Wires

Kuwait's Burgan plans to buy 25 pct of Malta's Fimbank

DUBAI, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Kuwait's Burgan Bank ,which recently bought the Turkish arm of EFG Eurobank ,is planning to buy a quarter stake in Malta-based trade financespecialist Fimbank, Burgan said in a statement on Sunday.

Burgan, the commercial banking arm of Kuwait Projects Co(KIPCO) , has received approval from the Gulf state'scentral bank for the acquisition, it said.

"The acquisition is conditional on signing the finalagreement with Fimbank and approval from relevant authorities inMalta," Burgan said.

Fimbank specialises in international trade finance,forfaiting and factoring. It fully owns a forfaiting subsidiary,London Forfaiting Company, and has interests in factoringventures with local operators in emerging countries.

In February, credit rating agency Fitch revised its ratingon Fimbank to negative from stable citing its weakening capitalratios in the past two years.

Burgan said on Saturday it had received approval from theKuwaiti central bank for its purchase of Eurobank's Turkish arm.

(Reporting by Rania El Gamal and Dinesh Nair; Editing by MarkPotter)

((dinesh.nair@thomsonreuters.com)(+ 971 4 366 4265)(ReutersMessaging: dinesh.nair.reuters.com@reuters.net))

Keywords: BURGAN FIMBANK/