Mubasher: The Gulf Bank of Kuwait (GBK) announced that the Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) has approved a request for Alghanim Trading Group to raise its stake in the bank.

The CBK approved increasing Alghanim’s stake in the Kuwaiti lender to 33% from 7.42%, GBK said in a statement to Boursa Kuwait on Wednesday.

At the moment, the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) is the largest shareholder in GBK with 20.2%, followed by Omar Kutayba Alghanim and its Alghanim Trading Group, then Alghanim Industries with 6.71%, while Behbehani Investment and Bassam Yusuf Alghanim own 5.8% and 5.7% stakes, respectively.  

GBK’s capital amounts to about KWD 304.81 million, distributed over 3.05 billion shares, with a nominal value of 100 fils per share.

During the first nine months of 2018, GBK’s profits rose 18.1% to KWD 42.68 million from KWD 36.15 million in the corresponding period a year ago.