(Alliance News) - Gulf Investment Fund PLC on Monday remained confident of its prospects moving forwards, as it saw net asset value increase over the full year.
Gulf Investment Fund is an Isle of Man-based investment fund focusing on Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman, the six countries which make up the GCC.
Shares in the fund closed 0.4% higher at USD2.33 each in London on Monday.
At June 30, Gulf Investment's net asset value per share was USD2.36, up from USD2.03 a year prior.
GIF said its net asset value increased by 20.3% in the year ended June 30. This outperformed its benchmark, the S&P GCC Composite Index, which fell by 1.3%.
As Chair Anderson Whamond highlighted, GIF is the only London-listed investment company focused on Gulf Cooperation Council countries. These states now represent 7.2% of the MSCI Emerging index, a big increase from 1.20% in June 2017.
In the 12 months ending June 2023, GIF was overweight in Consumer Discretionary, which represented 11% of NAV, Industrials, representing 28%, and Healthcare, representing 5.6%.
"The GCC region is rapidly becoming more significant in geopolitics, in business, sport and tourism. There are strong reasons that this, the outperformance of the company and the economic performance of the region will attract a wider investor audience, globally," Whamond emphasised.
Looking ahead, Whamond said the board "continues to view the future of GIF with confidence".
He said this was underlined by healthy gross domestic product growth in the region generally, but particularly in non-hydrocarbon sectors which are helping to balance the economies of GCC countries.
GIF paid a dividend of 7.02 US cents, representing a yield 4.0% of the NAV at June 30, 2021.
By Holly Beveridge, Alliance News reporter
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