Ithmaar recruits business veteran

Bahrain bank Ithmaar has appointed Andrew Pocock as a managing director of its private equity team.

Andrew Pocock: business luminary

Pocock will be focussed on fundraising for the company’s funds including its $500 million (€341.2 million) Aldar Private Equity Fund. He joins Ithmaar chief executive Michael Lee, his former colleague at buyout firm Emerging Markets Partnership in Bahrain, where he worked from 2002 to 2006.

Pocock was an executive director of merchant bank Samuel Montagu in London and he has undertaken advisory assignments for the World Bank in India and China. He headed Gulf International Bank's European business from 1994 to 2000; he then became its head of banking in Bahrain.

His role at EMP included managing its $730.5 million Islamic Development Bank Infrastructure Fund. Since 2006, Pocock was a managing director in the infrastructure team at Gulf One Investment Bank.

The firm’s spokesman said Ithmaar is planning to invest $5 billion in an undisclosed infrastructure project.

He was also chief executive in the Middle East at Scandinavian Bank, now part of SEB Group, during the 1970s.