Dewan Housing Finance Limited today reported Rs 2,223 crore net loss for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2019 against profit in the period a year ago as the financials were strained by increased provisioning and slowdown in disbursements.

The company is undergoing financial stress since second half of last financial year and has suffered consistent downgrades.

During the same quarter in the previous year, DHFL had reported profit of Rs 134 crore.

It has made additional provisioning of Rs 3,280 crore in Q4, 2018-19.

For the full year 2018-19, net loss stood at Rs 1,036 crore against profit of Rs 1,240 crore in 2017-18. The management is looking to monetize its assets and is in discussions with banks and international financial institutions to sell off its retail as well as wholesale portfolio.

It is in discussions with the consortium of bankers and lenders to restructure its borrowings.

For the full year, assets under management grew 8% to Rs 1,19,992 crore. “Since the last 9 months, with single minded focus, we have met all our financial obligations and are looking to return to business normalcy at the earliest,” said Kapil Wadhawan chairman and managing director DHFL.

“DHFL aims to continue to protect all stakeholders, creditors - investors - big or small.

“ DHFL has made repayments of over Rs 41,800 crore primarily through securitization of assets and repayment collections since September 2018. On 5th June 2019, the credit rating was reduced to 'default grade' despite there being no default till that date.

The company's ability to raise funds has been substantially impaired and the business has been brought to a standstill with there being virtually no disbursements. The company is in an advanced stage of submitting its resolution process under the inter-creditor agreement.

The inter-creditor agreement will examine and firm up the terms of the resolution process by July 25, 2019 and make it operational before September 25, 2019. It is in the process of identifying a strategic investor is also nearing completion which will bring in an equity investor into DHFL to bolster its capital base.

The board will meet in the next two weeks to look through the potential proposals and will decide accordingly on the way forward. “The joint lender forum has also taken into account the need for recommencement of business by DHFL and commence originating new home loans,” company said.

“Banks would enable the infusion of necessary liquidity into the system.” The company today appointed Asish Saraf - senior vice president, as the Chief Risk Officer of the Company.

DHFL expects that it will be able to restart its business in August 2019 and scale it up in the months ahead.