Kuwait’s Burgan Bank to take over United Gulf in 2025

Burgan Bank, a subsidiary of KIPCO Group, is expected to complete the acquisition of Bahrain-based United Gulf Bank in the first quarter of 2025.

The bank has received clearance from the Kuwaiti central bank to buy a 100 percent stake in United Gulf Bank, KIPCO Group said in a regulatory filing on Boursa Kuwait on Thursday.

“Given that KIPCO is the ultimate shareholder of both UGB (84 percent) and Burgan Bank (65 percent), we had expected a relatively easier execution of the deal including agreement on pricing,” Riyadh-based market analysis company Sico Research said in a note on Thursday.

In August, Boubyan Bank and Gulf Bank, two of the largest Kuwait-listed shariah-compliant lenders, announced plans to commence an initial feasibility study for a potential merger.

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In September, Andrew Cunningham wrote in AGBI that there were mergers between banks in every other GCC state, reducing the total number of active commercial banks in the region to 60 today from 73 in 2018. 

But despite obvious overcrowding in the Kuwaiti banking market and long-term underperformance by some (though not all) of its banks, we have yet to see a banking merger in Kuwait, he said.