Warba acquires a facility of KIA Motors in Britain

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Bank boosts its real estate portfolio

KUWAIT CITY, April 9: In-line with its development strategy to position the bank as the Islamic Corporate & Investment Banking champion in Kuwait while providing top-notch Islamic banking and investment’s services, Warba Bank is proud to announce that it has recently purchased a newly constructed sole UK vehicle imports / exports facility strategically located on Kiln Lane Industrial Estate, just one and a half miles from the docks at nearby Immingham, which receives imported vehicles from Korea to UK, and also from other manufacturing plants in Europe.

The Ports of Immingham and Grimsby combined are the UK’s largest ports by tonnage, handling up to 60 million tonnes, including nearly 20 million tonnes of oil and 10 million tonnes of coal per annum. Commenting on the new acquisition, Shaheen Hamed Al Ghanem, Warba Bank’s CEO said: “we see in this acquisition the start of the bank’s vigorous international real estate investment program in order to ensure steady and secured returns for the investors and depositors. The Investment Banking Group is fully committed to make risk mitigated investments strictly following the investment policy and procedures with a target to generate secured long term returns for the bank and its investors”. The property is leased to KIA Motors UK Limited for unbreakable lease term of 20 years, expiring in 2037 on full repairing and insuring terms.

The site is the sole import/export facility for KIA Motors UK Ltd’s business operations. This includes the import of C.100, 000 new vehicles into the port of Immingham each year as well as the refurbishment and administration of return vehicles for KIA Lease fleet. It comprises a substantial new sole UK vehicle import/export facility with a capacity of over 15,550 cars and totalling 86.68 acres (35.08 hectares) of land. In addition, on site also includes a warehouse space of 63,515 ft.Ç (5,901 mÇ), facilitating distribution, refurbishment, valet, inspection, refuelling, offices and gatehouses. The site receives on average c.1,200 vehicles a week.

KIA anticipate 100,000 UK car sales target by 2020. However, its largest operation lies in Bristol, where around 400,000 vehicles are processed each year. Al Ghanem further added: “This acquisition is one of the best risks mitigated real estate investment of the bank generating a steady and secured return benefiting from unbreakable long lease to one of the largest car manufacturer of Asia that would set standards for our future investment program.” He elaborated that for 2017, the investment plan is very robust and highly ambitious and we are seriously looking for more international real estate investment opportunities in USA, UK and other continental European countries, but without compromising quality and security on fully compliant basis with bank’s policy and risk standards.

Recently, Warba bank has recorded a tremendous success in the underwriting of its $250 million Sukuk, which have attracted investors form Kuwait, MENA region and beyond. Warba Sukuk achieved 5 more times the issuance value with approx. 1.3$ billion; they have been recently listed in Nasdaq Dubai and are scheduled for listing in the Irish stock exchange soon.

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