Mubasher: The E-Annual General Assembly (AGM) meeting of Boursa Kuwait Securities Company (BKSC) has approved the board’s recommendation to distribute cash dividends, equivalent to 25% of the paid-up capital, at 25 fils per share.

Dividends stand at a total value of KWD 5.02 million, according to a recent press release.

The AGM for 2019, saw shareholders approved the board’s and the auditor’s reports, as well as the financial statements for fiscal year (FY) 2019.

The company’s Vice Chairman, Ahmed Hamad Al Thunayan, who headed the meeting, said that Boursa Kuwait recorded several achievements last year.

“Among the most prominent of these accomplishments was the completion of the stages of privatization of the company to become the first privatization project for a vital government facility, thus, becoming the first stock exchange owned by the private sector in the Middle East,” Al Thunayan added.

Private investors currently own 94% of the issued and paid-up capital of the company, due to the cooperation with the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), he further noted.

Commenting on the results of 2019, the CEO of Boursa Kuwait, Mohamed Saud Al Osaimi, remarked that Boursa Kuwait saw an increase in operating income in 2019 by 58.4% to KWD 15.1 million, with a change in the subscription fee structure from a capital-based basis to the average daily trading volume.

Moreover, the stock exchange saw a surge in trading volume due to the rise in foreign ownership in Kuwaiti banks, the annual review of Kuwaiti companies in the FTSE Russell Emerging Markets Index, and the inclusion of Kuwaiti companies in the S&P index DJI for emerging markets, he added.

In 2019, basic earnings per share reached 48.5 fils from 14.5 fils in 2018, while the book value per share went up to 162 fils from 139 fils in the year before.