First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) has completed the merger of Bank Audi Egypt and rebranded its Egypt operations as FABMisr, a year after it acquired 100% of the Lebanese bank’s local unit, the Emirati lender said in a statement (pdf) yesterday. The bank has received all the regulatory approvals for the merger, including from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) and the General Authority for Investment & Freezones (GAFI), it said. The value of the transaction has not been made public.

A new big fish: FABMisr is expected to launch in 4Q, and will more than quadruple its branch count to 69 from a prior 17. This will make FABMisr one of the largest foreign banks in Egypt, with more than EGP 185 bn in assets.

Exodus: The Lebanese lender was forced to put its businesses in Egypt, Jordan and Iraq up for sale in 2020 due to the financial and economic crisis in its home country. Fellow Lebanese bank Blom also offloaded its Egypt unit last year, selling a 99.5% stake to Bahrain’s Bank ABC.

Advisors: FAB and UBS AG were buy-side financial advisors, while EFG Hermes was the sole sell-side financial advisor. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Matouk Bassiouny & Hennawy were legal advisors to FAB on the transaction, while Dechert as well as Zulficar and Partners were counsel to Bank Audi. JPMorgan gave Bank Audi a fairness opinion, while Broadgate Advisors also offered advisory services to the bank.