PNB Housing Finance 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.

PNB Housing Finance Ltd trades at ₹1,179, in a confirmed uptrend and 18 weeks into that stage. That is +16.2% against its own 200-day average. It sits at 100% of a 52-week range of ₹764 to ₹1,179. On relative strength it has been ahead of the NIFTY 500 on a trailing-13-week view for 10 straight weeks.

Today the stock is in a confirmed uptrend — week 18 of stage 2, confirmed. At ₹1,179 it trades +16.2% versus its 200-day average and sits at 100% of its 52-week range (₹764–₹1,179).

Against the market, two honest reads. Cumulative: over the last 9.8 years the stock moved +53% while the NIFTY 500 moved +230% — behind the index over the full window. Recent form: on a trailing-13-week view the stock has been ahead for 10 straight weeks — 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

PNB Housing Finance Ltd's story is not scored yet against the markers our research file set on 22 August 2026. Where it sits in its own cycle: MID_EXPANSION. Still open: Long-term ROA guided to 2.3-2.35% (Aug 2026) from 2.5-2.6% (Jan 2026) — three step-downs in eight months without a clearly new catalyst to justify each.

What is proven. See the research file

What is not proven yet. Long-term ROA guided to 2.3-2.35% (Aug 2026) from 2.5-2.6% (Jan 2026) — three step-downs in eight months without a clearly new catalyst to justify each.

🚨 Layer 1 read, 22 August 2026 — DROP. Bad loans keep falling, but the lending spread is thinner than a year ago and management has cut its own profit ceiling three times in eight months. The clean part of the story is real: bad loans dropped to 0.95% gross and 0.58% net, and recoveries from written-off accounts now exceed fresh provisions, which management upgraded to a full-year expectation. The problem is what the lender earns on each rupee it lends - net interest margin came in at 3.5% against a guided floor of 3.55-3.65%, and I confirmed in the raw quarterly rows that the financing margin is 32% versus 34% a year ago, so this is a genuine year-on-year narrowing, not just a fall from a flattered March quarter. Meanwhile the long-run return-on-assets target has been walked down three times since January, from 2.5-2.6% to 2.3-2.35%, while the share price has moved UP to…

What would change Layer 1’s mind. The timeline's own line is two consecutive quarters of margin above 3.6% with the affordable and emerging mix crossing 43%. Sharpened to the single next observation: the Q2 FY27 net interest margin print. At or above 3.55% the Q1 miss was the leverage and day-count true-up management claimed, the H2 recovery is real, and this moves up the ranking materially. Below 3.5% for a second quarter and the three-round return-on-assets step-down is a trend rather than a floor, which would take this from…

The test written in advance. Construction Finance NPA risk (book young; legacy fraud account active) — Construction Finance NPA risk (book young; legacy fraud account active) Any CF NPA disclosure in Q2 or Q3 FY27 results — this triggers the bear case and blocks the rating upgrade thesis. by the next result.

The test written in advance. Affordable Q2 acceleration target (2.5-2.6x Q1) is ambitious — Affordable Q2 acceleration target (2.5-2.6x Q1) is ambitious Q2 FY27 Affordable disbursements — must exceed Rs 1,200 Cr to confirm the sequential recovery guided. by the next result.

🚨 What the surface reading misses. The surface reading is: P/BV at 70th percentile — moderate; not cheap, not stretched. The research reads it further: The 70th percentile reflects genuine ROE improvement (9% FY22 to 13% FY26), not pure re-rating. For a lender, justified P/BV = (ROE − g) / (CoE − g). At 13% ROE and 12% CoE, justified P/BV is approximately 1.0-1.1x — current 1.6x carries a 45-60% premium for scale and mix-shift optionality.

🚨 What the surface reading misses. The surface reading is: ROA target lowered again — management credibility declining. The research reads it further: Aug 2026 call: long-term ROA target reset to 2.3-2.35% — third consecutive downward revision from Jan 2026 commitment of 2.5-2.6%

Lever 1 · Operating leverage — BUILDING. GNPA held sub-1% at 0.95% through Q1 FY27; Rs 67 Cr recovery produced -12 bps credit cost; full-year credit cost now guided negative — the most consistently-delivered thesis leg. What proves it keeps working: Asset Quality Compounding (GNPA sub-1%, write-off recovery pool). It stops working if Any CF NPA disclosure in Q2 or Q3 FY27 results — this triggers the bear case and blocks the rating upgrade thesis.

Lever 8 · Demerger or value unlock — BUILDING. Incremental CoB rose 18 bps in Q1 from funding volatility; rating upgrade pending — management guides at least 10 bps benefit on fresh rates once upgrade lands. What proves it keeps working: Cost of Borrowing and Rating Upgrade. It stops working if No rating upgrade by Q3 FY27 and incremental CoB stays above 7.5% — removing the guided H2 funding tailwind.

Lever 5 · Regulatory approval — BUILDING. CF book Rs 493 Cr (Rs 215 Cr disbursed in Q1); pool buyouts Rs 146 Cr add a new scale-and-yield tool — both Q1 clean with no NPA. What proves it keeps working: Construction Finance + Pool Buyouts (yield accretion, controlled risk). It stops working if Any CF NPA disclosure within the next two quarters — this triggers the bear case and undermines the rating upgrade timeline.

Sources: our stock research file (22 August 2026) · quarterly results through Jun 26 · the company’s own earnings calls. 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.

PNB Housing Finance Ltd reported ₹2,263 Cr of income in the Jun 26 quarter, +9.0% year on year. That is the 10th straight quarter of year-on-year growth. Over 8 years it has compounded at 5.6% a year. The last full year, FY26, came in at ₹8,494 Cr. The last four reported quarters add to ₹8,692 Cr.

FY26 revenue came in at ₹8,494 Cr (+10.5% on the year), capping 8 years at 5.6% compound. The latest quarter (Jun 26) printed ₹2,263 Cr, +9.0% year on year — the 10th consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth.

Pace check: the last four quarters averaged +9.8% growth against the decade's 5.6% — the current year is running faster than its own long-run rate.

Acceleration check: trailing-twelve-month revenue grew +9.8% over the last 4 quarters against +10.1%/yr over the last 8 — stabilising; TTM profit +13.6% vs +20.6%/yr — rolling over.

FY26-Q4. revenue ₹2,182 Cr and profit ₹656 Cr as reported.

FY27-Q1. revenue ₹2,263 Cr and profit ₹557 Cr as reported.

Why-sources: our stock research file (22 August 2026) and the company’s own results for those quarters.

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.

PNB Housing Finance Ltd's net margin is 24.6% in the Jun 26 quarter, −1.1 percentage points against the same quarter a year ago. That is the widest this company has ever printed on a full-year basis. Across 9 fiscal years the net margin has ranged 7.6% to 27.0%. The current quarter sits inside that band.

Why this happened. The asset-quality engine has delivered without a miss across five quarters. GNPA improved from 1.24% (Sep 2024) to 0.93% (Mar 2026) and held at 0.95% in Q1 FY27 despite a minor cyclical early-bucket uptick that management attributes to seasonal factors expected to recede in Q2. Rs 67 Cr recovered from the written-off pool in Q1 produced -12 bps credit cost. Management upgraded full-year FY27 credit cost guidance to 'maintain negative' — above the prior -15 to -20 bps floor. The remaining retail pool of Rs 340 Cr provides further buffer. The Affordable segment GNPA held below 0.6% vs industry average of 1.3%.

The latest quarter's net margin is 24.6%, −1.1 pp against the same quarter a year ago. Across 9 fiscal years the net margin has ranged 7.6%–27.0%, and FY26's 27.0% is the top of that band — a record year.

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.

Worth repeating from the valuation section: cheap against its own history on record margins is not the same thing as cheap — a record margin flatters every ratio built on top of it.

FY26-Q4. revenue ₹2,182 Cr and profit ₹656 Cr as reported.

FY27-Q1. revenue ₹2,263 Cr and profit ₹557 Cr as reported.

Why-sources: our stock research file (22 August 2026) and the company’s own results for those quarters.

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

PNB Housing Finance Ltd earned ₹557 Cr of net profit in the Jun 26 quarter, +4.3% year on year. It is the 11th consecutive quarter of growth. Full-year FY26 profit was ₹2,291 Cr. The 8-year compound rate is 13.3%. That is 24.6% of the quarter's revenue. The same quarter a year earlier earned ₹534 Cr.

Jun 26 profit was ₹557 Cr, +4.3% year on year — the 11th consecutive quarter of growth. On the full year, FY26 printed ₹2,291 Cr (+18.3%), and the 8-year compound rate is 13.3%.

Why profit moved: revenue contributed +9.0% and the margin −1.1 pp — the quarter was revenue-led, with the margin roughly flat.

Pace comparison, last four quarters: profit +13.8% vs revenue +9.8%. 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.

FY26-Q4. revenue ₹2,182 Cr and profit ₹656 Cr as reported.

FY27-Q1. revenue ₹2,263 Cr and profit ₹557 Cr as reported.

Why-sources: our stock research file (22 August 2026) and the company’s own results for those quarters.

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.

PNB Housing Finance Ltd's gross NPA is 0.95% of the loan book in Jun 26, down from 1.06% a year ago. Net of provisions already set aside, 0.58% remains. Across the 7 quarters held here the book has ranged 0.93% to 1.24%. Falling NPAs are a loan book healing; rising NPAs are damage arriving.

Jun 26: gross NPA at 0.95% and net NPA at 0.58%, against 1.06% / 0.69% a year ago. Over the 7 quarters we hold, the book's worst reading was 1.24% and its best is 0.93%.

The synthesis: profit growth at a bank is only as good as the book behind it, and this book is better than a year ago. 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.

PNB Housing Finance Ltd's revenue grew +10.5% in FY26 to ₹8,494 Cr, so the book is growing. The latest quarter ran +9.0% year on year. The net margin on that income is 24.6%, −1.1 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 ₹8,494 Cr, +10.5% on the year, and the latest quarter ran +9.0% year on year. The net margin on that revenue is 24.6% this quarter (−1.1 pp YoY) — growth with a narrowing 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.

PNB Housing Finance Ltd earns a return on equity of 13% in FY26. Its trough over the ladder below was 8% in FY20. For a lender the balance sheet is the operating asset, so equity return and asset return have to be read together.

FY26 ROE came in at 13%, recovered from a FY20 trough of 8%. Return on assets is withheld on this page — its two source series disagree for this quarter. That clears the bar a bank must beat for its book value to compound.

Why ROE moved: profit compounded 13.3% a year over 8 years while the equity base grew more slowly — earnings recovering faster than book value builds is what lifts ROE off a trough.

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.

Domestic institutions added 34.8 points of PNB Housing Finance Ltd over 8 quarters, the biggest move on the register. That takes domestic institutions to 45.7% of the company. Foreign institutions moved −1.1 points over the same window, to 16.8%. The register is read on the four disclosed classes only; nothing is inferred between filings.

The register over the last two years — Domestic institutions: +34.8 points over 8 quarters to 45.7%; Foreign institutions: −1.1 points over 8 quarters to 16.8%; Promoters: −0.1 points over 8 quarters to 28.0%.

Why the register moved: domestic institutions drove it (+34.8 points), absorbed on the other side by foreign institutions (−1.1 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.

PNB Housing Finance 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. CF book Rs 493 Cr (Rs 215 Cr disbursed in Q1); pool buyouts Rs 146 Cr add a new scale-and-yield tool — both Q1 clean with no NPA.

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.

PNB Housing Finance Ltd trades at 1.6× P/BV, at the pricey end of its own range (74th percentile). Its long-run median P/BV is 1.4×, measured across 8.2 years of weekly readings. This places the multiple against the stock’s own record, and says nothing about what the business is worth.

Why this happened. CoB rose in Q1 FY27 from tighter liquidity and market volatility — a reversal of the FY26 trend where CoB fell 29 bps full-year. The expected rating upgrade (guided in Q4 FY26 call as 'within 1-2 quarters') has not yet materialized; management's Aug 2026 call treats 'pending rating actions' as a key H2 catalyst. If delivered, at least 10 bps of fresh borrowing rate benefit is guided. This driver is now conditional on two external variables — liquidity normalization and rating agency decision — both outside direct management control.

Today's P/BV of 1.6× is at the pricey end of its own range (74th percentile), against a long-run median of 1.4× measured over 8.2 years of weekly readings. This is a comparison against the stock's own history — not a claim about what it is worth.

Why the multiple sits where it does: over the past year book value grew while the price moved +42.0% — the price ran ahead of the book, pushing the multiple up its own range.

The price move, decomposed: over 5y, of the +17.6%/yr price move, ~+16.1%/yr came from book-value growth and ~+1.5 pp from the multiple (expanding). 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 full against its own past, so the story rests on the book-value line underneath it, not the multiple.

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 24 August 2026 price, PNB Housing Finance Ltd was paying for profit growth of about 7.1% a year. Profit itself has compounded 13.3% a year over the past 8 years. Today the market pays 1.6× P/BV, the 74th percentile of its own 8-year range.

What the two numbers say together. The multiple is full against its own past, and the growth the price is paying for is below what this company has actually delivered.

How to hold this number: it is a reading of one day's price, taken on 24 August 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).

PNB Housing Finance Ltd reads as mixed on its fundamental arc. Mixed — no clean majority across the growth curves, ROE holding at 11.9% — the per-curve reads carry the story. The read is built from 11 quarters across 4 curves, on full evidence.

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

4-Factor Sector Score

63.5/100 — rank 2 of 13 in Finance - Housing · 100% evidence confidence

PNB Housing Finance Ltd scores 63.5 out of 100 against the 13 companies it is compared with in Finance - Housing, ranking 2. Balanced evidence: keep at normal research priority and require another comparable period before raising conviction.

The four contributions add to the total exactly: 17.6 + 16.4 + 9.5 + 20 = 63.5. 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.

Said versus delivered

What PNB Housing Finance Ltd's management promised, set against what actually arrived — 4 tracked promises on the record. Read straight from the company’s own earnings calls. A promise that slipped stays on this page after it is met.

Long-Term ROA Target Reset · 5 August 2026. In Jan 2026, management indicated that ROA would remain in the 2.5%-2.6% range, while the Aug 2026 call stated that long-term ROA should settle at 2.3%-2.35%. This is a material downward revision to the profitability outlook; although the latest call attributed the lower near-term ROA to credit cost normalization, it did not reconcile the revised long-term target with the earlier 2.5%-2.6% expectation.

🚨 ROA Guidance Stepped Down · 21 April 2026. In the January 2026 call, management guided medium-term ROA at 2.5%-2.6%, anchored by the then-current 9M FY26 ROA of 2.57%, even while acknowledging that credit costs would eventually normalize ahead. Despite FY26 closing at a stronger 2.66% ROA and with credit costs still expected to remain negative in FY27, the April 2026 call introduces FY27 ROA guidance of 2.4%-2.5%, 10 bps below the prior medium-term range at both ends, with no clearly new development cited to justify the step-down. Earlier call (Jan 2026): “I think this will be in the range of 2.5% to 2.6%. If I tell you that 9 month financial”. Later call (Apr 2026): “ROA would be in the range of 2.4% to 2.5%.”

Reversal on Affordable Housing Momentum · 22 January 2026. Management previously claimed the ordinance impact was largely restricted to Q1 and guided for a strong finish to the year with sustained momentum. However, in the Jan 2026 call, they reported a 15% year-over-year drop in disbursements, attributing it to a strategic recalibration due to the same government ordinance, directly contradicting the prior bullish outlook. Earlier call (Oct 2025): “The road ahead is full of opportunity and we are well positioned to close the financial year on a truly high note... We disbursed INR 828 crores, a strong 31% increase... reflecting sustained momentum.” Later call (Jan 2026): “The affordable segment saw a 15% year-over-year drop and a 4.5% quarter-on-quarter decline in disbursements, driven by our strategic decision to recalibrate our affordable business in a few challenging geographies due to a government ordinance.”

Shift in Asset Quality Narrative · 22 January 2026. In the October call, management described rising delinquencies in the affordable book as a natural, expected outcome of portfolio seasoning. In the latest call, this narrative shifted to characterizing the stickiness in delinquencies as an 'unexpected trend,' signaling a deviation from their internal risk models. Earlier call (Oct 2025): “With seasoning of Affordable housing business, we have observed a sequential uptake in delinquencies, which was expected at this stage of the business cycle.” Later call (Jan 2026): “We have witnessed some stickiness in delinquencies, an unexpected trend at this stage of the business cycle.”

Every quote above is taken word for word from the company’s own earnings calls.

Frequently asked questions