Emirates International Investment Company, the strategic investment arm of National Holding, has acquired a 7.6 per cent stake in Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, the UAE’s second largest Islamic lender by assets, from Mubadala Investment Company.
The transaction boosts EIIC’s total stake in ADIB to 47 per cent.
The deal “is in line with Mubadala’s strategy to create long-term value by optimising a global portfolio of investments across a variety of sectors”, it said on Friday.
Mubadala, Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund, remains one of the largest investor in the UAE banking sector following the divesture.
Mubadala, which manages $232 billion of assets across six continents in multiple sectors, has a 60.2 per cent stake in Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and owns 37.9 per cent of First Abu Dhabi Bank, the UAE's largest lender.
Founded in 1993, EIIC has interests across sectors in local and international markets that include banking, asset management, real estate, hospitality, FinTech as well as food and agriculture.
ADIB, which has more than Dh172 billion ($47 billion) in assets, provides retail, corporate, business, private banking and wealth management services to more than 1 million customers.
Last month, ADIB reported a 48 per cent surge in its first-quarter net profit on the back of higher revenue and fee income.
Net profit attributable to equity holders of the bank for the three months to the end of March climbed to Dh1 billion compared to Dh715 million for the same period last year.
ADIB's net revenue from funds jumped 81 per cent annually to Dh1.42 billion, while fees and commission income rose 4 per cent to Dh300 million.
As well as its UAE operations, ADIB, which was founded in 1997, operates in Egypt, where it has 70 branches, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Sudan and Iraq.
Lenders in the GCC, where most central banks peg their currency to the US dollar, are benefiting from rising interest rates as their economies recover strongly and inflation in the region remains relatively low.
Profitability of the four largest banks in the UAE will continue to grow this year amid rising interest rates and continuing economic momentum, Moody's Investors Service said in March.
The combined reported net profit of First Abu Dhabi Bank, Emirates NBD, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and Dubai Islamic Bank — which account for about 77 per cent of banking assets in the UAE, climbed to $9 billion at the end of last year — up from $8 billion recorded in 2021 and $8.3 billion in 2019.
