Monday, Jul 04, 2011
(Updates QIB share price in paragraph 4; adds details and background thereafter.)
DOHA (Zawya Dow Jones)--Qatar Islamic Bank, or QIB, the largest sharia-compliant lender in the gas-rich Gulf Arab state, has pulled out of the race to buy a stake in Indonesia's PT Bank Muamalat, a person familiar with matter said Monday.
"We're not bidding for that anymore," a QIB official, who wished not to be named, told Zawya Dow Jones.
He said he wasn't sure why the bank had withdrawn from the bidding process but added that the lender was still interested in acquisitions, especially in Muslim countries in the Far East, where Islamic finance is booming.
Shares in QIB were up 0.1% at 79.3 Qatari riyals ($21.8) in a flat overall market.
In May, it emerged that shareholders of PT Bank Muamalat, Indonesia's oldest Islamic lender, had put up for sale a 51% stake of the company. PT Bank Permata (BNLI.JK), an Indonesian lender 45% owned by Standard Chartered, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. and QIB were among the bidders in the first round. OCBC pulled out before the second round.
Privately-held Muamalat saw net profit rise in 2010 to 170.9 billion Indonesian rupiahs ($20.1 million) from IDR50.1 billion in 2009.
QIB, which has a third stake in Malaysia's Asian Finance Bank, raised $750 million through an Islamic bond sale in late 2010 and plans to issue more sukuk in the third quarter this year, a person familiar with the matter told Zawya Dow Jones in May.
Gulf Islamic banks such as QIB are increasingly looking abroad to fund growth as home markets become saturated. Fast-growing Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, have billions of dollars worth of untapped potential in Islamic finance opportunities, experts say.
-By Alex Delmar-Morgan, Dow Jones Newswires; +974 6659 9818; alex.delmar-morgan@dowjones.com
Copyright (c) 2011 Dow Jones & Co.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
04-07-11 0848GMT
