Taipei

Vienna - Raiffeisen International, the Austrian banking group operating in Central and Eastern Europe, raised its second-quarter profit by 49 per cent, as income from interest grew by 37 per cent, the company reported Thursday.

Setting a new quarterly record, net income climbed to 311.3 million euros (481.3 million dollars), from 208.8 million euros in the same period last year.

Net interest income rose to 786.5 million euros, up from 573.8 million euros a year earlier.

In the first half of 2008, Raiffeisen posted a net profit of 565.7 million euros, an increase of 41 per cent compared to 2007.

Tokyo - Nissan Motor Co said Friday that its net profit fell 42.8 per cent to 52.8 billion yen (505 million dollars) in its first quarter from the same quarter a year before, mainly because of the rise in the yen.

Operating profit also plunged 46.1 per cent in the April-to-June quarter to 79.9 billion yen.

Japan's third-largest automaker saw its sales fall 4.1 per cent to 2.35 trillion yen.

Nissan's global sales were up 6.9 per cent for the quarter to 936,000 units.

The nation’s largest fuel retailer, Indian Oil Corp (IOC), reported a 71% dip in its net profit in the first quarter on Wednesday. The reason behind the drop was the poor good refinery margins, which could not make up for the revenue loss on fuel sales.

The chairman of IOC, Sarthak Behuria reported, that net profit in April-June was up to Rs 415.13 crore from Rs 1,468.41 crore in the year ago period.

For the processing every barrel of crude oil, the company earned $16.81, up from $10.70 per barrel last year. However, it was not good enough to make up for the Rs 413 crore losses it incurred per day on sale of petrol, diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene.

Instability in foreign exchange rates has adversely affected most of the big firms. Tata Motors, which is the country’s third largest passenger-car maker and largest vehicle manufacturer, saw its net profit sinking for the quarter ended June30, 2008 by 30.13 percent as compared to the same period last fiscal, due to fluctuation in forex rates, inflationary pressures and a steep increase in input costs.

During the present quarter, the company reported a net profit of Rs 326.11 crore, while during the year-ago quarter; it had the net profit of Rs 466.76 crore.

Due to foreign exchange losses of Rs 193 crore, Indian pharma giant Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd suffered a loss in its net profit for the quarter ended June 30, which fell more than 91% year-on-year to Rs 22.9 crore.

On Tuesday, Omesh Sethi, Ranbaxy’s chief financial officer said that the company’s net profit stood at Rs 266 crore in the same quarter last year, with foreign exchange gains of Rs 201 crore.

In April-June quarter, the compnay’s net profit was little changes at Rs 161 crore against Rs 160 crore in the same period last fiscal, if the one time forex loss was excluded.

Talking about the company’s operating margin, except for forex gain was improved marginally at 16.8% sales in the quarter from 16.4% in the same quarter last year.