After staging a turnaround in third quarter, Punjab National Bank (PNB) on Tuesday returned to red with net loss of Rs 4,750 crore in the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2019.

This net loss was however much lower than the net loss of Rs 13,417 crore recorded in the same quarter last fiscal. The bank had recorded a net profit of Rs 247 crore in the third quarter ended December 30,2018. The bottom line for the quarter ended March 31,2019 was weighed down by provisioning of Rs 7,611 crore.

For the quarter under review, this public sector bank has recorded an operating profit of Rs 2,861 crore as compared to operating loss of Rs 447 crore in the March quarter last fiscal. For the entire fiscal 2018-19, PNB has recorded a net loss of Rs 9975 crore, lower than net loss of Rs 12,283 crore in previous fiscal.

Commenting on the PNB’s financial performance, Sunil Mehta, Managing Director & CEO, PNB said: “Our bank is on strong fundamentals. Our operating profit has grown 26 per cent. The bottom line was affected as some of the expected inflows, especially from two of the large cases before the NCLT, had not materialised”.

Mehta also said that the bank had taken a conscious decision to clean up the books and steps have been taken to increase the provision coverage ratio to 75 per cent from 58 per cent earlier.

As regards the large cases before the NCLT, Mehta expressed confidence that two of the large cases (with exposure of Rs 6,000 crore) would get resolved this fiscal and as much as Rs 4,000 crore would be written back to the profit and loss account.

Srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in

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