Credit and Finance for MSMEs: Small business lending platform U GRO Capital on Wednesday reported a 292 per cent jump in its profit after tax (PAT) at Rs 6.08 crore in the quarter ended March 2022 with a 114 per cent increase in disbursements to Rs 963 crore and 134 per cent growth in total income to Rs 114.22 crore from the year-ago period. The company had reported a PAT of Rs 1.5 crore and a total income of Rs 48.6 crore in Q4 FY21.
“The company has built formidable distribution strength by scaling up its asset channels in FY22 to support future growth plans. We have been pioneers of the co-lending model in the industry and have set course for transitioning our business model to lending as a service,” said Shachindra Nath, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of U GRO Capital in a statement.
U GRO’s assets under management (AUM) as of March 31, 2022, stood at Rs 2,969 crore compared to Rs 1,317 crore as of March 31, 2021, a 125 per cent increase on a YoY basis. Its lender base added 26 new lenders during the financial year 2021-22 with a total count of 55. The branch network also expanded to 91 as of March 2022 with 57 new branches added. U GRO’s gross disbursements for FY22 stood at Rs 3,138 crore, a 173 per cent growth from Rs 1,147 crore in FY21.
“January (disbursement) during the fourth quarter was low due to the third wave of the pandemic. There was also the second wave impact. Despite that, we are exiting FY22 at over Rs 3,000 crore and we would be continuing to grow month-on-month. So, if we are disbursing nearly Rs 400 crore a month, we would be at almost Rs 5,000 crore disbursements in FY23 which is around 1.5X growth,” Nath had told TheSpuzz Online in an interaction in April.
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In terms of asset quality, U GRO’s portfolio gross non-performing asset (GNPA) and net NPA stood at 2.3 per cent and 1.7 per cent respectively as of March 31, 2022. The GNPA had decreased from 2.7 per cent as of March 2021. Moreover, the company’s total debt stood at Rs 1,802 crore as of March 31, 2022 and “the overall debt to equity ratio still remains low at 1.86x, indicating a long runway for growth,” the company noted. Its total customer count as of March 2022 was around 20,000.
U GRO also announced the appointment of its existing Independent Director and former Chief Information Commissioner of India Satyananda Mishra as the Non-Executive Chairman of the company. Mishra was also the Chairman and Non-Executive Independent Director of the Multi Commodity Exchange of India Limited from 2013 to 2016 and served as the Director of Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) until 2018.