Bahrain-based Arab Banking Corporation (ABC) has announced a loss of $194m in the third quarter of the year, after making provisions of $184m to cover its exposure to US banks Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual.
The bank made a profit of $148m before the provisions, which also included $50m to take account of the impact of the deteriorating credit markets.
Overall, in the year to the end of September, the bank made a loss of $852m. It made $740m of provisions in the first half of the year due to exposures to structured investment vehicles and collateralised debt obligations.
“This is a year of clean-up for ABC," says chief executive officer Hassan Ali Juma. "By the end of the third quarter we will finish making all the provisions that need to be made.”
The bank also officially announced its expansion into retail banking, as revealed in MEED on 31 October.
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