Thursday 12 March 2009

Gulf companies suffer earnings ‘bloodbath’

No one expected Gulf company earnings in the last three months of 2008 to make for anything but grim reading, but for some industries in particular the numbers have so far been eye-wateringly bad.

With two-thirds of results out to date, financial services earnings declined about 88per cent in the last three months of the year, while real estate profits shrank 96 per cent from the year-earlier period, according to Markaz, a Kuwaiti investment bank.

Despite a largely positive start to 2008, full-year results showed a 20 per cent earnings drop for financial institutions and 4 per cent for real estate companies. Only telecommunications companies reported a modest year-on-year increase in profits, according to Markaz.

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