Commercial Bank of Qatar has withdrawn the offer to increase its stake in National Bank of Oman (NBO) by acquiring an additional 15.2 per cent share capital from NBO shareholders.

The Qatari bank, earlier in June, issued a pubic announcement to all NBO shareholders to acquire additional 15.2 per cent of issued share capital which would have increased Commercial Bank’s shareholding in NBO to 50.1 per cent.

NBO on Monday informed the Muscat Stock Exchange that Commercial Bank has announced, through the offer manager, that the offer of acquisition has been accepted by certain shareholders of NBO, representing 7.74 per cent of the shares of the issued capital of NBO.

‘Since the acceptance by NBO shareholders is less than the 15.2 per cent minimum threshold acceptance by Commercial Bank for the acquisition, Commercial Bank has decided to exercise the option of withdrawing the offer in its entirety,’ NBO said in a disclosure.

Commercial Bank is already the biggest shareholder of NBO, currently holding 34.9 per cent of the issued share capital in the Omani lender.

Commercial Bank, on June 3, offered an offer price of 200bz per share to NBO shareholders which represented an 18 per cent premium to NBO’s closing share price on June 2.

Commercial Bank’ share acquisition offer opened on June 10 and closed on July 11. The record date for the purpose of the offer was set on June 9.

Ubhar Capital was appointed as the offer manager by Commercial Bank.

The Qatari lender in June had said that it will support NBO from a capital perspective when needed so that NBO may meet its regulatory requirements and support growth of its business.

‘Commercial Bank will also support NBO with business process enhancements and use of agile frameworks to execute plans which will result in improved operational performance, optimised efficiencies and improved productivity,’ the bank had said.