Morocco-based Attijariwafa bank said it has inked an agreement with Abu Dhabi investment manager Invest AD to set up a managed fund joint venture for investment in African-listed equities.

As part of the deal, the two partners will also introduce to each other investment opportunities in the Middle East and Africa, notably through the DIFC subsidiary of Attijariwafa bank in the Middle East.

Attijariwafa bank will also provide brokerage and corporate banking services to Invest AD in its key African markets.

“The fund will leverage on the African platform of the bank and rely on the operational research, brokerage, asset management, and trading operations of the capital markets division of the group in North and West Africa,” said Chakib Erquizi, the chairman of Attijariwafa bank Middle East and Global Head of Capital Markets, after signing the agreement in Casablanca.

Attijariwafa bank chairman and CEO Mohamed El Kettani and co-CEO Boubker Jai also attended the signing ceremony.

Under the terms of the MoU, Attijariwafa bank and Invest AD will jointly seed the fund which will be co-managed by WafaGestion (Attijariwafa bank's asset management arm) and Invest AD Asset Management. The fund will be managed from Invest AD's new licensed office in the Casablanca Financial City in Morocco, Erquizi added.

Nazem Al Kudsi, the chief executive officer of Invest AD, pointed out that he was impressed by Attijariwafa's ambition and the bank's growth into a pan-African business.

Attijariwafa has subsidiaries in Burkina Faso, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Cameroon, Gabon and Congo Brazzaville as well as branches in the GCC and Europe.

“Africa's economic emergence is being driven by rising incomes and living standards across a broad cross-section of society, and across the whole continent - and this is partly due to increasing intra-regional trade and business links,” Al Kudsi said. “The Sahara desert no longer divides Africa,” he added.

Invest AD, an investor in the Middle East and Africa for over 30 years, manages UCITS IV-compliant equities and fixed income funds, as well as private equity funds.-TradeArabia News Service