N.S. Kannan
Analyst · Abhishek Kothari from Quant Capital. Please go ahead
Thank you. Good evening. Welcome to the conference call on the financial results of ICICI Bank for the quarter ended March 31, 2015, that’s the fourth quarter of the fiscal 2015. In my remarks today, I will cover first the macroeconomic and the monetary environment, then we’ll move on to our performance during the quarter including performance on our 5C strategy, then we’ll talk about performance of our subsidiaries and the consolidated results, and finally outlook going forward. Let me start with the first part, on the macroeconomic and monetary environment. Economic conditions remained stable during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015. Some positive trends during the quarter included moderate inflationary trends with the growth in consumer price index at 5.2% in March 2015; signs of a pick-up in industrial activity, as reflected by positive growth in the Index of Industrial Production; and reduction in repo rate by 50 basis points to 7.5% by RBI. Further the government’s focus on fiscal consolidation and the Union Budget for Fiscal 2016, and the passage of Coal Mines Bill and Insurance Bill during the quarter were positive developments. Moody’s upgraded India’s sovereign rating outlook to positive from stable in April 2015. As per the government’s revised methodology on GDP calculation, GDP growth in fiscal 2015 is estimated at 7.4% compared to growth of 6.9% in fiscal 2014. Moving on to the performance of financial markets, the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex rose by 1.7% during the fourth quarter, the yield on 10-year government securities declined to 7.74% as of end March 2015, from 7.86% as of end December 2014. Short-term interest rates however remained volatile during the quarter. Since the beginning of April 2015, short-term interest rates have declined by 30 basis points to 40 basis points. Exchange rate moved to INR 62.6 per U.S. dollar at the end of Q4 of 2015 from INR 63.3 per U.S. dollar at the beginning of the quarter. Subsequently, the rupee has depreciated against the U.S. dollar and was at INR 63.4 per U.S. dollar as of April 24, 2015. With respect to the banking sector, non-food credit growth remained moderate at around 10% to 11% on a year-on-year basis throughout the quarter, before increasing to 13.2% year-on-year as of April 3, 2015. Growth in total deposits was at 12.8% on a year-on-year basis as of April 3, 2015. Demand deposit growth remained volatile in the range of 8% to 14% year-on-year growth through the quarter, before increasing to 25% on a year-on-year basis as of April 3, 2015. Given the reduction in repo rates by RBI during the fourth quarter and stable liquidity conditions, most large banks have reduced their base rates and retail deposit rates in April 2015. With this background, let me now move to our performance during the quarter including the progress on our 5C strategy. First, with respect to credit growth, the bank’s domestic loan portfolio grew by 17.8% on a year-on-year basis as of March 31, 2015, compared to 13.2% growth in non-food credit for the system as of April 3, 2015. Loan growth for the bank continues to be driven by retail segment, which grew by 24.6% on a year-on-year basis as of March 31, 2015. The growth in our retail portfolio continues to be driven by secured products with the outstanding mortgages and auto-loan portfolios growing by 26% and 24% respectively on a year-on-year basis as of March 2015. Growth in the business banking and rural index segments was 18% and 35% on a year-on-year basis respectively. Commercial business loans declined by 13% on a year-on-year basis as of March 31, reflecting primarily the rundown of our bought out portfolio. On a sequential basis, commercial business loans remain broadly stable and were about INR 108 billion, as of March 31, 2015. We expect growth in commercial business loans to gradually improve with the recovery in the industrial activity. The unsecured credit card and personal loan portfolio at about INR 109 billion as of March 31, 2015, continue to remain a small proportion of about 2.8% of the overall loan book. So obviously, the growth rate is high due to the lower base. The domestic corporate portfolio growth was 9.6% on a year-on-year basis as of March 31, 2015, compared to a 4% growth we saw as of December 31, 2014. The higher growth at March end compared to December end was primarily on account of lending to higher rated clients including public sector entities during the fourth quarter. The SME portfolio increased marginally on a sequential basis to about INR 172 billion as of March 31, 2015. Growth in net advances of the overseas branches in U.S. dollar terms was at 0.6% on a year-on-year basis as of March 31, 2015 compared to 3.5% year-on-year growth as of December 2014. In rupee terms the net advances of the overseas branches increased by 4.9% on a year-on-year basis due to movement in the exchange rate. The net advances of overseas branches decreased marginally by about 1.6% on a sequential basis in U.S. dollar terms. As a result of the above, the total advances of the banks increased by 14.4% on a year-on-year basis from INR 3.39 trillion as of March 31, 2014 to INR 3.88 trillion rupees as of March 31, 2015. Moving now on to the second C on CASA deposits, the bank continue to see healthy momentum in CASA deposit mobilization. On a period end basis, we saw an addition of INR 43.27 billion to savings deposits. Current account deposits increased by INR 36.04 billion during the quarter. As a result, the period-end CASA ratio improved to 45.5% as of March 31, 2015, compared to 44% as of December 31, 2014. The daily average CASA ratio for the bank increased from 39.3% in the third quarter to 39.9% in the fourth quarter. Moving on to the third C on cost, the bank maintained a healthy cost to income ratio of 36.2% in the fourth quarter compared to 36.3% in the third quarter of fiscal 2015. For the fourth quarter, operating expenses increased by 7.9% on a year-on-year basis. For the full year 2015, operating expenses grew by 11.5% year-on-year and the cost to income ratio was 36.8% compared to 38.2% in the previous year. As mentioned on our previous calls, given the addition of about 14,000 employees in financial years 2013 and 2014, and the bank’s focus on productivity and efficiency the employee base has decreased by about 4,400 people during financial year 2015 to 67,857 employees. This has been achieved primarily by not replacing attrition. While we expect the employee base to increase from this level, we will continue to focus on further enhancing the productivity and efficiency of our employee base as well as the expanded distribution network in order to drive growth. Let me now move on to the fourth C on Credit Quality. As we indicated on our previous calls, the total NPA additions in the fourth quarter were higher than the third quarter primarily due to challenges with respect to one or two large restructured borrowers. During the fourth quarter, we saw gross NPA addition of INR 32.6 billion including slippages of INR 22.5 billion from the standard restructured category to the non-performing asset category. Deletions from the NPA during the quarter were INR 6.54 billion and we have also written off INR 5.95 billion of NPAs. We have not sold any NPAs to asset reconstruction companies during the quarter. The Net NPA ratio was 140 basis points as of March 31, 2015 compared to 112 basis points as of December. During the quarter, we had gross additions of INR 12.47 billion to restructured loans. After taking into account deletions, including the slippages mentioned earlier and the request specific provisioning thereof, the net restructured loans for the bank was at INR 110.17 billion, as of March lower compared to the INR 120.52 billion as of December. Moving onto the provisions, provisions for the fourth quarter were at INR 13.44 billion compared to INR 7.14 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014, and INR 9.80 billion in the third quarter of 2015. As a result, credit cards as a percentage of average advances were at 144 basis points on an annualized basis for the fourth quarter. Provisions were higher in the fourth quarter on account of higher additions to nonperforming and restructured loans. Provisions in Q4 also include standard as a provisions of about INR 420 million on account of exposure to clients having unhedged foreign exposure. This added about 4 basis points to the analyst provisions to average advances for the fourth quarter. On a full-year basis for financial year 2015, credit cards as a percentage of average advances were at 109 basis points, the provisioning coverage ratio on nonperforming loans was 58.6% as of March 31, 2015. For the full-year fiscal 2014, the aggregate additions to NPAs was INR 45.4 billion, of which fresh NPA addition was INR 38.13 billion and slippages from the restructured loans to the NPA category was INR 7.27 billion. The loans restructured during fiscal 2014 were INR 66.33 billion. So the sum of the loans restructuring during the period and NPA additions, excluding the slippages from the restructured portfolio was INR 104.46 billion for the fiscal 2014, that’s the previous year. In comparison, during current fiscal 2015, the aggregate additions to NPAs was INR 80.78 billion, of this fresh NPA additions was INR 35.49 billion, which is lower than the previous year. However, slippages from restructured loans to the NPA category was INR 45.29 billion in fiscal 2015. Loans restructured during the period was INR 53.94 billion, that’s the some of the loans restructuring during the period on NPA additions, excluding the slippages from the restructured portfolio was INR 89.43 billion, about INR 15 billion lower compared to the previous year. After taking into account deletions and provisioning, the aggregate net NPA revenues on net restructured loans increased by INR 34.82 billion from INR 138.59 billion as of March 31, 2014 to INR 173.41 billion as of March 31, 2015. The aggregate net NPAs and net restructured loans increased by INR 4.58 billion in the fourth quarter. Now moving on to the fifth C on customer centricity, we continue to focus on enhancing our customer service capability and leveraging on our increased branch network to cater to the customer base. During the quarter, we added 200 branches and 360 ATMs to the networks. Accordingly, as of March 31, 2015, the bank had a branch network of 4,050 branches and 12,451 ATMs. We also continue to strengthen our technology channels for increasing the customer convenience. ICICI Bank has always been a pioneer in bringing technology-enabled products and services to the Indian customers. We are focusing on leveraging the three key transformational trends we see in technology, that is mobility, digitization, and rapid growth of social media, so that we can bring value to our customers. Our innovations in recent years include fully automated 24/7 touch banking branches, that banking for seamless and convenient account opening, a refreshed and intuitive Internet banking website, a rich mobile banking application, specific convenient mobile application for ease of information and transactions, and contactless tabs and pay card payments. During the quarter, we launched the digital mobile wallet called Pockets, positioned us India’s first digital bank. Pockets allows any individual whether ICICI Bank customer or otherwise to download and instantly activate on e-wallet. The e-wallet is amongst the India’s most comprehensive wallets, which can be used to pay on all websites and mobile apps in the country. Our Facebook page continued to be appreciated by customers over 3.5 million fans, the largest fan based on Facebook among Indian banks. The bank also launched video banking for NRI customers during the quarter. Using this service, NRI customers can now connect with the customer care representative over a video call round the clock on all days from anywhere using the smartphone. We are now launching an application for Apple Watch, leveraging the emerging trend in variable technology. We will continue to launch new digital banking propositions in the days ahead. Having talked about the performance from the 5Cs, let me now move onto the key financial performance highlights for the quarter. Net interest income increased by 16.6% year-on-year from INR 43.57 billion in Q4 of 2014 to INR 50.79 billion in Q4 of 2015. The net interest margin improved to 3.57% in Q4 of 2015, from 3.35% in the corresponding quarter last year. The domestic net interest margin was at 3.99% in quarter four of 2015, compared to 3.72% in the corresponding quarter last year and 3.88% in the previous quarter. International margins were at 1.71% in Q4 of 2015 compared to the same number in the corresponding quarter last year and 1.67% in the preceding quarter. Net interest income in the fourth quarter includes interest of about INR 1 billion on income tax refund received during the quarter. Total non-interest income increased by 17.5% from INR 29.76 billion in Q4 of 2014, to INR 34.96 billion in Q4 of 2015. Within the non-interest income, the fee income grew by 8.3% from INR 19.74 billion in Q4 of 2014 to INR 21.37 billion in Q4 of 2015. The moderate growth is mainly due to subdued corporate activity and consequent decline in corporate fee income. Retail fees for the bank continue to grow at a health rates and now constitute about 60% of overall fees. During the fourth quarter, treasury recorded a profit of INR 7.26 billion compared to INR 2.45 billion in the corresponding quarter last year and INR 4.43 billion in the previous quarter. Treasury income for the fourth quarter was primarily driven by gains from the fixed income portfolio where the bank capitalized on market opportunities. Other income was INR 6.33 billion in Q4 of 2015 compared to INR 7.57 billion in Q4 of 2014 and INR 5.38 billion in Q3 of 2015. During the fourth quarter, the bank received dividend of about $13 million from ICICI Bank UK and about CAD $19 million from ICICI Bank Canada. ICICI Life did not pay dividends during the fourth quarter of 2015. The Board of ICICI Life at its meeting held on April 24, 2015, has approved dividend, which would be paid in Q1 of 2016. The net exchange rate gains relating to bank’s overseas operations were at INR 1.82 billion in the fourth quarter compared to INR 2.22 billion in the corresponding quarter last year and INR 1.92 billion in the preceding quarter. I’ve already spoken up the - spoken about the trends in the operating expenses and provisions, while speaking about the 5Cs strategy. As a result of these trends, the bank’s standalone profit after-tax, sorry, profit before tax increased by 10.3% from INR 37.4 billion in Q4 of 2014 to INR 41.24 billion in Q4 of 2015. The banks standalone profit after-tax increased by 10.2% from INR 26.52 billion in Q4 of 2014 to INR 29.22 billion in Q4 of 2015. For the full-year financial year 2015, the profit after-tax increased by 13.9% to INR 111.75 billion from INR 98.1 billion in financial year 2014. The return on average assets improved from 1.76% in fiscal 2014 to 1.86% in fiscal 2015. The bank’s capital adequacy ratio on a standalone basis as per Reserve Bank of India’s guidelines on Basel III norms, continues to remain strong. The bank’s overall capital adequacy ratio as of March 31, 2015, was 17.02% and Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio was 12.78%. The bank has been providing fully for any interest income, which is funded through an FITL, that is Funded Interest Term Loan for cases restructured subsequent to the issuance of the RBI’s 2008 guidelines on restructuring. However, RBI has now required similar treatment of outstanding FITL pertaining to the cases restructured prior to the 2008 guidelines. The bank has with the approval of RBI debited the resource by INR 9.29 billion to fully provide for such outstanding in the quarter ended March 31, 2015, as against over three quarters permitted by RBI. These disclosures have also been made by the bank in the stock exchange format. I now move on to the performance of subsidiaries and the consolidated results. On a full-year basis, the profit after-tax for life insurance company was INR 16.34 billion in financial year 2015 compared to INR 15.67 billion in financial year 2014. The profit after tax for ICICI Life in Q4 of 2015 was INR 3.91 billion as compared to INR 3.88 billion in Q4 of 2014. The new business annualized premium equivalent increased from INR 10.81 billion in Q4 of 2014, to INR 15.98 billion in Q4 of 2015. The retail weighted received premium for ICICI Life has grown by 41.3% for the full-year financial year 2015 compared to 1.7% increase in financial year 2014. While the IRDA numbers for the industry are not yet available, we understand that the company has seen an increase in its market share to over 11% during financial year 2015. The new business margin was at 11.4% in Q4 of 2015, based on Traditional Embedded Value or TEV methodology. The company will be separately making disclosures based on Indian Embedded Value or IEV methodology later this week. On a full-year basis the profit after tax for ICICI General increased from INR 5.11 billion in fiscal 2014 to INR 5.36 billion in fiscal 2015. The year-on-year increase in profit before tax was about 33%. The lower increase in profit after tax compared to profit before tax reflects the normalization of tax expenses, which in fiscal 2013 and fiscal 2014 were low due to losses carried forward from the earlier years. The profit after tax increased from INR 0.76 billion in Q4 of 2014 to INR 1.31 billion in Q4 of 2015. The gross premium income of ICICI General decreased marginally by 3.1% on a year-on-year basis to INR 69.14 billion in fiscal 2015, as the company adopted a calibrated approach to growth given the pricing trends in the industry. The company continues to retain its market leadership among the private players. While the IRDA numbers for the industry are not available, we understand that the company had a market share of about 8.3% during fiscal 2015. ICICI Securities and ICICI AMC have continued to see improvement in the performance. The profit after tax for ICICI Securities increased from INR 0.91 billion in fiscal 2014 to INR 2.94 billion in fiscal 2015. The profit after tax for ICICI AMC increased from INR 1.83 billion in fiscal 2014 to INR 2.47 billion in fiscal 2015. ICICI AMC sustained this market position as the second largest mutual fund in India during the fourth quarter of 2015. Let me now move onto the performance of our overseas backing subsidiaries. The bank has continued with the strategy of optimizing the capital in the overseas banking subsidiaries. During the fourth quarter, the bank received a second round of equity capital repatriation of CAD 80 million from ICICI Bank Canada and US$75 million from ICICI Bank UK. Further both the overseas banking subsidiaries paid equity dividends to the parent bank in the fourth quarter. The bank’s total equity investment in ICICI Bank UK and ICICI Bank Canada has reduced from 11% of the net-worth as of March 31, 2010 to 5.6% as of March 31, 2015. As per IFRS financials, ICICI Bank Canada’s total assets were CAD 5.94 billion, as of March 31, 2015, compared to CAD 5.64 billion in December. Loans and advances were CAD 5.17 billion, as of March 31, 2015 compared to CAD 4.97 billion as of December. The increase in loans and advances was on account of higher securitized insured mortgages as of March 31, 2015 compared to December. The profit after tax for the fourth quarter was CAD 7.5 million compared to CAD 11 million for the fourth quarter of 2014 and CAD 3 million in Q3 of 2015. For the full year financial year 2015, profit after tax was CAD 33.7 million compared to CAD 48.3 million for the fiscal 2014. The decrease in profits was on account of higher specific provisions primarily on account of change in risk categorization of a mid-sized India-linked account during the year. The capital adequacy ratio for ICICI Bank Canada was 28.5%, as of March 31, 2015. ICICI Bank UK’s total assets were US$4.13 billion as of March 31, 2015 compared to US$4.17 billion, as of December 31, 2014. Loans and advances were US$3.03 billion as of March 31, 2015 compared to US$2.9 billion as of December. The profit after tax for ICICI Bank UK for the fourth quarter was US$0.9 million compared to US$5.2 million in the fourth quarter of previous year, and US$6.1 million in Q3 of 2015. The lower profits in fourth quarter of 2015 were on account of higher provisions on existing impaired loans. For the full-year 2015, profit after tax was US$18.3 million compared to US$25.2 million for the previous year. The capital adequacy ratio was 19.2% as of March 31, 2015. Going forward, ICICI Bank UK and ICICI Bank Canada will continue to focus on short-term loans, working capital line, trade and transaction based banking products to multinational corporations, select local market corporates on subsidiaries and joint ventures of Indian companies, including through participation in syndication transactions. Additionally, ICICI Bank Canada would also continue to provide securitized insured mortgages to this portfolio. We expect that the approach to lending in ICICI Bank UK and ICICI Bank Canada will also yield synergies for the clients’ Indian banking requirements. The bank and its UK and Canada subsidiaries will also continue to work towards optimizing the capital invested in these subsidiaries further. During the quarter, the bank concluded the sale of its Russian subsidiary. Let me now talk about the overall consolidated profits. The consolidated profit after tax grew by 13.3% from INR 27.24 billion in Q4 of 2014 to INR 30.85 billion in Q4 of 2015. The annualized consolidated return on average equity was 14.5% in Q4 of 2015 compared to 14.2% in Q4 of 2014 and 15.5% in the Q3 of 2015. For the full-year financial year 2015 consolidated profits increased by 10.9% from INR 110.41 billion in financial year 2014 to INR 122.47 billion in fiscal 2015. The consolidated return on average equity was 15% in fiscal 2015 compared to 14.9% in fiscal 2014. On a consolidated basis, the bank’s overall capital adequacy ratio as of March 31, 2015 was 7.2% and the Tier I capital adequacy ratio was 12.88%. In summary, we have continued to pursue our core operating strategy during the quarter. In line with our focus areas, we have one, sustained the improvement in net interest margins; two, maintained a healthy non-interest income; three, sustained improvement in our operating efficiency; four, seen continued healthy trends in CASA mobilization; five, maintained a strong retail portfolio growth; and six, achieved a healthy performance in our non-banking subsidiaries. Based on the performance of the bank in fiscal 2015 the Board of Directors has recommended a dividend of INR 5 per equity share of face value of INR 2 each to shareholders compared to INR 4.6 per equity share for 2014 after adjusting first sub-division of equity shares during the year. Moving now onto the outlook for financial year 2016, we believe that while operating environment in fiscal 2016 is likely to be better than fiscal 2015, recovery in economic activity could be gradual and near-term challenges for the banking system may persist. Our outlook for fiscal 2016 is in this overall context. We expect to sustain domestic loan growth in the range of 18% to 20% driven by about 25% growth in the retail segment. In the domestic corporate portfolio we expect a growth of 10% to 15% driven primarily by increasing lending to higher rated clients. The bank would continue to calibrate corporate loan growth to the trends in the environment. With respect to the overseas branches, the bank would focus on selective lending opportunities and will continue to calibrate growth to conditions in the funding markets. We expect the loan portfolio of overseas branches to grow by about 8% to 10%. We would aim to maintain a stable average CASA ratio in the range of 38% to 40%. We will target to maintain the overall net interest margins in fiscal 2016 at a similar level compared to fiscal 2015 despite declining interest rates. We would target a double-digit growth in fee income in fiscal 2016 led by retail fees. The overall fee income growth would depend on market conditions, particularly activity in the corporate sector as well as regulatory measures with respect to various components of fee income. We will focus on sustaining the gains we have made in operating efficiency, to maintain the cost to income ratio for financial year 2016 at similar level as in financial year 2015. Coming to the asset quality, we expect that the aggregate additions to restructured loans and NPAs in fiscal 2016 will definitely be lower than in fiscal 2015. Restructuring in fiscal 2016 will be limited to: A, restructuring of project loans in line with criteria permitted by RBI; and B, restructuring of other loans, where referral restructuring application occurred before March 31, 2015. Our current restructuring pipeline is about INR 15 billion, based on the above we expect the provisions to be in the range of 90 basis points to 95 basis points of average loans in fiscal 2016. We believe that our strong and diversified franchise, large distribution network and technology capabilities give us the ability to leverage opportunities for profitable growth. We are well placed with regard to the capital required to support this growth and given our current capital position, be believe that we do not need to raise equity capital for the next three years based on current regulations. With these opening comments, my team and I will be happy to take your questions. Thank you.