Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd

Price story Before the numbers, the tape. A stock price moves through four repeating seasons: a flat base (stage 1), an advance (2), a top (3), a decline (4). Where the price sits in that cycle frames everything below.

Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd trades at ₹31.1, in a confirmed uptrend and 18 weeks into that stage. That is +3.7% against its own 200-day average. It sits at 74% of a 52-week range of ₹21 to ₹35. On relative strength it is currently behind the NIFTY 500 on a trailing-13-week view (10 weeks and counting).

Today the stock is in a confirmed uptrend — week 18 of stage 2, confirmed. At ₹31.1 it trades +3.7% versus its 200-day average and sits at 74% of its 52-week range (₹21–₹35).

Against the market, two honest reads. Cumulative: over the last 10.5 years the stock moved +105% while the NIFTY 500 moved +267% — behind the index over the full window. Recent form: on a trailing-13-week view the stock is currently behind (10 weeks and counting; last ahead the week of 2026-07-03) — the ribbon below is that same metric, week by week.

What would end the trend, mechanically: two Friday closes in a row below the 200-day line. That is the exit rule — no debates.

Story check

Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd's story is not scored yet against the markers our research file set on 17 May 2026. Where it sits in its own cycle: EARLY_RECOVERY. Still open: 43%+ of advances in gold loans — a 15%+ gold price correction or RBI LTV tightening could trigger slippages and reverse 2 years of NPA improvement.

Our read, 17 May 2026. A Kerala micro-bank navigating the last mile of a legacy NPA clean-up — FY26 marks first ₹100 Cr PAT milestone, but ROE is still sub-peer and concentration in gold loans creates a second risk if prices correct.

From the numbers. P/BV at 0.70x vs 10-year median of 0.70x — at the median, not below it. Historical peak was 1.5x (Jun 2017), trough 0.5x (Jun 2020). Bank has completed 2 full cycles. Current cycle is CONTRACTION from 1.4x peak in…

From the price. Price stage 2, week 18 — above its 200-day line, relative strength falling.

From the research. A Kerala micro-bank navigating the last mile of a legacy NPA clean-up — FY26 marks first ₹100 Cr PAT milestone, but ROE is still sub-peer and concentration in gold loans creates a second risk if prices correct.

🚨 Where they disagree. P/BV at 0.70x vs 10-year median of 0.70x — at the median, not below it. Historical peak was 1.5x (Jun 2017), trough 0.5x (Jun 2020). Bank has completed 2 full cycles. Current cycle is CONTRACTION from 1.4x peak in Mar-24. Earnings improving (first ₹100 Cr PAT year) but ROE still sub-10%, which is why the market won't re-rate above book. FIIs building from 5% to 15.27% signals smart money sees value, but structural ROE improvement is the re-rating catalyst — not yet achieved.

What is proven. A Kerala micro-bank navigating the last mile of a legacy NPA clean-up — FY26 marks first ₹100 Cr PAT milestone, but ROE is still sub-peer and concentration in gold loans creates a second risk if prices correct.

What is not proven yet. 43%+ of advances in gold loans — a 15%+ gold price correction or RBI LTV tightening could trigger slippages and reverse 2 years of NPA improvement.

Layer 1 read, 19 July 2026 — KEEP. Real Kerala micro-bank NPA cleanup at below book, but synthetic/unverified data and 7% ROE cap it at P2. The 12-quarter engine is genuinely turning — GNPA 5.21%->1.89%, net profit from -8 Cr to +43 Cr, EPS -0.20->1.10, first ~100 Cr PAT year — at 0.93x book (CHEAP) with price not run (earliness 1.0). But this timeline is a web-fallback with 33 of 37 claims only inferred (⚠, not hard facts), ROE is still just 7% (sub-peer), and cyclicality reads AT_PEAK, so the durability of the recovery is unproven from verified evidence. Gold-loan concentration adds a second risk if bullion corrects.

What would change Layer 1’s mind. A Tijori-verified concall confirming the FY26 ~100 Cr PAT and GNPA 1.89% with ROE moving toward peer (10%+), OR conversely GNPA re-accelerating above 2.5% or a gold-price correction hitting the loan book — either would move this off P2 (up on verification, to DROP on GNPA reversal).

Layer 2 read, 19 July 2026 — BENCH. Real turnaround, but the re-rating is largely spent and the evidence is thin — hold, don't advance.

What would change Layer 2’s mind. A NON-synthetic, VALIDATED timeline (verified claims rising well above 4/37) confirming the GNPA/PAT inflection is durable AND FIIs reversing to net buyers at the name level (not just the sector) — with ROE trending toward peer levels — would flip BENCH->ADVANCE; conversely a fresh slippage re-souring the book would flip to DROP.

The test written in advance. Gold Loan Concentration / Price Correction — Gold Loan Concentration / Price Correction Monthly gold price + RBI guidance on bank gold LTV norms by the next result.

The test written in advance. Corporate/Wholesale Banking Segment Loss — Corporate/Wholesale Banking Segment Loss Corporate segment profit/loss in quarterly results by the next result.

The test written in advance. No Promoter / Governance Structure — No Promoter / Governance Structure Any regulatory action, board composition changes, FII stake direction by the next result.

The dot is where the company is now; the dashed line is the level that would settle the question; a tinted band is where management says it is heading.

Lever 3 · Management change — BUILDING. GNPA fell 330 bps in 3 years to 1.89% in Mar-26; net NPA at 0.51% and provision coverage 92.46% — the clean-up is nearly done, unlocking earnings power from lower credit costs. What proves it keeps working: NPA Clean-Up Nearing Completion. It stops working if Monthly gold price + RBI guidance on bank gold LTV norms.

Lever 6 · Order-book wins — BUILDING. MSME advances grew 30.9% to ₹2,135 Cr in FY26, reaching ~14% of the loan book — a deliberate diversification move to reduce gold concentration. What proves it keeps working: MSME Book Diversification. It stops working if Monthly gold price + RBI guidance on bank gold LTV norms.

Lever 11 · Selling more to existing customers — BUILDING. Advances grew 23.95% to ₹15,129 Cr and NII grew 39% YoY in Q4 FY26 — pure volume-driven NII accretion as the expanded capital base is deployed. What proves it keeps working: NII Volume Growth from Balance Sheet Expansion. It stops working if Monthly gold price + RBI guidance on bank gold LTV norms.

Sources: our stock research file (17 May 2026) · quarterly results through Jun 26. The story check is re-scored every results season; the record below never changes.

Revenue For a bank, revenue is everything the franchise earns — interest on the loan book plus fee and other income.

Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd reported ₹449 Cr of income in the Jun 26 quarter, +22.0% year on year. That is the 11th straight quarter of year-on-year growth. Over 10 years it has compounded at 2.9% a year. The last full year, FY26, came in at ₹1,601 Cr. The last four reported quarters add to ₹1,683 Cr.

Why this happened. Management is deliberately growing MSME as a counterweight to gold concentration. MSME loans are higher margin than corporate loans and diversify the geographic and sector exposure. Kerala's SME base is a natural target given the bank's South India focus. The segment reaching 14% of the book is early but directionally right. Watch for NPA emergence in this segment in FY27 as the vintage matures.

FY26 revenue came in at ₹1,601 Cr (+21.3% on the year), capping 10 years at 2.9% compound. The latest quarter (Jun 26) printed ₹449 Cr, +22.0% year on year — the 11th consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth.

Pace check: the last four quarters averaged +21.6% growth against the decade's 2.9% — the current year is running faster than its own long-run rate.

Acceleration check: trailing-twelve-month revenue grew +21.7% over the last 4 quarters against +17.3%/yr over the last 8 — accelerating; TTM profit +32.2% vs +134.0%/yr — rolling over.

Net margin Net margin — what the bank keeps of every ₹100 of revenue after every cost, provision and tax. It is the cleanest single margin we can read for a lender.

Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd's net margin is 5.6% in the Jun 26 quarter, +2.3 percentage points against the same quarter a year ago. Across 13 fiscal years the net margin has ranged −19.5% to 6.7%. The current quarter sits inside that band.

The latest quarter's net margin is 5.6%, +2.3 pp against the same quarter a year ago. Across 13 fiscal years the net margin has ranged −19.5%–6.7%.

Why: the numbers show the net margin move clearly, but the cost lines behind it sit below what we hold — so we state the move without inventing its driver.

Net profit Net profit is what survives every cost, interest and tax — the number EPS, dividends and book value all grow from.

Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd earned ₹25.0 Cr of net profit in the Jun 26 quarter, +108.3% year on year. It is the 3rd consecutive quarter of growth. Full-year FY26 profit was ₹103 Cr. That is 5.6% of the quarter's revenue. The same quarter a year earlier earned ₹12.0 Cr. 1 of the last 12 reported quarters were loss-making.

Jun 26 profit was ₹25.0 Cr, +108.3% year on year — the 3rd consecutive quarter of growth. On the full year, FY26 printed ₹103 Cr (+53.7%).

Why profit moved: revenue contributed +22.0% and the margin +2.3 pp — the quarter was margin-led: most of the profit growth came from keeping more of each sale.

Pace comparison, last four quarters: profit +41.3% vs revenue +21.6%. Profit is growing faster than sales — fixed costs are being spread over a bigger base, and each extra rupee of revenue drops more to the bottom line.

Asset quality — the ladder Gross NPA is the slice of the loan book where repayments have stopped. Net NPA is what remains after the money already set aside against those loans. Falling is healing; rising is damage arriving.

Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd's gross NPA is 1.82% of the loan book in Jun 26, down from 3.22% a year ago. Net of provisions already set aside, 0.47% remains. That is the 4th straight quarter of improvement. Across the 12 quarters held here the book has ranged 1.82% to 5.36%.

Jun 26: gross NPA at 1.82% and net NPA at 0.47%, against 3.22% / 1.13% a year ago. Over the 12 quarters we hold, the book's worst reading was 5.36% and its best is 1.82% — which is the current print. The ladder has now improved for 4 consecutive quarters.

The synthesis: profit growth at a bank is only as good as the book behind it, and this book is healing on a multi-quarter streak. A note on depth: quarterly provisioning detail is not in our numbers yet, so this ladder reads levels and trend, not the cost of the cleanup.

Why the ladder moved: recoveries, write-offs and slippages each play a part, and that split sits below what we hold — the numbers show the healing; the driver mix does not travel with them.

The loan book We read the loan book through revenue — when the book grows, revenue grows with it. It is a rough proxy, and we say so: rate moves and fee swings can shift it a few points in any one year.

Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd's revenue grew +21.3% in FY26 to ₹1,601 Cr, so the book is growing. The latest quarter ran +22.0% year on year. The net margin on that income is 5.6%, +2.3 percentage points against a year ago. Interest income is a proxy for the book; rate moves can shift it a few points in any one year.

FY26 revenue was ₹1,601 Cr, +21.3% on the year, and the latest quarter ran +22.0% year on year. The net margin on that revenue is 5.6% this quarter (+2.3 pp YoY) — growth with a widening margin on it.

The synthesis: a lender compounds when the book grows while the margin holds and the loan book stays clean — gross NPA is the loan-quality read we carry here.

Returns on equity and assets Two numbers rate a bank: ROE — what it earns on shareholder money — and ROA — what it earns on everything it deploys. ROE above ~13–15% earns its keep; below that, growth builds book slowly.⚠ unverified

Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd earns a return on equity of 7% in FY26. Its trough over the ladder below was −34% in FY14. On the asset side every ₹100 of the balance sheet earned about ₹0.52, which is the return before leverage is applied.

FY26 ROE came in at 7%, recovered from a FY14 trough of −34%. On assets, the latest reading is about 0.52% — every ₹100 the bank deploys earns roughly ₹0.52 a year. That return is below the bar a bank must clear to compound book value quickly — which is also the honest reason the stock trades where it does.

Why: the ROE ladder shows the move; the deposit-cost and provisioning drivers behind it sit below what we hold.

Debt

For a bank, borrowings are raw material, not a warning sign — solvency is read through the returns and the loan book. A manufacturer’s debt is a claim against its profits, so the debt-to-equity lens that works everywhere else misleads on a lender and is not applied here.

A manufacturer’s debt is a claim against its profits; a bank’s borrowings are its inventory — money taken in to be lent out. The debt lens that works everywhere else misleads here, so this page does not apply it. The solvency questions for a bank — is the loan book sound, is the equity earning — are read through the loan-book and returns sections above.

Ownership Who owns the stock, quarter by quarter: promoters (the controlling owners), foreign and domestic institutions, and the public. Steady accumulation by people close to the numbers is a signal; a quiet register is also an answer.

Foreign institutions added 8.3 points of Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd over 8 quarters, the biggest move on the register. That takes foreign institutions to 14.2% of the company. Domestic institutions moved +0.0 points over the same window, to 0.1%. The register is read on the four disclosed classes only; nothing is inferred between filings.

Why this happened. Dhanlaxmi Bank's legacy NPA problem stemmed from corporate and infrastructure loans made in the 2010s under poor governance. From 5.19% in FY23 through systematic recoveries, write-offs, and collection measures, GNPA is now below 2%. As the NPA overhang recedes, credit costs decline, which flows directly to PAT. This is the dominant earnings driver in FY25 and FY26. The risk: if gold prices fall and secured gold loans deteriorate, a secondary NPA cycle could emerge.

The register over the last two years — Foreign institutions: +8.3 points over 8 quarters to 14.2%; Domestic institutions: +0.0 points over 8 quarters to 0.1%.

Why the register moved: foreign institutions drove it (+8.3 points) — steady accumulation by institutions reading the same numbers this page reads.

Safety line The Z-score estimates how far a company sits from balance-sheet distress — above roughly 3 is safe, below roughly 1.8 is the danger zone. It was built for manufacturers, so it is not applied to banks and lenders.

Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd: the Z-score is omitted — it was built for manufacturers, not banks, and applying it here would be theatre. The Z-score was built for manufacturers and is not applied to banks and lenders, so solvency here is read from the capital and asset-quality lines instead.

Why this happened. With limited ability to compete on unsecured retail loans or corporate credit, Dhanlaxmi pivoted to gold loans as its growth engine. Gold loans are short-tenure, asset-backed, lower provisioning required, and carry higher yields than corporate or MSME loans. The 28.1% growth in Q1 FY26 (₹3,153 Cr → ₹4,039 Cr) accelerated to 71.41% by year-end (₹6,512 Cr) — a phenomenal ramp. The concentration risk is material: if gold prices correct >15% or if RBI tightens LTV norms (as it has historically done), slippages in this book could reverse the NPA improvement.

The safety line in one sentence: the Z-score is omitted — it was built for manufacturers, not banks, and applying it here would be theatre.

Valuation For a bank we price the book, not the earnings: P/BV is what the market pays for each ₹1 of the bank's net worth. A bank below 1× book is priced below the value of what it owns, net of what it owes.

Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd trades at 0.8× P/BV, mid-range by its own standards (63rd percentile). Its long-run median P/BV is 0.7×, measured across 10.5 years of weekly readings. This places the multiple against the stock’s own record, and says nothing about what the business is worth.

Today's P/BV of 0.8× is mid-range by its own standards (63rd percentile), against a long-run median of 0.7× measured over 10.5 years of weekly readings. This is a comparison against the stock's own history — not a claim about what it is worth.

The honest context for that discount: a bank earning about 7% on its equity is worth less per rupee of book, and the market has priced that in rather than overlooked it. The discount closes only if the returns themselves improve.

Why the multiple sits where it does: over the past year book value grew while the price moved +20.4% — price and book moved together, holding the multiple in its range.

The price move, decomposed: over 5y, of the +19.3%/yr price move, ~+12.6%/yr came from book-value growth and ~+6.7 pp from the multiple (expanding); over 10y, of the +4.3%/yr price move, ~+7.7%/yr came from book-value growth and ~−3.4 pp from the multiple (compressing). The split is the honest approximate (price return minus book-value growth); it makes the rally itself visible instead of hiding it behind the percentile.

Put together: the multiple is unremarkable against its own past, so the story rests on the book-value line underneath it, not the multiple.

A quarterly PEG curve, which only the second data source carries, is not drawn on this page: its two data sources do not share enough overlapping reported history to be compared. A figure nobody could check is not used to price growth — the gap is a decision, not missing data.

What the price assumes This reading works the multiple backwards. It asks one question: what yearly rate of profit growth is a buyer at the market price already paying for? The number is the growth rate that makes eleven years of profit — six years growing, then five fading — add up to that day's market price, once each year is discounted at 11% a year.

Solved at its 20 July 2026 price, Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd was paying for profit growth of about 7.0% a year. Today the market pays 0.8× P/BV, the 63rd percentile of its own 11-year range.

What the two numbers say together. The multiple is unremarkable against its own past, and the growth the price is paying for is the whole of what a buyer is backing.

How to hold this number: it is a reading of one day's price, taken on 20 July 2026, not a running figure — every other number on this page, the multiple included, is read off the live quote as of 11 September 2026. A higher price is paying for more growth and a lower price for less, so it moves whenever the price does, and this page does not restate it between measurements.

Stage: Mixed Every business sits somewhere on a fundamental arc, and this page names the spot before anything else. The last twelve quarters of revenue, profit and EPS growth — plus the return the business earns on its capital — are read as curves: Deteriorating (the curves are falling), Turning around (a trough has just formed and the last few quarters lift off it), Improving (the climb off the trough is sustained), Consistent (steadily positive with healthy returns), Topping out (still high but decelerating from the peak). When the curves genuinely disagree the read is Mixed; too little history is No read. CAGR (compound annual growth rate) is the smooth yearly pace that turns the starting value into the latest one — the fairest way to compare growth across different time spans. Read the columns together: if the 1-year number towers over the 10-year, recent growth is running hotter than the long-run trend. A dash means that window is not held, or the base year was a loss (where a growth rate is not meaningful).

Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd reads as mixed on its fundamental arc. Mixed — growth is normalizing off a hyper-growth base: profit growth has eased from +250.0% at its peak to +32.2% but is still expanding, ROE holding at 7.0%. The read is built from 8 quarters across 4 curves, on partial evidence.

Why it matters: when the curves disagree, the per-curve reads above matter more than any single verdict.

Return readings here are annual, not quarterly — read as level and direction only; they can confirm the growth curves but never drive the stage on their own.

A partial read: at least one curve is short, or the returns curve is not the computed quarterly series — hold the stage word a little more loosely.

4-Factor Sector Score

49.2/100 — rank 10 of 18 in Banks - Private · 97% evidence confidence

Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd scores 49.2 out of 100 against the 18 companies it is compared with in Banks - Private, ranking 10. Balanced evidence: keep at normal research priority and require another comparable period before raising conviction.

The four contributions add to the total exactly: 25.8 + 8 + 7.9 + 7.5 = 49.2. This is the SAME number shown on the sector comparison — it is computed once, for the whole peer set, and read here.

What would change it: The read weakens if ROA rolls over or gross NPA rises while sector-relative strength deteriorates.

Frequently asked questions