Fitch affirms QIB's (A) rating with stable outlook.

Byline: [e-mail] (Staff Writer)

The Individual Rating (or stand-alone strength) reflects QIB's position as the leading Islamic franchise with a nearly 50 per cent share of Islamic assets and a nine per cent overall market share of system assets, in addition to the bank's high earnings power from core banking and healthy capital ratios.

Fitch also takes a positive view of the timely and considerable State support for the domestic banking system. QIB's liquidity is satisfactory and the tier 1 capital ratio is high at 17.4 per cent at end-9M09, underpinned by the Qatar Investment Authority's (QIA) nearly QAR 1 billion capital injection (including share premium) in Q109.

Commenting on Fitch's latest rating, Salah Al Jaidah, QIB CEO, said, "Fitch's confirmation of QIB's 'A' rating is the result of the high efficiency of the bank's strategy during the global financial crisis. The bank leveraged the strong support the state offered to its financial and banking sectors when QIA acquired shares of national banks' capitals and through the purchase of their shares and property portfolios."

"During 2009, QIB has strived to achieve goals within the five-year strategic plan adopted by its Board of Directors presided by H.E. Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Bin Jabor Al Thani. These include efforts to consolidate growth and forge a sound, balanced financial position and effective banking risk management. This has entailed a Human Resources re-orientation and a management of liquidity and profitability on tactical bases. These changes have comprised a finely-tuned strategy that permits the consolidation and effectuation of our principal activities, the assimilation of financial crisis downturns and the maintenance of balanced management of assets and liquidity to ensure continued performance and sustained growth," he added.

Notably, profit realised by QIB over the first three quarters of 2009 was derived mainly from growth in operative income which realised a remarkable increase as the primary focus of Bank activities and the efforts deployed to improve operative income rates and expand non-operative income resources. Domestic business also witnessed positive growth in Q3 with the execution of successful corporate financing operations particularly in the contracting, automobile, cable and cement manufacturing and general trade activities sectors. An example of QIB's success in the corporate financing area is the QAR 4 billion syndicated financing arrangement for premier real estate developer, Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Co., and $200M financing for a state-of-the-art Qatar Petrochemical Co. project.

2009 CPI Financial. All rights reserved.

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