Abdulla bin Fahad bin Ghorab Al Marri, (centre) Chairman of QFB; Ibrahim Mohamed Ibrahim Jaidah, Board Member (right); and Ali Mohammed Al Obaidli (left) CEO of QFB during the AGM in Doha yesterday. Pic: Abdul Basit/the peninsula
The shareholders of Qatar First Bank (QFB) gave their approval for a special resolution related to 50 percent reduction in share capital of QFB’s Board of Directors (BoDs).
The reduction in BoDs share capital is in accordance with regulatory requirements by the Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA), Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) rules and others applicable laws.
The Bank will now seek to fulfill the necessary regulatory and legal arrangements to effect the capital reduction recommendation. Another special resolution was passed approving certain alterations to the articles of association in accordance with the new corporate governance regulations issued by QFMA.
The Bank held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) yesterday, and approved all the items on the agenda of the meetings. The meetings were presided over by Abdulla bin Fahad bin Ghorab Al Marri, Chairman of QFB, and discussed the bank’s performance and future initiatives after releasing its financials for the year ended December 31, 2018.
Ten board members were elected by the shareholders through the cumulative voting process in accordance with the applicable rules and regulations.
The result of voting was QFB new BoD consists of Sheikh Faisal Thani Al Thani, Abdulla Fahad Ghorab Al Marri, Dr Mohammed Nasser Mohammed Al Qahtani, Abdel Latif Mohammed Al Sada, Salman Abdulghani, Ibrahim Jaidah, Mohammed Reslan Al Khayat, Mohammed Yousef Al Mana and Salem Al Marri and Mohammed Al Hajiri.
The Bank will now seek to fulfill the necessary regulatory and legal arrangements to incorporate the changes of membership in its Board of Directors.
Al Marri (QFB’s Chairman) said: “At QFB we were not immune to the prevailing macro-economic conditions. Record such net loss was mainly driven by global and regional headwinds resulting from prevailing market uncertainties that affected the performance of the bank’s alternative investments portfolio. We will seek to obtain the required approvals on the proposed capital reduction plan that will play a significant role in our growth. Our outlook is very firm and optimistic. The launch of revised strategy and appointment of new Board of Directors and management team will definitely boost our performance and accelerate momentum of coming back into the green.”
In 2018, Treasury and Investment Management arm of the Bank focused more on strengthening product capabilities. Key focus areas included organic growth of the bank’s customer base of high net worth Individuals, institutional investors and government related entities.
Furthermore, the team directly acquired several yielding real estate properties in the US and UK while structuring several capital protected structured products.
To achieve sustainable business growth and to turn around financial and business performance, the bank new board and senior management adopting a timely strategy that focuses on shifting the bank’s operating model from asset management to fee income on structured product.
