Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Albaraka Banking Group BSC, the biggest publicly traded Islamic lender in Bahrain, expects to complete an acquisition in Indonesia in the first quarter of 2011 as part of an expansion, its chief executive officer said.
The bank has identified targets for the planned transaction in the Asian country, Adnan Yousif said in an interview at an economic conference in Kuwait today. Albaraka has also identified an acquisition target in Malaysia, he said.
"I believe that Indonesia will be before Malaysia," Yousif said. "We had already started there and the only reason that stopped us was the crisis last year, otherwise we were more or less close to acquiring a small institution there."
Albaraka this year acquired Pakistan's Emirates Global Islamic Bank Ltd., which boosted its network in the country to about 90 branches. It also began operations in Syria this year.
The Manama-based bank has received approval to set up a representative office in Libya to benefit from the country's strong trade ties with other markets where the bank operates, such as Egypt, Turkey, Algeria and Jordan, Yousif said.
In South Africa, the bank may increase its capital next year by a "small amount" to help finance its expansion there, Yousif said. "South Africa is a very good market," he said. "This year we have grown in deposits by 60 percent."
Albaraka expects to raise $200 million from the sale of Islamic bonds before the end of the year, using London-based Standard Chartered as one of the managers.
The bank expects total loans to increase 20 percent in 2010, while assets are projected to stand at $15 billion by the end of the year, Yousif said.
Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/10/30/bloomberg1376-LB5ABM6TTDS001-4M5SSUTOL6Q3J20IQR0S2JF9VI.DTL - Oct 31, 2010
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