Bank Dhofar, Oman's second biggest bank by market value, was up by 7 per cent after the Primary Court in Muscat ruled in its favour as part of a lawsuit filed by rival Oman International Bank and others.
The court overruled "the previous judgment of the Enforcement Court that imposed an attachment on 26.1 million rials from Bank Dhofar account," the lender said in a regulatory filing.
In late 2001, Ali Redha, a commodity trading company based in Oman, announced a default on a debt of 70m rials owed to local and international banks. Majan International Bank was one of the affected lenders and was forced to merge with BankDhofar. Majan's chairman was among the shareholders of Ali Redha. OIB said in its lawsuit it was owed the equivalent of 1.93 million BankDhofar shares as a result of losses incurred in the transaction. BankDhofar said it had disputed the claim.
Shares closed at 0.595 Omani rials a share on the Muscat Securities Market.
In the UAE, the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange General Index was down 0.8 per cent to 2663.13 points, while the Dubai Financial Market General Index lost 0.7 per cent to 1509.16 points.
Elsewhere in the region, Kuwait's index declined 0.2 per cent to 6065.30 points. Bahrain's index was unchanged at 1298.95 points. Oman's measure gained 0.2 per cent to 5939.45 points. Qatar's index was also unchanged at 8399.45 points. The Saudi Tadawul All-Share Index was down 0.7 per cent to 6475.47 points.
halsayegh@thenational.ae
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The struggle is on for active managers
David Einhorn closed out 2018 with his biggest annual loss ever for the 22-year-old Greenlight Capital.
The firm’s main hedge fund fell 9 per cent in December, extending this year’s decline to 34 percent, according to an investor update viewed by Bloomberg.
Greenlight posted some of the industry’s best returns in its early years, but has stumbled since losing more than 20 per cent in 2015.
Other value-investing managers have also struggled, as a decade of historically low interest rates and the rise of passive investing and quant trading pushed growth stocks past their inexpensive brethren. Three Bays Capital and SPO Partners & Co., which sought to make wagers on undervalued stocks, closed in 2018. Mr Einhorn has repeatedly expressed his frustration with the poor performance this year, while remaining steadfast in his commitment to value investing.
Greenlight, which posted gains only in May and October, underperformed both the broader market and its peers in 2018. The S&P 500 Index dropped 4.4 per cent, including dividends, while the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, an early indicator of industry performance, fell 7 per cent through December. 28.
At the start of the year, Greenlight managed $6.3 billion in assets, according to a regulatory filing. By May, the firm was down to $5.5bn.