Religare Housing Development aims Rs 2,000-crore loan book in three years

      Comments Off on Religare Housing Development aims Rs 2,000-crore loan book in three years




NEW DELHI: Religare Housing Development Finance Corporation (RHDFC), which caters to the unbanked customers in urban and semi-urban markets, expects to raise its loan book to Rs 2,000 crore in the three years, a top company official said.

“We work in the affordable housing segment, catering to the low-income and informal segment, the segments which are not bankable and don’t get loans from banks. So, there is a market to provide loans and home loans to these segments,” RHDFC Chief Executive Officer Rahul Mehrotra said in an interaction.

He added that the company carries a net worth of around Rs 200 crore.

“We have disbursed close to Rs 1,600 crore with a peak book of up to Rs 1,020 crore, since the start of active business in 2013-14, and we are looking at creating a book size of close to around Rs 2,000 crore in the next three years,” Mehrotra said.

RHDFC is servicing about 6,000 customers currently, he said, adding that the average ticket size ranges from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 11 lakh.

“We also provide loans in property, and the ticket size here also is Rs 10-11 lakh,” said the company official.

He added that the company, with a presence in 10 states, has catered to over 13,000 customers and underwritten over 20,000 prospective customers.

RHDFC offers residential collateral-backed mortgage loans for home purchase, construction, extension and renovation along with loan against residential property to customers.

The company caters to both formal and informal income segments belonging to the low- and medium-income groups in urban and semi-urban markets.

“We cater primarily to urban and semi-urban markets. We are present in state capitals and then in the next two-three big cities,” Mehrotra added.

Self-employed persons such as skilled workers like carpenter, plumber, electrician, people who run small mom-and-pop grocery shops, and small vegetable or fruit vendors are the potential customer base of the company.

On asked about the legacy issues associated with its parent company’s ex-promoters — Singh brothers Shivinder and Malvinder — Mehrotra said the issues are likey to get resolved in about a quarter or at the maximum six months.

“Even as there are group-level challenges, which resulted in a decline in the company’s growth rate, I think what we are looking at (in an ideal state) is about a quarter’s time for the entire thing to get resolved,” he said.

He added that the outer limit would be maximum 5-6 months, but “hopefully, we should be able to get it resolved in a quarter”.

On a query about capital requirement, he said the company is well-capitalised currently with capital adequacy ratio (CAR) in access of 50 per cent.

“What we require is liability lines, which our existing bankers are waiting for resolution of our parent company to go through. Then our banking lines will re-open and they will start disbursing to us,” Mehrotra said.

He added that once resolution happens, the company’s current bankers and new bankers that we will be talking to will be ready to offer us fresh liabilities considering the kind of net worth and CAR ratio that we are currently sitting on.

Last month, the company entered into a direct assignment transaction of about Rs 40 crore, he added.

RHDFCL is a subsidiary of debt-ridden Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL). The parent is combating the wrongdoings of erstwhile promoters and others, who caused fraud of about Rs 4,000 crore.

RFL, the non-banking financial company of Religare Enterprises, has taken legal and other means to recover the money and has paid Rs 6,500 crore to lenders since the change of management in 2018. The company is likely to complete its debt restructuring by December and start new business from next financial year.

Source: Press Trust of India