Bank Of Maharashtra Q4 Profit, More Than Doubles To Rs 355 Cr

State-owned Bank of Maharashtra on Thursday reported an over two-fold increase in its consolidated net profit at Rs 355 crore in the quarter ended March, helped by a fall in the bad loan proportions, thus requiring lesser provisioning.

The Pune-based lender had posted a net profit of Rs 165.23 crore in the year-ago period. Total income of the bank, however, was down at Rs 3,948.48 crore in the January-March quarter of 2021-22, as against Rs 4,334.98 crore in the same quarter of 2020-21, Bank of Maharashtra said in a regulatory filing. For the full year 2021-22, the bank's consolidated net profit doubled to Rs 1,151.64 crore, as against Rs 551.41 crore in 2020-21.

Total income was higher at Rs 15,672.17 crore during the year, from Rs 14,497.56 crore in the previous fiscal 2020-21. Bank's provisioning for bad loans and contingencies for Q4FY22 came down to Rs 365.38 crore, from Rs 1,341.26 crore parked aside in the year-ago period. On the asset quality, there was a significant improvement with Gross Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) falling to 3.94 per cent of the gross advances as of March 31, 2022 from 7.23 per cent by March end 2021. Net NPAs or bad loans shrank to 0.97 per cent as against 2.48 per cent.

In value terms, the gross NPAs were worth Rs 5,327.21 crore, down from Rs 7,779.68 crore. Net NPAs were of the value of Rs 1,276.57 crore, down from Rs 2,544.32 crore. The consolidated financial results of the bank include results of the holding company --Bank of Maharashtra, subsidiary company The Maharashtra Executor and Trustee Company Pvt Ltd and the associate company Maharashtra Gramin Bank. Provision coverage ratio of the bank stood at 94.79 per cent as of March 31, 2022. The lender said that with effect from assessment year 2021-22, it has opted for the new regime of tax under Income Tax Act, 1961.

"Consequently, during the current year, the bank has remeasured its deferred tax assets and deferred tax liabilities as on December 31, 2021 and reversed the amount of Rs 716.87 crore by debiting from profit and loss account," it said. The board members of the bank also approved raising of Rs 5,000 crore capital through follow-on public offer, rights issue, qualified institutional placement, preferential issue or any other mode or combination thereof or through issue of Basel III compliant bonds or any other such securities. Stock of Bank of Maharashtra traded at Rs 18.25 apiece on BSE, up by 2.53 per cent from the previous close.

(PTI)