PTC Financial Services Ltd has restructured its business portfolio to lay focus on new energy and sustainable segments. It is evaluating some of the opportunities that will unfold once the Covid-19 pandemic situation settles down.

Pawan Singh, Managing Director and CEO, PFS, said, “When I took over the reins in October 2018, it was a very challenging environment for the NBFC sector. In September 2018, the IL&FS crisis precipitated the NBFC crisis across the country. But we managed to come through this phase successfully.”

“We were one of the few NBFCs who got extra lending from various banks. Bank of India gave us an additional ₹500 crore, Canara Bank another ₹500 crore, United Bank ₹100 crore and Syndicate Bank ₹300 crore. A couple of sanctions that were about to take place got delayed due to Covid-19,” he said.

“In principle, we have approval from International Finance Corporation (IFC) along with Proparco of France, JICA (a Japanese development institute) and OID (Australian development institution) for up to $150 million for renewable and sustainable development projects,” he said.

“Our strategy of shifting from thermal to renewable, road HAM projects, sewage water treatment plants, water supply projects, has helped us. We have decided to be predominantly a sustainable finance company focussing on air, water, earth and sun, all new areas of business. The earlier exposure of thermal power sector has come down from 50 per cent to around 35 per cent in 2018-2019. And now it has come down to 10 per cent and by October-November it will be less than 5 per cent of the book. Now around 50 per cent is renewable and the rest include hydro, transmission lines, water supplies, waste management, sewage treatment plants and road HAM projects,” he told BusinessLine .

“Our focus is on sustainable financing and at least a couple of cases are in the pipeline for electric mobility, both infrastructure and manufacturing support system and ‘Make in India’ solar segment,” he said.

“Post Covid, the RBI has allowed three months of moratorium. Now the impact is marginal because by March 31 our total balance sheet size was almost ₹11,000 crore. Only a small portion of it has seen deferral. We have ₹1,500 crore of back-up plan available so does not have any impact on us,” he explained.

On NCLT cases, he said, “These are some chronic cases and already provision for 50 per cent has been made. There could be some recovery that gets staggered.”

Referring to Covid-19 and related issues, he said, “Everybody is affected. Warren Buffett has said predicting rain doesn’t count, building an ark does. So, what we are doing now is like building an ark that will help us consolidate our business. Problems arise with big NBFCs because they have huge market borrowings, bonds and commercial papers.”

“Due to shift from thermal to other areas where risk is low, we don’t have any stress. The credit cost is going to come down over a period of time substantially. On the liability side, we will be having few market borrowings, so we are very strong on that. Short to long term ratio is almost best in the industry,” he said.

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