Bank Alfalah Limited's profit before tax rose 14 percent while profit after tax recorded an increase of 22 percent in the first quarter ended March 31, 2004 on back of healthy earnings from government bonds and capital gains.
The Bank's during the three-month period ended March 31, 2004, profit before tax stood at Rs 343.860 million as compared with Rs 300.221 million for the previous comparable period. Capital gain on Pakistan Investment Bonds was realised to the tune of Rs 2.52 million during the three-month period as compared with NIL, in the previous corresponding period.
The earning per share improved to 1.20 rupees from 0.98 rupee a share from the same period a year ago.
Net capital gain on sale of shares amounted to Rs 89.304 million as compared with Rs 41.347 million in the previous period a year ago.
The bank managed to maintain steady growth in resource mobilisation, assets building, especially in car financing, home loans and credit cards and financing of foreign trade.
The public subscription in Bank Alfalah commenced from Monday for two-days. The bank planned to sell 40 million shareholding and a preferential allocation of 2 million shares has been set aside for the employees of the Bank.
The share price at the provisional counter recorded a decline of 3.20 rupee a share and closed at 61.75 rupees at the close of the Karachi Stock Exchange on Monday on a turnover of 6.544 million shares.