Dewan Housing to raise Rs3,500 crore; plans debenture issue

Private sector mortgage lender Dewan Housing Finance Corp Ltd plans to raise Rs3,500 crore through debt in the current financial year to meet growth in lending. The company is targeting 52 per cent rise in loan disbursements in the current financial year, vice-chairman and managing director Kapil Wadhawan said on Monday.

"We will be raising the funds to meet our disbursement target of Rs34 billion in the current year," Wadhawan said after releasing the company's financial results.

Dewan Housing reported a 34.62 per cent growth in net interest income to Rs42.46 crore for the quarter ended 31 March, 2009 against Rs31.54 crore in the year-ago period. Total income rose 40 per cent to Rs206.9 crore from Rs148 crore for the corresponding quarter in the previous year.

Net profit, however, fell to Rs21.39 crore for the quarter, from Rs29.44 crore in the year-ago period, on account of a reclassifcation of venture fund income to the tune of Rs16.99 crore into the previous year's total income.

The housing finance company saw a fall in net non-performing assets to 1.03 per cent of total assets compared to 1.18 per cent at the end of the previous financial year. Gross NPAs over the same period fell from 1.57 per cent to 1.48 per cent.

For the financial year ended 31 March, the company registered a 40 per cent growth in net profit to Rs91.76 crore as compared to Rs66.59 crore at the end of the previous year, on a consolidated basis. DHFL disbursed loans worth Rs2,240.54 crore in the financial year 2008-09 as against Rs1,761.53 crore during the previous year, registering a growth of 27.19 per cent. As of 31 March, its asset book size was Rs5,806.93 crore.

Wadhawan told CNBC-TV18, ''Last year we had started to see an increase in the cost of funding in the first two quarters. But we have started to bring down our cost of funding.'' He added that the firm's average cost of funding was now below 10 per cent.

Commenting on DHFL's fund-raising plans, Wadhawan said, ''We intend to raise about Rs3,500 crore for meeting our growth targets of almost Rs3,l400 crore in incremental disbursements. We also intend coming out with a large public issue of NCDs (non-convertible debentures) - anywhere between Rs500 crore and Rs2,000 crore - in the next two months.''