Kuwait Shares Drop Most in World as Agility Indicted in U.S.

Kuwaiti shares were headed for the lowest close since March after Agility, the Middle East’s biggest storage and logistics company, was indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury.

Agility slumped the most since July after the indictment on multiple charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States. National Real Estate Co., which on its Web site lists Agility as a “sister company,” tumbled 8.8 percent. Sultan Center for Food Products Co., a supermarket and restaurant operator, dropped to the lowest since July. The Kuwait Stock Exchange Index lost 3.1 percent, the biggest fluctuation of 89 benchmarks tracked globally by Bloomberg, to 6,765 at 11:56 a.m. in the emirate. The measure, down 13 percent this year, is poised for the lowest close since March 31.

“Sentiment is so bad now that both foreign and regional investors have exited the market completely and it now seems locals have had enough,” said Rabih Sultani, a fund manager at Duet Mena Ltd. in Dubai. “Everything that can go wrong went wrong this month; big corporations missed earnings estimates, political setbacks and further delays in reforms, and now conspiracy and fraud.”