⁍ Low oil prices and weak economic growth are pushing bank consolidation across the Gulf.

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⁍ The tie-up would create the Gulf region’s third largest lender by assets.

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⁍ NCB agreed to pay 28.45 riyals for each Samba share, valuing it at approximately 55.7 billion riyals ($14.85 billion

– Saudi Arabia’s National Commercial Bank and Samba Financial Group have agreed to a merger that will create the third-largest bank in the United Arab Emirates and one of the biggest in the Middle East, reports Reuters. The all-stock deal will value Samba at $14.85 billion and create a bank with $223 billion in assets. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, is a major investor in both banks, with a stake of 44.29% in NCB and 22.91% in Samba. After the merger, PIF will hold a 37.2% stake in the new entity, while other substantial shareholders of the merged bank will include the Saudi Public Pension Agency with a 7.4% stake and the General Organization for Social Insurance with a 5.8% stake. Upon completion of the merger, shareholders of Samba will receive 0.739 new NCB shares for every one share of Samba, NCB said. Samba chairman Ammar Alkhudairy will be chairman of the merged entity while NCB’s current chairman, Saeed al-Ghamdi, will be managing director and chief executive officer. The merger is not expected to result in involuntary redundancy of employees, NCB said without elaborating.