KIPCO buoyed by OSN success
February 19, 2014
By Chris Forrester
Kuwait’s largest investment company, KIPCO, owns a majority (60.5 per cent) stake in Dubai-based pay-TV operator OSN, and it is OSN’s success that has propelled KIPCO’s Q4 net profits (to December 31st) to rise 75 per cent to KD14 million ($49.7 million) compared to KD8 million the same period last year.
KIPCO’s total revenues grew 28 per cent to $1.8 billion compared to $1.4 billion in the same period last year.
CEO Faisal al Ayyar stated: “In particular, our broadcast company, OSN, continued to deliver strong improvement in revenue and profit, and subscriber numbers are now close to the one million mark.”
A detailed financial breakdown for the most recent quarter is not yet available, although KIPCO’s unaudited September 30th numbers (Q2 and three months to September 30th) state “share of results of media joint-venture” and show revenues to have dramatically improved year on year, from a quarterly loss of KD 581 million, to a positive KD 1.461 million. For the 9 months to September 30th the revenue improvement is expressed as having moved from a loss of KD 2.599 million to a positive KD 3,860 million.