Kotak Mahindra Q2 net better than expected, shares rise

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd , India's fourth-biggest private sector lender by assets, reported a better-than-expected 28 percent increase in quarterly profit and a stable bad loan ratio, sending its shares up more than 4 percent.

Kotak Mahindra, which last November agreed to buy smaller rival ING Vysya for $2.4 billion in what was the country's biggest bank takeover, said net profit was 5.7 billion rupees ($87.5 million) for its fiscal second quarter to Sept. 30 from 4.45 billion rupees reported a year earlier.

Analysts had expected a net profit of 4.38 billion rupees, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans were 2.35 percent, compared with 2.31 percent in the June quarter. The bank said year-ago numbers were not comparable since ING Vysya operations were combined effective April 1 this year.

Kotak Mahindra has previously guided for higher credit costs this fiscal year as it makes more provisions related to the acquisition.

By 1:20 p.m., the stock was trading 3 percent higher in a Mumbai market down 0.1 percent.

($1 = 65.1600 rupees)

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi)