Deccan Chronicle loans not yet in NPA basket: Corp Bank

Public sector lender Corporation Bank, one of many lenders to media company Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd (DCHL), said on Friday that its exposure is not a non-performing asset in its books as of now.

Bank Executive Director Ashwani Kumar said, “The loan to Deccan Chronicle is a standard asset on our books.” Though he declined to quantify the bank’s exposure, a senior executive at the bank put it at about Rs 100 crore. The director said the total exposure of all lenders to DCHL is currently about Rs 4,000 crore.

The comment comes in the wake of private sector lender Axis Bank classifying its exposure to DCHL as a non-performing asset on October 17, a debt estimated by analysts at about Rs 400 crore.

Another lender, ICICI Bank, on Friday said that a Rs 500-crore loan to a “media company” has been classified as a non performing asset. Bank MD and Chief Executive Officer Chanda Kochhar, without naming the company directly, revealed this on Friday after declaring the bank’s second quarter results for the period ending September 30. It is believed that the media company is DCHL.

Canara Bank, which is yet to declare its second quarter results, has an exposure of about Rs 300 crore to DCHL.