CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Bank of Alexandria, a subsidiary of Italy's Intesa Sanpaolo, said its net profit rose 58 percent in the first quarter of 2008 to 323.3 million Egyptian pounds.

Net profit in the January-March quarter of 2007 was 204.8 million pounds, it said in a statement published on Tuesday.

Shareholders' share of profit for the quarter was 0.81 pounds a share, compared to 0.51 pounds a share for the same period of 2007, it added.

Sanpaolo bought 80 percent of the bank from the Egyptian government in October 2006 for $1.6 billion.

The bank will hold an initial public offering of 15 percent of its shares on the Egyptian stock exchange in the second half of 2008, Chairman Mahmoud Abdel-Latif said in April.

The IPO had initially been expected to take place in the fourth quarter of 2007.