Thursday, 6 August 2009 at 15:59, Reuters
Swiss private bank Sarasin said on Thursday it was pulling out of a planned joint venture in Bahrain and would surrender its investment licence in the country.
The termination of the deal contrasts sharply with other efforts by the bank, along with many of its private banking peers, to expand into the fast-growing Middle East region.
A spokeswoman for the bank said the joint venture, first announced in December 2007, had not evolved as planned in business terms, but declined to provide further details.
The deal, with Saudi Arabia-based financial group El-Khereiji, was terminated amicably, she said.
Sarasin also said it had informed the Central Bank of Bahrain it would surrender its investment business license, which was granted in July last year.
"Sarasin's other activities in the region are not affected, and while our entry into Bahrain has been postponed for the present, our expansion strategy in the Middle east and Asia remains intact," the spokeswoman said.
The bank's Sarasin Alpen subsidiary began operations in Dubai in 2005, and also has offices in Oman. Qatar and India, and offers private banking services in the Gulf and South Asia regions.
Last week, Sarasin chief executive Joachim Straehle told Reuters the bank had in July launched certain sharia-compliant financial instruments based on existing Sarasin products.
These are investment instruments which comply with the tenets of Islam, and the principal markets are in the Gulf and South Asia regions.
Shares in Sarasin were almost flat in thin trading, underperforming the DJ Stox European Banking Index which was up 2.4 percent <.SX7P> at 0952 GMT.
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