Arab Times - 17/12/2008

(MENAFN - Arab Times) National Bank of Kuwait said on Tuesday it expects to post about 10 percent rise in profit this year but will not meet its 2008 profit target of up to KD 330 million ($1.2 billion) amid a global crisis. "We will not post the KD 320-330 million that we have been talking about in the past but for sure it will be above KD 300 million," Chief Executive Ibrahim Dabdoub told Al Arabiya television. NBK, Kuwait's biggest lender by assets, posted a net profit of KD 273.6 million in 2007. Dabdoub said NBK's net profit for the first 11 months of 2008 amounted to KD 291 million compared with KD 271 million in the same period last year. 

"We are expecting to continue with the same pace by the end of the year... Hopefully our dividends will be also at a good level," he said. Dabdoub told Reuters in October he expected NBK to post a net profit of around KD 350 million this year, but said that 2009 would be a tough year as demand for credit was lower due to the global credit crisis.

Some of NBK's clients have been exposed to the alleged Madoff fraud through its unit in Switzerland, but their losses were not exceeding KD 10 to 12 million, Dabdoub told Arabiya. He added that he did not expect to see any impact on any other Kuwaiti bank but it was still too early to say. Investors around the world have scrambled since Friday to assess potential losses from an alleged $50 billion fraud by Bernard Madoff, the prominent Wall Street trader arrested last week.

Asked about major investment companies' debts, he voiced hope that this crisis could be resolved soon, noting that the Commercial Bank of Kuwait (CBK) was currently exerting efforts to reschedule its debts. It is normal for the central bank, the main creditor, to assume the task of managing the debts of such major companies as Global Investment House (Global) and Investment Dar, he concluded.

Source: MENAFN.COM

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