Thursday, Apr 26, 2012
BEIRUT (Zawya Dow Jones)--Kuwait Finance House, or KFH, the Arab Gulf state's largest Islamic bank, said Thursday its first-quarter net profit fell 11% on year to 20.1 million Kuwaiti dinars ($72.15 million).
Analysts at Global Investment House forecast its net profit at KWD17.9 million, while EFG Hermes had pencilled in a KWD24 million effort.
KFH's earnings per share dropped to 7 Kuwaiti fils from 7.9 fils in the first-quarter of 2011, the lender said in a statement posted on the Kuwait bourse website.
Total assets however grew 11% to KWD14.18 billion at the end of March from KWD12.75 billion a year earlier.
The bank said earlier this month that it had realized a profit of KWD10.19 million on the sale of local real estate properties and that this profit will be included in its second-quarter financial results.
KFH shares last traded flat at KWD0.740 Thursday.
-By Shikrallah Nakhoul, Zawya Dow Jones, +961 1 985757, shikrallah@zawya.com
Copyright (c) 2012 Dow Jones & Co.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
26-04-12 0702GMT
