NEW DELHI: State-run engineering major BHEL on Tuesday posted a net profit of Rs 93.54 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2016 on the back of higher income from the power segment. The company had reported a net loss of Rs 1,084.96 crore for the quarter under review.
The company’s total income increased to Rs 6,461.22 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2016 from Rs 5,498.07 crore for the same quarter in the year-ago period.
“The consistent growth in the first three quarters of his fiscal comes in the wake of the trend of negative topline growth prevailing for the last 14 previous quarters. This has been made possible by a slew of strategic initiatives and cost optimisation measures put in place by the management,” BHEL Chairman and Managing Director Atul Sobti said.
For nine months to December 2016, BHEL posted a net profit of Rs 280 crore against a loss of Rs 1,215 crore in the same period of previous year. Revenue grew by 19 per cent to Rs 18,966 crore in the first nine months of 2016-17 fiscal. “Having achieved the immediate target of regaining growth, the company is now enhancing its focus on maintaining leadership status in the power sector while diversifying in the non-thermal power segment and other new areas,” he said.
As part of this, focus is on creating new verticals within the company to capitalise on the massive infrastructure spending by the government, with a special focus on Indian Railways, defence and other industrial products to drive the next wave of growth, he added. Shares of BHEL soared 4.65 per cent to trade at Rs 150.70 after announcement of the financial results.
Meanehile, Punjab National Bank (PNB) on Tuesday reported a four-fold jump in net profit to Rs 207.18 crore for the third quarter, on account of lower provisioning. The bank had reported a net profit of Rs 51.1 crore for the October-December quarter of 2015-16.
The public-sector lender’s total income increased 4.36 per cent to Rs 14,497.65 crore for the quarter under review, from Rs 13,891.2 crore in the year-ago period.
The bank’s asset quality, however, deteriorated further as gross non-performing assets or bad loans hit 13.70 per cent of the gross advances during third quarter as against 8.47 per cent a year ago.