Axis Bank Ltd. of India on Thursday disclosed a larger-than-anticipated one-time loss for the fourth quarter due to expenses related to its $1.41 billion Citi deal. For the three months that ended on March 31, Axis reported a loss of 57.28 billion rupees, down from a profit of 41.18 billion rupees a year earlier. Refinitiv IBES data show that analysts expected the bank to report a loss of 8.06 billion rupees.
By market capitalization, Axis, the fourth-largest bank in India, closed a deal to buy Citigroup Inc.’s local consumer and non-banking finance businesses in March.
Despite the setback, the lender’s business continued to expand steadily.
Axis Bank reported a standalone operating profit of 91.68 billion rupees, as opposed to 64.66 billion rupees a year earlier, excluding provisions and contingencies.
Net interest income for the bank increased by 33% to 117.42 billion rupees, which is the difference between interest earned and interest used. Net interest margins increased 73 basis points from the previous year to 4.22%.
For the fiscal fourth quarter, larger competitors HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank also reported healthy growth in net interest incomes.
The quarterly advances made by Axis increased by 19% year over year, which was in line with the double-digit loan growth that Indian banks have experienced lately.
Deposits at the Mumbai-based bank increased by 15%.
As a measure of asset quality, the bank’s gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans increased to 2.02% from 2.38% in the previous quarter. Its ratio of net non-performing assets was 0.39%, down from 0.47% in the previous quarter.
For the quarter, provisions and contingencies totaled 3.06 billion rupees, a decrease from 9.87 billion rupees a year earlier.
