MOSCOW, April 17 (RIA Novosti) - International Moscow Bank said Monday its unaudited net profits calculated to Russian Accounting Standards had risen almost 150% year on year in the first quarter of 2006 to $55 million.

Chief Accountant Eduard Issopov said the bank's assets had expanded to $5.96 billion from $3.9 billion in the first quarter of 2005, with its loan portfolio totaling $3.38 billion as of April 1, 2006, against $1.97 billion a year earlier.

The bank's shareholder equity was $720 million in the reporting quarter, compared to $430 million at the end of March 2005.

Issopov said the bank had increased shareholder equity in the first quarter of the year on a $30mln subordinated loan disbursed by Germany's HypoVereinsBank.

International Moscow Bank is on the list of the Central Bank's top thirty Russian banks. The bank's shareholders include Germany's HypoVereinsBank (53% of the stock), Scandinavia's largest banking group, Nordea (26%), BCEN-Eurobank, a French-based subsidiary of Russian state-run foreign trade bank Vneshtorgbank (16%), and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (5%).

In November 2005, HypoVereinsBank was purchased by Italy's UniCredit group.