Banking

  Bloomberg Citigroup Inc. said it has named Gerald Keefe as its Hong Kong-based head of corporate banking for the Asia-Pacific region, a newly created role. Keefe, currently head of corporate banking for Japan, will take on responsibilities for Citigroup bankers in the region dealing with companies, financial institutions and public-sector entities, according to a press release. Agnes Liew, another ...

  Moscow / Reuters The New Development Bank (NDB), formed by the BRICS group of emerging nations, has approved its first loans — $811 million for renewable energy projects in Brazil, China, India and South Africa, Russian news agencies reported last week. The BRICS bank, with authorised capital of $100 billion, started work last year on funding initiatives for infrastructure ...

  MILAN / REUTERS Italy has dubbed its new bank bailout fund Atlas, after the mythical Greek titan, because it is meant to hold up the sky above the nation’s lenders. But some of the fund’s own investors doubt that it can do the job. The 5-6 billion euro ($5.7-6.8 billion) fund was hailed by the government as an industry-led ...

  MADRID / REUTERS Spain’s Caixabank said on Monday it would launch a full takeover bid for the 56 percent of Portuguese lender Banco BPI that it does not already own for 1.113 euros ($1.26) per share. The offer was dependent on acceptance topping 50 percent and the Portuguese bank eliminating a 20 percent shareholder rights limitation, the Spanish bank ...

  REUTERS Arab National Bank, Saudi Arabia’s seventh-largest lender by assets value, reported a 2.8 percent fall in first-quarter profit, but still beat analysts’ forecasts. Net profit in the three months to March 31 was 749.2 million riyals ($199.8 million), compared to 770.6 million riyals in the corresponding period of the previous year, it said in a bourse statement. Four ...

  Bloomberg CDC Group Plc is seeking to purchase a 10.68 percent stake in I&M Holdings Ltd. of Kenya through a private share transfer, the lender said. The UK-based development finance institution entered into a conditional agreement to buy shares held by Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft and Proparco, which have 6.25 percent and 4.43 percent respectively, according to a statement ...

BLOOMBERG No sooner will Mario Draghi return from his summer vacation than he’ll be looking to boost euro-area stimulus yet again, economists predict. Despite unprecedented measures by the European Central Bank (ECB) president so far, a survey of 47 analysts who cover the institution showed more than 60 percent think he isn’t yet done. The most likely date for fresh ...

  Reuters Al Rajhi Bank, Saudi Arabia’s second-largest lender by assets, reported a 32.8 percent rise in first-quarter net profit on Sunday, beating analyst forecasts as it cut wage costs and fee income increased. The bank made a profit of 2.02 billion riyals ($538.7 million) in the three months to March 31, up from 1.52 billion riyals in the same ...

  Budapest / Reuters The scope for further cuts in the National Bank of Hungary’s record-low 1.2 percent base rate is increasingly limited, central bank Managing Director Barnabas Virag was quoted as saying on Saturday. “The room to further reduce the central bank’s base rate is increasingly limited,” Virag, who is not a rate-setter but is in charge of monetary ...

  Bloomberg Indonesia’s central bank said it will use the seven-day reverse repo rate as its benchmark policy instrument to help spur lending and support growth in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy. The new benchmark — which is the interest the central bank pays to borrow from commercial lenders, currently at 5.5 percent — will replace the 12-month reference rate of ...