1. At a Glance – The Meme Version
LIC Housing Finance is that boring uncle at weddings who doesn’t dance but quietly owns half the property in the family.
Q3 FY26 numbers are out, and the company reported ₹1,398 Cr PAT, ₹7,209 Cr revenue, and an outstanding loan book of ₹3.14 lakh Cr.
Market cap? ₹28,950 Cr.
Book value? ₹700.
CMP? ₹526.
Yes, the stock is trading at 0.75x book value, a valuation usually reserved for either deep value legends or regulatory nightmares. ROE stands tall at ~16%, NIM around 3%, and GNPA at 3.55%—not pretty, not disastrous.
Stock returns over 1 year are -12%, while profits are growing. Classic PSU energy: numbers improving, market still sulking.
So the real question:
Is this a value buffet ignored by Instagram investors, or a slow-moving elephant with governance baggage?
Let’s open the files.
2. Introduction – Once Upon a Time, LIC Had a Favourite Child
LIC Housing Finance (LICHFL) was once the undisputed king of Indian housing finance—before private banks discovered home loans and fintechs discovered EMI calculators.
Founded in 1989, backed by Life Insurance Corporation of India (45.24% stake), this company practically grew alongside India’s middle class. If you or your parents ever filled a home loan form in the 90s, chances are LIC Housing Finance was lurking somewhere.
But over the last decade, competition exploded.
HDFC Bank, SBI, Bajaj Housing, PNB Housing, fintech NBFCs—all started eating into LICHFL’s lunchbox.
What did LIC Housing do in response?
- Cleaned up its book
- Shifted toward safer individual home loans (85% of book)
- Reduced developer exposure
- Invested in digital transformation (yes, LIC learned apps exist)
Yet the market still treats it like a PSU with
trust issues.
Is the market wrong, or just impatient?
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
Let’s simplify.
LIC Housing Finance borrows money cheaply, lends it slightly less cheaply, and lives on the spread—like every NBFC, but with LIC’s surname.
Core Businesses:
- Individual Home Loans (85%)
Salaried borrowers, average ticket size ₹12 lakh. Low drama, low default, slow but steady. - Non-Housing Loans (10%)
LAP, commercial shops, some LRD. Higher yield, higher risk. - Project Loans (~5%)
Developer funding—this is where past scars came from, so exposure is now tightly controlled.
Distribution Advantage:
- 310 marketing offices
- LIC’s massive agent network (the real moat)
- Subsidiary LIC HFL Financial Services for additional reach
LIC Housing doesn’t chase flashy borrowers. It prefers salaried, EMI-paying, salary-credit-on-1st-of-the-month Indians.
Boring? Yes.
Predictable? Also yes.
And in finance, boring is often profitable.
4. Financials Overview – Q3 FY26 Under the Microscope
Quarterly Comparison Table (₹ Crore)
| Metric | Latest Qtr (Dec FY26) | YoY Qtr (Dec FY25) | Prev Qtr (Sep FY26) | YoY % | QoQ % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 7,209 | 7,070 | 7,179 | 1.97% | 0.42% |
| Financing Profit | 1,790 | 1,823 | 1,735 | -1.8% | 3.2% |
| PAT | 1,398 | 1,435 | 1,349 | -2.6% | 3.6% |
| EPS (₹) | 25.42 | 26.09 | 24.53 | -2.6% | 3.6% |
Commentary:
Revenue is crawling, PAT is jogging slowly, and margins are stable. This is not a sprint stock. This is a marathon runner
