Centurion Bank posts Rs 162-crore net loss

Mumbai: Centurion Bank posted a net loss of Rs 161.84 crore for the year ended 31 March 2002 against a loss of Rs 7.02 crore in the previous year. But the bank has earned an operating profit of Rs 14.41 crore against Rs 57 crore in the previous year. For the quarter ended 30 June 2002, the bank earned an operating profit of Rs 7.80 crore and registered a marginal loss of Rs 3.66 crore.

"Despite the bank posting operating profit during a difficult year, it incurred a loss of Rs 161.84 crore due to certain extraordinary provisions and write-offs relating to the previous periods in respect of assets and liabilities taken over from the erstwhile Twentieth Century Finance Corporation (TCFC) consequent on their merger with the bank," says Centurion Bank CMD V Janakiraman.

Janakiraman says an amount of Rs 47.18 crore being the shortfall in loan assets (hire purchase assets) has been taken over from TCFC and Rs 19.40 crore being the differences in term deposit accounts of TCFC.

The large differences under these two items came to the fore while reconciling the accounts during the last quarter of the year 2001-02, he adds. "An additional depreciation of Rs 19.34 crore on the leased assets portfolio of TCFC had to be made to ensure that in all individual cases of lease, the book value always was equal to or lower than future capital recoveries."

Turning to normal provisioning requirement, the bank made a provision of Rs 76.65 crore towards non-performing assets (NPAs). This includes the provision of Rs 32 crore in respect of loans to capital market brokers; the balance Rs 44.65 crore being the provisions towards other loans portfolio. The gross NPAs is Rs 229 crore and the net NPAs Rs 101 crore.