Expect profit in all quarters of FY21–PNB

Update on the Indian Equity Market:

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Expect profit in all quarters of FY21–PNB

Excerpts of an interview with Mr.S S Mallikarjuna Rao, MD&CEO–Punjab National Bank (PNB)published in Business Standard dated 22^ndJune 2020:

• Management expects credit growth of 6% in FY21E from the earlier estimate of 12%.
• The credit recovery in MSMEs and retail segments is expected to be faster than other bigger segments. Growth in bigger segments will probably come from January 2021.
• PNB management expects robust comeback in certain sectors of MSMEs in October. Hospitality and travel segments will be slower to recover but less labor-intensive sectors and highly technology-oriented industries will come back faster.
• PNB does not see any pain in the hospitality portion of the loan book at the moment. Pain may come from the telecom sector which is in stress. But even in telecom, PNB has non-funded exposure, i.e. bank guarantees are given in favor of government. In PNB’s loan book, they do not see any incremental pain in any sectors apart from those already identified.
• Mr Rao expects profit in every quarter of FY21. In 1HFY20, PNB might earn Rs 18,000 mn from treasury due to yield advantage. In 1QFY21 itself, PNB has booked Rs 11,000 mn treasury gains compared to normal quarterly run rate of Rs 4,000- 5,000 mn. Provisioning burden will impact the profit, but the backlog of provisions would not continue after September.In 2HFY21E, earning will accrue from lending as operating profit stabilizes.
• PNB has a high stake of government at 85%. The Government stake has to be brought down in 2 years as the threshold for minimum public shareholding is 25%. So incremental fund raising will be via QIP/ public issue/ LIC/ tier-1 or tier-2 capital.
• Post amalgamation of PNB with Oriental Bank of Commerce, and United Bank of India, there are a lot of non-core asset in the form of properties that PNB will look to sell. Rs 3,000 – 4,000 mn can be generated through this route in FY21E. PNB does not plan to divest interest in joint ventures and associates, including stake in PNB Housing, as they want to hold onto the brand name and see the entities grow.
• Post the amalgamation, IRDAI has given exemption to PNB to hold stake in 2 insurance companies. There is no sunset clause for this exemption and PNB will continue to hold share in both the companies.
• On the progress in amalgamation process, organizational restructuring will be complete from 1^st July 2020. Technology integration of surrounding applications and ATMs will be complete by September. Core banking integration for one bank will be done by December 2020, and for the other bank by March 2021.
• For the amalgamated entity, 500,000 customers are eligible under the emergency credit guarantee scheme and Rs 150 – 160 bn can be disbursed. PNB has already sanctioned loans worth Rs 30 bn to 120,000 customers and the remaining gap can be filled in by first week of July.

Consensus Estimate: (Source: market screenerand investing.com websites)

• The closing price of PNB was ₹ 35.8/- as of 22-June-2020. It traded at 0.7x/ 0.4x the consensus BVPS estimate of ₹ 53.6/ 86.6for FY21E/ FY22E respectively.
• Consensus target price of ₹ 52.7/- implies a PBmultiple of 0.6x on FY22E BVPS of ₹ 86.6.

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