Kuwait ill-equipped to deal with global crisis

By Ulf Laessing - Analysis

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Kuwait's scramble to prop up a top bank and guarantee bank deposits this week have highlighted how ill-equipped the Gulf Arab oil producer is to deal with the global crisis despite its enormous oil wealth.

The major OPEC producer had to step in earlier this week to save Gulf Bank after the country's fifth-largest bank by market value made losses on currency derivatives just a week after its earnings statement said it enjoyed "a robust capital base."

Kuwait is home to the Arab world's second largest bourse yet political bickering has stalled plans to set up a stock market regulator and the lack of oversight means companies can cover up massive losses until the last minute.

Rules requiring companies to disclose only the most basic financial details make it virtually impossible to predict whether Gulf Bank's problems were an isolated incident or the tip of a large iceberg, say analysts.

The lack of transparency and fear of more troubles to come has left the government struggling to restore confidence in the sinking bourse, weeks after Kuwait's sovereign wealth fund began pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into ailing stocks.

"A lack of structures such as a regulator has increased the impact of the crisis," said Amani Bouresli, a professor of finance at Kuwait University and co-author of a stock market regulation bill that has been delayed for over a year.

Bouresli said the government had been slow to react, only setting up another official task group to deal with the global financial crisis this week after a previous committee had made little impact despite many public promises.

The main benchmark has fallen about 37 percent since July, compared to 28 percent losses on the Dow Jones.

Angry investors and traders have been protesting outside the stock market and government offices for days, while depositors at Gulf Bank have demanded that the government do more to save their investments, adding pressure on the state to increase aid.

Mustafa Behbehani, a director at Gulf Consulting Co, said that instead of forming ineffectual task groups the government should have cooperated with the private sector and economic experts and taken more concerted action to restore confidence.

"Despite our oil and surplus we face so many problems. A lack of transparency has made things worse. What we need is an emergency team dealing with the situation," said Behbehani.

LITTLE PUBLIC INFORMATION

With stock market rules requiring companies mainly to disclose net profit and earnings per share, analysts say they have trouble assessing the financial health of listed Kuwaiti companies due to a simple lack of published information.

There was no data available for investors or analysts to glean whether other Kuwaiti banks also had risky exposure to currency derivatives -- investments betting on future prices -- like the ones that hit Gulf Bank, analysts said.

"We don't know," said Naser al-Nafisi, a general manager at the al-Joman Center for Economic Consultancy.