Indiabulls Housing Finance quarterly net up 23% to Rs 684 crore

Indiabulls Housing Finance on Friday reported a rise of 23.2 per cent in net profit at Rs 684.31 crore for the second quarter ended September 2016. Company's net profit was at Rs 555.54 crore in the July-September quarter of previous fiscal 2015-16. "Total income has increased to Rs 2874.95 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2016 from Rs 2245.72 crore in the same period a year ago," it said in a regulatory filing.

On standalone basis, the net profit rose 17.7 per cent to Rs 641.11 crore from Rs 544.57 crore in the year-ago quarter. Total income on standalone basis increased to Rs 2,760.36 crore from Rs 2,160.56 crore in the year-ago period.

The Board of Directors also declared a second interim dividend of Rs 9 per equity share for 2016-17. Core home loan business is the growth driver as it carries lowest risk weight, the company said, adding sub Rs 28 lakh priority sector home loans have the highest demand.

The first issuance of rupee denominated masala bonds worth Rs 1,330 crore (USD 200 million) during the quarter has helped the company tap into a new and vast international investor class, leading to a true and broad-based diversification of funding profile, it said. On the growth momentum trends in residential real estate, the company said there has been a remarkable gain in supply of affordable, mid-ranged housing units.

There was twice as many launches of affordable housing projects during the first half of 2016 against the same period a year ago, it said, adding there has been a strong pick-up in sales in Mumbai and Bangalore residential sales.

It said the urban housing requirement is estimated at 45 million units by 2022 and demand continues to increase due to rapid urbanisation, which is expected to rise to 40 per cent by 2030, and growing trend of nuclear families.

Besides, the company said for the first time, bank borrowings are less than 40 per cent of the funding mix.

"Business goal of reducing funding from bank term loans to below 40 per cent by 2017-18 has been achieved 1.5 years in advance. All of our incremental funding needs in first half of the current fiscal have been met from capital market securities and loan sell-downs," it said. Indiabulls Housing Finance stock traded 0.14 per cent down at Rs 872.45 on BSE.