Kuwait - Kamco Invest, a regional non-banking financial powerhouse with one of the largest AUMs in the region, has reported total revenue of KD17 million ($54.7 million) for the nine-month period, down from KD30 million ($97 million), positively impacted by the increase in fee and commission income.

Announcing the results for the first nine months, the Kuwaiti group said its net profit fell to KD3.8 million from KD8.2 million last year.

The drop in revenue was due to the increase in fee and commission income as well as the performance of the company’s investment portfolio which grew at a slower pace in comparison to the same period last year.

Fee and commission income increased by 2.6% in comparison to the same period in 2021 reaching KD13.8 million, representing 81.1% of the total revenue, it added.

During the third quarter, Kamco Invest had reported losses of KD0.8 million, as a result of unrealized losses on the company’s investments, which were impacted by challenging economic conditions and drop in equity capital markets.

Assets under management stood at $12.9 billion as of September 30, 2022 in portfolios and funds managed on behalf of clients.

Equity funds and managed portfolios continued to outperform their respective benchmarks, whereas the Kamco Investment Fund and Kamco Premier Market Index Fund were the two best performing conventional Kuwait equity funds by achieving year-to-date returns of 8.13% and 6.31% respectively.

The Al Durra Islamic Fund achieved a year-to-date return of 3.65%, positioning it as the top performing Islamic equity fund in Kuwait during the nine-month period. Aside from the equity funds, the real estate assets under management grew to USD1.9bn with a total area of 4.31mn sq. ft and an average annual distribution of 7.7% to investors.

The Private Equity team continued to undergo plans to exit legacy assets held by the private equity funds. The team is building transactions pipeline for Private Equity deals, evaluating a healthy pipeline of deal flows as well as working on new initiatives and products.

The Investment Banking team continued to advise their clients with several transactions in the pipeline expected to close during the year across Equity Capital Markets, Debt Capital Markets, and Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A).

Commenting on the results, CEO Faisal Mansour Sarkhou said: "These reflect the conservative strategy that we implement when managing the company’s assets and the quality of our revenues, especially considering that the largest portion of the total revenues are from fees and commission income."

"Despite the uncertainty the economies are witnessing, high inflation and interest rate hikes from the central banks that impacted financial markets, our robust business model, diverse solutions, and the competitiveness of our product offerings managed to grow our fee and commission income, further strengthening our financial position," he added.

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