Kuwait to keep stake in Daimler

Kuwait Investment Authority, which manages an estimated $400 billion in assets, said yesterday it would keep its stake in DaimlerChrysler and expects the German carmaker to have put its troubles behind it.

The state investment arm of the world's seventh largest oil exporter has a 7.2 per cent stake in DaimlerChrysler, making it the automaker's biggest shareholder.

"We are maintaining the stake. We're quite happy with it," the KIA's Executive Director Saleh al-Sagoubi told reporters.

DaimlerChrysler announced in May it would sell an 80.1 per cent stake in Chrysler Group to private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, unwinding the 1998 merger of Daimler-Benz and Chrys-ler that never worked out as planned.

"After the problems in the past things have been turning around, looks like it is in a good form now," Sagoubi said on the sidelines of a DaimlerChrsyler event.

Dubai International Capital, which bought a $1 billion stake in DaimlerChrysler in 2005, said in May it had sold all its shares in the automaker.