The Delhi-based public-sector bank, the first nationalised bank to tap the capital market, will announce its results on Friday. Net profit predictions by various broking houses vary from Rs 229 crore estimated by Birla Marlin Securities to Rs 184.8 crore by HSBC Baltivala & Karani, before the split in the broking firm.

The average of the net-profit estimates made by 12 broking firms, which were mostly made in the first quarter of 1998, stands at Rs 205.9 crore.

On later reckoning, market players feel that the final result may be a little on the higher side due to the favourable investment valuations after the prices of government securities shot up in March.

The average EPS estimated by the 12 broking firms is Rs 10.55, compared with Rs 9.11 last year. The OBC share had a price-earning multiple of7.3 on March 31, 1997. At the present price of Rs 67 per share, the price-earning multiple is 6.9, lower than that obtained by the scrip in March, 1997.

Analysts say the reason for the lower share price cannot be attributed to expectations of lower growth by the bank. "All the bank scrips have been valued downwards during last one year following public issues by numerous banks last year," said a banking-sector analyst.

Many foreign funds also reduced their exposure to the OBC last year after they were able to lock into fast growing new private-sector banks.

The OBC was a favourite banking scrip with the foreign-institutional investors till the advent of new private-sector banking scrips like HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. Though the interest of foreign funds in the OBC scrip has diminished over the last year, it still has a substantial holding by the FIIs.