Kuwait Investment Company

KUWAIT: The Kuwait Investment Company held its 57th ordinary general assembly yesterday at its premises, which was attended by 83.7 percent of the shareholders. During the assembly cash dividends of 7 percent of the nominal value of the shares was approved, which equals 7 fils per share. The agenda of the meeting was also approved. Bader Al-Subaiee, Chief Executive Officer, Kuwait Investment Co. reviewed the most important event for the Company and the markets in general that took place during the past fiscal year. “The rapid global transformations in 2016 were opposite to all expectations, which forced us to put different scenarios to overcome the almost daily market volatility. Our main policy was based on dividing risks through verifying the investment geographically in the GCC and the Middle East markets, in addition to planning entering new European markets.

This resulted in achieving good profits at the end of the year,” stressed Al-Subaiee during the press conference that followed the general meeting. The Company achieved KD 4 million (USD 14 million) net profit in 2016 at a profit of 7 fils per share comparing to KD 1.51 million at a profit of 2.75 fils per share for the previous year. “The managed assets by the Company by the end of 2016 reached KD 2.1 billion, while the owned assets reached KD 267 million, and the property rights made KD 125 million,” he added. According to Al-Subaiee, the Moody’s Analytics changed the rating of the Kuwait Investment Co. from negative future view into stabile and keeping its credit rating on Ba2.

“This assures the investors and shareholders that the credit position of the Company is strong and reflects the successful strategy with a profitable model of work. We are reviewing this strategy to keep pace with economic changes in the region in order to open new portfolios, through investing in fixed-income financial instruments, in addition to expanding with real estate portfolios and entering project with stabile income,” he explained. The Company is re-expanding in real-estate investments. “We look for new investments in Europe, and particularly in the real estate sector in Germany. We aim to grab investment chances that serve the strategy of the Company and the interest of the shareholders. The future strategy of the company aims to expand its investments in the region to benefit from the improvement of the markets and to bring the profits to the previous levels.

Stabile profitability

“The Company is back to its stabile profitability and cash dividends after a phase of oscillation of its financial results to overcome the economic challenges in general, and the investment companies sector in particular. The Company’s performance has improved and the loses have decreased,” stated Al-Subaiee. The Company’s share profit reached 2.5 times of the profit in 2015. “Local portfolios managed by the Company achieved returns of 5.7 percent, while all the weigh indicators were negative.

Furthermore the performance of the international investment portfolios of the Company also increased by 6.07 percent comparing to Morgan Stanley Capital International World Index, which concluded the year with an increase of 5.32 percent. The real estate portfolios of the Company have increased by 8.43 percent, which means that our distributing of assets is very good. These results indicate that the performance will improve in 2017,” he pointed out. Regarding the investment sector in Kuwait Al-Subaiee said that the obstacles are still there due to the slowly growing economy. “The government should adopt the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which was proposed by the Union of Investment Companies last year. This should be a successful solution to overcome the investment sector crisis. Also the role of the private sector in the development projects should be increased to limit the depending on the government, and to give an opportunity for this sector to buy the public companies,” he concluded.

By Nawara Fattahova