CBQ Bids for Stake in United Arab Bank

DUBAI, 18 August 2007 — Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ) said yesterday its bid for a stake in Abu Dhabi-listed United Arab Bank is similar in scale to its 34 percent purchase in an Omani lender in 2005. Qatar’s second-largest bank by market value said on Thursday it had reached initial agreement with “major” shareholders of United Arab Bank to buy a “significant” stake in the Sharjah-based lender. “You should not be looking for very much deviation to what we did in Oman, at an absolute minimum,” Commercial Bank Chief Executive Officer Andrew Stevens told Reuters by telephone from Britain yesterday. He declined to give further details.