Sundaram BNP Paribas Home Finance, a joint venture between Chennai-based Sundaram Finance Group and Union de Credit pour le Batiment (UCB), a wholly-owned subsidiary of BNP Paribas, reported a marginal growth in bottomline for 2016-17. The company's net profit was Rs 154 crore as against Rs 152.72 crore in the preceding fiscal.
Loans disbursed by the company in 2016-17 rose 5 percent to Rs 1,831 crore from Rs 1,743 crore in the 2015-16, news agency PTI reported. The company said it saw recovery in select geographies.
"We are clearly seeing a pick-up in the business activity in real estate sector. Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and branches outside South India registered strong growth in our business over the last 12 months", the agency quoted Srinivas Acharya, MD of the company, as saying in a statement.
In the current fiscal, the company plans to raise Rs 1,700 crore to fund growth even as it gears up to widen its presence in West and Central India; currently, about 50 percent of its business comes from the southern states.
Acharya said he is confident of improvement in the real estate sector this fiscal, mainly due to the affordable housing scheme of the Indian government. "We are hoping that this year we will see a full revival in the real estate sector on the back of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna of the Central government and the Government's other initiatives," he said.
Union de Credit pour le Batiment (UCB) has 49.9 percent stake in the company, with the rest held by Sundaram Finance Limited.
The Sundaram Finance Group has presence in business finance, insurance, mutual funds, business process outsourcing, logistics and IT solutions, in addition to home loans.
