Beirut (APD) - Kuwait's Heavy Engineering Industries and Shipbuilding Company (Heisco) has projects worth KD 129 million (about $440 million) on its order books and is looking to the outcome of several tenders for which it entered bids, the Kuwait-based Al Qabas daily reported Wednesday.
The company implemented projects totaling KD 94 million out of a contracts portfolio of KD 223 million, Imad Al Sakr, Heisco's chairman and managing director, said at the company's annual general meeting (AGM) Tuesday.
"Heisco has a five-year plan to become a global company. One item of this plan is going into shipbuilding of light vessels. We have already established a maritime center for designing ships and we are negotiating with a number of parties for the light shipbuilding project," Sakr said.
He added that Heisco is also seeking to develop maritime maintenance services and provide the upkeep of export facilities.
"Heisco's board of directors wants the company to implement a project from A to Z," Sakr said, indicating that Heisco aims to achieve an internal rate of return of 15%.
According to a report in the Kuwaiti al-Rai al-Aam daily, Sakr also said that Heisco intends to establish one company in Saudi Arabia and another in Qatar, without going into details on these new ventures.
Moreover, he told shareholders at the AGM that Heisco expects a good growth in profits for the first quarter of 2006 but did not give any figures.
Indicating a fivefold growth in profits in the period from 2000 to 2005, Sakr said that the company had posted net profits of about KD 5 million in 2005 compared with KD 794,000 in 2000.
The company's sales increased in 2005 to KD 55 million from KD 45 million in 2004. Likewise total assets grew by about 9% in 2005 to KD 56.5 million from KD 52 million in 2004.
Shares in Heisco, which had surged on Monday by KD 0.02 or 5.56% to KD 0.38, on Tuesday plunged by KD 0.03 or 7.89% to close at KD 0.350. [TS].
By Shikrallah Nakhoul, APD Staff Writer in Beirut
© APD (Arab Press Digest) 2006
