Technical analyst Manish Karwa of Kotak Institutional Equities maintained 'buy' rating on Punjab National Bank (PNB) stock with a target of Rs 1500.

According to analyst, the stock can achieve the said target in a period of 12 month period.

Today, the stock of the bank opened at Rs 1110 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

The share price has seen a 52-week high of Rs 1395 and a low of Rs 842.10 on BSE.

Current EPS & P/E ratio stood at 135.93 and 7.94 respectively.

Public sector lender, Punjab National Bank is making plans to attain an overall biz of Rs 10 lakh crore by the next two years.

PNB chairman and managing director K R Kamath stated, "We aim to increase its customer base to 150 million by 2013. Also, we are expanding our global footprint. We have already acquired Kazakhstan-based Dana Bank by infusing capital worth of Rs 150 crore and have 63% controlling stake. This will be gateway to CIS countries to expand our operations. We are also in the process of upgrading our representative office at Norway to full-fledged branch and other countries."

PNB has decided to plan to append 500 more divisions to its subsisting system and for this it has appointed 1200 clerical staff.

Punjab National Bank has decided to open 29 more divisions in Orrisa by 2011 end.

Presently, PNB has 71 arms in 24 regions in Orissa.

Punjab National Bank (PNB) has recorded a y-o-y increase of 16.7% in its net profit, which stood at Rs 3,233 crore for the nine-month period ended December 2010.

Operating profit for the period under review remained at Rs 6,548 crore, an increase of 31.1%.