Shares in Kuwait-based logistics giant Agility Public Warehousing Company (Agility) dropped 1.44 percent on Monday, as the stock was the worst performer on Kuwait’s premier market index.

The stock price reached a low of 791 Kuwaiti fils ($2.60) during the day, before making a rebound to close at 824 Kuwaiti fils.

The drop in Agility’s shares dragged Kuwait’s premier market index lower to close down 0.2 percent on Monday.

“The stock seems fairly priced at the moment; trading at 15x on 2019 earnings and close to our TP (target price) of KWD 825fils,” Ayub Ansari, senior analyst at Bahrain-based investment bank SICO, told Zawya by email.

The company announced on Sunday a 12.4 percent year-on-year (YoY) rise in third quarter (Q3) net profit for 2018.

Q3 2018 net profit attributable to shareholders amounted to 20 million dinars ($65.7 million), compared to 17.8 million dinars for the same period last year.

“Agility reported (a) decent set of 3Q18 earnings – up by 12 percent YoY to 20mn dinars and in line with our estimate of 19.6m dinars,” Ansari added.

“The double digit profitability growth was driven by core operations with operating profits rising by 16 percent YoY to 30m dinars.”

Operating profit was close to 26 million Kuwaiti dinars in Q3 2017.

For the year, the company’s stock price has added close to 18 percent, outperforming Kuwait’s premier market index.

On April 1st 2018, Kuwait divided its stock market into three segments as part of a reform programme aimed at improving the attractiveness of the exchange to investors.

The three market segments are the premier market, the main market and the auction market. Since the segmentation, the premier market index has gained close to 10 percent.

Agility announced in September that it intends to build in phases a logistics village in Mozambique as part of its Africa expansion plan and expects the project’s investment value to reach about 30 million Kuwaiti dinars.

Elsewhere in the region, Dubai’s index dropped 0.53 percent on Monday, Abu Dhabi’s index fell 0.96 percent, Bahrain’s index edged 0.32 percent lower, Qatar’s index edged 0.24 percent higher and Oman’s index dropped 0.53 percent.

At 14:47 GST, Saudi Arabia’s index was trading 0.71 percent higher and Egypt’s blue chip EGX30 index was 0.53 percent higher.

(Reporting by Gerard Aoun; Editing by Michael Fahy)

(Gerard.aoun@refinitiv.com)

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© ZAWYA 2018