Losses at Bahraini sovereign fund widen

09 July 2012

Impairments hit Mumtalakat’s 2011 results

Mumtalakat, Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, has reported widening losses for 2011 as a result of increased provisions for impairments and lower profits from its investments.

Total loss for the year was BD270.6m ($717m), compared to BD234.3m the previous year. Mumtalakat has stakes in many of Bahrain’s biggest companies, including Gulf Air, Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco), and foreign assets like an investment in McLaren.

The firm said in a statement on 8 July that impairment losses rose from BD191.2m in 2010 to BD316.5m in 2011. It added that profit from companies it has investments in had fallen by 11 per cent.

Mumtalakat also said that revenue and profit before impairments rose by 8.4 per cent and 5.5 per cent respectively. The sovereign fund is one of the most transparent in the Gulf, where details of financial performance are rarely disclosed.

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