The Bahrain Middle East Bank has made steady progress in divesting its private and public equities portfolio. The bank is the latest example of financial institutions shedding non-core assets to meet regulatory concerns.

In its condensed consolidated interim financial report for the three months ending March 31, 2012, BMB - an investment bank primarily engaged in investment banking, asset management and proprietary trading - said that it had reduced its holdings of "for sale" private equity assets to $22m, compared with $49m in 2008.