Abu Dhabi bank to buy $900m offshore loans

DUBAI: National Bank of Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates’ largest bank, signed an agreement with Royal Bank of Scotland to buy about $900 million of offshore loans to Indian companies.

The deal should be completed progressively from the third quarter of 2015, subject to conditions, the bank, which is 70 per cent owned by the oil-rich emirate, said in a statement posted on the Abu Dhabi stock exchange website on Sunday.

Deutsche Bank acquired about $200 million of Royal Bank of Scotland’s Indian loan assets, people familiar with the matter said last month. The German lender also bought some Singapore and Indonesian assets from Royal Bank of Scotland, they said.

Royal Bank of Scotland, the UK’s largest taxpayer-owned lender, has been exiting its corporate loans and debt capital markets business in the Middle East and Africa this year as part of a move to make the bank smaller. The bank also sold its retail banking business to Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank in 2010.

Royal Bank of Scotland’s loss at its investment bank almost doubled in the third quarter, the Edinburgh-based bank said in a statement last month. Chief executive officer Ross McEwan is dismantling the division and scaling back trading businesses amid lingering costs for litigation.

Deposits slump

National Bank of Abu Dhabi earlier said that government deposits slumped by more than $13 billion in the past year after the drop in crude.

The United Arab Emirates’ banking sector has lost Dh56 billion ($15.25 billion) in government deposits since September last year, of which National Bank of Abu Dhabi’s share has been Dh48 billion, chief executive officer Alex Thursby said on a conference call on Wednesday.