PNB Housing Finance: Successful fundraise key to sentiment revival

Asset quality issues and pale growth justify the weak valuation

Several stocks in the housing finance space haven’t had it easy in recent years, whether with respect to managing liquidity or growing their balance sheet, or handling asset quality pangs. PNB Housing Finance is one such example and its 53 per cent stock price fall in the past two years amply reflects these concerns. There are also questions around who will pump in money as the lender prepares for Rs 1,000 crore equity raising plan, an exercise that has been in the works for over a year.

Recent news reports suggest that its promoter, Punjab National Bank (holding 32.65 per cent