Finance Fortunes

July 21, 2011 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's LB Finance's net profits for the June 2011 quarter grew 94 percent to 351 million rupees from a year ago with a rise in lending, other income more than doubling and lower provisioning. Earnings per share rose to 5.07 rupees from 2.62 rupees, according to interim accounts filed with the stock exchange.

Interest income rose 41 percent to 1.

56 billion rupees while interest expenses rose 40 percent to 763 million rupees and net interest income rose 42 percent to almost 800 million rupees.

Unspecified other income more than doubled to 96 million rupees. Provision for bad loans and fall in value of investments came down 44 percent to 15 million rupees.

Total assets had grown to 31 billion rupees at June 30, 2011 from 28 billion rupees at March 31, 2011

LB Finance's lease and stock out on hire portfolio grew to 18.3 billion rupees in June 2011 from 16.3 billion in March 2011.

Its government securities portfolio fell to 1.

2 billion rupees in June 2011 from 1.6 billion rupees in March 2011.

The firm's funding mainly came from deposits from non-bank customers, which rose to 19.9 billion rupees in June 2011 from 19.6 billion rupees in March.

The company said