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Moody’s Investors Service’s annual Banking System Outlook for Qatar remains stable, unchanged since 2010. “The outlook reflects Qatar’s benign economic environment and the rating agency’s expectation that Qatari banks will maintain strong financial metrics, including low levels of non-performing loans, robust earnings and sound capitalisation,” Moody’s said in a statement on 9 April.
The relationship between Kuwait and Iraq has been buoyed by a number of political and economic developments across a number of sectors, including: telecoms, energy, real estate, retail, banking, aviation and eduction
The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) has committed $2.5bn to Bahrain, representing 25% of the total promised by the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) development programme. According to an 18 February report by UAE state news agency Wam, a memorandum of understanding was signed in Manama by Bahrain’s finance minister Mohammed Al-Khalifa and ADFD acting director general Mohammed Saif Al-Suwaidi.
The estate of the bankrupt Icelandic bank Kaupthing has settled a dispute with the emir’s brother, former deputy prime minister Mohammed. The dispute stemmed from a deal the sheikh made to buy shares in the bank just before its 2008 collapse through his Q Iceland Holding. The bank had issued legal proceedings against the sheikh in Iceland.
According to Articulating a Dubai Model of Development: the Case of Djibouti, a September 2010 report by the Dubai School of Government, Dubai built its commercial relationship with Djibouti on co-ordinated investments in port, free zone and logistics infrastructure and amenities.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Central Bank of Tunisia and Islamic Development Bank held a three-day regional conference on Islamic banking and sukuk markets in December.
The involvement of investment bank QInvest in an Egyptian gas import project has renewed speculation about Doha’s political motives in North Africa. The Doha-based investment bank and other Qatari investors are teaming up with Cairo-based private equity company Citadel Capital to finance an emergency floating regas project and gas purchases which need to be up and running by March next year.
Qatar Holding (QH) is taking a controlling stake in Harrods Bank Limited, the banking arm of the London luxury goods store which it already owns, and seems set to expand the bank significantly. The UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) confirmed on 30 October that it had given the go-ahead for QH to buy the shares, which have been held by a trust set up under previous owner Mohamed Al-Fayed.
Turkish businesses have been turning away from Europe towards the markets of the Middle East and Asia. Banks have followed suit, taking advantage of growing trade, particularly with Iran, Iraq, the UAE and Saudi Arabia
Gulf Finance House (GFH) plans to acquire the UK’s Leeds United Football Club through its wholly owned subsidiary GFH Capital Limited. In a statement on 27 September, GFH said it had signed “an exclusive agreement to lead and arrange the acquisition of Leeds City Holdings, the parent company of Leeds United Football Club”.
Bahrain’s troubled Bank Alkhair has appointed Khalil Nooruddin as managing director and chief executive, the bank said in a statement on 18 September.
Standard Chartered has agreed to pay a $340m fine to the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), for facilitating transactions of Iranian clients. On 6 August, DFS superintendent of financial services Benjamin Lawsky called the UK multinational banking and financial services company a “rogue institution”.
Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi issued a slew of presidential decrees on 6 August, one of which restructured the board of the central bank. Mohammed Aoud Bin Hammam stayed on as governor and Mohammed Ahmed Al-Sayani was named his deputy.
The UK’s Financial Services Authority is investigating deals in which Gulf financiers from Qatar and a senior member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family saved Barclays from becoming a nationalised bank during the 2008 financial crisis
The sultanate’s first Islamic bank, Bank Nizwa, has elected its first board. In a statement on 22 July, the bank said more than 74% of shareholders voted in person or by proxy to choose an eight-member board. Its first attempt to do so a month ago ended without agreement, apparently because of a lack of quorum.
