By Ramy Sameeh

Abu Dhabi – Mubasher: Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB), the emirate’s biggest Islamic bank, said it is not intending to carry out new overseas expansions or acquisitions till the end of this year.

The bank studies new acquisitions and expansions from now and then, but there will be nothing new over the remaining period in 2015, said CEO Tirad Mahmoud.

Several GCC banks have recently sought to expand their footprint overseas through carrying out acquisition deals, due to fierce competition locally.

“We previously sought to acquire the retail business of Citigroup Egypt, but we did not win the deal,” the top executive told Mubasher, during a press conference held Wednesday.

ADIB was among a consortium of ten banks that vied for Citigroup’s retail portfolio that includes around $140 million in assets, $190 million in deposits and around 100,000 accounts. However, Commercial International Bank – Egypt landed the deal.

The CEO also stated that his bank is not intending to issue new Sukuk during the coming quarter. He added that ADIB is currently in talks with the capital market authority to finalise procedures related to its capital increase.

ADIB shareholders approved, on Sunday proposals to raise AED 504 million of share capital through a rights issue of 168 million new shares.

They also gave a nod to an increase to the bank’s authorisation for issuing sharia-compliant tier 1 capital instruments to $3 billion from the current limit of $2 billion, according to a statement.

The CEO ruled out impact from the Greek financial crisis on the bank or the UAE’s banking sector.

ADIB earlier posted 10.1% growth in Q1 profit to AED 450.8 million ($122.8 million), compared with AED 409.5 million in the same period a year earlier.

Translated by Sayed Abdel Rahman