MANAMA, 3 November 2007 — Bahrain’s Ithmaar Bank, plans to buy all the shares of Shamil Bank that it doesn’t own to get greater control of the commercial and retail lender.
The Islamic investment bank, which manages more than $1 billion, seeks “to purchase all the issued and fully paid-up shares of Shamil Bank of Bahrain through a share swap,’’ it said in a filing to the Bahrain Stock Exchange.
In August 2006, Ithmaar paid $410 million for 60 percent of Shamil, according to its website. Shareholders of both banks will be asked to vote on a share swap for the remaining 40 percent after independent valuations of the stocks to determine fair ratios, the filing said.
Ithmaar has approached the Central Bank of Bahrain to get permission for its full takeover of Shamil, according to the filing. A former unit of Shamil, Ithmaar became an independent company in 2003 and has since bought stakes in Islamic financial companies in Switzerland, Pakistan, Egypt and the UK.