Qatar Daily News

Qatar Islamic Bank SAQ, the country’s biggest Islamic lender, sold a five percent stake to Qatar Investment Authority, the Persian Gulf country’s sovereign wealth, as part of a plan to boost bank capital.

Qatar Investment Authority paid 956 million riyals ($263 million) for the stake, Qatar Islamic Bank said in a statement posted on the Doha bourse Web site today.

Qatar has released the second tranche of funds – worth about QR2bn ($549m) – into the banking sector in the latest effort to help banks recover from the impact of the global financial crisis.

The funds will appear in the balance sheets of the listed banks for the current year.

The announcement was made by the Minister of Economy and Finance, Yousef Hussein Kamal on Wednesday, The Peninsula reported on Thursday, citing Qatar News Agency.

He said that the state sovereign wealth fund, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), will pick a further five percent stake in all the listed banks in return for the investment.
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Qatari Diar Real Estate Development Company has selected Dixon Jones with Squire and Partners, and Kim Wilkie Associates to lead the masterplanning stage of London’s Chelsea Barracks project.
Qatari Diar is the sole owner and developer of the project.

The purpose of the masterplan will be to create a design framework for the 12.8 acre site, including sustainable land use mix and public realm, ahead of any detailed design architecture.
Among other issues, it will address building use, height, density and site layout, reflecting its immediate surroundings and its location within London. In particular, it will draw on the substantial number of responses from the local community.

“Following a rigorous selection process, in which submissions and presentations were considered from 10 shortlisted teams, Dixon Jones with Squire and Partners and Kim Wilkie Associates have been selected to lead the masterplanning stage of the project,” an official spokesman said.
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Qatar is set to shift its investment focus back to domestic projects as the economy slows sharply and firms face higher financing costs, the country’s top financial regulator said on Friday.

Qatar, which is the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas exporter, has been investing windfall oil revenues overseas, snapping up stakes in international companies with the economy expanding 20 percent in the past few years.

“This year we are having to manage with growth at under half of that … In many ways there’s a chance to catch your breath. A little bit less growth is healthy at this stage,” Phillip Thorpe, chairman and chief executive of the Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority, told Reuters. “The government is now looking at a significant programme of domestic investment … rather than looking for assets in other markets. My expectations are a much greater emphasis on internal infrastructure investments,” said Thorpe, who is a former managing director at the UK Financial Services Authority.
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