UCO Bank stock hits fresh 52-week low after lender reports Rs 2,134 crore net loss in Q4

The UCO Bank stock fell in early trade after the government-owned lender reported a nearly four-fold rise in its net loss at Rs 2,134.36 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 2018. At 10:03 am, the stock was trading 3.93% lower at 18.35 on BSE. The stock opened at 19.10 and fell up to 5.5 % at 18.05, its fresh 52-week low, in early trade today. Market capitalization of the bank stood at Rs 3,416 crore.

The earnings of the bank were announced after market hours on Friday when the stock closed 1.60 per cent higher at Rs 19.10 on BSE.

The stock is down 55.72% during the last year and has underperformed the Sensex by 73.65% during the same period. The Sensex delivered 17.94% during last one year.

The stock has fallen 38.26% since the beginning of this year.

The stock has traded lower than 5 day, 20 day, 50 day, 100 day and 200 day moving average.

On May 12, 2017, the stock hit its 52-week high of 42.15.

The Kolkata-based lender reported a net loss of Rs 588.19 crore in the corresponding quarter of the year 2016-17. Compared sequentially, the net loss was up by 110 per cent from Rs 116.43 crore in December quarter of 2017-18.

Income during the March quarter also fell to Rs 3,424.65 crore from Rs 3,906.74 crore, the bank said.

The bank had to raise its provisioning for bad loans to Rs 3,133.52 crore for the quarter against Rs 1,577.60 crore reserved in the year-ago period.

On yearly basis, net loss of the bank rose to Rs 4,436.37 crore from a loss of Rs 1,850.67 crore in fiscal ended March 2017.

Income during the fiscal also fell to Rs 15,141.13 crore from Rs 18,440.29 crore a year ago. Full year NPA provisioning were hiked to Rs 7,343.38 crore against Rs 4,414.68 crore.

UCO Bank said the board of directors at the meeting held today decided that no dividend will be declared for 2017-18.

On asset front, gross bad loans or non-performing assets (NPAs) hit a high of 24.64 per cent (Rs 30,549.92 crore) of the gross loans as on March 31, 2018 against 17.12 per cent (Rs 22,540.95 crore) a year ago.

Net NPAs rose to 13.10 per cent (Rs 14,082.07 crore) from 8.94 per cent (Rs 10,703.39 crore).