State Bank of India first-quarter profit misses estimates, bad loans rise

REUTERS – State Bank of India (SBI), the nation’s biggest lender by assets, on Friday reported first-quarter profit that missed analysts’ estimates, following a decline in net interest income and rise in bad loans.

The results are the first since SBI merged with five of its subsidiary banks and also took over a niche lender for women from April 1.

For the merged entity, net profit was 20.06 billion rupees ($ 312.84 million) in the three months through June, from 3.74 billion rupees a year earlier. Pre-merger, the bank’s year-earlier profit was 25.21 billion rupees.

The result compared with the 30.29 billion rupee average analyst estimate, Thomson Reuters data showed.

Net interest income fell 3.5 percent to 176.06 billion rupees.

SBI, which accounts for about a fifth of India’s banking sector assets, said for the merged entity, gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans was 9.97 percent at the end of June from 9.11 percent three months earlier and 7.40 percent at the end of June last year.

Indian banks have been hit by higher provisions and regulatory scrutiny as bad loans reached a record $ 150 billion in December. Earlier this year, the government gave the central bank greater power to push defaulting borrowers into bankruptcy proceedings.

SBI shares were down 4.8 percent at 0815 GMT in a Mumbai market that was down 1 percent.