Mubasher: Khalid Yousif Al Shamlan, chairman of Aref Investment Group (AIG), on Thursday announced that his company was considering re-listing in Boursa Kuwait.

The possible relisting comes after the company reconciled with the relevant regulatory bodies’ rules.

Shamlan said in a general meeting, that was held Wednesday, that the board succeeded in selling most of the company’s assets in Sudan at $60 million, a local Kuwaiti newspaper reported.

AIG succeeded in getting two tranches of the delayed instalments from its Letter of guarantee with the Central Bank of Sudan, and recording them as net profits, Shamlan added.

The company’s divestiture of its investments in Pakistan, the chairman stated, adding that collection of the sale amount was a great achievement that resulted in real profits for the company.

On a sour note, however, the top official said that his company was facing several challenges chief amongst them was not finishing the final agreement for the debt restructuring plan with creditors.

As for the external challenges, Shamlan said these were caused by the continued weak economic performance, on the national, regional, and global levels, which in turn has a continuous negative impact on AIG’s assets’ book value.

AIG logged book losses of KWD 21.53 million in 2016, with losses attributed to the mother company worth KWD 12.9 million, versus net profits valued at KWD 1.035 million in 2015.

It is worth mentioning that AIG’s total assets reached KWD 434.6 million in 2016, down from KWD 462.3 million in 2015 due to the company’s exit from several of its assets, Shamlan said. 

AIG’s current board has continued decreasing employee expenses and the company’s general and administrative expenses by 21.4% to reach KWD 7.13 million, compared to expenses of KWD 9.06 million.

The company has continued to support fellow companies and other companies in terms of prioritisation and financial situation and improving their investment assets to be in the interest of their shareholders.

On Wednesday, the company agreed to offset a part of its accumulated losses that reached KWD 18.1 million through the full statutory reserve that reached KWD 2.28 million, so that accumulated losses would decline to KWD 15.9 million.