City Union gets first batch of loan repayment from SpiceJet

Chennai: Private sector lender City Union Bank has received the first batch of repayment of Rs 100 crore from low-cost air carrier SpiceJet, a top official said Saturday.

"Our exposure to SpiceJet is Rs 200 crore. We received Rs 100 crore as repayment. So 50 percent of the payment been repaid...," City Union Bank, Managing Director and CEO, N Kamakodi told reporters here.

"We are in continuous discussion and the repayments have been made without any problem...The first Rs 100 crore was paid before March 31, 2015. I think they will repay the balance over a period of time," he said.

Declaring annual financial results of the bank, Kamakodi said, net profits jumped 18.8 percent to Rs 99.07 crore in the fourth quarter ending March 31 from Rs 83.34 crore registered during year ago period.

Total income of the bank for the March quarter was Rs 793.64 crore, up from Rs 720.64 crore during previous year.

For the full financial year, net profit of the bank grew by 13.8 percent to Rs 395.02 crore from Rs 347.07 crore during the corresponding period last fiscal.

For the year, total income of the bank jumped to Rs 3,102.96 crore from Rs 2,825.78 crore previous year.

On the reasons for the increase in net profits, Kamakodi said it was because of the all round performance of the bank.

"We had 11 percent growth in the advances figure for the year as a whole. For the financial year 2014 we had about Rs 456 crore of NPA addition, which got reduced to 425 crore for the current financial year," he said.

"Last financial year we had only 7 percent growth in advances, this financial year it is about 11 per centage growth. Whatever incremental growth rate we have achieved is the combined effort of all the performances across all different areas," he said.

Asked on the outlook for the year, he said: "We had 11 per cent growth rate. We should grow at 12-15 per cent for the (current) financial year." Noting that the total business of the bank increased by 10 percent to Rs 42,164 crore for the year 2014-15, he said, "this year we hope to complete total business of Rs 50,000 crore".

The Board have recommended a dividend of 110 per cent (compared to last year 100 percent) Rs 1.10 per equity share on face value of Re 1 each for the financial year 2014-15 subject to approval of shareholders, he said.