M&A Fever Has Yet to Break in the Gulf
Banks from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates are leading a record pace of consolidations.
From Dubai’s Burj Khalifa to Kuwait’s Al Hamra Tower, oil-rich Gulf economies built up their skylines in a hurry in the few years preceding the financial crisis. Now, as the price of the region’s most precious commodity languishes, a similarly frantic pace is on to merge some of the region’s banking and industrial behemoths.
Banks across the Gulf are leading a record wave of mergers and acquisitions as governments look for ways to stay competitive and battle slow growth. About a dozen lenders are involved in mergers or takeovers. The flow of deals has been gathering speed ever since the megamerger between two of Abu Dhabi’s largest banks in 2017 and the combination of three of the emirate’s investment firms that was completed last year.