Banking

  Reuters Jordan’s central bank said that it had auctioned its first-ever sale of Islamic bonds, or sukuk, a five-year 75 million dinars ($105.9 million) deal to help finance purchases by state utility firm National Electric Power Company. The sukuk, which used a cost-plus-profit arrangement known as murabaha, attracted 205 million dinars worth of bids paying a 3.5 percent profit ...

  Bloomberg UniCredit SpA Chief Executive Officer Federico Ghizzoni may resign as soon as on Tuesday amid investors’ demands for a change in management, people with knowledge of the situation said. The bank’s board will meet tomorrow and may authorise its nomination committee to begin the search for a new CEO, said one person, asking not to be identified because ...

  JAKARTA / Reuters Ares Capital Corp., the publicly traded lender managed by alternative investment firm Ares Management LP, will acquire American Capital Ltd. in a deal valued at around $3.4 billion. Ares Capital will pay $14.95 a share in cash and stock for Bethesda, Maryland-based American Capital, the companies said in a statement Monday. The deal excludes American Capital ...

  Bloomberg Britain’s bank chief executives can sleep easy. Peer-to-peer lenders are unlikely to dent their dominance of the loan market over the next decade, according to Deloitte LLP. Online platforms connecting investors directly with consumer and commercial borrowers will probably account for about 1 percent of the 600 billion pounds ($874 billion) of total lending by 2025, according to ...

  Bloomberg Collector Bank AB plans to add 80 to 90 employees a year to accommodate growth as the Swedish financial services-provider rolls out new technical solutions and products to challenge the largest banks. Most of the recruitment will be at the IT unit, which currently accounts for 100 of Collector’s 350 full-time employees, Chief Executive Officer Stefan Alexandersson said ...

  Bloomberg CRDB Bank Plc, the largest bank in Tanzania, expects to reduce its non-performing loan ratio to meet a central bank threshold as it shifts its focus to the retail business, Managing Director Charles Kimei said. The lender’s ratio of non-performing loans will fall to 6 percent this year from 8.1 percent a year earlier, when tobacco marketing groups ...

  Bloomberg Brazil’s finance minister nominated Itau Unibanco Holding SA’s chief economist Ilan Goldfajn to head Brazil’s central bank and proposed a constitutional amendment to grant the top monetary authority operational autonomy. Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles also said that Goldfajn, who must still be confirmed by the Senate, would not form part of Acting President Michel Temer’s cabinet and that ...

  Bloomberg Bank Pekao SA slumped to a two week low after 50.3-percent owner UniCredit SpA was said to be considering selling a stake in Poland’s second-largest lender among other measures to boost capital. The shares in Pekao fell as much as 3 percent and traded 2.1 percent lower at 148.4 zloty in Warsaw, making the bank the second-biggest loser ...

  JAKARTA / Reuters Suriname’s Trust Bank hopes to complete a conversion of its operations to Islamic banking by the end of this year, becoming the first full-fledged Islamic bank in South America, its chief executive said. Last week the bank received approval in principle from the central bank for the transition, as it aims to expand financing to small ...

  LONDON / Reuters International financial messaging service SWIFT has directed all its client banks to share information on attacks on the system to help prevent hacking, after criminals recently used SWIFT messages to steal nearly $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank. It was reported earlier that Wells Fargo , Ecuador’s Banco del Austro (BDA) and Citibank, whose managing ...