Public sector lender Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) has announced 145.24% growth in its net profit for the three month period ended March 31, 2009.

The Pune-based bank's net profit during the forth quarter stood at Rs 137.31 crore, as against Rs 55.99 crore during the corresponding period of the last year.

During the quarter, the company witnessed an increase of 26% in its revenue to Rs 1,321.9 crore from Rs 1,049.11 crore in the three month period ended March 31, 2008.

For the fiscal ended March 31, the bank's profit surged 14.24% to Rs 375.17 crore as compared to Rs 328.39 crore of FY'08.

During the recently-concluded financial year, the bank's income increased 25.41% to 4,791.58 crore as over Rs 2,820.76 crore income recorded during the year 2007-08.

The total business of BoM for the fiscal 2008-09 surged 21.68% to Rs 87,072 crore over the business done during the last fiscal.

Allen Pereira, BoM Chairman and Managing Director, said, "We plan to cross Rs 1lakh crore business during the 2009-10 financial year. The growth will predominently come from the 20 per cent projected rise in credits."

The bank's deposits grew by 25.14% to Rs 52,255 crore, whereas gross credit increased by 16.84% to Rs 34,817 crore.

Moreover, BoM has decided to open 26 new divisions in the near future. Presently, the bank has 1,422 branches.

The bank is also looking at swelling its business mix to Rs 1,000 billion during the existing fiscal (2009-10).

The bank is also looking at increasing its retail financing for medium and small sector enterprises (MSMEs) and increasing stake in large infrastructure projects.

At 2:18 p. m., BoM stock surged 4.5% to trade at Rs 25.80 on the BSE. The volume of the shares traded stood at 1,154,415. Current EPS & P/E ratio stood at 8.71 and 2.96 respectively. The share price has seen a 52-week high of Rs 52 and a low of Rs 18.90 on BSE.