in renewable energy and roads and retail products — housing, microfinance and two-wheelers.

Net interest margin has been maintained in the 5.5 per cent to 5.8 per cent band in the last eight quarters, said Dubhashi, and added that the company will focus on continuous improvement in return on equity.

The ROE growth, he said, will be achieved by driving profitable growth in select lending businesses, focus on asset quality and managing non-lending businesses for fee income generation and value creation.

The gross non-performing assets position improved a tad to 3.05 per cent (3.08 per cent as on March-end 2015).

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