Mumbai, May 25: Kotak Mahindra Bank has reported a 105 per cent rise in net profit for the fourth quarter of the year ended March 31, 2004 at Rs 20.59 crore compared with Rs 10.06 crore in the year-ago period.

The board has recommended a bonus issue in the ratio of 1:1, apart from stepping up dividend to 24 per cent from 21 per cent.

On a consolidated basis, net profit of the bank for the fourth quarter rose to Rs 62.20 crore from Rs 9.15 crore. It stood at Rs 174.44 crore (Rs 73.31 crore) for the year.

On a consolidated basis, income of the bank crossed the Rs 1000-crore mark, touching Rs 1,167.74 crore against Rs 711 crore in 2002-03, a growth of 64 per cent. Consolidated advances for the year stood at Rs 4,609 crore of which Rs 3,848 crore were retail advances.

Executive vice-chairman and managing director Uday Kotak said the rationale for converting from a non-banking financial company was to be customer-centric apart from offering a wide range of products.

While the bank now has 17 branches across 11 cities, Kotak said it is planning a 30 to 40 per cent growth in retail assets. Similarly, on the retail liability front, the idea is to build stable and low cost liability based over three years.

In the current fiscal, the bank is planning to increase its branches to 40, which will subsequently be raised to 60-75 by 2005-06. “The focus will be on value creation and not size alone,” he added.