Bajaj Finance Ltd (BFL) on Wednesday reported a 36 per cent drop in its consolidated net profit at Rs 965 crore for the second quarter of the 2020-21 fiscal year.
The non-banking finance company had posted a net profit of Rs 1,506 crore in the July-September quarter a year ago.
Its total consolidated income grew 3 per cent to Rs 6,523 crore during the July-September period of 2020-21 as against Rs 6,323 crore in the same quarter a year earlier, BFL said in a regulatory filing.
Net interest income was up 4 per cent at Rs 4,165 crore as against Rs 4,000 crore.
The Pune-headquartered company said new loans booked during the second quarter of this fiscal dropped 44 per cent to 36.2 lakh as against 64.7 lakh in the corresponding period a year ago.
Customer franchise as of September 30, 2020 stood at 4.41 crore as against 3.87 crore a year earlier, it added.
Its consolidated assets under management (AUM) as of September 30, 2020 grew 1 per cent to Rs 1,37,090 crore from Rs 1,35,533 crore. On standalone basis, the AUM was Rs 104,986 crore as against Rs 110,946 crore as of September 30, 2019.
The consolidated results of the BFL included results of its wholly-owned subsidiaries Bajaj Housing Finance Ltd (BHFL) and Bajaj Financial Securities Ltd (BFinsec).
The company's liquidity surplus stood at Rs 22,414 crore at the end of the second quarter of 2020-21 against Rs 8,107 crore a year ago, it said.
The company's liquidity position remains very strong, the company said.
Bajaj Finance said its total operating expenses to net interest income during the quarter was 27.8 per cent as against 34.6 per cent a year ago.
"With the onset of COVID-19 pandemic, the company had taken significant measures to reduce operating expenses in April 2020. As a result, total operating expenses for Q2FY21 was down by 16 per cent to Rs 1,160 crore from Rs 1,384 crore," it said.
The loan losses and provisions for the September quarter were Rs 1,700 crore as against Rs 594 crore.
"Consequent to the ongoing pandemic, the company has further increased its provisions on stage 1 and 2 assets by Rs 1,370 crore to Rs 5,099 crore as of September 30, 2020 as against Rs 3,729 crore as of June 2020. The company has strong pre-provisioning profitability to manage loan losses arising out of COVID-19," BFL said.
Shares of Bajaj Finance ended at Rs 3,253 apiece on the BSE, down 0.28 per cent from their previous close.
