Doha Bank looks at acquisitions

Dubai: Doha Bank is looking at opportunities for acquisitions and investments in line with its expansion strategy, its managing director and chief executive told Gulf News.

The fifth-largest lender by market value in Qatar recently raised its capital by 15 per cent to 1.2 billion riyals (Dh1.2 billion) as a result of last month's rights issue, which was oversubscribed five times.

"Now we have the funds to go for such a strategy," said Shaikh Abdul Rahman MJ Al Thani.

"The bank has plans to go for global depositary receipts [GDR] by year-end or the beginning of next year, which would complement the successful rights issue in pursuit of the strategy to expand and invest," he added.

With the local market saturated, the bank's strategy is to increasingly expand beyond Qatar, and the choice of countries is driven by mutual trade relations between Qatar and the target country, Al Thani said.

UAE-Qatar trade has risen from 3.7 per cent of the total of Qatar's trade in 2004 to 4.6 per cent in 2006, and that was the reason for the bank to start operations in Dubai, which was officially opened on Tuesday.

"We will concentrate more on corporate and trade finance. We will not be competing in retail with so many banks already out there [in the UAE]," said Al Thani.