At an ordinary meeting held in Riyadh on Tuesday, the shareholders of Saudi Hollandi Bank elected six Saudi board members for a new term of three years starting from yesterday to Dec. 31, 2007. The new Saudi board members are Lubna Sulaiman Al-Olayan, Dr. Abdulaziz Hamad Al-Fahad and Dr. Fahad Al-Mubarak, in addition to the existing Sulaiman A. R. Al-Suhaimi, Sulaiman Al-Amro and Mohammed Khalid Al-Noaimi. The shareholders further approved the motion passed to increase the bank's Tier-2 capital by the issue of up to SR700 million of subordinated debt. The debt issue will qualify as Tier-2 capital under the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency's risk-based capital adequacy rules thereby strengthening the bank's regulatory capital base. The proceeds of the subordinated debt issue will be used to improve the bank's ability to meet growing demand for medium-term lending to its customers. The chairman of Saudi Hollandi Bank commented, "The approval of the subordinated debt issue by the shareholders is a further vote of confidence in the ability of the bank's management and staff to deliver superior returns on their investment and I am delighted that we now have the additional funding to proceed with rolling out our new growth strategy.