• Global GCC equity funds outperform their respective benchmarks in 2013
    Posted: Tuesday, January 21, 2014

The equity funds managed by the GCC Asset Management teams based in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have recorded remarkable performance during the year 2013, outperforming their respective benchmarks and putting them amongst the top performing funds in their categories.

The Global GCC Large Cap Fund, one of the company's flagship funds, has outperformed its respective benchmark in 2013 reporting a return of 35.2% compared to 22.6% by the S&P GCC Custom index. Global GCC Islamic Fund, which aims to maximize returns by investing in a portfolio of companies compliant with the Islamic sharia, has reported 25.9% compared to 21.1% reported by the respective benchmark.

On the other hand, Global Al-Maamoun Fund, which was named Kuwait Equity Fund of the year for the past three consecutive years by MENAfm, also outperformed its respective benchmark by 19.2% recording 20.6% compared to a 1.4% reported by the benchmark. The fund aims to grow the invested capital by investing in companies listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange.

Global Saudi Equity Fund, managed by the Asset Management team in Global Saudi, performed well during the period recording 30.1% compared to the performance of the Saudi market index, which stood at 25.5%.

Commenting on the remarkable performance of the funds, Bader Al-Ghanim, Vice President of GCC Asset Management said, "We adopt a long term strategy that focuses on stocks with potential operational growth and good fundamentals while disregards speculative ones. Our stock selection processes along with the investment strategy didn't only result in outperforming the nine funds we manage their respective benchmarks on yearly bases, but also on longer periods; the past two years, three years as well as since inception".

Al-Ghanim added, "Our future outlook to the regional capital markets remains positive. We believe that the strong GDP growth, growing domestic demand and rising government spending on infrastructure projects will drive markets upwards. The Saudi market is still the most favorable due to its demographics and the steady increase in government spending. We also believe that the capital markets in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will benefit from the infrastructure projects in the pipeline for the international events to be hosted as well as the increase of liquidity expected from the inclusion of these two markets in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. On the other hand, we see investment opportunities in some of the operational companies in Kuwait."

It is worth noting that the GCC Asset Management team manages assets on behalf of its clients worth USD 1.3 billion through nine equity funds and several portfolios with different strategies. The equity funds managed include two GCC funds, three Kuwaiti funds, two Saudi funds and one Qatari fund.

To access the article in Arabic, please click here

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