FORMER National Australia Bank executive Ahmed Fahour will join Middle Eastern Islamic investment bank Gulf Finance House as its chief executive, after his chance to run Rudd Bank was squashed in the Senate.
Mr Fahour, who ran NAB's Australian operations until he was overlooked for the chief executive's post last year, will move with his family to GFH's headquarters in Bahrain, starting in the new job on August 1.
He has been searching for a new role since the Coalition and the Greens used their numbers in the Senate to vote down the Australian Business Investment Partnership.
The partnership, which was instantly dubbed Rudd Bank, was designed to fund commercial property projects jeopardised by the withdrawal of foreign lenders from the Australian market.
Mr Fahour resigned from NAB in February when he was appointed by Wayne Swan to run the partnership, which would have drawn $4 billion from the big four banks and billions more from government.
NAB chief executive Cameron Clyne effectively pushed Mr Fahour out of the bank by taking his job himself.
A Treasury source said Mr Fahour would have been paid about $250,000 a year for the Rudd Bank role and was likely to have received a pro rata payment for his time at the body. The source could not say whether a replacement for Mr Fahour would be appointed, with the future of Rudd Bank still unclear.
The appointment of the Lebanese-born Mr Fahour, one of Australia's most prominent Muslim business leaders, to GFH comes amid growing interest in Australia in capturing part of the $US700bn ($871bn) Islamic finance market. Assistant Treasurer Nick Sherry launched a new masters course in Islamic banking and finance last week at La Trobe University, in Melbourne.
Gulf Finance chair Esam Janahi said in a statement that Mr Fahour, "as a Muslim, has an inherent appreciation of the Islamic values that underpin our work and the philosophy woven in GFH's key initiatives".
Mr Fahour said GFH had "a reputation for breaking the mould in originating excellent high-value investment opportunities".
GFH was founded 10 years ago specialising in a spectrum of financial products, including private equity, venture capital and asset management. Listed on the London, Kuwait, Bahrain and Dubai stock exchanges, it has a market capitalisation of $US710bn and is known in some circles as the Macquarie Bank of the Middle East. Mr Fahour, who served previously as a vice-chairman at Citigroup in New York and as head of its Australian operations, will help expand the group into Western markets.
One of the features of Islamic finance, which is based on sharia law, is that no interest is paid on loans. Instead, the two parties to a deal effectively share profits on the loan. With mortgages, the bank retains formal title over the property until the loan is paid off.
Link: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25805375-36418,00.html
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