Dubai – Mubasher: Competition for global capital is tightening with developing economies having become a staple for investors looking to diversify their portfolios and benefit from potentially faster growth, a new report by EFG Hermes showed.
“Emerging market equities are in the spotlight again after a strong 2016 that saw the MSCI Emerging Market Index return more than 11%, its best annual performance since 2012 – and three years of negative returns,” the report, released Monday, said, noting that “total assets under management allocated to frontier markets have more than doubled over the past six years.”
The Egypt-based leading financial services firm is launching the 13th annual One on One Conference, the largest investor conference in the MENA region in Dubai this week under the patronage of the emirate’s deputy ruler Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
The three-day major event will be taking place on a changed global economic backdrop and will see over 510 international fund managers and institutional investors from around 260 institutions with aggregate assets under management exceeding $10 trillion.
The event, which commenced Monday morning, will see the gathering of over 147 companies listed on Middle Eastern, African, and Southeast Asian stock exchanges
“New opportunities in emerging and frontier markets alike are being created by ambitious policy makers who are increasingly going beyond conventional reforms into areas that were once taboo,” said EFG Hermes Group CEO Karim Awad.
The event’s opening session boasts a strong lineup of keynote speakers including Egyptian minister of investment and international cooperation Sahar Nasr and Emaar Properties chairman Mohamed Alabbar, according to the statement.
“Half of the almost two dozen participating non-GCC frontier market companies at the One on One are from Pakistan, which will be upgraded to MSCI Emerging Market status in May. Pakistani companies attending this week are expected to account for 44% of the MSCI Pakistan Index when it launches,” it added.
Commenting on the event, Mohamed Ebeid, EFG Hermes’ co-CEO of the investment bank platform, said that as the company continues to build its Asia-focused operations through new products and a new research platform, it will take great care to seek the opportunities “to create new shareholder value through a direct presence in one or more markets in sub-Saharan Africa.”
