SBH third quarter profit up 59%

BS 200 SCORECARD

State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH) recorded 59.20 per cent higher net profit for the quarter ended December 2006 at Rs 98.88 crore compared with Rs 62.11 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.

The growth in profits is largely attributed to increase in the volume of revenues, both interest and non-interest, which increased by 29.56 per cent at Rs 1,036.41 crore for the quarter under review compared with Rs 799.89 crore in the corresponding period last year.

However, total expenditure during the quarter was up at Rs 784.43 crore from Rs 620.86 crore, an increase of 26.34 per cent.

"While the interest costs had gone up at 5.37 per cent from 4.89 per cent during the period, resulting in higher interest payment of Rs 548 crore, compared with Rs 402 crore last year, yield on advances was up from 8.5 per cent to 8.95 per cent and is expected to touch 9 per cent in the days to come.

"We were able to net higher profits by containing costs on other fronts while increasing the revenue," Amitabha Guha, chairman and managing director of SBH, said.

The bank's interest income was up by 27 per cent to Rs 885 crore from Rs 691 crore and non-interest income by 43 per cent at Rs 156 crore compared with Rs 119 crore in the same period.

Total business crossed Rs 64,593 crore up to December 2006, which, according to Guha, has made the bank bigger than Andhra Bank in terms of turnover with a year-on-year growth of Rs 13,072 crore.

In terms of NPAs, Guha claimed, SBH had emerged as the third best bank among all the public sector banks with the net NPA as a percentage to net advances at 0.16 per cent compared with 0.80 per cent during the same period.