Bank of Baroda tanks 11% post Q3 results; top Nifty loser

NEW DELHI: Bank of Baroda plunged 11.05 per cent in trade on Friday, after India's second-biggest lender by assets, booked a 69 per cent fall in quarterly profit due to higher provisions for bad loans and a surge in tax expenses.

Bank of Baroda finally closed 11.05 per cent lower at Rs 193.15 and was also the top percentage loser among 50 index constituents on the Nifty index. The stock plunged as much as 14.5 per cent to hit its intraday low of Rs 185.60.

The lender, majority-owned by the government, also said bad loans were difficult to contain and that growth in bad loans was unlikely to slow significantly in the next two quarters, Executive Director Ranjan Dhawan told a news conference.

India's more than two dozen state-run banks have long been constrained by a pile of bad loans, mainly due to a slowdown in economic growth in the past two fiscal years, pulling profitability well below their private-sector rivals, Reuters reported.

Bank of Baroda and other government-owned lenders such as State Bank of India and Punjab National Bank account for more than 70 percent of loans, so a surge in their bad loans is a worry for the government and the regulator, added the report.