The House Building Finance Corporation Limited (HBFCL) has achieved an operating profit for the first time in four years. An announcement to this effect was made at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) held on Tuesday. HBFCL, the country's leading housing finance institution has been steadily reducing its losses over the past three years and in the current financial year it further improved its financial position and realised a profit of Rs 113 million.
It was further stated that in financial year 2007 and 2008, HBFCL reported a loss of Rs 959 million and Rs 414 million, respectively. In 2009 and under the new management, the loss was further reduced to Rs 109 million, followed now by a profit of Rs 113 million in financial year 2010.
The steady turnaround in the financial results is the outcome of a comprehensive transformation strategy that HBFCL has been enacting for making the institution an efficient, customer-focused and profitable entity, an HBFCL statement said. It said that this transformation is holistic in its approach and aggressively seeks to bring new reforms in almost every section of the organisation audit, Legal, Human Resources, Finance, Credit and Recoveries, Business Development, Customer Services, Strategy, Marketing, Corporate Affairs and Risk Management.
Speaking about the organisation achieving a profit after several years, HBFCL Managing Director and CEO, Azhar A. Jaffri stated that the HBFCL had been a white elephant and a burden on the exchequer for far too long alongside various negative perceptions associated with it in the past.
He said that the current management is determined to end the past era and re-build HBFCL into a financially and operationally strong institution that will play a leading role in tackling the housing shortage in Pakistan which is, at present, estimated to be over 7.5 million housing units. Jaffri stated that 'we stand committed to press ahead with our reforms'. It is quite clear that unless HBFCL is financially strong, it cannot deliver on its promise.-PR