ICICI Bank net surges 18% to Rs 518 cr

BS 200 SCORECARD

ICICI Bank today announced 18 per cent jump in it net profit to Rs 518 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2004, up from Rs 440 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

For the nine months of the current fiscal, the bank has posted a 17.6 per cent jump in net profit to Rs 1,390 crore (Rs 1,181 crore).

The bank's bottomline growth is fuelled by strong growth in the net interest income mainly on the retail front and fee income.

"Our retail advances grew by 63 per cent while the corporate loan book was flat. But the corporate book would have been up 10 per cent if we had not sold down Rs 3,000 crore worth of assets," said Kalpana Morparia, deputy managing director, ICICI Bank.

Net interest income of the bank surged 43 per cent to Rs 733 crore (Rs 513 crore) and other income grew by 9 per cent to Rs 890.7 crore (Rs 813 crore). The bank's total advances grew by 32 per cent to Rs 76,092 crore (Rs 57,812 crore while retail assets marched ahead at 63 per cent to Rs 46,194 crore (Rs 28,265 crore).

During the quarter, the bank carried out a transfer of government securities to protect itself from interest rate volatility.

It transferred securities worth Rs 21,348 crore from the available for sale category to the held to maturity category making a provision of Rs 182 crore, which is the difference between the acquisition cost and the book value of the investments.

The bank's current excess SLR holding is just over Rs 3,000 crore, said Morparia.

The bank's share price inched up on the bourses by 0.21 per cent on BSE to close at Rs 351.95. On NSE, it rose by 0.27 per cent to end the day at Rs 352.10. Total income of the bank increased to Rs 3,269 crore (Rs 3,032 crore) and total expenditure increased to Rs 2,497 crore (Rs 2,352 crore).

ICICI Bank's net NPA figure as a percentage of customer assets has come down to 2.3 per cent i.e., Rs 1,940 crore (4.7 per cent). The bank's capital adequacy ratio was at 13.5 per cent.

On December 31, 2004, erstwhile ICICI's liabilities constituted 18 per cent of the bank's funding. The bank will pay off liabilities Rs 2,500 crore in Q4.