National Bank of Abu Dhabi PJSC and First Gulf Bank PJSC picked about 60 senior managers to run the combined company as Abu Dhabi’s two biggest lenders work to complete a $175bn merger, according to two people with knowledge of the announcements.
Stephen Jordan, head of treasury at NBAD, will retain the same position at the merged bank, while Andy Cairns, NBAD’s global head of debt origination and distribution, will be in charge of corporate finance, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public. Mohammed Ali Yasin, managing director of NBAD Securities, the bank’s brokerage unit, will also stay in the same position, the people said.
Abu Dhabi is combining its largest banks to better compete with rivals and bolster its ability to lend and secure funding as it grapples with lower oil prices. The emirate holds about 6% of the world’s oil reserves.
The merger may presage further consolidation in the United Arab Emirates’ financial services industry where about 50 lenders compete in a market of about 9mn people. The two lenders said in July that Abdulhamid Saeed, a managing director at FGB and a former Citigroup employee, is chief executive officer designate and James Burdett, chief financial officer of NBAD, will retain that role.
Andre Sayegh, CEO of FGB, will be group deputy CEO and the acting head of corporate and investment banking after the merger while Hana al-Rostamani, who oversees consumer banking at FGB, will take on the same role, people familiar with the announcements said in October.
Other positions announced include Mahmood Aradi, the head of global markets at NBAD in the same position at the combined bank, Suvrat Saigal as the head of mass segment and products, Rudiger Von Wedel as the head of wealth and private banking and Michael Austin as head of information technology, according to the people.
FGB and NBAD “can confirm that a new level of management will be announced in due course to lead the combined bank once the merger completes at the end of the first quarter of 2017,” the banks said in an e-mailed statement. “Until then, FGB and NBAD will continue to operate independently under their current leadership teams.”
.
