Dubai Islamic bank's shares fall further

Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) fell for the third time after the UAE's largest Sharia-compliant lender said it will cut its dividend payment in accordance with Central Bank advice. The DIB shares declined 1.4 per cent to Dh2.19 in Dubai. The benchmark DFM General Index dropped 1.64 per cent. The dividend for last year will be 10 fils a share instead of the 15 fils the bank proposed last month, it said in a statement to Nasdaq Dubai yesterday. Gulf Finance House, a Bahraini investment bank, yesterday reported a narrower year-on-year net loss in the fourth quarter of last year of $3.76 million (Dh13.79 million). The loss compared to a $186.6 million net loss in the fourth quarter of 2010. Gulf Finance House has restructured and paid down debt and shored up its capital in recent years as it transitions to a new business model focusing on the development of Islamic financial institutions in the region. The company's Dubai-based unit, G Capital, last year partnered with Gurmen Group to buy Turkey's Adabank for $75 million. GFH said full-year net profit last year reached $381,000, compared to a loss of $349 million in 2010. Mobile telephone subscribers in Egypt grew 18 per cent year-on-year to 83 million in 2011, the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), said on its website Thursday. Subscribers of Egyptian mobile telecom operators Vodafone Egypt, Mobinil, and Etisalat Misr, a unit of etisalat, reached 36.7 million, 32.9 million, and 13.8 million respectively by the end of 2011, the MCIT data showed. "This represents a penetration rate of around 104.4 per cent, up from 90 per cent at end-2010," said Ahmad Adel, a telecom analyst at Cairo-based Naeem Brokerage. "We forecast 15 per cent subscriber growth in 2012 to 96 million, which would take penetration to 116 per cent." Saudi Electricity Co's unit National Electricity Transmission Co plans to tender local power transmission projects this year worth more than 12 billion Saudi riyals, pan-Arab daily Al Hayat reported yesterday citing an executive. National Electricity Transmission is currently implementing, in cooperation with contractors, more than 200 projects valued at more than 25 billion riyals, Saleh Al Onaizan, the company's chief executive, told the paper. Kuwait-based Equate Petrochemical Co, whose two major shareholders are the local state-run Petrochemical Industries Co and US-based Dow Chemical Co, said on Wednesday its 2011 full-year net profit rose 20 per cent to $1.05 billion compared with the previous year. "These profits were realised due to operational excellence at all production units, as well as the increase in prices of petrochemical products globally as a result of stability in demand," Hamad Al Terkait, the company's president and chief executive, said in a statement. Sales exceeded $2.5 billion last year which is unprecedented in Equate's history, he added. In other news, Equate said in the statement that in April Terkait will be succeeded by Mohammad Husain as its CEO. Abu Dhabi National Takaful Company yesterday announced financial results for the year ended December 31, 2011. Takaful posted a net profit of Dh24.4 million for 2011 compared to Dh21.0 million for 2010, an increase of 16.2 per cent. Total cash and bank balances for the year were Dh170.2 million compared to Dh159.0 million for 2010, an increase of seven per cent. United Arab Bank Thursday approved the distribution of a cash dividend equal to 20 per cent of the paid up capital. The bank said that the dividend reflected its strong financial performance, which was Dh330 million for 2011. From gulfnews