A1SaudiArabia.com

JEDDAH – Saudi bank credit to the private sector edged up 0.2 percent in January, official data showed, raising hopes lenders were becoming less cautious in the biggest Arab economy.

Saudi bank credit growth was flat throughout much of 2009 due to global turmoil and after defaults by local family firms.

Bank credit to the private sector rose to 709.8 billion riyals ($189.3 billion) in January after 708.77 billion riyals in December, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) said in its monthly report on Tuesday.

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DUBAI – Al Rajhi Capital, the investment arm of Saudi Arabias Al Rajhi Bank 1120.SE and Bahrains Arcapita Bank has launched a $500 million Gulf property income fund to capitalise on falling prices, the firms said on Monday.

The two companies will seed a joint investment of $50 million for the fund, which will focus on logistics warehouses, health care and education-related assets in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab region, they said in a statement.

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KUWAIT CITY: India’s largest mobile phone operator Bharti Airtel has offered $10.7 billion (7.9 billion euros) to buy Kuwait’s Zain telecom operations in 15 African nations, a newspaper reported on Saturday. Quoting unnamed “reliable sources,” Kuwait’s Al-Rai daily said the “official bid” was made on Thursday and will not include Zain’s totally-owned unit in Sudan.

GFH seeks $100m Wakala facility

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LONDON – Metals and oil prices recovered this week on expectations of higher demand but gains were capped by concerns over Greeces debt problems.

“Greece still dominated headlines after EU officials confirmed that they had an alleged deal reached over assistance to debt-burdened Greece,” said commodities analyst Andrey Kryuchenkov at Russian investment bank VTB Capital.

“However, there were no further details on the Greek bailout and market participants remained uneasy, while the dollar held firm.”

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LONDON – The euro plunged against the dollar on Friday, as investors voiced unease about the eurozones economic recovery slowing down and a lack of concrete EU proposals to help debt-ridden Greece.

Investors also sought the safe-haven dollar after China ordered financial institutions to increase the amount of money they keep in reserve, as Beijing looked to rein in rampant lending amid fears of asset bubbles.

On other world markets, European and Wall Street shares fell while Asian bourses were mostly higher, and crude oil prices slid.

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KUWAIT CITY – Standard and Poors rating agency Thursday placed Kuwaits biggest diversified holding firm on credit watch, with negative implications due to the high-risk profile of its two largest holdings.

“The credit watch placement reflects our view on Kuwait Projects Company (KIPCO)s portfolio characteristics, which we believe have weakened and which may have negative implications on our assessment of the companys stand-alone credit profile,” the rating agency said. “We believe the risk profiles of KIPCOs two largest holdings, investment bank United Gulf Bank and Pay-TV platform Showtime-Orbit are relatively high,” it added.

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MANAMA: The Bahrain-based Gulf Finance House (GFH) has successfully reached an agreement for the refinancing of its major $300 million debt facility.

GFH, the leading Islamic investment bank in the Middle East, said that it had replaced its $300 million syndicated facility with a maturity date of Feb. 10 with a new $100 million murabaha which has a tenor of six months, having repaid $200 million on the initial due date.

“GFH reached this agreement following a series of meetings held in London between its senior management and a syndicate of 32 financial institutions led by German bank, WestLB,” said the bank in a statement.

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LONDON – European stocks rose cautiously Tuesday on hopes that EU officials will provide Greece with some form of support to handle its mountain of debt and keep the market crisis from spreading to other vulnerable countries.

Although the European Investment Bank said Tuesday it would not be able, according to its own rules, to offer Greece or any other country a bailout, investors are betting that a meeting on Thursday of EU heads of state will address the markets worry about sovereign debt.

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JEDDAH/DUBAI: Middle East markets rebounded on Monday, with Egypt recouping most of its previous days losses, but volumes were thin as investors remained on the sidelines in the absence of significant catalysts.

What we are seeing today, with regard to volumes, is a contagion effect of high volatility internationally, said Marwan Shurrab, vice-president and chief trader at Gulfmena Alternative Investments.

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JEDDAH: Fernvale Investments (Mauritius) Pte Ltd. is making a capital commitment of $75 million to Pan-African Investment Partners II Ltd. (the second Kingdom Zephyr fund, known as PAIP II). This was announced here on Monday by Kingdom Holding Company (KHC).

Fernvale is a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of Temasek Holdings (Private) Ltd.

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