Pain not yet over: SBI refers 3 cos to CDR for Rs 3430cr

 
Saikat Das :Moneycontrol :Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 12:04  

India's largest lender the State Bank of India (SBI) referred three loan accounts including Bharati Shipyard (BS), ARSS Infrastructure and Vijai Electricals (VE) to the Corporate Debt Restructuring (CDR) cell. The sum total of credit exposure in these companies would be around Rs 3,430 crore by the bank, sources familiar with the development toldMoneycontrol.com.

The SBI share of loans to BS comes around Rs 1,655 crore out of total exposure at Rs 5,650 crore by a consortium of 15 lenders. The bank lent Rs 773 crore to ARSS out of total loans around Rs 1,600 crore by eight lenders. For VE, it stood at around Rs 1,000 crore as against total Rs 2,200 crore by seven banks.

Credit exposure at a glance:

Company	SBI exposure (Rs in crore)	Total exposure (Rs in crore)
Bharati Shipyard	1,655	5650
ARSS Infrastructure	773	1,600
Vijai Electricals	1,000	2,200

Figures are written on approximate basis.

At the time of CDR proposal submission in the third quarter (Q3), all three companies remained standard assets. Companies have been repaying the interest rate. In anticipation of defaults (before the principal payment becomes due), they were referred to CDR cell. As per RBI norms, a bank has to make provision of 2% on any restructuring of standard asset.

Under the regulatory frame work of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the CDR forum caters to an official platform for both the creditors and borrowers to amicably and collectively evolve policies for working out debt restructuring plans.

The CDR cell will make the initial scrutiny of the proposals received from creditors. It happens in two stages: flush stage and final report stage, all related to the economic viability study of the proposal. A loan account can be referred to the CDR cell when at least 75% of the banks (by value) and 60% of creditors (by number) agree to resolve the case under CDR system.

The asset quality concerns cast a shadow on the SBI's Q3 performance. The gross non-performing asset (NPA) ratio stood at 4.61% as against 4.19% in the previous quarter (Q2). The net NPA ratio too rose from 2.04% to 2.22 sequentially.

According to the SBI chairman Pratip Chaudhuri, as much as one fifth of fresh slippages had come from a single company (read Kingfisher Airline).

"So, if you look at the total slippages (net increase) of Rs 6,152 crore, one company alone accounted for around Rs 1,500 crore," the SBI boss said while announcing Q3 results.

However, Chaudhuri did not expect its Air India (AI) exposure turning into an NPA account. The lender has extended a fully secured Rs 1,100 crore loan as cash credit facility to AI.