Arqaam Capital, a specialist emerging markets investment bank, has announced that it is hosting its third Mena Investors Conference on September 19 and 20 at The Park Hyatt Hotel, Dubai, UAE.

Over the two days, Arqaam will bring together the senior management teams of over 70 Middle Eastern and North African listed companies and over 100 investors for a series of high-value one-on-one and small group meetings. Participants represent a wide array of sectors including financial services, telecommunications, real estate and hospitality, consumer staples, energy and industrials.

Tarek Lotfy, president GCC, Arqaam Capital said: “The last twelve months have again delivered the usual mix of challenges and opportunities. Despite a recent stabilization in the oil price, the challenge over the next year will be to manage growth and margins in this current low oil price environment.”

“The Mena equity markets have clearly been impacted but the last three months have given us a reassuring bounce from the difficult start to the year with the UAE and Egyptian markets having seen a strong rebound year-to-date and with the remaining markets having recovered from their lows. Now is the time to go back to focusing on company fundamentals with a lot of names offering ample opportunity for recovery in our view.

“A great deal of action is being taken by GCC Governments to diversify. A heavy reliance on oil revenues has stressed the need for both deregulation and fiscal reform and the region is in the process of adopting various alternative revenue generating measures,” Lotfy added.

Wafic Nsouli, managing director, Cash Equities at Arqaam Capital said: “Despite the current environment, the primary capital markets have seen some extremely healthy and encouraging activity. Over the past year, we have seen several companies going public. Liquidity is also continuously improving with foreign ownership limits being increased and the international investor continues to play an important role in our markets in addition to the regional investor.”

“We look forward to hosting our guests in Dubai next month and facilitating the flow of capital into the GCC and North Africa,” he concluded. – TradeArabia News Service