SBI's net profit goes up to Rs 4406.67 crore in 2005-06

Kolkata, May 19 (UNI) State Bank of India (SBI) today announced a marginal 2.37 per cent growth in net profit to Rs 4406.67 crore for 2005-06 primarily because of large depreciation on investment and burden of fringe benefit tax.

Announcing the financial results of India's largest Public Sector Bank for the last fiscal, SBI Chairman A K Purwar here today said, however, the operating profit of the Bank grew by 16.25 per cent and stood at Rs 11299.23 crore by March 31 this year compared to Rs 10990.36 crore in the previous fiscal.

He said despite the present trend of lower growth in deposits in the overall Banking sector, SBI during the same period recorded a healthy 66.40 per cent growth in deposit mobilisation over the last four years to Rs 3,80,046 crore from Rs 2,26,916 crore during March 31 last year.

Similarly the gross advances of the Bank during 2005-06 grew to Rs 2,67,131 crore recording a stupendous 121.12 per cent growth over the past four years, Mr Purwar said.

Highlighting his future plans, Mr Purwar announced that since all the nine subsidiariers of SBI, including the three wholly owned ones, had done very good business to take their overall business figure to Rs 2,72,000 crore, pending necessary clearance from Parliament during the current session, some of them might go to the capital market to raise some additional funds to part finance their future programmes and divest their stakes in SBI.

Refusing to elaborate further on the issue except saying something positive in this regard could be forthcoming within the next three to five months, the SBI Chairman said following the successful acquisitions of three foreign Banks in Mauritius, Kenya and Indonesia last year, they were looking for some opportunities in this regard in Western Africa and South East Asia.

SBI was also not ruling out aquisition of some domestic Banks on the basis of their performance record, Mr Purwar said replying to a related query but refused to divulge more on this connection.

About his other overseas programmes, Mr Purwar said following the opening of five more international branches in Canada, Bangladesh, Sri lLnka and the UK and opening of two representative offices in Luanda (ANGOLA) and Istanbul (Turkey) and upgrading of the Shanghai office to a full fledged branch, the total number of SBI's foreign ofices had now gone up to 70.

" We are planning to open a number of more later this year to widen our global presence further, " the SBI chief said to a query.

Asked about the possibility of consolidation and merger, Mr Purwar said the virtual merger of SBI with all its associate Banks had already been completed under a common CBS programme.

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