Kuwait’s largest lender, National
Bank of Kuwait (NBK), has become the first bank to confirm that it
is considering buying a 20.85% stake in Turkish bank Garanti.

NBK said Turkey was one of the
emerging world’s most attractive banking sectors and was keen to
expand its presence in the country.

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It is the first bank to state
interest in Garanti, Turkey’s largest bank by market
capitalisation.

“NBK wants to expand in Turkey, a
country that has a lot of potential,” said NBK’s chief executive,
Ibrahim Dabdoub in a statement.

“We need to have a stronger
presence there [and] one of the options is a share in Garanti
Bank.”

General Electric (GE) said in
February it was “considering strategic options” for selling the
stake, now said to be worth $4.3bn, and has since been linked with
several banks – among which have so far been Santander, Intesa
Sanpaolo, HSBC and Standard Chartered.

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But Santander ended speculation
last month and told RBI it was not involved in the
process.

Russia’s Sberbank, which has also
been continuously linked to the stake, confirmed it was not looking
at Garanti according to a Reuters report.

Kursat Ozkan, GE’s chief executive
in Turkey was keen to stress that its decision to sell the stake
“in no way changes GE’s view that Turkey remains an exciting and
important location for GE industrial investment”.

NBK is the leader in retail banking
in Kuwait, with a market share of 30 percent and the largest branch
network of 69 outlets. It also has 50% of the local market for
credit cards.

The bank posted a 4% jump in net profits to $925m in fiscal
2009, from $890m in 2008.