AMMAN, (Reuters) – Jordan-based Arab Bank Group said on Sunday its first-quarter net profit rose 25 percent to $187.1 million as the bank maintained growth across the board.
Chairman and CEO Abdel Hamid Shoman said in a statement that growth had come from the bank’s “original sources of income and return on utilising funds and operating revenues.”
Shoman said the total assets of Arab Bank Group, one of the Middle East’s major financial institutions which includes Arab Bank Switzerland headquartered in Zurich, rose in the first quarter to $33.3 billion from $29.3 billion in the same period last year.
Pretax profits rose to $230.5 million, Shoman said without giving the extent of the rise. Total shareholders equity rose to $6.2 billion from $5.9 billion at the end of 2006 and accounted for 18.6 percent of total assets, Shoman said, adding it enhanced the capital adequacy ratio to 25.9 percent.
Arab Bank Group’s credit facilities rose to $14.7 billion against $12 billion in the same period last year, Shoman said.
The bank is one of the region’s largest privately owned banks with Saudi Arabia and Qatar owning minority holdings. It owns 40 percent of Saudi Arabia’s Arab National Bank.
The largest single shareholder in the bank, which is a pillar of the economy that constitutes over 40 percent of the Amman bourse capitalisation, is the family of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri with over 18 percent.
Around 42 percent is owned by local investors.
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