Thursday, 21 January 2010 at 08:26, Reuters, Riyadh
Saudi-based Kingdom Holding Co posted a net profit in the fourth-quarter following a loss in the same period a year ago.
The firm, which is 95-per-cent owned by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, made 156 million riyals ($41.6m) in the three months to end-December, 2009, it said in a statement on the bourse website. In 2008 it reported a 30.98 billion riyal ($8.26bn) net loss for the same period.
It attributed the improvement to the fact that "results for the fourth-quarter of 2008 included provisions to compensate for the decline in investments and also realised losses in some financial investments of 30.5 billion riyals".
Annual earnings per share stood at 0.06 riyals against a net loss per share of 4.75 riyals in 2008, it added.
Operating profit amounted to 549m riyals, compared to 14.26bn in operating losses in 2008.
Kingdom Holding, an investment company that has minority stakes in some of the world's top companies, is a main shareholder in Citigroup Inc.
It said on January 5 that it would cut its capital by 41 per cent, a move analysts said aimed at wiping out accumulated and unrealised losses which reached 65 per cent of its capital at the end of the third quarter of 2009.
Losses of more than 75 per cent of the capital would require a suspension in its stock.
The company said last week that it would seek shareholders approval for the capital decrease at a February assembly.
Your comments