Informist MUMBAI

Housing and Urban Development Corp. Ltd on Wednesday reported a 41.6% jump in its Oct-Dec net profit on the back of strong growth in disbursements, comfortably beating analysts' expectations. For the quarter, the housing financier saw its bottomline rise to Rs 7.35 billion on the back of a 149% increase in disbursals to Rs 100.61 billion.

HUDCO was seen reporting a net profit in the range of Rs 5.89 billion to Rs 6.32 billion for Oct-Dec. Despite the jump in net profit and the company announcing an interim dividend of Rs 2.05 per share, the stock ended 1% lower at Rs 227.46 on the National Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

For the nine months ended December, the company's net profit rose nearly 40% from a year ago to Rs 19.81 billion and total income rose 30.2% to Rs 74.93 billion. During the period, loan disbursements by the state-backed company grew over four times to Rs 317.60 billion from Rs 77.68 billion in the corresponding period a year ago.

 The sharp growth in net profit can be attributed to the heavy disbursements. Loans outstanding were at Rs 1.19 trillion as on Dec. 31.