Dubai
Kuwait Finance House on Thursday reported a 22% drop in fourth-quarter net profit and a 40.9% drop in 2020 net profit, blaming the annual fall on a sharp slide in investment income and a rise in impairment charges. Kuwaiti banks’ earnings have been hit by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and relative weakness in oil prices, which caused the economy to contract last year.
Fitch Ratings, which cut its rating outlook on Kuwait to negative on Wednesday, has forecast that the oil producer’s economy will stage a modest recovery this year and estimated last year’s contraction at 7%. KFH said its net profit was 47.2 million dinars ($156 million) in the quarter that ended on Dec. 31, down from 60.5 million dinars in the same period a year earlier. Full-year profit dropped to 148.4 million dinars from 251 million, close to analysts’ average forecast of 146.4 million dinars compiled by Refinitiv. National Bank of Kuwait, the country’s biggest lender, also posted a drop of nearly 22% in fourth-quarter net profit…Zawya new
