Investors Take Hope From CBB Intervention

The Bahraini central bank has taken control of two lenders, Awal Bank and the International Banking Corporation (TIBC), following an apparent assessment that the two were posing a systemic danger to the banking sector as a whole. The former is owned by the Saad Group, while the latter comes under the Ahmad Hamad al-Gosaibi and Brothers (AHAB) Group umbrella. Both Saudi conglomerates are in big trouble, with banks in the region exposed to around US$20bn of potentially bad debt. The move is highly unusual in the Gulf, and illustrates the depth of the difficulties the two banks were in. Under

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