IIFCL Managing Director P R Jaishankar has said the institution has transformed itself from being a last mile lender to a preferred financier and aims to sanction loans worth Rs 30,000 crore this fiscal. This would be the highest ever loan sanction in any year while disbursement would also be a record high of Rs 15,000 crore to various infrastructure projects by March 2023, he told PTI in an interview.
As interest rates are competitive, he said IIFCL is considered to be a preferred financier for infrastructure projects developers across roads, airports, ports and renewal energy sector.
“From operational loss with high NPAs a few year ago, the company earned a profit of Rs 514 crore in FY’22. Improved both return on equity and return on assets. With the improvement in financials, the net worth has increased from Rs 10,306 crore in FY’20 to Rs 12,273 crore at present,” he said.
With respect to improvement in asset quality, he said that non-performing assets have come down from about 10 per cent in FY’20 to 3.65 per cent on a net basis.
The percentage of ‘A’ and above rated assets increased from 35-40 per cent (March 2020) to about 65 per cent (March 2022), he added.
According to him, improvement in various financial parameters provided an opportunity to lower benchmark lending rate and bring down the cost of borrowing without compromising on spread.
IIFCL is focusing on financing greenfield projects of national significance, he said.
Such projects include Yamuna International Airport Private Limited (Jewar airport), Navi Mumbai International Airport, Mopa Airport in Goa, SJVN Green Energy Ltd and PNC Meerut Haridwar Highways Pvt Ltd.
So far, the state-owned infra financing firm has sanctioned around 650 projects with a total outlay of Rs 11.5 lakh crore and out of them, 500 are PPP Projects.
Jaishankar said it has started providing financial assistance to Infrastructure Investment Trusts in FY22 and has so far sanctioned Rs 4,400 crore for such entities.
IIFCL invested Rs 975 crore in project bonds, including around Rs 324 crore of bonds in renewable energy InvIT, during 2021-22.
Last year, subsequent to clarification by the Reserve Bank of India, IIFCL initiated subscribing to infrastructure project bonds and lending to InvITs.
