Noor Bank IPO

[sharewadi]

A possible Initial Public Offering (IPO) for Noor Bank / Noor Islamic Bank was mentioned in a Gulf News report last week - they interviewed Hussain Al Qamzi, Group CEO of Noor Islamic Bank. There was marginally more detail than about the possibility of a Hilal Bank IPO mentioned in the same article. But nothing other than the CEO seems to be saying there will be an IPO for Noor Bank. The most recent bank IPO in the UAE was for Ajman Bank (AJMANBANK), another Islamic institution.

Gulf News 20 August 2008:

Interview with Hussain Al Qamzi, Group CEO of Noor Islamic Bank By Gaurav Ghose What about transparency and disclosure — there is a feeling that there is less of these in Islamic banks when compared to conventional banks? Do you agree? We are not at the moment a publicly-listed company. For the moment we are regulated by the Central Bank of UAE, and we are majority owned by government (the Dubai Government and Federal Government). So we are also subject to their audit. We also have our own external auditor. We have our own internal auditor. We have a lot of measurements that see to it that we remain transparent. I think the UAE is also maturing. We can see now different auditors [involved], and we get more professional management. I have managed public companies before. I follow the same rules. I am tasked with taking this bank public in a few years. How can we do this without being transparent? And also with our aim to make it a global bank, transparency and proper governance is very important.

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