NBAD

Franchise News India, Franchise In India,ABU DHABI,National Bank of Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates capital’s biggest lender, has added hundreds of staff over the past year as it executes a new strategy to broaden its reach across Africa, the Middle East and Asia, its chief executive said.

Under a strategy outlined by Alex Thursby after taking the helm in mid-2013, the bank is trying to grow its domestic commercial and retail banking franchise, but is also looking to do wholesale banking and wealth management on a larger scale in some of the world’s biggest emerging markets.

NBAD has hired around 200 people in its wholesale banking business, many as part of build-outs of hubs in London and Hong Kong, Mr. Thursby told The Wall Street Journal.

“We’ve done a lot of hiring in those spaces,” he said, adding that the bank anticipates opening a hub in India on July 1, followed by expansion in Nigeria and Southeast Asia.

Hundreds more people have come into the bank’s retail, commercial and wealth management divisions, Mr. Thursby said, although attrition has also accelerated as the bank tailored its operations to the new strategy. The bank has just under 6,000 employees in total.

As the bank grows, Mr. Thursby said NBAD also wants to be more active in arranging and selling bonds.

NBAD has become one of the bigger players in Middle Eastern debt capital markets in recent years, but Mr. Thursby said there was still room for expansion, especially outside the region.

“We also want to be a serious underwriter for African entities and African origination,” Mr. Thursby said. “That will come probably not this year but next year. And ultimately South Asia and Southeast Asia. I feel that the northeast Asia market will be much more tactical. Can I be number-one in Asia? No. But I can be in the top 10 players in Asia.”

Under Mr. Thursby’s watch, NBAD has also become more active in arranging equity-market deals. The bank worked on the initial public offering of Emaar Malls Group, one of the largest new listings in the Middle East last year.

This year, however, Mr. Thursby said equity-market activity probably wouldn’t take off until the second half. Investor confidence is currently in a lull, he said, largely due to lower oil prices and other global economic trends.

“I think that people need to be a little bit more confident than they are right now,” he said.



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