NCB Capital, Saudi Arabia\u2019s largest wealth manager, has become the first local institution to establish a non-Saudi registered range of
\nfunds under the Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) platform registered in Ireland. The firm is also launching the first two funds on this new platform – the NCB Capital Saudi Arabian Equity Fund and the NCB Capital GCC Equity Fund.<\/p>\n
The objective of the two funds is to generate long-term capital growth by investing in listed companies in the Saudi Arabian and Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) markets, in line with Shariah guidelines. NCB Capital will use a mix of strategies covering mid-cap, blue chip, income-generating stocks and a diversified range of selected sectors with solid growth credentials. All strategies will be in line with the
\nUCITS regulations.<\/p>\n
These two Shariah-compliant funds will be marketed internationally in conjunction with Amundi, with a focus on institutional investors in Europe and Asia. The firm already manages the world\u2019s largest Shariah compliant family of funds and the world\u2019s largest Shariah compliant fund (US$3.93 billion).<\/p>\n
Commenting on the launch of the new funds, Jawdat Al Halabi, CEO of NCB Capital, said, \u201cInternational investors are increasingly looking for new growth opportunities and nowhere are those better reflected than in the strong companies and sectors that we track in Saudi Arabia and across the Gulf region. With our local knowledge and significant presence we are a natural gateway for international access to a
\ndynamic new market.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNCB Capital believes that these new funds will be particularly attractive to investors in Europe and Asia, who have a traditional preference for the regulated structures and strong risk framework that UCITS offers,\u201d added Mr. Al Halabi. \u201cBeyond that, Saudi Arabia and the GCC have compelling growth stories with the former enjoying
\nreal GDP expansion of 6.8% in 2011, making it a top 20 global economy. We believe that investors will consider these funds as helpful routes to portfolio diversification.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Saudi Equity Market, with a market capitalisation of US$368 billion, has shown strong performance and is by far the largest in the region, accounting for 50% of the GCC equity market and 90% of its trading turnover. Overall, the GCC\u2019s combined market capitalization of US$736 billion itself is roughly equal to 20% of the so-called BRIC markets, a fact that is increasingly being recognised by international money
\nmanagers.<\/p>\n
Summing up, Mr Al Halabi said, \u201cWe believe that the combination of strong and continuing equity and sector track records with good local and regional growth prospects will resonate with investors\u2019 desire to diversify their portfolios outside of the usual emerging markets. These funds, and those that follow, are structured to meet this growing demand.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First two international funds offer access to highly-diversified
\nequity holdings in growing economies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":26195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1471],"tags":[1655,1826,1682,1848,1651,1437,1691,1692,1952,1685,1917],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26197"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}