Kuwait sells Citigroup stake for $1.1 bn profit

Kuwait Investment Authority,the emirate’s sovereign wealth fund,said today it has sold its stake in US banking giant Citigroup for an impressive profit.

KIA bought three billion dollars worth of preferred shares in Citigroup in January last year,in addition to shares in Merrill Lynch worth two billion dollars.

The authority said in a statement it had made a profit of 1.1 billion dollars after selling Citigroup’s stocks for 4.1 billion dollars. It made no reference to the stake in Merrill Lynch.

The purchases came when banks in the United States were suffering from a housing slump amid the subprime mortgage crisis.

At the time,the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority,the sovereign wealth fund run by the government of the UAE capital,also bought a Citigroup stake worth 7.5 billion dollars to become one of its biggest shareholders.