Qatar National Bank (QNB) has put in an offer to buyout all of Egypt’s National Societe Generale Bank (NSGB) after reaching an agreement to purchase 77.17 per cent in the firm from France’s Societe Generale.

The deal with Societe Generale is valued at $1.97bn, and if the Qatari lender acquires the remaining shares of the Egyptian bank, the total deal value will be $2.6bn.

QNB plans to launch a tender offer to buy all the shares in NSGB early next year, and Societe Generale has already agreed to sell its majority stake to the Qatari bank. The acquisition is expected to close in the first half of 2013.

The acquisition will further QNB’s dominance of the regional banking sector. It is already the largest bank by assets in the Middle East and North Africa and has plans to become a regional banking brand. It is also notable for being one of the largest investments into Egypt by the foreign company for the past two years.

Qatar has already shown itself to be supportive of post-revolutionary Egypt. In April, it was revealed that QNB and Qatar Petroleum invested around $450m in total to rescue the $3.6bn Mostorod refinery, which had been struggling to get financing in place as a result of the uprising. In November, Qatar also announced that it is working with Egyptian investment firm Citadel Capital (another investor in the Mostorod project) to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage facility, that would pave the way for the Gulf state to import gas into Egypt.

QNB was advised on the deal by the US’ JP Morgan and its own investment banking arm QNB Capital, along with Clifford Chance.