Karnataka Bank

Retail banking revenue rose 5% (YoY)m and it is the main fray of the bank. But its EBIT showed a major drop of 57% and EBIT margins more than halved from 39% in Q4Fy12 to 16% in Q4FY13. Corporate banking and treasury operations which were marking losses turned around that is what helped save the face or else the fall in profits would have been much higher. The bank ended Q4FY13 with a 19% drop in net profit at Rs.67.39 crore.

But the good part of the numbers was the improvement in the asset quality. Gross NPA fell from 3.27% to 2.51% and Net NPA was down from 2.11% to 1.51%. There was a 28% (YoY) drop in provisioning but a sequential rise of 46%. CAR under Basel II improved from 12.84% (YoY) to 13.22%. The stock price of the bank moves up time and again on rumours of takeover and the bank has time and gain refuted these rumours. The Bank is planning to raise Rs.500 crore via QIP and it is expected that it would be placed at a premium over the current market price and that in the coming days could keep the stock price bouyant.