EFG-Hermes offers equity swaps linked to Iraqi securities as market gains
Source: BI-ME with Bloomberg , Author: Posted by BI-ME staff
Posted: Mon February 27, 2012 4:12 pm



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INTERNATIONAL. EFG-Hermes Holding SAE (HRHO), the biggest publicly traded Arab investment bank, started offering an equity-swap product linked to Iraqi securities, potentially allowing investors to benefit from the nation's recovery from decades of war and sanctions.

“Despite the prevailing risk-averse nature of investment in the Middle East and North Africa region, we have seen a high level of demand for access to this new frontier market,” said Julian Bruce, the Dubai-based director of institutional sales trading at EFG-Hermes.

The product will remove “both the domestic Iraqi broker counter-party risk and the labor-intensive procedures involved in domestic execution.”

Almost a decade after a U.S.-led invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s economy is set to expand 12.6 percent in 2012, the fastest among MENA countries, according to the International Monetary Fund. Regional markets were hurt last year amid uprisings that ousted leaders in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia and investor concern Europe’s debt crisis may spread.

The Iraq Stock Exchange’s ISX Index advanced 17 percent last year, according to data on the bourse’s website. The MSCI Emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa Index dropped 23 percent in the period. The Iraq index, comprising 87 companies, had a market value of 4,930 billion Iraqi dinars ($4.2 billion) at the end of 2011. Foreign investors bought shares valued at $147 million last year compared with $52 million in 2010.

The ISX index fell 0.2 percent to 123.37 yesterday, according to the bourse’s website.

 

MIDDLE EAST BUSINESS COMMENT & ANALYSIS

date:Posted: May 23, 2013
UAE. While new orders continued to rise sharply, the rate of increase eased to the slowest in a year. Meanwhile, employment levels rose at the fastest pace in two years.
date:Posted: May 22, 2013
iNTERNATIONAL. Control over Homs will enable al Assad to rapidly move forces from the north to the south to meet emerging rebel threats. It will also provide a key avenue of retreat to the Alawite coast in the event that he needs to flee Damascus.
date:Posted: May 22, 2013
INTERNATIONAL. A government that slaughters its people and maims a whole generation is not a government with whom to negotiate. It is nothing short of travesty that the Obama administration is still mired in the illusion that a political solution is possible.



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