Manappuram Finance, the second-largest gold loan company in the country, is toying with the idea of hiving off and taking its microfinance arm Asirwad Microfinance public within a year, a top company official said.

With a loan portfolio of over Rs 5,360 crore and close to 25 lakh customers across 23 states, Chennai-based Asirvad is the fourth-largest microfinance lender in the country in terms of the loan book.

Founded in 2008 by S. V. Raja Vaidyanathan, Asirvad was taken over by Manappuram in February 2015 for Rs 48.63 crore. The V.P. Nandakumar-led company first bought a 71 per cent stake which was later increased to 95 per cent and the rest is with the founder Vaidyanathan.

Under Manappuram, Asirvad has grown in leaps and bounds.

From a loan book of just Rs 300 crore and a few lakh customers across 115 branches in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka when it was bought over, the company has over 1,030 branches across 314 districts in 23 states (excluding Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) and a loan book of over Rs 5,358 crore as of 2020-end, of which over Rs 1,000 crore is in Tamil Nadu alone.

As of the December 2020 quarter, Asirvad had a loan book of Rs 5,357.71 crore, a growth of 6.68 per cent from Rs 5,022.14 crore in the year-ago quarter. This makes the microlending arm the biggest vertical after the gold loan business for the group.

“We are planning to hive off Asirvad within a year, and then take it public. We are looking at the right valuation. I am looking at a price to book value of 3-4 times, which is 2 times now,” said V.P. Nandakumar, founder and chief executive of Manappuram Finance Group.