Higher fee income raises TAIB Bank profits

07 February 1997
FINANCE

Growth in non-interest income helped TAIB Bank, a Bahrain-based investment bank, to report a 7.2 per cent rise in net profit in 1996 to $10.4 million. The bank, which concentrates its work in the Gulf and surrounding regions, reported a big rise in customer deposits. It is paying a 6 per cent cash dividend to shareholders, compared to the previous year's 5 per cent.

Total assets increased by 8.7 per cent to $333.6 million. The bank says 40 per cent of its assets are liquid compared to 30 per cent in 1995. Time deposits with banks, investments and loans all rose, while the bank cut back its trading securities portfolio during the year. On the liability side, customer deposits rose by 64 per cent to $84.4 million. Interbank borrowings fell, and TAIB Bank is now a net interbank lender. The bank's credit rating from Cyprus-based Capital Intelligence was raised last year (MEED 3:1:97).

The bank says its Bahrain brokerage subsidiary, TAIB Securities, outperformed the market during the year, while its real estate portfolio in the West performed well. The bank spent more than $50 million on acquiring US real estate in 1996. It says that its Turkish and Indian subsidiaries had a 'modest performance' despite adverse market conditions. The bank has applied to the authorities in Kazakhstan to take a majority shareholding in a bank there, to be called TAIB Kazakh Bank. A chief executive has been appointed and operations are due to start within months.

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