Portfolio investors continue to view Qatar as an exciting investment opportunity due to its higher economic growth in coming year, according to a senior Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) official.
Delivering introductory speech in a two-day roadshow in London, Rashid Al Mansoori, CEO of QSE said,” despite the well-documented fall in oil prices the all-round strength of the Qatar ‘story’ means portfolio investors continue to view Qatar as an exciting investment opportunity, a fact that has been reflected in the enthusiastic response to the forum.”
The QSE, in collaboration with QNB Financial Services and HSBC, yesterday completed a two-day roadshow that aimed to support the further development and practice of QSE’s listed companies’ investor relations.
Al Mansoori also touched on the future plans of Qatar Stock Exchange. “In the immediate future, the strategy will centre on our two core objectives of (i) capital formation represented by new listings on the main market and developing the SME sector through a dedicated market (the ‘QE Venture Market’); investigating an ‘on-exchange’ market for private companies (similar in concept to the recently announced Nasdaq model) and corporate bonds to complement the existing government and T-bill market, and (ii) capital allocation characterised by work on securities lending and borrowing; diversifying from long-only model (represented by covered short selling and eventually derivatives) and product development where QSE is working on three live ETF projects,” he said.
“One of these will be an ETF based on government fixed income risk from an Asian borrower, the second product is likely to be an ETF based on a representative Qatar-country index and the third a sharia-compliant product” said Al Mansoori.
Abdul Aziz Al Emadi, Listing Director of Qatar Stock Exchange, stated that “over the two days through a combination of one-to-one and group meetings the listed companies met with over 50 fund managers representing 30 major institutions. Those institutions represented the most important funds allocating money to Qatar, the GCC and the broader emerging markets. In aggregate the event hosted 150 meetings.”
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Fifteen listed corporates, representing blue-chip investment opportunities in the Qatari market used the opportunity to meet with the world’s leading fund managers.
The Qatari companies participating included Qatar National Bank, Doha Bank, Commercial Bank, Masraf Al Rayan, Ooredoo, Industries Qatar, Mesaieed Petrochemical Company, Gulf International Services, Vodafone, United Development Company, Al Khaliji Commercial Bank, Qatar Islamic Bank, Qatar Insurance, Nakilat and Milaha.
