Saudi's Kingdom Holding Q3 income up 21.7%

Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Holding, the investment vehicle of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, reported a third quarter net income rise of 21.7 percent, compared to the same quarter a year ago, despite the firm’s hospitality division suffering as a result of the Arab Spring.

“The increase in net income for the third quarter is due to income of real estate investments, dividends from investments in financial markets, improvement of performance from associate companies and reversal of impairment loss,” the Riyadh-based firm said in a statement to the Saudi Stock Exchange.

However, it said the overall rise was “despite the low performance of international hotel companies as a result of current events in the Middle East”.

Overall, net income for the nine-month period hit SAR497.5m (US$132.6m), compared to a net income of SAR451.8m for the same period last year, a rise of 10.1 percent, Kingdom said.

Kingdom Holding owns stakes in a wide range of global companies including News Corporation, Citibank, Twitter, Four Seasons Hotels, the Savoy Hotel in London, Disneyland Paris, Apple, The Plaza New York and George V Hotel in Paris.

The company is also backing development of the Kingdom City project in Jeddah, which will include Kingdom Tower, the tallest building in the world when complete.

In October, Kingdom sold its interest in the Fairmont Hotel and Raffles Suites & Residences in Manila for SAR218m (US$58.1m).

The deal was signed with a unit of the Philippines' Ayala Land and earned an estimated profit of SAR22m, Kingdom said.

The Saudi company said it would remain a stakeholder in further stages of the real estate project but did not elaborate on the size of its stake.