Kotak Mahindra fourth quarter net profit beats estimates; bad loans tick up

Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd, India's fourth-biggest private sector lender by assets, reported a better-than-expected 40 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit, helped by higher interest and fee income even as its bad loans ticked up.

Net profit rose to 9.76 billion rupees ($152.3 million) for the three months to March 31, from 6.96 billion rupees a year earlier, Kotak said on Thursday.(bit.ly/2oz1Ehc)

Analysts on average had expected a net profit of 9.38 billion rupees, Thomson Reuters data showed.

Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans rose to 2.59 percent at end-March, from 2.42 percent in December.