KUWAIT - The German Market.KPC "Keeping parents clueless." See digispeak. has invested very little in the German oil market, which is the biggest in Europe. Its products retail business in Germany is insignificant. But KPC has invested in Germany's petrochemical sector through a stake in the chemicals giant Hoechst AG. Hoechst and France's giant Rhone-Poulenc (RP) were merged in late 1999 to create a colossal life sciences company called Sanofi-Avantis with annual sales of about $20 bn and 95,000 employees. KPC gave its approval of the merger in May of that year. In September 2004, KPC sold almost half its stake in Sanofi-Avantis for 2,300m ($2,778m), in a placement managed by UBS UBS Union Bank of Switzerland UBS United Bible Societies UBS United Blood Services UBS United Buying Service UBS Used Bookstore UBS University Business Services UBS Universal Building Society (UK) UBS Ulaanbaatar Broadcasting System and Morgan Stanley. Through the London-based Kuwait Investment Office (KIO KIO KDE (K Desktop Environment) Input/Output Slave KIO Kuwait Investment Office KIO Knock It Off KIO Kde Input Output ), the state's Kuwait Investment Authority The Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) is Kuwait's government investment arm, specializing in local and foreign investment. It was founded to manage the funds of the Kuwaiti Government in light of financial surplusses after the discovery of oil. (KIA KIA n. A member of the armed services who is reported killed during a combat mission. [k(illed) i(n) a(ction).] ) has an important stake in the German-US car manufacturer DaimlerChrysler. On Feb. 21, 2001, KIA denied that it had increased its stake in DaimlerChrysler from 7% to 9.3%. The 7% stake was confirmed on April 9, 2002 by DaimlerChrysler's top management, with a KIA spokesman saying: "Kuwait is a long-term investor and we are going to be in DaimlerChrysler for some time. There is a solid business in the company". KIA is the second-largest shareholder after Deutsche Bank, which owns 12% of the company. It was reported by the German weekly Welt am Sonntag Welt am Sonntag ("World on Sunday") is a national German national Sunday newspaper published by Axel Springer AG, and established in 1948. Its head office in Berlin, and it has local editions for Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Düsseldorf. on Feb. 21, 2001 that KIO was buying a 2.3% stake in DaimlerChrysler from Tracinda, a California company owned by Armenian business tycoon Kirk Kerkorian. The German paper said DaimlerChrysler's CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. Juergen Schrempp had a meeting with Kuwait's Emir, Shaikh Jabir Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, on Feb. 5, 2001. It said Schrempp's visit was to convince the Kuwaitis to keep their 7% equity. But, it added, the two also reached an agreement to buy Kerkorian's stake. The meeting was attended by then Finance Minister Shaikh Ahmad Al-Abdullah Al-Ahmad Al- Sabah, and KIA's head Saleh Mubarak Al-Falah. Major shareholders had expressed concern in previous weeks about the mounting losses at Chrysler, which had led to a sharp drop in the company's share price. But, as it turned out, Kuwait did not buy the 2.3% stake. |
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