Global posts KD 5.9mn net profit for 9M – Company’s fee revenues at KD 9.9mn

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KUWAIT CITY, Nov 9: Global Investment House (“Global” or the “Company”) announced its financial results for the nine months ended Sept 30, 2015. During 9M 2015, the Company recorded a net profit of KD 5.9 million (US$19.6 million), total income of KD 13.1 million (US$43.2 million) and fee revenues of KD 9.9 million (US$32.8 million).

During 9M 2015, the Asset Management business remained resilient with KD 1.1 billion (US$4 billion) of assets under management. Several funds managed by Global outperformed their respective benchmark indices and peers. Our asset management teams remained focused on launching products and services best suited to our clients’ investment needs offering recurring income/yield accompanied with low volatility. Our Special Situations Asset Management team signed a portfolio management agreement with one of the Kuwaiti banks to manage its portfolio of special situation assets worth US$40 million.

Special Situations Asset Management offers tailored asset management solutions to clients seeking value enhancement and optimal realization of portfolios that are considered non-core and difficult to manage. It covers a spectrum of assets including listed and private equities, alternative investments, among others, across the MENA region.  Global’s Saudi branch with a US$185 million AuM remains one of the leading non-bank asset manager in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The branch’s flagship fund continued to outperform its benchmark. During the period the Company, with the assistance of its regional branches, raised approximately US$150 million of new money in various strategies including income-yielding UK real estate, cash management, special situations and GCC equities.

On the brokerage front Global made focused efforts to grow the institutional brokerage business leading to gains in Kuwait market share. However, due to decline in the market turnover in most key markets where Global operates, the brokerage business remained challenging.

During 9M 2015 the Company’s Investment Banking team successfully completed several mandates ranging from a bond issuance to a buy side M&A mandate. The team is currently working on several mandates and has an interesting pipeline of M&A and equity capital markets mandates.

In early 2015 we inaugurated our Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) operations through a wholly owned subsidiary to strengthen our presence in one of the major capital markets in the region and serve its UAE client base. Global  has a healthy capital structure, conservatively deployed primarily in liquid and operating assets with no external debt and a capital base of KD 89.8 million (US$296.8 million).

Maha Al-Ghunaim, Vice-Chairman & Group CEO said, “The year 2015 has proven to be an extremely challenging year for the GCC markets. Low oil prices and geo-political uncertainties have made regional economic outlook tougher and are taking a toll on the regional equity markets, investment banking deal flows and new money raising efforts. Despite these extremely volatile and challenging times, we continue to maintain our profitability momentum and to create value for our stakeholders through our resilient and robust fee-based business model, offering the right products & services to meet our clients’ expectations”.

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