Category: Banking & Finance

State-owned fund Investment Corporation of Dubai has mandated banks for a potential US dollar bond, according to a source.ICD, has appointed Citigroup, Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates NBD Capital, HSBC and Standard Chartered to a arrange a series of fixed income investor meetings in Asia, the Middle East and Europe starting on May 8.A Reg S US dollar offer may follow subject to market conditions.-Reuters

Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) is in talks with an Islamic bank in Indonesia to take a 40 percent stake, DIB's chief executive said on Thursday.Adnan Chilwan told reporters that DIB hoped to conclude a deal before the end of the year and that it would pay for the purchase using its own cash reserves.He declined to name the acquisition target but said its parent was a listed company.Earlier in the day, the bank reported doubling of first-quarter net profit. The

London-based RiverCrossing Capital Partners, a new Islamic investment firm, has launched its first product, a U.S. real estate fund, as part of a plan to offer non-traditional asset classes to institutional investors in the Gulf.The firm will develop asset-based funds with a non-cyclical nature, a departure from other sharia-compliant real estate funds which have focused on more traditional commercial and residential properties that perform in line with the economic cycle, chairman Mohammed Abdulmalik said."The dynamics of investment banking in the

DP World Ltd., the world’s third-biggest port operator, asked lenders to cut the price on a five-year credit facility by a third to benefit from falling interest rates, two bankers familiar with the request said.The port operator, owned by Dubai World, one of the emirate’s three main state-controlled holding companies, is seeking a reduction to 150 basis points, or 1.5 percentage points, over the London interbank offered rate, the bankers said, asking not to be identified because the information is

Emirates NBD expects the buoyant local economy to keep boosting its profits and allow the bank to build up its bad loan coverage ratio without the kind of severe provisioning which stymied recent earnings, its CEO said on Thursday.Dubai's largest lender beat analysts' forecasts with a 25 percent jump in first-quarter net profit to 1.04 billion dirhams ($283.7 million) as higher interest and fee income outstripped a jump in provisions.The result maintained the impressive profit growth posted by banks in

Bahrain's Gulf International Bank plans to issue a 2 billion-riyal ($545 million) floating rate notes with a lifespan of five years through a private placement in Saudi Arabia, a prospectus showed on Sunday.The bank mandated its own investment banking arm, GIB Capital, as well as those of National Commercial Bank, Samba Financial Group and Banque Saudi Fransi to act as joint lead managers and joint bookrunners. Investor meetings will take place in Saudi Arabia on April 21 and 22.

Ahli United Bank (AUB), Bahrain's largest lender, is evaluating a sale or a merger with a rival bank in a potential $5 billion deal, several bankers familiar with the situation said.A deal of this size would be the largest banking transaction in the region for the past 20 years, according to Thomson Reuters data, beating Emirates Bank's $3.7 billion acquisition of National Bank of Dubai in 2007 and Qatar National Bank's  $1.9 billion purchase of Societe Generale's Egyptian business in

Emirates NBD's impaired loans ratio would drop by a quarter if the biggest bank in the United Arab Emirates reclassifies its loans to Dubai World as performing, according to Arqaam Capital Ltd.The bad loans ratio would improve by 3.6 percentage points to 10.3 percent if the change was made, Arqaam said in a research report dated yesterday. That would allow funds set aside by the bank to cover 77.9 percent of bad debts compared with 57.5 percent today, close to

A majority of private-equity firms inflate fees and expenses charged to companies in which they hold stakes, according to an internal review by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, raising the prospect of a wave of sanctions by the agency.More than half of about 400 private-equity firms that SEC staff have examined have charged unjustified fees and expenses without notifying investors, according to a person with knowledge of the SEC’s findings who asked not to be named because the results

 MasterCard , eServGlobal and BICS announced the successful closing of its joint venture HomeSend.  HomeSend will provide an important link between developed and financially underserved emerging markets, particularly for foreign workers in need of an instantaneous and cost-effective solution for funds transfer.The World Bank estimates that the world's 232 million international migrants are expect to remit over US$700 billion annually by 2016.The company will be led by MasterCard payment solutions expert, Stephen Doyle. HomeSend's operations will be overseen by a Board

Weaknesses in auditing led to Citigroup Inc failing the U.S. Federal Reserve capital assessments, fueling fears that there is negligence in controls at the U.S. bank, the Financial Times reported on Friday citing executives and others sources familiar with the matter.Executives at Citi are promising better auditing and anti-money laundering processes and will try to allay the concerns that led regulators to veto the bank's plan to return more cash to shareholders, the newspaper reported.There is also tension brewing among

A federal judge in Manhattan has ruled that a group of international banks must face complaints that they violated the U.S. Commodity Exchange Act by manipulating yen-denominated interest rate benchmarks between 2006 and 2010.In a ruling on Friday, U.S. District Judge George Daniels also granted the banks' motion to dismiss related claims against them for antitrust violations and unjust enrichment.The banks, which included Mizuho Bank Ltd, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Barclays Bank AG, UBS AG and Citigroup Inc, were

A US federal appeals court upheld the conviction of former Goldman Sachs Group Inc director Rajat Gupta, one of the biggest successes in federal prosecutors' long-running probe to stop insider trading on Wall Street.The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Gupta's claim that wiretap evidence should not have been admitted to show that he leaked news about Goldman's finances, including a crucial investment by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc, by phone to Galleon Group hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam.Circuit

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and HSBC Holdings  are among banks planning to compete for a role in the largest Saudi Arabian share sale in at least 12 years, according to five people with knowledge of the matter.The banks will vie with local lenders including Banque Saudi Fransi (BSFR) and Gulf International Bank to be appointed as financial adviser on the sale of a 15 percent stake in Jeddah-based National Commercial Bank, the people said, asking not to be named as

Gary Dugan, chief investment officer for Asia and the Middle East at private bank Coutts, has resigned to take the CIO job at National Bank of Abu Dhabi , sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday.A Coutts spokeswoman confirmed that Dugan had resigned without elaborating. NBAD declined to comment.Before Coutts, Dugan was CIO of Dubai's Emirates NBD.-Reuters

The world’s most-profitable banks have never been so unloved by stock investors.China’s four-biggest lenders, which reported $126 billion of earnings in the 12 months through September, sank to the lowest valuations on record in Hong Kong trading yesterday. The MSCI China Financials Index dropped to an almost decade low versus the global industry benchmark while the market value of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the nation’s largest lender, fell below net assets for the first time on March

|By TAP Staff|Bank of Baroda, which identifies itself as India’s international bank on the strength of its global operations, is set to celebrate the milestone of a Ten Trillion Bank, taking it into a unique league of banks with turnover of ten trillion rupees or more.The largest Indian bank, after the State Bank of India, is the only bank in the UAE with a full-fledged banking licence. The UAE business roughly accounts for 30 percent of the bank’s total international

| By TAP Staff| UAE banks outperformed their counterparts in the rest of the GCC in terms of net profits for 2013. The UAE banks were followed by Qatari banks, which took the second overall position.According to an analysis of the GCC banking sector by Global Investment House, profits of banks in the UAE grew 15.8 percent YoY while the banks in Qatar recorded a growth of 11.6 percent. Net profits of banks in Kuwait and the KSA, however, fell

Citigroup Inc  said on Friday that it has discovered at least $400 million in fraudulent loans in its Mexico subsidiary and said employees may have been in on the crime.The bank wrote down bogus loans to a company whose assets Mexican law enforcement officials have now seized. Citigroup's 2013 profit fell by $235 million to $13.67 billion after the write-down. Citigroup Chief Executive Officer Michael Corbat called the incident a "despicable crime" and said the bank believes it was an

First Gulf Bank (FGB) AGM approved a cash dividend of 100% of the capital and 30% bonus shares for the financial year ending 31 December 2013.Owners of FGB shares registered on Sunday 09/03/2014 (buyers on 05/03/2014) are eligible to cash dividends and bonus shares. The AGM also approved the financial statements for the year ending December 31, 2013.Abdulhamid Saeed, Managing Director, said the distribution of bonus shares and cash dividend represented 63% of full year Net Profit. This is equivalent

Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) helped American customers hide as much as $10 billion in assets from the Internal Revenue Service, more than double the amount previously known, according to a U.S. Senate committee.A report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations criticized the Zurich-based bank for failing to discipline any senior executives in the face of widespread tax evasion fostered by 1,800 Credit Suisse employees serving U.S. clients. The firm also misled investors about growth in its private banking

HSBC will announce staff bonuses totaling just under 2.4 billion pounds ($4 billion) globally for 2013 and is expected to report a significant rise in pretax profit, Sky News reported on its website on Saturday without citing its sources.Referring to an unnamed source close to the bank, Sky also said Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver will receive a 1.8 million pound bonus as part of an overall pay deal worth more than 7 million pounds, though this would be less than

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world’s most profitable lender, said it will consider acquisitions in the Middle East as part of plans to boost earnings from the region by 50 percent this year. “We’re looking to see if there are acquisition opportunities,” Zhou Xiaodong, chief executive officer for the Middle East, said in an interview from the lender’s Dubai offices. “It’s a good strategy. Part of the reason why ICBC grew so fast in Hong Kong is because

Bank of America Corp. and HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) agreed to settle lawsuits brought over property insurance that borrowers were forced to accept, lawyers for the homeowners said at a federal court hearing in Miami.The lawyers told U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno today about the settlements without disclosing more details. The deals follow an earlier $300 million agreement with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and a $110 million settlement with Citigroup Inc. (C) on the same issue.So-called force-placed insurance is taken