Bank of Beirut – Salim G. Sfeir (Q&A)

Salim G. Sfeir has been chairman and general manager of Bank of Beirut since 1993. He spoke with Executive about Bank of Beirut’s plan to open 14 new branches — 13 in Lebanon and one in Germany. E How will the new branches fit with your bank’s strategy? This is a plan that we would like to accomplish within the next six months. Our objective is to get it finished as soon as possible. But I think we won’t be ready by the end of this year. We should be ready by March 2010. We are starting with seven new branches. While we’re working on the first seven branches, we’ll be working on the second round of branches. What’s difficult is not the construction of the branches themselves; what’s difficult is finding the location that fits our objective. We do not want to go into areas that are already very