New Bank Records $17m Profit

Manama

Thursday, June 16, 2005 - The newly launched Unicorn Investment Bank (UIB) released its first audited set of financial results, which showed a profit of $17 million for its first eight months.

The Islamic bank was capitalised at $111 million and began its operations on May 5 last year in Bahrain.

UIB managing director and chief executive officer Majid Al Sayed Bader Al Refai said the $17 million profit and the $36m revenue were higher than the bank's own predictions and were driven primarily by financial advisory and placement fees.

He said the bank had planned to begin raising capital in 2001 but was delayed because of the September 11 attacks and the events that followed.

'The 9/11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq made it a very difficult environment to raise money,' said Majid Al Sayed Al Refai.

'The original goal was to launch with a capital of $375 million but the delays forced us to change our plans,' he told a Press conference at the bank's premises at the Ahli United Bank building in the Seef District.

The bank will focus on five key business lines, corporate finance and capital markets, private equity, mergers and acquisitions, asset management and Takaful (Islamic insurance).

Al Refai said one of the ways the bank would be involved in the Bahrain market is by identifying good family businesses, buying them out, injecting money into them, 'Islamicising' them and then making them go public.

Source: TradeArabia News Service

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