United Industries Company (K.S.C. closed) -

United Industries Company is always keen to develop promising investments to maximize its shareholders equity. Al- Qurain Petrochemical Industries Company (“Al-Qurain”) is a major investment in which UIC increased its stake in 2008 to 18.46% to capitalize on the expected growth of petrochemical sector in the future.

Al-Qurain investment base is reliant upon distinct investments, some of which commenced operations a while ago while the others are still in progress. Al-Qurain holds a 6% stake in Equate Petrochemicals Company, a leading company in the Middle East, which commenced its operations in 1997 recording noteworthy results. Al-Qurain has also a holding interest of 6% in Kuwait Olefins Company, which is a promising company in the petrochemical sector and commenced its commercial operations in 2009 and started to realize its first gains. In addition, Al-Qurain holds 20% of Kuwait Aromatics Company, which, in turn, holds 57.5% of Kuwait Styrene Company and 100% of Kuwait Brazilin Company, in addition to 42.5% of Algerian Methanol Company in collaboration with Sonatrach - Algerian Oil Company; Algerian Methanol Company is expected to commence its production in 2013. These all give an optimistic gesture of a bright future for the emerging project over the coming period.

The financial performance of the company has improved during this year compared to that of last year; profits increased by 226% to reach KD 7.09 million compared to a loss of KD 5.6 million during last year, mostly due to the pre-operating expenses relating to the company’s contribution to one of the emerging projects, Kuwait Aromatics company, which is expected to promptly offset such losses over the coming short period with the start-up of commercial operations of that Company’s projects, which have not yet completed its first fiscal year.

Realized profit during the year is attributable to stability of the international markets and improvement of the Company’s financial performance; the Company managed to reduce the expenses during the current period by 30% compared to last year expenses. Investment income increased during the year by 117% to reach KD 2.3 million compared to loss of KD 14 million during 2008.

The significant developments of the Company’s major projects launched its commercial production in 2009 and the other in-progress projects enabled the Company to set up the foundations for promising opportunities, hopefully to be realized soon with the present indications of oil sector recovery.