Noor embarks on a new journey as it rebrands itself and mulls over an IPO - IFN

Noor embarks on a new journey as it rebrands itself and mulls over an IPO

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UAE: Having recorded a modest growth since its inception in 2008, Noor Islamic Bank has unveiled its new identity yesterday. The Dubai-based Shariah compliant financial institution has rebranded itself as ‘Noor Bank’ with a new business purpose aligned with its slogan, “Noor Gets It Done”. According to Hussain Al Qemzi, CEO of Noor Bank, the new name signifies a major strategic move aimed at underlining its local and international growth ambitions as well as extending the appeal of its Islamic finance products and services across the UAE. The bank will continue to focus on the GCC countries, Turkey and Southeast Asia. Expressly omitting London from the list, Hussain said: “These markets are a lot more developed than others [and] bigger than others [so] we prefer at the moment not to venture outside these domains.” He further noted that although Noor is not in current need of new capital, an IPO is on the cards in the medium-term. “We don’t have any need for new money now, but this [an IPO] is something we will look forward to and contemplate in the next few years. This rebranding will help that exercise,” he explained. In addition to its mainstream banking business, Noor has three other business operations namely, Takaful, trade finance and Awqaf (endowments and asset management). New identities of these three business lines were also launched in pursuit of this new vision: Noor Takaful, Noor Trade and Noor Awqaf. The bank is 50% owned by the Dubai government and 5% owned by the Emirates Investment Authority. In the first half of 2013, Noor’s total assets stood at AED3.3 billion (US$898.31 million).