Brief Financials
It has posted a Profit After Tax of Rs. 16.71 crore for the fiscal 2005, which are up from Rs.13.32 the year before an increase of 25.45%. This has been achieved on the back of consistent growth in profits in the last few years after the company slipped into red. However it must be noted here that a large part of this profit has accrued due to cost cutting as the revenue has just increased from 82.40 crores to 83.29 crores.

Reasons for the fall
This was in the year 1997-98 when the company suffered due to the real estate crash that occurred in 1996-97. The company made losses because in the realty boom of the 1990s it had given out loans to real estate developers which went as much as fifty percent of total disbursement. When the market crashed it was mainly this debt that went bad and caused damage.

Turnaround
It is under the leadership of its current MD Sudhin Choksey that the company has made a comeback. They have used a simple formula of cost cutting and working in the core business. The area where the company got burnt previously had been dropped and now the company is only giving out loans to individuals for housing finance and is not catering to real estate developers.

As part of the cost cutting drive the high interest loans have been repaid and high cost loans renegotiated. As a result the interest expense has come down by 9.19% in the last fiscal from 55.25 crore to 50.17 crores.

There has been no new recruitment and the current pool of employees is being better used. For instance where earlier one branch was manned by 10 people now the same is being done by not more than three.

Looking Ahead
Although the company has been profitable and the profits have also grown healthily in the last year this has not been on a strong revenue growth. The profits have mainly been driven because of cost cutting and this has limits of its own. Also the classification for NPA has been changed from 31 March 2005, which has been decreased from 180 days to 90 days and as a result of which the NPAs for the company has become 1.95% of its total loans outstanding.

For steady growth the company's penetration strategies must work. There are plans to enter Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and consolidate position in Maharashtra and Karnataka.

With the growing Indian economy and the steady leadership at the top the company has a good chance of making this growth strategy work.