Dubai Islamic Bank shareholders give green light to acquire Noor Bank

The shareholders of Dubai Islamic Bank have given the nod to acquire Noor Bank.

The company said in a bourse filing on Wednesday (Dec 18) that the decision is subject to regulatory approvals.

The shareholders have approved the bank’s proposal of the acquisition of Noor Bank through a strategic investment via a share swap.

The bank said in the statement that the share and purchase agreement includes the share swap ratio of 1 Dubai Islamic Bank share for 5.49 shares of Noor Bank through the issuance of 651,159,198 new shares of Dubai Islamic Bank.

The shareholders also approved the increase of capital of the bank from 6.589,585,179 bank shares to 7,240,744,377 shares through the issuance of 651,159,198 new shares and the allocation of the new shares to Noor Investment Group and Emirates Investment Authority as strategic investors.

Dubai Islamic Bank is the UAE’s largest standalone Shariah-compliant bank.

UAE currently has six standalone Islamic banks: DIB, Emirates Islamic, Noor Bank, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Sharjah Islamic Bank, and Ajman Bank.

DIB's acquisition of Noor Bank will cut that number down to five. 

In June when DIB outlined its plans to acquire Noor Bank it said that the smaller bank’s operations will be integrated and consolidated with its own. DIB said at the time that assets post-acquisition will reach nearly 275 billion dirhams ($75 billion).

DIB’s assets as at September 30 was 229.962 billion dirhams ($62.62 billion).

The bank posted 0.08% increase in net profit to 1.262 billion dirhams ($343.6 million) for the three months ending September 30 compared to the same quarter a year ago.

DIB was designated by the UAE central bank in 2018 as systematically important. It is the only standalone and full-fledged Islamic bank out of four financial institutions the regulator considers “too big to fail”.

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