Middle East Economic Survey

VOL. XLIX

No 1/2

2/9-January-2006

QATAR

Qatar Acquires Lebanons BLC Bank

The Supreme Council for Economic Affairs and Investment of Qatar has bought 96.22% of Lebanons BLC Bank from the Central Bank of Lebanon (CBL) in an auction worth $236.3mn. The CBL took over the bank in 2002 to rescue it from bankruptcy and injected $147mn in new capital. It changed the banks management and helped it to return to profit in 2003. The buyer has promised to inject more than $100mn into...