SREI Infra expects next couple of quarters to remain challenging

SREI Infrastructure Finance was sulking in trade on the back of yet another weak quarter. The company’s consolidated net profit declined 69 percent year-on-year to Rs 42.67 crore during the first quarter of the current fiscal.

The disbursements in Q1FY20 were down 34.6 percent year on year (YoY) and down 31.4 percent quarter on quarter (QoQ). Assets under management (AUM) too were down in the quarter 4.3 percent YoY and 0.6 percent QoQ.

Chairman Hemant Kanoria said the last couple of quarters have been worse for the company in the last few decades especially after the IL&FS crisis. The company had also focused more aggressively on provisioning in the June and March quarters to tackle any problems if they arise and that impacted profits, he said.

According to him, the next couple of quarters will continue to be difficult because the entire environment is challenging. “Therefore our whole approach has been to look at how to rationalise on costs, bring in more efficiencies,” said Kanoria, adding that the company expects to see some revival in contracts from September-October 2019 onwards.

In the last quarter, there would be an increase in the disbursements but for next two quarters it is still expected to remain slow, he said.

For equipment financing business the net non-performing assets (NNPA) is at 4.3 percent and for infra financing, it is at 12.2 percent, while GNPA is about 5.7 in equipment financing and 16.6 percent for infra financing, he said.

The current environment is not conducive for an IPO, he said.