By: Eman Ghaly

Mubasher: Profits of five insurance companies listed on the Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) declined by 0.03% year-on-year during the fourth quarter of 2017, while their cash dividends amounted to QAR 711.2 million, according to Mubasher’s survey.

The QSE-listed insurance firms posted QAR 402.8 million ($110.65 million) in profits in Q4-17, compared to QAR 402.9 million ($110.68 million) in the same period a year earlier, the data showed.

The bourse's insurance sector comprises of five main companies; namely Qatar General Insurance and Reinsurance (QGRI), Qatar Insurance (QIC), Qatar Islamic Insurance (QISI),  Al Khaleej Takaful Group (AKHI) and Doha Insurance Group (DOHI).

Fourth quarter

The fall in the bourse's insurance sector's profits was attributed to the drop in the net profits of QIC, DOHI and QISI.

QGRI topped the sector’s peers, generating net profits of QAR 272.09 million in Q4-17, while DOHI reported the lowest profits, recording QAR 7.47 million.

Annual performance

Earnings of the QSE-listed insurance firms decreased 39.8% to QAR 843.68 million during the full year 2017, down from QAR 1.4 billion in the same period a year ago.

QIC’s full-year profit dropped 59.6%, which took its toll on the performance of the whole sector.

AKHI and QIC were the only two companies achieving growth last year.

QIC ascribed the last year growth to a rise of its stake from its associates to QAR 838.4 million against QAR 2 million in the year before.

Assets  

By the end of 2017, assets of the Qatar-listed insurance companies levelled up 15.04% to QAR 47.29 billion versus QAR 41.11 billion in the prior year.

Cash dividends

Cash dividends of the five insurance firms jumped 20.4% to QAR 711.23 million in the year ended 31 December 2017 compared to QAR 590.79 million in the previous year.

As for bonus dividends, only QIC recommended distributing 15% of the capital in bonus dividends, equalling QAR 415.9 million in 2017, up from QAR 361.71 in 2016.  

Translated by: Kholoud Mohamed Hussein