Bahrain-based Seera Investment Bank, a leading Islamic bank, reported a net income of $5.1 million for the first half of this year compared with a net income of $1.7 million for the same period last year.

Total income was $8.5 million compared with $4.6 million last time, reported the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication.

The increase in income was attributed to an increase in management fees on assets under management and the early settlement of financing relating to the bank's aviation portfolio.

Total assets of the bank were $349 million.

Seera's balance sheet remains strong with a capital adequacy ratio of 23 per cent and liquid assets of $33 million.

Profit for the second quarter was $5.5 million compared with a profit of $830,000 for the same period last year.

"In line with the bank's strategy, Seera has continued to extract value from its existing investments," said chief executive Abdulla Janahi.

"This includes working with our partners in identifying exit, restructuring or de-leveraging opportunities which optimise returns for Seera and its investors.

"During the first half of the year, we have been successful in de-leveraging our aviation portfolio by the early settlement of financing on a number of aircraft.

"Although the aviation sector remains challenging, we intend to carefully consider viable exit opportunities from the aircraft portfolio in the near term with the intention of maximising value in this leasing portfolio," he added.

"While we continue to manage and extract value from our existing investments, we continue to actively seek new investments," he said.

"Our recent investment in the student housing sector in the UK was very well received in the market and continues to yield an annualised cash return of 8.5 per cent for our investors and is expected to be on target to achieve its investment goals of 13 per cent internal rate of return on exit.

"Going forward we are seeking investments with similar fundamentals and which provide balanced risk return investment opportunities for our investors.

"We are pleased to note that, although significant challenges remain, the global markets are continuing to show some positive momentum," he said.

"With these continued improvements in the market place, the outlook for the investment banking sector appears to be favourable in the medium term," he added.

Seera has investments in the industrial manufacturing and transportation sectors in addition to smaller investments in the utilities and real estate sectors.

The bank's investment strategy is to maintain a diversified investment portfolio geographically and industry wise, focusing on sectors underpinned by strong fundamental demand, and to avoid speculation driven sectors. – TradeArabia News Service