ASIF IQBAL

DOHA

BARWA Bank on Monday said that its net profit for 2011 rose by 882 percent to QR244 million compared with QR25 million in 2010.

According to the banks financial statement, total assets increased by 143 percent to reach QR19 billion, while financing portfolio witnessed a 354 percent growth to QR9 billion from 2 billion in 2010. Customer deposits also trebled in 2011 to QR 9 billion compared to QR3 billion in 2010 and earnings per share increased from QR0.15 to QR1.30 in 2011.

Barwa Bank completed a successful capital increase at the end of 2011. The offering comprised 109,130,900 new shares for subscription and was intended to raise QR1.7 billion.

The overall value of shares subscribed reached QR1.9 billion, an over subscription of QR233 million with coverage of 113 percent.

The bank’s book value per share increased to QR16.4 compared with QR15.2 on December 31, 2010. The bank was among the first to benefit from the QCB ruling regarding the closure of the Islamic windows of conventional banks and announced the acquisition of IBQ’s Al Yusr Islamic retail banking operations in August, a move that added to the bank’s customer base and branch network and allowed Barwa Bank to close the year with a network of six branches, having started 2011 with only one.