Does Ireda deserve a green light for investing?
Live MintThe Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd stock fell by almost 7% after it announced the December quarter results. Though the net profit grew by 27% year-on-year to ₹425 crore, the drop in provision coverage ratio, both sequential and year-on-year, spooked investors. As Ireda’s provision coverage ratio has declined, there is a possibility that it might have to make higher provisions in future unless the management is confident of recovering bad loans. Even though lending to ethanol and manufacturing segments showed robust growth on a low base, a closer look at the loan book shows that the highest absolute rise came in loan facilities to state utilities that rose to ₹12,512 crore from ₹7,464 crore in Q3FY24. Also, even if Ireda’s growth rate in loan book might be higher, other companies like Power Finance Corp. that do all kinds of financing of power projects are trading at much lower valuation of about 1.1x of core book value based on September 2026 estimate of Motilal Oswal Financial Services, without factoring in value of the stake in REC.