Banking on success

With paid up capital of US$250million and a team of shareholders made up of investors from the GCC's most influential families, Global Banking Corporation is off to a pretty good start.

The investment bank, which is incorporated in Bahrain, launched its operations earlier this year and wannounced it would be focusing its activities on four core business areas: private equity and venture capital; real estate and infrastructure development; asset management; advisory services in corporate finance and capital markets; and portfolio management services.

It hopes to focus on family companies and high net worth individuals with private equity and asset management products, says CEO Mark Hanson.

Can you explain exactly what kind of organisation GBCORP is?

Global Banking Corporation is an Islamic investment bank headquartered in Bahrain and our shareholders are made up of GCC investors from quite influential families.

Our chairman Saleh Al Ali Rashid is from one of the wealthiest business families in Saudi Arabia.

And then we've got other large families who have invested from around the region.

We approached them as a company but some of our directors know them personally and we were able to explain the concept of what we are trying to achieve and they were very pleased to come in and join us.

We believe that all this gives us quite a unique situation in terms of access to assets and also them coming to invest in our deals.

The activities that we're involved in this year are predominantly private equity and real estate.

Next year we'll start fund management, wealth management plus advisory services such as corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions.

What are your main aims as an organisation?

Our main mission is that we want to be a global investment bank operating not just in the GCC but also in Europe and Asia.

Our aim in the next year or two is to open up an office in London plus in Asia.

Gulf or GCC investors are looking for diversification - diversification around the region as well as diversification to Europe and Asia.

Islamic banking has become very popular amongst the Muslim communities and it is the fastest growing sector within the banking industry, growing at around 40% a year.

And that's not only in the GCC. If you go to the likes of the UK, the major banks such as Barclays have specifically designed an Islamic product now."

.How much demand is there globally for Islamic investment banking?

I think there is unlimited demand for Islamic investment banking.

Outside the Middle East, if you look at Europe, there's demand in France, Germany and the UK.

If you go into Eastern Europe, the Ukraine, Uzbekistan, there's huge numbers of Muslim populations there.

And then you go up to the Far East and you have the likes of Malaysia and Brunei.

You can't run before you can walk so we're starting off in the GCC then we'll begin to look at things in Europe and Asia.

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