Appointing a new head of the Commercial International Bank

While its share lost more than 40% of its value on the London Stock Exchange, today, Friday, the Commercial International Bank in Egypt announced that its Chairman, Hisham Ezz Al-Arab, had stepped down from his post, and that the Board decided to appoint Sherif Sami as a non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors after obtaining approval. central bank.

The bank also said that the contents of the observations of the Central Bank will be verified as soon as they are received, stressing that it is committed to paying due diligence to all supervisory notes received from the Central Bank.

Meanwhile, the bank’s listed shares in London plunged more than 40% in morning trading, on Friday, before recovering their losses and rising slightly from the open level, following the announcement yesterday of the bank’s dismissal from his post.

The Commercial International Bank is the largest listed bank in Egypt, and foreign investors have large holdings in it, and its former Chairman Hisham Ezz Al-Arab is among the top bankers in the country and is widely recognized in the financial world in the Middle East.

Yesterday morning, the Egyptian Stock Exchange said that it had suspended trading on the shares of the Commercial International Bank in Cairo, based on a request from the Financial Supervisory Authority. A communications official at Commercial International Bank said the bank held a long-running board meeting, Thursday afternoon. The bank says it has 207 branches and serves 1.4 million customers.

The bank’s GDRs fell in London by up to 41 percent, Friday morning, before recovering to be traded higher during the session. And GDRs fell 17%, on Thursday. Refinitiv data shows that the bank’s last-listed shares were traded in Cairo on October 21.

A letter circulated on social media, reportedly from the Central Bank of Egypt, informing Hussein Abaza, CEO of CIB, that the Central Bank decided to dismiss Ezz Al-Arab due to alleged violations, according to a new law passed this year.

Ezz Al-Arab led a team that achieved the bank’s shift from focusing on institutional transactions to leading the sector in terms of revenues, net value and market share of deposits, according to his website.

The private banking sector in Egypt has expanded gradually over the past few decades, and the government has moved aggressively to privatize banks more than other sectors. The central bank plans to sell stakes in several banks it owns, including Banque du Caire, the third largest state-owned bank in Egypt, but the plans were suspended due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

(Reuters, The New Arab)