Mubasher: The Islamic International Rating Agency (IIRA) has confirmed on Wednesday the GFH Financial Group’s international scale ratings at ‘BB/B.’

Furthermore, the group’s national scale ratings were kept at ‘BBB-(bh)/A3-(bh),’ while maintaining the outlook at ‘stable,’ the IIRA said in a report.

The fiduciary ratings agency highlighted GFH’s key business lines, including investment banking, real estate development, treasury investments, and commercial banking business, with its 55.4% holding in the Bahraini lender Khaleeji Commercial Bank.

Although the group’s assets are concentrated in real estate at various stages of development, this is reduced with a buildup of investment in treasury products and growing investments in volatility resisitant businesses, such as eduction and healthcare.

GFH has also been able to achieve successful exits from some of its real estate projects, thereby benefiting from appreciation.

Moreover, the ratings were also based GFH’s association with the UAE’s Abu Dhabi Financial Group (ADFG), in which the former is a controlling shareholder.

Although the group’s capital adequacy ratio (CAR) fell to 14.48% in the third quarter of this year, it remained well above the Central Bank of Bahrain’s minimum of 12.5%.

The ‘stable’ outlook reflected the expected liquidity’s upward movement with GFH’s upcoming medium-term funding plan over the next quarters, the IIRA said.