Ithmaar Bank, a Bahrain-based investment bank with global reach and part of the Ithmaar banking group, has appointed Andrew Pocock as managing director, Private Equity.

Pocock will be focusing on several of the bank’s private equity fund initiatives, including the recently announced Aldar Private Equity Fund, which has a target amount of $500 million. Pocock reports directly to Ithmaar Bank CEO and member of the board, Michael P Lee.
 
“We consider this a key appointment for Ithmaar Bank. Andrew has extensive experience in private equity, and in investment and commercial banking in the international market, including in Europe, the Americas, the Far East and the Middle East. Having worked with Andrew before at Emerging Markets Partnership (Bahrain), I am pleased that we have been able to add his experience and expertise to that of the private equity team at Ithmaar,” said Lee.

Pocock, a British national and Cambridge University graduate, is a veteran investment banker, having held managerial positions in international banking and finance since 1971. During his international career, he was an executive director of leading international merchant bank Samuel Montagu and Co in London; undertook advisory assignments for the World Bank in India and China; and headed Gulf International Bank’s (GIB) European business from London from 1994 to 2000, when he took up the position of GIB head of banking in  Bahrain.

Pocock joined Emerging Markets Partnership (Bahrain) in 2002 as a Key Business Executive in investing and managing the $730.5 million Islamic Development Bank Infrastructure Fund. Since 2006, Pocock was managing director, infrastructure at Gulf One Investment Bank. -TradeArabia News Service