UPDATE 1-Russia's Sberbank Jan-Feb profit rises fivefold

* Net 24.4 bln rbls vs 5.1 bln rbls in Jan-Feb '09

* Bought 254 bln rbls worth of treasury bonds

* Loans to businesses down 0.5 pct

(Adds detail, background)

MOSCOW, March 16 (Reuters) - Sberbank SBER03.MM, Russia's biggest lender, said net profit rose fivefold in January-February as the outlook for bad loans improved, helping it move closer to pre-crisis performance levels.

State-controlled Sberbank earned 24.4 billion roubles ($828.8 million) in the first two months of the year, calculated by Russian accounting standards, compared with 5.1 billion roubles in the same period a year ago.

Analysts expect its 2009 full-year profit to come in at only 20.8 billion roubles when it reports results by international standards on March 18. [ID:nLDE62F1GS]

Sberbank's management earlier provided guidance for a full-year net profit of at least 100 billion roubles ($3.3 billion) in 2010 as provision charges begin to fade. [ID:nGEE5B71B4]

Investors see Russian standards reporting as a guide for the international version, which takes longer to produce.

Debt provisions continued to weigh on income but charges of 33.6 billion roubles for the Jan-Feb period were only half the figure for the first two months of 2009.

Sberbank's loan portfolio is becoming a key issue for analysts as lending growth and demand for new loans is an indication of a strengthening economy.

So far this year Sberbank's loans to corporate clients decreased by 0.5 percent and to individuals by 1.9 percent while total assets grew by 1.7 percent to 7.3 trillion roubles.

Sberbank's security portfolio grew by 27 percent driven mainly by purchases of 254 billion roubles worth of treasury and central bank bonds.

The bank cited forex and equity portfolio gains when reporting an unexpected jump in fourth-quarter profit, also by Russian accounting standards. [ID:nLDE60O29F] ($1=29.44 Rouble) (Reporting by Dmitry Sergeyev; editing by John Bowker and Simon Jessop)