Lebanon: Back Toward Business

After a two-month shutdown, Lebanon’s biggest bank reopened last week. Intra Bank, which closed suddenly because of a rush of withdrawals (TIME, Nov. 25), borrowed $45 million to reopen, got major depositors to pledge to keep another $90 million in the bank for three years. Even so, Intra Bank is not completely out of crisis. Branches that it maintained in New York, Frankfurt and Paris are likely to be shuttered for good, and the bank is under some pressure to sell a controlling 65% interest in Middle East Airlines.

Still, last week’s reopening was welcomed in Beirut, where merchants are suffering from a lack of cash and other banks are short of deposits with which to make loans. Intra Bank will brighten the situation even further with, at government behest, a new board of directors. Meanwhile, Old Boss Yusif Bedas, a Palestinian refugee who built Intra Bank into the Middle East’s most important one, is being sought by a Lebanese court, which wants to question him about “unorthodox banking practices.” The court may have a hard time finding Bedas. In Europe when Intra Bank first closed down, he was rumored last week to be in Brazil.