Edelweiss Financial Services, one of India's leading financial services groups, announced a substantial rise in consolidated net profit for the quarter ended March 2014. During the quarter, the profit of the company rose 45.61% to Rs 883.70 million from Rs 606.90 million in the same quarter previous year. 

Total Income for the quarter surged 74.12% to Rs 12,150.10 million, compared with Rs 6,978 million for the prior year period.

Speaking on the occasion, Rashesh Shah, Chairman and CEO, Edelweiss Financial Services said, "FY15 saw market sentiments improving and optimism about gradual return of growth setting in. Liquidity continued to be comfortable during the year with easing of short term interest rates helped by RBI's reduction in Repo rates. Inflation is under control and external vulnerability has reduced significantly, though currencies are volatile. At the same time, credit growth, corporate earnings, and investment continue to be sluggish. We believe with macro-economic indicators improving, we may see return of growth in the second half of FY16.

Our long-term strategy of diversifying across businesses, asset classes and client segments continues to bear fruits as demonstrated by consistent improvement in our financial and business indicators. Increasingly our profits are being contributed by multiple businesses and we have reduced concentration risk in this in our efforts to make the profits more sustainable.

For the year as a whole, our net profit is higher by 49% and our return on tangible equity exinsurance is at 15.6% compared to 12.3% for FY14. Our focus going forward continues to be on improving capital and operating efficiency, achieving scale in retail businesses, improving sustainability in our performance, strengthening balance sheet, risk and compliance, nurturing leadership, building a customer-centric culture and upgrading technology for future growth."

The Board of Directors of the company at its meeting held on May 15, 2015, have recommended payment of Final Dividend of Re. 0.20/ - a share (on the face value of Re. 1/-) for the financial year 2014-15. The payment of final dividend is subject to the approval of the members at the ensuing Annual General Meeting of the company.

Shares of the company declined Rs 3, or 4.69%, to settle at Rs 60.90. The total volume of shares traded was 1,601,896 at the BSE (Friday).