PNB earnings were in-line but remained modest despite support from better treasury gains & NII. Overall earnings picture post merger remains weak as large part of operating profits will be still utilized for higher provisions (i) for legacy accounts where PCR is at 65% and (ii) COVID impact provisions as moratorium remains high. CET-I at 9.4% may be on border levels, but any movement on non-core assets & better recoveries may help to sustain for...

Strong recoveries/upgrades help asset quality but slippages still remain high PNB continued to reel under losses but loss was lower than expected at Rs9.4bn (PLe: Rs19.2bn loss) with strong NII growth of 22% YoY (partly from interest recognition from NPL recovery) and much lower opex which helped report lower losses. Asset quality was better on strong recovery/upgrades (2 major a/c from NCLT) but headline slippages still remained high for the bank. Management mentioned slippages largely have been granular in segments...