More on National Bank of Kuwait
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"There are not too many Egyptian banks for sale now" |
When it does, it plans to set up a $106.3 million banking subsidiary. NBK would hold a 49% share of the new lending operation, the maximum allowed by the Syrian authorities. Once NBK gains entry into the Syrian market, it will have a presence in all of the leading markets in the Middle East and Arab region, following the completion last month of investments in Egypt and Turkey. In Egypt it bought Al-Watany Bank for $516 million; in Turkey it signed an agreement to buy a 40% stake in Turkish Bank (NBK declines to reveal the total cost).
Ibrahim Dabdoub, NBK’s chief executive, says the Al-Watany deal was important because Egypt is the biggest market in the Arab world. He admits that NBK had been seeking an investment in the country for a while and had previously failed to buy a number of local banks. Al-Watany was one of the few remaining opportunities. "There are not too many Egyptian banks for sale now," he says.