Punjab National Bank – ₹1.18 Lakh Crore Giant That Refuses to Die (Even After 125 Years of Scams, Mergers & NPAs)
1. At a Glance
Punjab National Bank (PNB), India’s “first Swadeshi bank,” is the OG of PSU finance—born in 1894, headquartered in Delhi, and permanently in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Market cap: ₹1.18 lakh crore. Price-to-book: 0.86x. GNPA down to 4.1% from double digits. Basically, the bank is like a seasoned Bollywood villain: badly beaten, written off many times, yet keeps coming back in the sequel.
2. Introduction
PNB is the second-largest PSU bank after SBI. If SBI is the Amitabh Bachchan of banking, PNB is Dharmendra—respected, still strong, but occasionally gets into embarrassing brawls (read: Nirav Modi scam).
Its business is spread across corporate/wholesale (42%), retail (27%), treasury (29%), and “others” (2%—no one really knows what this is, maybe chai-paani recovery fees).
The turnaround story is real—GNPA is now 4.1% vs 11.8% just 3 years ago. PCR is up at ~97%. Net profit FY25 = ₹16,600 Cr. But the real PNB drama is always about management reshuffles, fraud disclosures, and ATM networks shrinking faster than your patience in a bank queue.
Question for readers: would you trust PNB with your salary account, or only use it for “jan-dhan” subsidies?
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
PNB is your classic PSU bank with all the usual side dishes:
Corporate Loans (43% of book): Lending to steel mills, infra projects, and sometimes companies that magically disappear.
Retail + MSME (40% combined): Housing, agri, small business loans—the “safe” side.
Treasury (29%): Govt securities trading, aka “parking money till someone needs a bailout.”
International biz: Only 4% of operations. Dubai, GIFT City, London, Bhutan, and a JV in Nepal. Basically, they do “foreign banking” like NRIs do yoga—part-time.
4. Financials Overview
Quarterly Snapshot (₹ Cr)
Source table
Metric
Jun 2025
Jun 2024
Mar 2025
YoY %
QoQ %
Revenue
32,572
29,145
32,523
+11.8%
+0.2%
EBITDA*
1,547
2,136
1,742
-27.6%
-11.2%
PAT
2,167
3,991
5,011
-45.7%
-56.7%
EPS (₹)
1.84
3.61
4.34
-49.0%
-57.6%
*EBITDA = financing profit proxy.
Comment: Profits fell like PSU stock prices after an OFS. One bad quarter, and PSU banks go from “revival story” to “scam alert.”
5. Valuation – Fair Value Range Only
P/E Method: EPS (TTM ₹14.5) × Industry PE (7.3x) = ₹106. Fair range = ₹95–120.
