By IINA,
Jeddah : A group of Gulf banks and investors plan to raise $9 billion by selling shares in a planned Islamic investment bank which will tap the rising liquidity in Muslim nations, a senior banker said yesterday. The bank, tentatively named Ummar Bank, will have a paid-up capital of $11 billion, of which $2 billion will be raised in private equity placement, Sheikh Saleh Kamel, chief of Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Albaraka Banking Group, told Reuters in an interview. Kamel, the largest shareholder in Albaraka Banking Group, chairs the General Council of Islamic Banks and Financial Institutions, which is leading the project. He declined to say when the IPO, the largest in the region, would take place, only that the stocks would first be floated on the Bahrain stock exchange.
Albaraka’s Chief Executive Officer Adnan Yousif said in February that the bank plans to start operations in 2009. “We will raise $2 billion in private equity and the remainder of the normal shares will be raised in public offerings,” Kamel said on the sidelines of an annual Islamic Development Bank governors’ meeting in Jeddah. “We started collecting funds for the private equity in May and we hope to complete this in May. We have raised (about) $500 million,” Kamel said.