N. S. Kannan
Analyst · Mahrukh Adajania from IDFC. Please go ahead
Good evening to all of you. I will talk about our performance and the outlook on the growth, credit quality, and profit and loss account details. Then we’ll move on to the subsidiaries and capital. On growth, within the overall retail growth of 22%, the mortgage and auto loan portfolios grew by 21% and 17% on a year-on-year basis, respectively. Growth in the business banking and rural lending segments was 15% and 24% on a year-on-year basis. Commercial vehicles and equipment loans grew by 21% on a year-on-year basis. The unsecured credit card and personal loan portfolio grew by 43% on a year-on-year basis to INR166.93 billion and this constituted 3.7% of the overall loan book, as of June 30. The Bank continues to grow the unsecured credit card and personal loan portfolio, primarily driven by focus on cross sales. Moving on to the corporate portfolio, the growth in the portfolio improved from 7.2% year-on-year as of March 31, 2016 to 11.2% year-on-year as of June 30. The Bank continues to focus on lending to higher-rated corporate and apply its revised concentration risk management framework for incremental lending. The SME portfolio grew by 2.1% year-on-year and now constitutes 4% of the total loans. The year-on-year growth in SME portfolio was lower due to higher repayments during the quarter. We expect the growth in SME portfolio to improve in the coming quarters. In rupee terms, the net advances of the overseas branches decreased by 1.5% year-on-year as of June 30. In U.S. dollar terms, the net advances of overseas branches decreased by 7.1% year-on-year as of June 30, 2016. Moving to the funding side. On a period end basis, we saw an additional INR39.85 billion to savings deposits during the quarter. The Bank continued to maintain healthy CASA ratio on a period end basis as well as on a daily average basis. On a daily average basis, the CASA ratio was 41.7% in Q1. The total deposits grew by 15.3% on a year-on-year basis to INR4.24 trillion, as of June 30, 2016. We continue to make investments to strengthen our franchise. We have a network of 4,451 branches and 14,073 ATMs and best-in-class digital and mobile platforms with a number of new innovations. iMobile received the highest overall score in 2016 India Mobile Banking Functionality Benchmark study conducted by Forrester. Now let’s move to credit quality. During the first quarter, the gross addition to NPAs, including slippages on the restructured portfolio, were INR82.49 billion compared to INR70.03 billion in the preceding quarter. Slippages from the restructured portfolio were INR13.21 billion in Q1 of 2017 compared to INR27.24 billion in the previous quarter. About 77% of the gross additions to NPAs for the wholesale and SME businesses in Q1 were on account of slippages from the companies internally rated below investment grade in key sectors, the details of which we have disclosed in the previous quarter and slippages from the restructured portfolio. Of the remaining additions, about 30% we expect to be upgraded during the current year itself. The retail portfolio had gross NPA additions of INR6.44 billion and recoveries and upgrades of INR4.25 billion during the quarter, which is in line with the normal business strengths. During the quarter, aggregate deletions from NPA due to recoveries and upgrades were INR7.92 billion. We sold gross NPA amounting to about INR53 billion during the quarter, the net NPA sold amounted to INR22.32 billion during the quarter. The gross shortfall amounting to INR5.26 billion on such sales is amounted to over four quarters. Accordingly, during the first quarter, we have recognized a loss of INR1.32 billion. Further, we have made gain of INR1.53 billion on sale of NPAs to ARCs which is set aside towards the security receipts received on such sales. As a result of this, the Bank's net non-performing asset ratio was 3.01% as of June 30, 2016 compared to 2.67% as of March 31, 2016. The gross non-performing asset ratio was 5.28% at June 30 compared to 5.21% as of March. The provisioning coverage ratio on non-performing loans, including cumulative technical and prudential write-offs, was 57.1%. Moving on to the restructured loans, the net restructured loans reduced to INR72.41 billion as of June 30 from INR85.73 billion as of March. As of June 30, we had outstanding SDR loans of about INR26.39 billion comprising primarily loans already classified as non-performing or restructured. The aggregate net NPAs and net restructured loans increased by INR6.79 billion from INR218.7 billion as of March 31 to INR225.49 billion as of June 30. During the first quarter, we did not implement refinancing under the 5/25 scheme for any loan. The outstanding portfolio of performing loans for which refinancing under the 5/25 scheme has been implemented was about INR27 billion as of June 30. There are uncertainties in respect of certain sectors due to the weak global economic environment, sharp downturn in the commodity cycle, gradual nature of domestic economic recovery, and high leverage. The key sectors in this context are power, iron and steel, mining, cement and rigs. The Bank’s aggregate exposure to these sectors decreased from 15.8% of the total exposure as of March 2011 to 13.3% of total exposure as of March 2016, which further decreased to 12.7% of the total exposure as of June 30, 2016. We have reported our exposure comprising both fund-based limits and non-fund-based limits outstanding as of March 31, 2016. The companies in these sectors that were internally rated below investment grade across the domestic, corporate, SME as well as international branches portfolio and to the promoter entities internally rated below investment grade where the underlying partly relates to these sectors. On Slide 28 of our presentation, we have provided the movement in these exposures between March 31, 2016 and June 30, 2016. The aggregate fund-based limits and non-fund-based outstanding to companies, excluding those who are classified as non-performing or restructured that were internally rated below investment grade in these sectors and promoter entities, decreased from INR440.65 billion as of March 31, 2016 to INR387.23 billion as of June 30, 2016 reflecting the following. One, there was a net reduction and exposure related to the March level of INR3.65 billion, net upgrades of ratings of borrowers of INR4.19 billion together aggregating to INR7.84 billion. Two, aggregate fund-based limits and non-fund-based outstanding to companies classified as non-performing during the quarter were INR45.59 billion. As I said, please refer to Slide 28 for further details. Provisions for first quarter 2017 were INR25.15 billion compared to INR9.56 billion in the first quarter of 2016 and INR33.26 billion, excluding collective contingency and related reserve in Q4 of 2016. Further, during the first quarter, there was a drawdown of INR8.65 billion from the collective contingency and related reserves. We continue to work with borrowers for asset sales, deleveraging, and reduction of exposures. Our focus will continue to be on maximizing the Bank’s economic recovery and finding optimal solutions. It may take time for some of these solutions to be implemented, particularly where mergers or acquisitions are involved. In the interim, the accounting treatment and classification based on applicable regulatory norms may get adversely impacted. We may also consider invocation of strategic debt restructuring in additional accounts to protect the interest of the Bank while resolution plans are being implemented. As we have mentioned earlier, it is expected that NPA additions and credit cards will continue to be elevated in financial year 2017. Let me now move on to the profit and loss accounts. The net interest income was INR51.59 billion in the first quarter. The net interest margin was at 3.16% in the first quarter 2017 compared to 3.37% in the previous quarter. The domestic NIM was at 3.45% in the first quarter compared to 3.73% in the preceding quarter. The international margins were at 1.65% in the first quarter compared to 1.62% in the preceding quarter. As we had indicated earlier, the yield on advances for the first quarter of 2017 was impacted by non-accrual of income on higher level of additions to non-performing assets. Going forward the yield on advances will continue to be impacted by non-accrual of income on non-performing assets and implementation of resolution plans for test borrowers. There was no meaningful interest on income tax refund in the first quarter of 2017 compared to about INR1 billion in the corresponding quarter last year and INR0.7 billion in the preceding quarter. Moving on to non-interest income. The total non-interest income increased by 14.7% on a year-on-year basis to INR34.29 billion in Q1 of 2017. If you look at the components of this non-interest income, the fee income was at INR21.56 billion. Retail fees grew by 11.3% on a year-on-year basis and they constituted about 68.6% of the overall fees. Treasury recorded a profit of INR7.68 billion compared to INR2 billion in the corresponding quarter last year. Other income was INR5.05 billion, the dividend from subsidiaries was INR2.91 billion and the Bank had exchange rate gains of INR2.06 billion relating to overseas operations in the first quarter. On expenses, the Bank's cost to income ratio was at 39.3% in the first quarter of fiscal 2017. Operating expenses increased by 10% on a year-on-year basis. Employee expenses increased marginally by 1.9% year-on-year. Non-employee expenses increased by 15.5% on a year-on-year basis in the first quarter, primarily on account of the larger distribution network and higher retail lending volumes. We will continue to focus on cost efficiency while investing in the franchise as required. The Bank's standalone profit before provisions and tax was INR52.15 billion in the first quarter of 2017 compared to INR50.38 billion in the corresponding quarter last year and INR71.08 billion in the preceding quarter. As you would recall, in the preceding quarter we had gains of about INR21.31 billion from stake sales in our Life and General insurance subsidiaries. I have already discussed the provision for the quarter, so moving on to the profit before tax, the Bank's standalone profit before tax was INR27 billion in the first quarter of 2017 compared to INR1.82 billion in the preceding quarter and INR40.82 billion in the corresponding quarter last year. The Bank's standalone profit after-tax was INR22.32 billion in the first quarter of 2017 compared to INR7.02 billion in the previous quarter and INR29.76 billion in the corresponding quarter last year. Moving on to the subsidiaries. ICICI Life retail weighted received premium increased by 11.1% from INR8.43 billion in the first quarter of 2016 to INR9.36 billion in the first quarter of 2017. The profit after tax for ICICI Life for the first quarter of 2017 was INR4.05 billion compared to INR3.97 billion in first quarter of 2016. The profit after tax for ICICI General increased by 12.9% from INR1.16 billion in the first quarter of 2016 to INR1.31 billion in the first quarter of 2017. The profit before tax grew by 19.3% on a year-on-year basis. The growth written premium of ICICI General grew by 39.3% on a year-on-year basis to INR29.55 billion in the first quarter of 2017 compared to about 16.7% year-on-year growth for the industry as a whole. The company continues to retain its market leadership among the private sector players and has a market share of about 10.5% in the first quarter of 2017. The profit after tax for ICICI AMC increased by 22.5% year-on-year from INR0.80 billion in Q1 of 2016 to INR0.98 billion in the first quarter of 2017. With assets under management of over INR2 trillion, ICICI AMC continues to be the largest mutual fund in India. The profit after tax for ICICI Securities was at INR0.69 billion in Q1 of 2017 compared to INR0.61 billion in Q1 of 2016. Let me now move on to the performance of our overseas banking subsidiaries. Our total equity investment in ICICI Bank UK and ICICI Bank Canada has reduced from 11% of our net worth at March 31, 2010 to 4.7% currently. As per IFRS financials, ICICI Bank Canada's total assets were CAD6.83 billion as of June 30, 2016 and loans and advances were CAD5.77 billion as of June 30, 2016. The profit after tax for Q1 of 2017 was CAD0.9 million compared to CAD7.8 million in Q1 of 2016. The lower profits were primarily on account of higher provisions on existing impaired loans. The capital adequacy ratio of ICICI Bank Canada was 22.5% at June 30, 2016. ICICI Bank UK's total assets were $4.05 billion as of June 30, 2016. Loans and advances were $2.69 billion as of June 30, 2016. The sequential decrease in loans and advances of about $460 million was on account of lower disbursements in the first quarter given the uncertainties in the operating enrolment under limited lending opportunities. Profit after tax in the first quarter of 2017 was $0.5 million at a similar level compared to the first quarter of last financial year. ICICI Bank UK continued to make additional provisions for existing impaired loans. The capital adequacy ratio was 17.9% as of June 30, 2016. The Bank will monitor the developments relating to the UK’s exit from European Union. ICICI Bank UK has hedged all its currency exposures and there was no meaningful immediate impact of sterling depreciation. The impact on the loan and investment portfolio and profitability going forward would depend on the business environment in the UK and the policies that evolve with relation to the exit from the EU. The consolidated profit before tax was INR34.6 billion in the first quarter of 2017 compared to INR47.34 billion in the corresponding quarter last year and INR2.85 billion in the previous quarter. The consolidated profit after tax was INR25.16 billion in the first quarter of 2017 compared to INR32.32 billion in the corresponding quarter last year, and INR4.07 billion in the preceding quarter. Moving to capital, the Bank had a Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio of 13.02% and total standalone capital adequacy ratio of 16.45%, including profits for the first quarter of 2017. The Bank’s consolidated Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio and the total consolidated capital adequacy ratio, including the profit for the first quarter, were 13.06% and 16.44%, respectively. The capital ratios are significantly higher than the regulatory requirements. The Bank's pre-provisioning earnings, strong capital position, and value created in its subsidiaries give the Bank the ability to absorb the impact of a challenging environment while driving growth in identified areas of opportunities. To sum up, during the first quarter of 2017, one, we have achieved continued healthy loan growth driven by the retail portfolio and focused on lending to higher rated corporations. This is in line with our capital allocation and the risk management framework. Number two, we focused on resolution and recovery in the corporate segment. Three, we sustained our robust funding profile. Four, we maintained cost efficiency. And five, we continue to maintain healthy capital adequacy ratios. With this summary, I’ll be happy to take your questions. Thank you.