Over the last 18 months, Salama has generated profitable earnings following significant losses in 2015-2016, and focused on de-risking its asset portfolio, resulting in improved capital adequacy and liquidity. At the same time, Salama's weighted average asset quality remains marginally below our 'BBB' rating category, therefore limiting our assessment of the company's financial risk profile to less than adequate. We are therefore revising our outlook on Salama to stable from negative and affirming our 'BBB-' issuer credit and financial strength ratings. The stable outlook reflects our view that Salama will maintain its improved operating performance, extremely strong capital adequacy, and strong liquidity. On Aug. 21, 2018, S&P Global Ratings revised to stable from negative its outlook on United Arab Emirates
