Bahrain Islamic Bank (BisB) has established an independent committee of its board of directors to evaluate a voluntary takeover offer by rival National Bank of Bahrain (NBB).

NBB first announced in October 2018 that it was considering buying shares in Bahrain’s largest Sharia-compliant lender. In the beginning of 2019, NBB said that consultations are still going with BisB on the voluntary takeover.

However, last month, BisB announced that it had not yet received any formal voluntary takeover offer from NBB for its issued shares. In today’s announcement, BisB also noted that it had not yet received a formal offer.

The government of Bahrain and NBB each hold 29.06 percent of BisB’s shares (309.22 million shares each), while Islamic Development Bank holds 14.42 percent and the Government of Kuwait’s stake amounts to 7.18 percent.

NBB is the second largest Bahraini bank by market capitalisation just behind Ahli United Bank which accounts for 27.94 percent of the total market capitalisation on the exchange.

(Writing by Gerard Aoun, editing by Seban Scaria)

(Gerard.aoun@refinitiv.com)

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© ZAWYA 2019