Kotak Mahindra net rises 21%

Kotak Mahindra Bank onWednesday said it had a 21 per cent rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 364 crore for the quarter ended September 30, compared with Rs 300 crore in the same period a year earlier.

On a standalone basis, the bank reported 55 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 195 crore for the quarter, from Rs 126 crore a year earlier. Gross non-performing assets (NPAs) in absolute terms fell to Rs 751.1 crore from Rs 867.5 crore at the end of the September 2009 quarter, pushing down the gross NPA ratio to 2.78 per cent from 4.33 per cent a year before.

The bank’s net interest income grew 25 per cent to Rs 544 crore in the quarter ended September 30, from Rs 437 crore in the three months ended September 30, 2009. Non-interest income rose 22.5 per cent to Rs 139.3 crore in the July-September quarter from Rs 113.7 crore a year earlier, it said in a statement.

Total loans outstanding grew 35 per cent to Rs 26,500 crore as on September 30, from Rs 19,700 crore in the previous year. Total deposits rose 50 per cent to Rs 28,287 crore from Rs 18,915 crore a year before.

Profits by its broking arm, Kotak Securities, fell to Rs 51.7 crore from Rs 75.9 crore a year before. The mutual fund business reported a loss of Rs 2.4 crore compared to a profit of Rs 19.5 crore in the year-ago quarter.

“Broking revenues have been falling since last June due to the fall in cash volumes but now the trend is reversing, with retail investors coming back to the market,’’ said Jaimin Bhatt, Group Chief Financial Officer at Kotak Mahindra Bank. “The mutual fund loss is a one-off because of the regulatory change requiring securities less than 90 days to be marked-to-market (written down to reflect current value).”

Kotak Mahindra Prime, the auto-financing non-banking arm, earned a profit after tax of Rs 61.3 crore compared to Rs 39.5 crore a year before.

(The Kotak Mahindra group is a significant stakeholder in Business Standard Ltd)