Muthoot Finance, a gold loan company with over 4,000 branches, saw its net profit decline 6.7 per cent to ₹181 crore in the fourth quarter of 2013-14, from ₹194 crore in the year-ago period.
The company’s net profit from the full year (2013-14) fell 22 per cent to ₹780 crore, down from ₹1,004 crore in the previous year. Chairman MG George Muthoot told a news conference that the year gone by was a turbulent one for gold finance companies because of an “adverse regulatory environment” and “baseless speculations.”
The RBI lowering the amount of money that could be advanced against the value of gold and the fall in the price of gold negatively impacted the business of gold financing. In spite of all these, he said, Muthoot could produce good results. Managing Director George Alexander Muthoot said that the regulatory uncertainty had come to an end and that the company was now rebuilding its business.