Cultivating an aura

ENAR

Fenicia Bank has a relatively quiet profile in the banking sector. While having a headquarters in downtown Beirut, the bank has just 17 branches dotted around the country, and does minimal marketing or advertising to bring in more clients and depositors. This is a calculated move, says Abdul Razzak Achour, chair and general manager, to go after a strategy of “quality not quantity” and to target the Lebanese diaspora. “Our strategy is to attract prime customers and companies, which is why we’re competitive in services and pricing, and we are specialized in the Lebanese diaspora — especially Africa — to attract prime business outside,” says Achour. The Achour Group, which owns 74 percent of the bank, is heavily invested in real estate and manufacturing in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and to a lesser extent in Angola, Romania and France. The bank is one of the country’s oldest, established in 1958 as the Bank of Kuwait and the