UPDATE 1-Spain's La Caixa says Q1 recurrent net up 13 pct

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MADRID, April 24 (Reuters) - Spain's largest savings bank La Caixa said on Thursday its recurrent net profit rose 13 percent year-on-year in the first quarter to 625 million euros ($985 million).

Including a one-off gain from La Caixa's sale of a stake in Suez (LYOE.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) in the first quarter of last year, the bottom line fell by 19.2 percent.

La Caixa, a major domestic rival to banks like Santander (SAN.MC: Quote, Profile, Research) and BBVA (BBVA.MC: Quote, Profile, Research), said its net interest income rose 23.9 percent to 1.1 billion euros, loans were up 13.8 percent and funds grew 13.2 percent backed by a jump in deposits.

Non-performing loans, which are rising from all-time lows in Spain as the economy slows, rose to 0.68 percent from 0.55 percent in December while La Caixa also took bad loan charges of 128 million euros, up 7 percent year-on-year.

La Caixa said the value of its industrial and financial share portfolio stood at 20.9 billion euros including 9.6 billion euros of latent gains.

The bank said the first quarter had shown "balanced and quality growth ... against a background affected by tensions in the financial markets, a slowdown in economic activity, higher non-performing loans and keen competition."

Like other lenders, La Caixa has switched a lot of its attention to its corporate customers where it raised lending by 18.9 percent.

It said it has 23.5 billion euros of liquidity or some 9 percent of its total assets. This figure includes 5.3 billion euros of credit facilities, so far unused, which La Caixa has arranged with the European Central Bank, it said in a statement. (Reporting by Jane Barrett and Joe Ortiz; editing by Rory Channing)