Leading international and regional financial institutions discuss growth prospects for MENA region and improving investor confidence during a one day ARINDON Capital Markets and Investor Relations conference held at the Ritz Carlton on Wednesday.
During the conference, delegates, experts, regulators and bankers from across the GCC participated in the open panel discussions aimed at addressing key issues on the investment outlook of the ME region.
With an audience of 148 senior executives from listed and non-listed institutions across the GCC region the successful panel style conference consisted of five themed interactive panel sessions including Market Outlook and impact of latest geopolitical development in MENA market; Capital Markets Debt Focus; Interacting With Regulators, Analysts and Ratings Agencies; Investor Relations Within Private Equity and Investor Relations Perspectives with a focus on crisis communications.
“We are delighted with the success of our fourth conference and proud to have hosted international CEO’s in Bahrain to discuss important, topical and relevant themes. Our conference has come at a particularly interesting time and we’d like to thank all participants for making the conference a great success,” said Anthea Ameer Managing Director of ARINDON during her welcome remarks.
“We’d like to thank Mumtalakat and Batelco for their platinum sponsorship, Securities & Investment Company (SICO) and Albaraka Banking Group for their continued support for a second year running along with Dubai Islamic bank and Designgrafix, all of whom contributed towards the delivery of another successful event,” she added.
“The caliber of panelists and participants at the conference was remarkable and many ideas on capital market strategies and business experiences of the panelists were openly discussed and closely followed by active audience participation in the question and answer sessions held after every panel,” she said.
“Though transparency is pivotal within the investor community and corporate disclosure requirements are deemed necessary for investor confidence that directly benefits shareholders and improves valuation, the pertinent question of the day was “what is the impact of the latest political developments on the MENA equity and debt markets,” said Anthony Mallis, CEO of Security & Investment Company (SICO). “Will the positive investment case for Middle Eastern markets remain? Will we see a retracement of regional and international investments interest in the GCC markets after stability returns were among the other topics covered by Mallis.
Stephen De Stadler, Managing Director of Fitch Ratings elaborated on why ratings are important to both equity and debt investors and the probability of a blue print on what Middle East investors can do differently in an engaging and lively discussion.
Chairing the panel focused on interacting with regulators, analysts and rating agencies was Serge Lepine, Chief Investment Officer for Mumtalakat, the investment arm of the Kingdom of Bahrain, who discussed how, now more than ever, it is important for all organisations, including governments, sovereign entities and private sector businesses to enhance transparency and governance given the ever-changing economic climate.
“It is vital for all market participants to understand the imperatives and work toward a common goal of improving capital market efficiency and transparency which in turn should improve investors’ confidence and capital flows in the region,” added Serge Lepine.
In addition, Mark Laudi, CEO of Hong Bao Media (Singapore) spoke of crisis management and the downside risk of neglecting International Relations. “Investor Relations is not a ‘nice-to-have’, but a ‘must-have’.”