Hisham Itani, investors
buy stake in Crédit National

The bank is increasing its capital by $30 million

Hisham Itani and other investors have acquired 73 percent of Banque de Crédit National (BCN).

The bank is in the process of increasing its capital by $30 million to a total of $45.6 million. The capital hike will be injected by the new shareholders and still requires the approval of the Central Bank. BCN is also considering carrying out another capital increase soon. The amount has not yet been decided.

At the end of 2017, BCN’s total assets and shareholder equity stood at $208.2 million and $26.2 million respectively, according to Bilanbanques’ data.

Itani is the Chairman of Resource Group which has investments in a number of technology companies such as digital security provider Inkript and Serta, a provider of information and communication technology (ICT) solutions.

Besides Itani, the buyers include Walid and Khaled Zeidan, Jihad Bassil, and Gina Arab. The shares were acquired from a number of shareholders including members of the Zein family such as Loutfi El Zein and former Chairman and General Manager of BCN Mohamed El Zein.

New shareholder Khaled Zeidan has been appointed as Chairman and General Manager of BCN.

In 2017, Bank of Beirut announced that it had sought to acquire all of BCN’s shares but that its talks with the bank’s shareholders did not succeed.

BCN is involved in treasury and financial market activities and corporate and personal banking as well as banking for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).