Gold loan financier Muthoot Finance Ltd is looking at 10 per cent growth in its assets under management (AUM) this fiscal, its Managing Director, Mr George Alexander Muthoot, has said.

This is much lower than the 55 per cent increase in AUM seen in 2011-12 and over 100 per cent growth in 2010-11. As of end March 2012, the company had AUM of about Rs 24,417 crore. “This year will be a year of consolidation for us,” Mr Muthoot said, adding that bottomline growth is also likely to be flat during 2012-13.

Muthoot Finance's profit after tax recorded 80 per cent increase in 2011-12 to Rs 892 crore as against Rs 494 crore in previous fiscal. Income from operations nearly doubled to Rs 4,536 crore in 2011-12. Mr Muthoot said that the company has already made representation to the RBI on the latter's move to clamp down on gold loan companies in February by bringing down the loan-to-value ratio to 60 percent.

The RBI had also asked banks to reduce exposure to gold loan companies from 10 percent to 7.5 percent of their net owned funds.

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