Kuwait Financial Centre, better known as ‘Markaz’, saw net profits dip by more than a half in the first half of 2010, the asset management company said on Sunday.
Announcing its financial results for the first half of the year up to June 30, Markaz reported a net profit of KD1.44m ($4.99m), a drop of 51.38 percent compared to a net profit of KD2.18m ($7.56m) in the same period in 2009.
The asset management company, which has over KD928m ($3.22bn) in assets under management, saw its two flagship funds ‘Mumtaz’ and ‘MIDAF’ close the first six months of the year with returns of 1.6 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively. However, its Islamic fund registered a negative return of 0.25 percent.
Diraar Y. Alghanim, chairman and managing director of Markaz said the company was “in full compliance with new regulations set forth by the Central Bank of Kuwait on limits pertaining to financial leverage ratio, quick ratio and foreign liabilities exposure for investment companies,” and that it believes there will be “more regulations in the near future targeting balance sheet quality and investment management practices.”
Last month, Markaz said one of its units was targeting distressed commercial mortgages in the US with a new $100m fund. Markaz said non-performing and sub-performing commercial mortgages would be targeted with annual returns of more than 15 percent expected, KUNA News Agency reported.
Sami Shabshab, chairman of MarGulf Management Inc, the wholly owned US real estate investments arm of Markaz, said the fund aimed to acquire loans from distressed sellers at “significant discounts”.
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