Manappuram Finance

reported a surprise fourth-quarter loss on May 9, hurt by a surge in bad loans in its microfinance vertical. Bad loans and provisions in Manappuram's microfinance unit rose over five-fold to Rs 849 crore, accounting for a large chunk of total company-wide provisions of Rs 919 crore The Kerala-based gold loan financier's consolidated net loss was Rs 191 crore for the January-March period, compared with a profit of Rs 562 crore a year earlier. Analysts were expecting a profit of 2.91 billion rupees, per data compiled by LSEG.