Piramal Finance aims to nearly double its branch count by 2027

MUMBAI: Piramal Capital & Housing Finance (Piramal Finance), a wholly owned subsidiary of Piramal Enterprises, aims to double its Asset under Management (AuM) in the next five years and targets to grow its retail loan book to over 1 lakh crore in the next three years. The Ajay Piramal-led Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC) also plans to expand its footprint in India by increasing its branch count to 600 from the current network of 343 branches by 2027.

"We closed the second quarter with a loan book of Rs 24,872 crore on completion of one year of merger with DHFL. We want to grow this to over Rs 1 lakh crore over the next three years, two-thirds of which should be a retail book," said Jairam Sridharan, Managing Director, Piramal Capital & Housing Finance, yesterday while addressing the press conference held to launch its first brand campaign.

Going forward the company, which is now rebranded as Piramal Finance, plans to increase the share of unsecured loans in its loan book which is currently dominated by housing loans. Currently, housing loans have a share of around 70 per cent in total lending while loans to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises have around 20 per cent share.

“In the medium term, half of our book will housing loans, one-fourth will be MSME lending and the rest of our book will have second-hand car finance, microfinance, personal loans and some other products,” Sridharan told TNIE.

The company, which began 12 years ago, has been focused on the Western states but will now shift the focus first to the South and then to the North and later to the East.

“We are betting big on Bharat and are happy to open branches, employ local people, and churn these local markets with customizable offerings. As an enterprise, we aim to double the AuM from FY2022 levels, with strong growth in retail disbursements and make the loan book more retail-oriented with a loan mix of two-thirds retail and one-third wholesale by FY2027,” he said.

In 2021, Piramal Enterprises acquired the bankrupt Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL) for total consideration of Rs 34,250 crore.

Piramal Finance serves over 2.2 million customers, 0.45 million of them acquired in the second quarter of the fiscal when its loan sales jumped over 40 per cent. It offers multiple products, including home loans, loans against property, used car loans, and small business loans to Indian budget-conscious customers at the periphery of metros and in Tier I, II and III cities. In wholesale lending, it caters to both real estate as well as non-real estate sectors and offers multiple products including construction finance, structured debt and senior secured debt.