UPDATE 2-Pekao sees small growth in Polish corporate loans

* Q4 net profit 612 mln zlotys, analysts' forecast 601 mln

* 2009 net profit 2.41 bln zlotys, down almost a third

* Shares outperform, up 0.9 percent

(Releads with expectations for corporate loans, adds analyst)

By Chris Borowski and Piotr Bujnicki

WARSAW, March 3 (Reuters) - Pekao BAPE.WA, Poland's top corporate lender, expects the country's banks to lend a little more to businesses this year as the economy picks up, having slammed on the brakes in 2009.

Pekao, which said on Wednesday its net profit shrank by a third last year due to rising bad loan provisions and tighter interest margins, predicted economic recovery would help drive loan growth.

But while it said retail loans would rise by 7.8 percent, corporate credit would only edge up 0.3 percent after shrinking 3.3 percent last year as companies shake off the effects of the global financial crisis.

Polish lenders, which have fared better than many of their Western rivals last year, have already predicted that bad loans would peak around mid-year after weighing on the sector's results throughout 2009.

Non-performing loan charges helped pull Pekao's fourth-quarter results down 15 percent, a little better than market expectations, as analysts had feared bigger provisions.

Shares in Pekao were among a handful of bluechip gainers on east European markets in late morning trade, rising 0.9 percent compared with a 0.3 percent loss of Warsaw's main WIG20 index .WIG20.

"The costs of risk and operating costs are low," said Marcin Jablczynski, analyst at Deutsche Bank in Warsaw. "The question remains how long you can keep costs under control, because I think the result was not strongly supported by the income side."

Pekao, controlled by Italy's UniCredit (CRDI.MI), earned 612 million zlotys ($211 million) in the last three months of 2009, compared with an average forecast of 601 million zlotys in a Reuters poll of analysts.

The bank was one of the more conservative lenders in Poland, but the economic slowdown has still weighed on its clients and their ability to repay loans.

It took 138 million zlotys in provisions, while analysts had forecast 172 million.

Net interest income fell 11 percent as the bank also suffered from a prolonged fight among Polish lenders for customer deposits as interest rates moved to all-time lows.

The banks also has a sector-leading Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio of 16.2 percent, but Deputy Chief Executive Luigi Levaglio declined to say whether Pekao planned a dividend payout.

"We want to be ready to take advantage of any opportunity to grow that may appear," he said. "We also want to be able to navigate through any dark clouds that may appear. Shareholders expect dividend, but we need to find a fair trade-off." (Editing by Greg Mahlich and Will Waterman) ($1=2.902 Zloty)