Bahrain-based Ahli United Bank (AUB) has strengthened its role as a major player in the Gulf by acquiring a majority stake in the Bank of Kuwait & the Middle East (BKME), the seventh largest bank in Kuwait.
In a complex transaction valued at KD124.1m ($427.9m), AUB announced that 29.6% of the issued capital of BKME had been acquired, 9.9% by BKME’s treasury and 19.7% directly purchased by AUB. The transaction takes AUB’s effective holding in BKME up to 75%.
“The acquisition represents an important milestone in AUB’s strategy to become a major regional bank in the Gulf by securing a significant presence in Kuwait, to complement its existing large operations in Bahrain and in Qatar through AUB and Ahli Bank QSC (formerly Al-Ahli Bank of Qatar), respectively,” said Fahad Al-Rajaan, chairman of AUB.
BKME, the 27th largest bank in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, will be fully consolidated into AUB, the 17th largest; preliminary consolidation (based on end-2004 figures) suggests that the expanded AUB would be the GCC’s seventh largest bank, based on Tier 1 capital.
