AlWatany Bank of Egypt, a unit of National Bank of Kuwait (NBK), reported a 129 per cent rise in first-quarter net profit to 101 million Egyptian pounds ($18.9 million), the stock exchange said on Wednesday.

AlWatany Bank, which the Kuwait bank bought last August, made 44.1 million pounds in the January-March period of 2007, it said in a statement. NBK now owns 98 percent of AlWatany.-Reuters