First Abu Dhabi Bank: international business, Group structure and risks
First Abu Dhabi Bank PJSC, or FAB, is incorporated in Abu Dhabi and listed on ADX.
Identity revalidation is due; this dated record is not proof of current listing status · 2026-08-01
What matters
FAB combines investment banking, international markets, retail and wealth.
Geographic reporting follows client relationships, not simply booking locations.
The Libyan bank is consolidated through control despite a 50% stake.
Shareholder-attributable profit is distinct from total Group profit.
Fees, market income and investment income should not be treated as one trend.
Dated financial snapshot
Full-year and half-year flows are different periods, not growth comparators. Balance-sheet amounts refer to their stated dates.
Financial baseline and comparable presentation
Metric
Unit
FY2025 / 31 Dec2025
H1 2026 / 30 Jun2026
Operating income
AED million
36,675
19,503
Profit before tax
AED million
25,200
13,202
Profit attributable to bank shareholders
AED million
21,110
10,726
Assets — current comparative basis
AED million
1,376,862
1,408,739
Net loans, advances and Islamic financing
AED million
616,325
661,181
Customer accounts and other deposits
AED million
840,773
852,971
LCR
%
154
140
Financial baseline and comparable presentation
As of: 2026-06-30; FY2025 where indicated
FY2025 operating income was AED 36,675 million, profit before tax AED 25,200 million and profit attributable to bank shareholders AED 21,110 million. H1 2026 equivalents were AED 19,503 million, AED 13,202 million and AED 10,726 million. The last amount differs from total Group net profit of AED 10,765 million: AED 39 million belongs to non-controlling interests. The table uses shareholder-attributable profit consistently.
Comparing corresponding half-years, operating income rose from AED 18,309 million to AED 19,503 million and pretax profit from AED 12,834 million to AED 13,202 million. Net interest and Islamic financing income increased from AED 10,090 million to AED 11,479 million, while non-interest income declined from AED 8,219 million to AED 8,024 million. Not every earnings component grew.
Balance comparatives come from H1 2026, not mechanically from the old annual headline. Note 34 re-presents derivatives and related accrued interest: December 2025 assets are AED 1,376,862 million rather than the originally reported AED 1,403,864 million. The bank states that the presentation change did not affect profit or equity. The difference should not be described as an operating contraction.
FAB: an international banking group, not only a UAE lender
As of: 2026-06-30; FY2025 where indicated
First Abu Dhabi Bank PJSC, or FAB, is incorporated in Abu Dhabi and listed on ADX. Its model combines corporate and investment banking, international capital markets, retail services and private wealth management. The Group also has Islamic finance, payment and service activities, and property assets. This creates several earnings engines alongside different credit, market, operational and currency risks.
This profile supplements the existing review and was updated on 30 August 2026. Its main financial date is 30 June 2026, with FY2025 as the annual baseline. Interim information covers the bank and controlled subsidiaries, was prepared under IAS 34 and reviewed by PwC, rather than subjected to a full annual audit. Management measures do not replace accounting results.
FAB was formed in 2017 through the combination of National Bank of Abu Dhabi and First Gulf Bank. It is therefore more than a renamed domestic retail institution: the Group inherited and develops different client franchises, international relationships and product capabilities.
Earnings are not limited to the spread between lending yields and deposit costs. Deal fees, cash management, trade finance and market activities provide additional income sources. Customers can combine financing with transaction services; shareholders need to distinguish recurring earnings from components sensitive to markets. International assets are not international revenue, nor do they measure risk without portfolio composition.
The statements identify four segments. Investment Banking & Markets serves institutional and public-sector clients through corporate and Islamic finance, capital markets, trade, liquidity and cash-management services and global-markets products. It also includes market making and market-risk management. Wholesale Banking serves large and medium-sized companies with a similar product range but a different client focus.
Personal, Business, Wealth & Privileged Client Banking Group combines retail, wealthy customers, family offices and small and medium-sized businesses. Head Office is not simply administrative expenditure: it includes support functions, results of certain subsidiaries and associates such as FAB Misr, First Gulf Libya and Mismak, and legacy portfolios.
H1 2026 operating income for these four segments was AED 6,416 million, AED 3,409 million, AED 6,583 million and AED 3,095 million respectively. Segments reflect an internal management structure reorganised in the previous year, not four separately listed companies. The legal-entity discussion therefore complements rather than repeats segment reporting.
Geography needs definitions and network boundaries
As of: 2026-06-30; FY2025 where indicated
FAB describes a presence in more than 20 markets. Financial-statement geography principally follows where client relationships exist and are managed, which can differ from financial booking locations. H1 2026 international operating income was AED 4,363 million out of Group income of AED 19,503 million; international assets were AED 436,862 million out of AED 1,408,739 million.
A country list does not mean every location has identical operating status. The interim note marks Jordan and Lebanon as under closure. For the Qatar Financial Centre branch, the bank notified its regulator that it would relinquish its licence and permanently close the branch. Historical network lists should not be portrayed as an unchanging current map.
Editorially, international diversification provides broader client and cross-border flow access but also brings different legal regimes, currencies and funding conditions. An overseas asset cannot automatically be assumed independent of the UAE economy: client-service location and underlying economic exposure can differ.
At 30 June 2026 the Group wholly owned FAB Misr in Egypt, FAB Private Bank (Suisse), First Abu Dhabi Islamic Finance, FAB Capital Financial Company in Saudi Arabia and First Abu Dhabi Bank Securities. Its interest in First Gulf Libyan Bank was 50%, but the entity was consolidated because FAB controls a majority of board votes. Control cannot therefore be determined solely from an equity-percentage threshold.
Abu Dhabi Securities Brokerage Egypt was 96% owned and under liquidation. Shangri-La Dubai Hotel was no longer in the June-end perimeter: an agreement to sell it for AED 1.1 billion was signed on 27 February 2026, the transaction completed during the half-year and the entity was deconsolidated when control passed. Consideration is not the same as a disposal gain and must not be added to banking profit.
These examples are more informative than a mechanical list of special-purpose entities: they explain changing scope, ownership versus control, and why subsidiary earnings must not be added again to consolidated profit.
At 30 June 2026 FAB disclosed Mubadala at 37.9% and Abu Dhabi ruling-family members and their companies at 17.7%. The latter is a category, not one shareholder; each investor holds below 5%. Free float of 42% and the 40% foreign-ownership limit are different measures.
The H1 MD&A identifies Hana Al Rostamani as Group CEO and Lars Kramer as Group CFO. An aggregated ownership category must not be turned into an invented single controlling block. This profile records dated disclosure, not an assurance that the shareholder register remains unchanged subsequently.
FAB — Share profile · 2026-06-30 · Ownership Information dated30June2026; notes
Management attributes interest-income growth to volumes, pricing, treasury management and interest-in-suspense recoveries. H1 NIM increased from 1.90% to 1.97%. Net fees rose from AED 2,322 million to AED 2,784 million, but this does not mean all non-interest income grew: market and investment components moved differently.
Impairment charges increased from AED 1,476 million to AED 2,050 million. The MD&A identifies AED 650 million of management overlays and separately discusses profit growth excluding them. This profile retains the reported accounting result as its baseline: excluding overlays is a management perspective, not grounds to rewrite profit.
Cost of risk reached 64 basis points against 51, the cost-to-income ratio remained 21.8%, and return on tangible equity was 18.5%. These management ratios need their definitions; RoTE is not return on total accounting equity. Repeatability of fees, market earnings and recoveries matters alongside bottom-line profit.
June-end net loans, advances and Islamic financing were AED 661,181 million, and customer accounts and other deposits AED 852,971 million. The MD&A reports LCR of 140%, versus 154% at year-end 2025, CET1 of 13.7% and total capital adequacy of 17.1%. The NPL ratio was 2.2% and provision coverage 108%. These are not IFRS line items and are not interchangeable.
Deposits are not industrial debt. The bank also uses term funding and capital instruments with different properties. During H1 it reported AED 22.1 billion of senior wholesale funding, a USD 750 million AT1 redemption at first call and a USD 750 million Tier 2 issue. Equal face amounts do not make AT1 and Tier 2 equivalent in loss absorption.
Strategy combines cross-border banking, client-franchise development and AI tools. Editorially, execution requires credit quality, liquidity and operational resilience to keep pace with growth. Productivity claims for individual AI workflows cannot automatically become forecasts of Group profit. The profile explains business structure and risks without recommending the shares.
First Abu Dhabi Bank — four units and a merger still visible in the numbers · 2026-08-25Dubaist fundamental review
First Abu Dhabi Bank — four units and a merger still visible in the numbers
Author
Lapshin Vadim
Evidence checked
Four units, not one bank
First Abu Dhabi Bank reports through four operating units, and their economics differ enough that a single blended view of the group is misleading. Investment Banking and Markets covers corporate and institutional lending, transaction banking, trade, markets, capital markets and advisory. Wholesale Banking serves commercial and wholesale clients with lending, deposits and fee services. Personal, Business, Wealth and Privileged Client Banking runs retail and SME credit, cards, deposits and wealth, where returns depend on deposit beta, customer activity, the unsecured-versus-mortgage mix and vintage performance. Head Office is the fourth, and it is not an operating company at all: it holds treasury and support functions, associates, FAB Misr, First Gulf Libya, property entities and legacy portfolios.
In the first half of 2026 those units produced operating income of AED 6.416 billion, AED 3.409 billion, AED 6.583 billion and AED 3.095 billion respectively, and profit before tax of AED 5.615 billion, AED 2.410 billion, AED 4.042 billion and AED 1.135 billion. Internal funding and cost allocations run between them, so adding the segments into a sum-of-the-parts produces a number the disclosure does not support.
The merger and two disposals still break the series
FAB was formed in April 2017 by merging National Bank of Abu Dhabi with First Gulf Bank, and the reporting perimeter has moved since. Bank Audi Egypt entered from 28 April 2021 and its final purchase price allocation restated the 2021 comparative. The disposals of Magnati and FAB Properties produced non-recurring gains in 2022 and 2023. Any five-year growth rate that ignores these three events is measuring perimeter change alongside performance.
Ownership is concentrated, and the reported float is not the tradable one
At 30 June 2026 Mubadala Investment Company held 37.9%. The issuer separately groups members and companies of the Abu Dhabi ruling family at 17.7%, stating that no single constituent reaches 5%. FAB reports a 42% free float and a 40% foreign ownership limit against actual foreign ownership of 24.4%. None of those aggregates establishes executable float or the foreign room available at a given trading moment.
A governance detail worth noting rather than smoothing over: the board has eleven non-executive members, the FY2025 governance report classified all of them as independent under its own criteria, and the current roster explicitly labels only one member as independent. That is a difference in disclosure definitions, and it is recorded here as such.
Where the evidence stops
The exact FY2025 dividend payment date was not located — the board proposed AED 0.80 per share, or AED 8.84 billion, shareholders approved it on 11 March 2026, and the record date was 23 March. A numerical net stable funding ratio was not disclosed. No yield, valuation or portfolio conclusion is calculated on this page.
Official contacts and freshness
As of: 2026-08-30
Official website: https://www.bankfab.com/. IR: https://www.bankfab.com/en-ae/about-fab/investor-relations and ir@bankfab.com. Share and dividend enquiries: sfas-inquiry@bankfab.com. General customer telephone: 600 52 5500 within the UAE; +971 2 681 1511 from abroad. Head office: Al Qurm – Business Park, P.O. Box 6316, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Sources were checked on 30 August 2026. Section dates define freshness; half-year results are not a full-year forecast. Official links are provided without hosting PDFs or scans. The existing review remains, while this profile adds entity structure, corporate developments and comparability explanations.
This source-attributed editorial profile is separate from database verification. The disclosure below retains missing, stale and conflicting database fields; these do not describe the completeness of this article.
Company overview
Exchange
ADX
Ticker
FAB
ISIN
Not yet available in the public research layer.
Market identifier code (MIC)
XADS
Stable research ID
ADX-FAB
Industry evidence
Diversified conventional and Islamic banking, investment banking, markets and wealth management
Coverage follows a reconciled listed-security identity and dated evidence. Inclusion describes research scope only; it is not a ranking, recommendation or claim of complete financial coverage.
Identity reconciliation
Exchange and ticker matched the research registry
Current public research layer
Review ready · verified figures appear when approved
Evidence boundary
Identity record checked: 2026-08-01
No source — no fact
Company evidence map
Open a card to inspect its public evidence. Missing, stale, conflicting or unavailable data is never replaced with an estimate.
Review ready · verified figures appear when approved
The fields below come from the current public company registry and any human-published issuer profile. Empty issuer-contact fields stay visibly missing until source and publication-rights review are complete.
Official listed name
First Abu Dhabi Bank
Available
Exchange
ADX
Available
MIC
XADS
Available
Ticker
FAB
Available
ISIN
Missing
Missing
Instrument
Listed equity
Available
Sector
Banks
Available
Industry
Diversified conventional and Islamic banking, investment banking, markets and wealth management
Available
Identity checked
2026-08-01
Available
Official website
Missing
Missing
Investor relations
Missing
Missing
Registered address
Missing
Missing
Public contacts
Missing
Missing
Latest verified update
Company activity context
Only exact-security, human-published activity that passes every public source-document check can appear here.
No linked update currently passes every public gate.
Required identity fields are shown individually with their evidence state. A public link is not reuse permission, and a blank is never converted to a guess.
Stale
Official name
First Abu Dhabi Bank
Stale
Ticker
FAB
Stale
Exchange and MIC
ADX · XADS
Missing
ISIN
Not available in the public evidence layer
Stale
Instrument type
Listed equity
Stale
Sector and industry
Banks · Diversified conventional and Islamic banking, investment banking, markets and wealth management
An editorial company profile is published below. It is separate from database-verified fields; source dates and limitations remain attached to the article.
Diversified UAE-headquartered conventional and Islamic banking group serving government/public-sector institutions, corporates, financial institutions, SMEs, retail, affluent, private-banking and wealth clients. It earns net interest/spread income from loans and securities; fees from payments, trade finance, cash management, cards, capital markets and advisory; and markets/investment income. Reported segments are Investment Banking & Markets, Wholesale Banking, Personal/Business/Wealth/Privileged Client Banking and Head Office/subsidiaries, with a broad international network.
Bank evidence plan
How to read this bank without mixing scopes
These are verification questions, not performance conclusions. Every future value must retain its bank or group perimeter, period, currency, unit and document locator.
Reconcile the bank and the wider group
Confirm whether each value belongs to the bank, consolidated group or a named subsidiary.
Keep domestic and international activity within the issuer's exact segment definitions.
Align credit quality, capital and liquidity measures to the same reporting date and regulatory basis.
Financial article · plain language
How to read this bank's finances
Numerical values remain in the separate source-document check
How this bank earns money
A diversified group can earn from UAE and international corporate banking, consumer banking, markets, investment services and liquidity deployment. Geography and legal-entity boundaries matter before comparison.
Five questions that connect the income statement and balance sheet
1. What finances customers?
Start with customer lending or financing, investments and liquid assets. Growth is meaningful only after checking the reporting perimeter, currency, segment and whether an acquisition changed the comparison base.
2. Where does income come from?
The core spread is the yield on loans and other earning assets minus the cost of deposits and wholesale funding. Fees, cards, payments, wealth, markets and foreign exchange can diversify income, but must remain in the issuer's reported segments.
3. What is happening to credit quality?
Read non-performing exposures, impairment, coverage and cost of risk together on the same date. A lower problem-loan ratio can reflect repayments, write-offs, restructuring or denominator growth—not only better underwriting.
4. How is the bank funded and protected?
Compare customer deposits or equivalent funding with market borrowing, sukuk or bonds. Then read liquidity and regulatory capital on their official basis; accounting equity is not a substitute for regulatory capital.
5. Can returns and distributions persist?
Reconcile net profit to recurring income, operating costs, impairment, tax and one-offs. ROE, dividend capacity and growth need compatible periods and capital bases; a declared distribution is not the same as a sustainable payout.
Official-source snapshot
What the company does and where to verify it
A manually reviewed, paraphrased snapshot from issuer and official market records. Each field keeps its exact source and verification date.
Business in plain language
A UAE-headquartered banking group serving personal, business, corporate, institutional and wealth clients through banking, financing, payments, markets and advisory services.
Official website
https://www.bankfab.com/Source · About First Abu Dhabi Bank
First Abu Dhabi Bank, Al Qurm – Business Park, P.O. Box 6316, Abu Dhabi, UAESource · Head Office
Public email
ir@bankfab.comSource · Investor Relations Team · Email
Bank analytical model
The metrics below define the correct analytical lens for this business model. They contain no company values: a value appears only after official-document provenance and editorial verification.
P/B and ROE
Price-to-book must be read together with return on average equity and the same reporting scope.
NIM
Net interest or financing margin on the issuer-disclosed average earning-asset basis.
NPL ratio
Non-performing loans or financing divided by the disclosed gross credit exposure.
Provision coverage
Credit-loss allowances relative to non-performing exposure, preserving collateral and write-off policy.
CASA
Current and savings accounts as a share of customer deposits on the issuer-reported basis.
Cost of risk
Credit impairment charge divided by the disclosed average loan or financing base.
CET1 and capital adequacy
Regulatory capital ratios reported for the stated entity, date and supervisory basis.
Only exact-security activity that passes the automatic source, locator, date and localization gates is shown. Exceptions remain unpublished. Each date keeps its lifecycle meaning.
Verified public facts and their source trail remain free. Normalization notes, scenario work and analytical conclusions require an active premium entitlement.
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