Ahli United Bank – Bahrain (AUB Bahrain) said that no official approval has been issued yet by the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) regarding the proposed acquisition by Kuwait Finance House (KFH).
Additionally, KFH has not made any official acquisition offer yet, AUB Bahrain said in a bourse statement on Sunday. The bank will disclose any further developments in due course.
Earlier in October, KFH received the approval of the Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) concerning the full acquisition of AUB Bahrain. In a bourse filing, KFH stated that it has received the approval of CBK to acquire 100 per cent of the capital shares of AUB and such approval shall be conditional upon fulfilling certain requirements by the central bank.
KFH’s Board of Directors offered to acquire AUB in an all-share deal that is valued around $8.8 billion and the Kuwait-based lender plans to issue one share for every 2.326 shares of AUB—the banks’ advisers had recommended the same swap ratio.
The deal depends on a number of requirements to ensure adherence to sharia, transparency and protection of free competition, the Central Bank said in a statement.
The KFH-AUB merger deal was formalised in January 2019 and is going to be the first major cross-border tie-up in the region in recent years.
Source Zawya