Hemant Kanoria in Calcutta on Monday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, May 22: Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd today reported a 56.27 per cent increase in net profit for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2006 at Rs 15.94 crore compared with Rs 10.20 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago. Income from operations went up 124.75 per cent at Rs 76.91 crore against Rs 34.22 crore.

The firm?s profit growth slowed down during the quarter due to a 77.53 per cent rise in staff cost and 525.95 per cent surge in financial expenses. ?Our financial expenses are mainly interest costs, which has increased in keeping with the general hardening of the interest rates and growth in our business,? said Hemant Kanoria, vice-chairman and managing director, Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd.

In 2005-06, the company disbursed Rs 2,500 crore, up from Rs 1,600 crore in 2004-05.

However, for the year ended March 2006, Srei?s financial expenses rose 91.2 per cent and staff cost increased 47.99 per cent.

Profit after tax during the year grew 71 per to Rs 48.42 crore from Rs 28.30 crore in 2004-05. Income from operations rose 75.04 per cent at Rs 226.78 crore. The company has declared a dividend of 16.5 per cent, or Rs 1.65 per share having a face value of Rs 10 each.

?We will soon launch an infrastructure venture fund,? Kanoria said. The venture capital fund, called Prithvi, will have an initial corpus of Rs 500 crore, which will be raised from the market.

Srei has recently raised Rs 153 crore through a GDR issue of 86.5 lakh shares. Following this, the company?s floating shares in the market has gone up by 136.74 per cent. This has brought earnings per share to Rs 5.16 as on March 31, 2006 from Rs 5.31 a year ago. Despite this, the company?s reserves went up 174.53 per cent at Rs 303.30 crore.

Srei has signed an agreement with the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation Pty Ltd for extending advisory services to the domestic aviation sector.

?We will continue to focus on roads, airports, ports and power projects,? Kanoria said.