Mubasher: The Gulf Bank of Kuwait (GBK) announced that its ordinary general meeting (OGM) on Monday approved the board’s recommendation of distributing 10% of the share’s capital as cash dividends for fiscal year 2018.

GBK will pay 10 fils per share to the entitled shareholders as a dividend for FY18, the Kuwaiti lender said in a press release.

“We have delivered strong financial results to our shareholders, and we continue to be relentless in our mission to deliver value, service, and innovation to our customers who live and do business in Kuwait and beyond,” chairman of the bank Omar Kutayba Alganim said.

He added: “This level of profitability enabled us to recommend distributing 10 fils cash dividend to our shareholders, a 51% payout ratio.”

Gulf Bank’s CEO Antoine Daher noted that the bank registered a rise in gross loans portfolio to KWD 4.2 billion in FY18, in addition to improvement of its asset’s quality, represented by a reduction in the non-performing loans ratio to 1%, the lowest level in GBK’s history.

In FY18, the bank posted a net profit of KWD 57 million, a growth of 18% when compared to the previous year.