Wednesday, Mar 28, 2012

(This story was originally published Tuesday.)

BEIRUT (Zawya Dow Jones)--Kuwait's Kipco Asset Management Co., or Kamco, the investment arm of the Kipco group, said Tuesday it swung to a full-year loss of 6.05 million Kuwaiti dinars ($21.76 million) in 2011 from a net profit of KWD1.82 million in the previous year.

Kamco's full-year losses per share were 25.3 Kuwaiti fils compared with earnings of 7.6 fils in 2010, the company said in a statement posted on the Kuwait bourse website.

The company veered into a loss of KWD3.93 million in the fourth quarter from a net profit of about KWD122,000 in the same quarter a year earlier, according to Zawya Dow Jones calculations.

Kamco is mainly owned--through Bahrain's United Gulf Bank--by Kuwait Projects Co. (Holding), or Kipco, which is one of the largest diversified holding groups in the Middle East and North Africa.

Kamco's shares haven't traded since March 7.

-By Shikrallah Nakhoul, Zawya Dow Jones, +961 1 985757, Copyright (c) 2012 Dow Jones & Co. shikrallah@zawya.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

28-03-12 0352GMT