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DUBAI: Bank Muscat, Oman’s largest lender by market value, said on Saturday it had agreed to sell a 15 per cent stake to government-owned Dubai Financial for $619 million.
Bank Muscat will issue 161.57 million new shares at 1.475 rials ($3.83) per share through a private placement with Dubai Financial, the lender said in a statement.
The transaction is still awaiting regulatory approvals, Bank Muscat said.
“We intend to use these funds to support the overall asset growth and expansion plans of the bank both in the domestic market and overseas,” Bank Muscat Chairman AbdulMalik al-Khalili said in a statement.
Dubai Financial, whose parent is Dubai Holding, said in July it had agreed buy around 37 per cent of Bahrain’s TAIB Bank and was looking to raise its stake to 60 per cent.
Dubai Financial reached an agreement with TAIB’s three biggest shareholders to buy 60 per cent of their stock.
Across the Gulf, banks, buoyed by the economic windfall of a tripling in oil prices since 2002, are expanding overseas and making acquisitions as competition intensifies in their home markets.
In the UAE, the second-largest Arab economy, the Dubai government is combining Emirates Bank International and National Bank of Dubai (NBD) to create the Gulf’s biggest lender by assets.
Dubai Financial paid about 403 million euros for a 31.5 per cent stake in Greek Marafin Financial Group in March. The Dubai firm would nominate two directors to the Omani lender’s board, Bank Muscat said.
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