Dubai Islamic Bank takes 60 pct stake in Sudan bank

DUBAI, July 25 (Reuters) – Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) said on Monday it bought a nearly 60-percent stake in Sudan’s state-run Bank of Khartoum.

A DIB statement said it signed a deal in the Sudanese capital to acquire 60 percent of the 99-percent stake of Sudan’s government in the bank, the African country’s oldest.

The remaining 1.0 percent is held by Sudanese investors, it said, without giving the value of the deal.

Bank of Khartoum, with a capital of $45 million, doubled its profit to $7 million in 2004 from the previous year, it added.

“These results reflect its ability to grow and we are confident that performance will further improve,” Aref Kooheji, DIB’s executive vice-president for investment and corporate banking, said in the statement.

“We look at the agreement as a significant investment in a dynamic sector in Sudan,” he said.

Dubai Islamic Bank, the world’s oldest Islamic bank, is already an investor in the newly founded Emirates and Sudan Bank.

Islamic banks do not pay or charge interest, considered usury by many Muslims. Money is made by using a system of profit-sharing from returns on approved investments.