Bank of Sharjah announced that it has completed the acquisition of Banque de la Bekaa SAL, a Lebanese bank, after obtaining the Central Bank of Lebanon and the Central Bank of the UAE’s approval. The transaction represents Bank of Sharjah’s first significant banking acquisition outside its home market.
Bank of Sharjah acquired all the outstanding shares of Banque de la Bekaa from Fransabank SAL for an undisclosed amount.
With this acquisition, Bank of Sharjah now holds a banking license in Lebanon to carry out a wide range of banking activities once the acquired bank is renamed and recapitalized. The operations of Banque de la Bekaa’s have been fully transferred to its previous owner Fransabank as part of the acquisition deal.
Bank of Sharjah is the largest financial institution in the emirate of Sharjah, and has during the years demonstrated consistently strong financial performance, asset quality, liquidity and capitalization.
The bank intends to gradually build its franchise throughout the Middle East region and chose Lebanon as a platform for the future Levant operations. The bank’s total assets reached US$ 2.1 billion with a total equity of US$ 571 million and net profits of US$ 87 million as at 31 December 2006.
During the signing ceremony that took place on July 4th in Beirut Mr. Varouj Nerguizian, General Manager of Bank of Sharjah, thanked MM. Adnan and Adel el Kassar, Chairman and Deputy Chairman of Fransabank, as well as the team of Banque de la Bekaa for the collaboration extended, and expressed his wishes to see the cooperation with Fransabank developed further in the near future.
