Kuwait's Agility, the logistics firm facing U.S. fraud charges, posted a 42-percent fall in third-quarter net profit on the back of lost defense and government work, the firm said.

    Net profit in the three months to Sept. 30 came in at 8.1 million Kuwaiti dinars ($29.4 million), compared with net profit of 13.9 million dinars in the year earlier period, Agility said in a statement.

    "Revenue and net profit fell ... from the same period last year mainly as a result of lost defense and government business. Agility's commercial logistics business has also been impacted by volatility in the market and a softening of volumes," Agility said.

    Agility, which was the largest supplier to the U.S. Army in the Middle East during the war in Iraq, pleaded not guilty in August to charges it defrauded the U.S. government over multibillion-dollar supply contracts.

    "All signs point to challenging conditions in the global economy as we move towards 2012...we will thus continue to exercise discipline in our cost structure and cash management, as we simultaneously move forward with our growth and transformation strategy," Agility's Chairman Tarek Sultan said in the statement

(source:http://www.ajot.com/portsharbors.asp)