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Taib Bank registers $10.5m loss

MANAMA Bahrain-based investment bank Taib Bank posted a 2002 net loss of $10.5 million yesterday compared with net profit of $10.2 million in 2001, and said the global downturn in financial markets was to blame.

A bank statement attributed the annual loss, the bank's first in 15 years, to "the continuing upheavals in the capital markets of the world."

"I am disappointed to announce that the bank has had a setback in 2002," Chief Executive Iqbal Mamdani said.

Mamdani said Taib Bank, an offshore investment bank, would redirect some of its activities from the United States to the Gulf region, and expressed confidence the bank would return to profitability in 2003.

"In terms of our activities in the Gulf, we are now focusing more on private banking," Mamdani told reporters.

"We believe that 2003 will also be a very difficult year, and more particularly so given the potential for geo-political conflicts in the region. But we will position the bank for a return to profitability in 2003."

The bank said it had allocated $6.1 million for provisions in 2002, almost unchanged from the previous year.

Shareholders' equity dropped to $124.7 million at end-2002 from $145 million at end-2001 and total assets fell to $510.7 million from $540.1 million.

Taib Bank said last month it had acquired properties in Britain worth £343 million ($550 million) in partnership with CIT Group, a private Londonbased real estate house.

The bank is 17 per cent owned by its management and five per cent owned by foreigners. The rest is traded on the Bahrain Stock Exchange. Its activities include corporate financing, asset management and real estate.