Punjab National Bank net profit falls 49% in Q1, shares up on stable bad loan ratio

Punjab National Bank, country's fourth-biggest state-run lender by assets, reported on Tuesday a 49 per cent drop in quarterly profit as provisions nearly doubled.

The stock, however, jumped as much 6.7 per cent as the bank 's bad loan ratio fell marginally in the three months to June, compared with the previous quarter.

Net profit fell to Rs 721 crore ($112.61 million) for its fiscal first quarter to June 30 from Rs 1405 crore reported a year earlier, the New Delhi-based lender said.

Analysts on average had expected a net profit of Rs 900 crore, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters. Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans fell slightly to 6.47 per cent in the June quarter from 6.55 per cent in the previous three months but were higher than 5.48 per cent a year earlier.

Provisions, including for bad loans, nearly doubled from a year earlier to Rs 1,811 crore.

The stock closed 4.95 per cent to Rs 142 on the BSE. 

($1 = Rs 64.0275)

(Reuters)