Mumbai, Aug 18 :     The Industrial Finance Corporation of India Ltd (IFCI) will demand changes in managements of companies that have large non performing assets (NPAs) on its books. This is part of the financial institution?s strategy to combat the huge NPAs it has accumulated over the last few years. In addition, IFCI will now focus on short-term loans while repositioning itself as an universal bank. It has also decided to retire around Rs 900 crore of costly debts this year and not take fresh exposures in sectors such as cement, steel, chemicals and denim. To improve the bottomlines of poorly-performing companies, IFCI will use the management-change option only after all other means fail to bring about the desired changes. ?In case where nothing much can be done, we are taking a right to change managements. Some advertisements regarding sale of units may soon start appearing,?? IFCI?s chairman and managing director P.V. Narasimham said. He said IFCI will now give more importance to short-term lending through working capital financing and bill re-discounting. He admitted one of the reasons for its poor performance was exposure to large projects where promoters were unable to raise matching equity funds. The IFCI chief said the FIs? exposure to Ispat and Essar groups had crossed the Reserve Bank of India?s (RBI) group-lending limit norms. However, the apex bank has approved this ?over-exposure?, Narasimham added. The FI has now decided to restrict exposure to a business group/house to 30 per cent of its capital funds, and to an individual company to 15 per cent. These norms will take effect from 2002. IFCI has also decided to limit fresh assistance to Rs 200 crore from this year, Narasimham added. IFCI took the financial world by surprise when it announced a whopping Rs 600 crore as bad asset provisions for 1998-99. For the current year, it is estimated the provisions for bad assets will stand at around Rs 250 crore. IFCI officials said industries such as textiles, steel, metal, chemicals, synthetic fibres have contributed predominantly to the NPAs. They said the institution will restructure the large NPAs by forming a special cell for this purpose. In the current year, the FI has taken up 11 such cases where it has suggested various restructuring methods. Though officials did not divulge details, it is learnt the Modern Group and JCT Ltd are some of the companies in which restructuring is being done.