Investments

Bank Of America Investment by Mushtak Parker

president of supplier relations and joint ventures for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, president of brand marketing and strategy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Investment Opportunity Stock markets hover between the official and the unofficial ones. The intent is there to modernize and infrastructuralize, but the approach is piecemeal.If you would like to receive late breaking news on stocks covered by AXcess News then you need to subscribe. By joining, you can stay ahead of the pack and receive the latest news in your email in-box first.Print This Page

(MTC) acquired Fastlink in what was considered the largest single acquisition in the Middle East area, and the largest private sector investment in Jordan.

Banc Of America Investment Oct 25, 2004 (AXcess News/AN) London - Stock markets hover between the official and the unofficial ones. The intent is there to modernize and infrastructuralize, but the approach is piecemeal. The perception is that there is an absence of a holistic approach to policy making and plans and projects are revised almost on an on-going basis.

The largest share of final demand at around 70%/$44 Billion, comes from jewellery, accounting India, the world’s largest gold jewellery market by volume for around 555 t, followed in terms of consumption demand by the United States, the global second largest gold jewellery market with 306 t, China with 302 t, the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Dubai), Turkey and Italy. Gold trade is a chief driver of economic diversification in the Gulf region, exported 287 t into the vigorous Arab and Indian markets. The industrial and dental uses account for around 12% of gold demand, while investment demand is estimated at 18%, around $11, 3 Billion.

Banking Investment Whatever legislation and policies are in place are heavily skewed toward nationals first, and then GCC citizens.

Most projects are still under construction, and the next wave of supply will hit the market towards the year 2010, and this will bring about equilibrium in property prices.?The Report was undertaken by ImpaQta Management Advisory Services, a key knowledge resource in the Middle East region, together with Great Properties, an expert marketing, sales services agency, making tools, future forecasts, and analysis of UAE realty market, and guiding them with property investment opportunities, indicating the factors that boost the sector.?Great Properties is currently working on several projects across the UAE.

Investment Solution Strategic Foreigners, for instance, can only invest in a limited way on the Tadawul Stock Exchange in Saudi Arabia through local mutual funds and not directly. This anomaly has disqualified Saudi Arabia from inclusion in Dow Jones-DIFC Arabia Titans 50 Index, which aspires to be the benchmark and basis for investible products in the Middle East region. Qatar recently announced that it is allowing foreigners to invest up to 25 percent in any particular stock quoted on the Doha Securities Market. Yet, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) markets are currently experiencing a boom in primary public offerings through IPOs, fueled in turn by a liquidity boom thanks largely to the sharp rises in world oil prices over the last year.

Abu Dhabi, rich Emirate of the Gulf region, has actually the largest Sovereign Wealth Fund, ADIA with around $900 Billion and Abu Dhabi is today the world’s richest city! A number of Middle East investors is not interested to invest outside the region, as local real estate investments and infrastructure investments are giving higher returns than foreign investments and Middle Eastern investors have been repatriating their assets, reinvesting especially into the Gulf region’s spectacular mega projects.

Investment Banking Services Some fifteen IPOs in sectors ranging from telecoms, utilities, transport, insurance and banking, manufacturing, and retail are being planned over the next two months in the GCC to raise almost $10 billion to capitalize on a primary equity investment market boom reminiscent of the dotcom boom of the 1990s. The fact is that many Gulf investors and institutions burnt their fingers badly during the dotcom bubble, losing millions of dollars.

Bank Investment These include several IPOs planned for Saudi corporates including Al-Bilad Bank, the new Islamic bank approved in the Kingdom which plans to sell 50 percent of its shares to raise $400 million; NCCI (the National Company for Cooperative Advertisement

Alternative Investment Insurance) similarly plans to sell 50 percent of its equity stake to raise $133 million; Maaden (Saudi Arabian Mining Company);
The National Commercial Bank, which plans to sell a 30 percent stake for $4.8 billion - by far the largest offering; and Marafiq (the Power and Water Utilities Company for Jubail and Yanbu). Global Investment House (GIH), the Kuwait-based investment bank, in its September 2004 GCC Market Review, stresses that in the traditionally cash and real-estate dominated GCC markets, equity culture and investments are fast growing, resulting in huge demand for investment products from retail as well as institutional investors. The booming stock markets in the GCC countries, since the last two-to-three years, have also paved the way for the government-owned companies and family-owned businesses to divest their stakes.

Online Investment Services By the end of 2003, according to GIH, the GCC stock markets had 435 listed stocks with a total market capitalization of $302 billion. During the first six months of 2004, the number of listed stocks had risen to 458, with the total market capitalization rising by 23 percent to reach $374 billion.

Accompany Essential Investment The privatization process, though started, is at best limited in the offerings, and some times even politically expedient. Many corporates are still not adhering to stringent disclosure and transparency norms, which would make it easier for them to go public in future.

Investment Company The single most spectacular IPO was the AED412.5 million one for Amlak Finance, the Islamic property financing subsidiary of the UAE

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