Mumbai, Oct 26 (PTI) ICICI Bank posted 42 per cent dip in September quarter net at Rs 1,204.62 crore on consolidated level as there was no one-off gain from share sales like the year-ago, but the dud assets rose.

In the first results under a new leadership, the second largest private sector lender posted a 55.84 per cent decline in net profit to Rs 908.88 crore on a standalone basis as compared to last year, which was much better than the quarter ago's Rs 120 crore loss.

In the year-ago period, its profits were helped by a Rs 2,100-crore gain from the sale of 7 per cent stake in its life insurance arm.

The bank's core net interest income rose 12.4 per cent to Rs 6,418 crore on an eight-quarter high credit growth of 15.7 per cent and a 0.10 per cent expansion in the net interest margin at 3.33 per cent on a blended basis.

The non-interest income rose by a tepid 6.6 per cent to Rs 3,191 crore largely on softness in dividend income from subsidiaries.

The bank, one of the most affected among the private sector ones in asset quality, saw a rise in the gross non- performing assets ratio to 8.54 per cent of assets against 7.87 per cent last year, but was lower than the quarter ago's 8.81 per cent.

It chose not to hold the customary conference call with reporters to explain the results, but claimed in a statement that slippages have come to 12-quarter low of Rs 3,117 crore.

In a late evening statement, analysts at the brokerage Reliance Securities --- the bank management spoke with analysts --- said 41 per cent of the slippages came due to impact of rupee depreciation on existing overseas NPAs and 33 per cent came from the specially earmarked 'BB and below' rated book.

The overall provisions reduced to Rs 3,994.29 crore from the Rs 4,502.93 crore in the year-ago period, while the provision coverage ratio improved by over 4.80 percentage points to 58.9 per cent.

The bank said it has a provision of Rs 9,300.82 crore against an exposure of Rs 13,249.46 crore to the list of 40 NPA accounts mandated to be resolved by RBI under the bankruptcy framework.

The loan growth was led by a 20 per cent rise in retail loans, it said in the statement, adding that the advances to the resilient segment constitute 57 per cent of the book.

The deposit growth came in at 12 per cent, while the share of the low cost current and savings account stood at 50.8 per cent as of September 30.

Its capital adequacy stood at 17.84 per cent with the core tier-I at 15.38 per cent.

Among the subsidiaries, life insurance arm's post tax net for the quarter slipped to Rs 301 crore, general insurance arm reported a 44 per cent growth to Rs 293 crore, brokerage arm had a marginal increase at Rs 134 crore, while the asset management company's bottomline increased 26 per cent to Rs 156 crore.

The bank had a change of leadership recently, when Sandeep Bakhshi replaced misconduct allegations-tainted Chanda Kochhar as the managing director. Kochhar is facing allegations of possible quid-pro-quo in lending decisions and a lack of disclosure, besides those mentioned in a whistleblower complaint that remain unspecified.

The bank had earlier this week disclosed that a prominent law firm had withdrawn its report exonerating Kochhar of any wrongdoing.

The ICICI Bank scrip shed 1.45 per cent to close at Rs 315.05 a piece on the BSE as against a 1.01 per cent correction in the benchmark.

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