HSBC Is First to Get U.A.E. Share Brokerage License
HSBC Holdings Plc is the first international bank to get a license to trade shares on the United Arab Emirates' two domestic stock exchanges as it seeks to expand in the second-biggest Arab economy.
''The Middle East is high on the radar of institutional investors around the world,'' Neil Foster, the London-based bank's head of global markets for the Middle East, said in a statement distributed to reporters in Dubai today.
HSBC Middle East Securities will start buying and selling shares on the Abu Dhabi Securities Market and the Dubai Financial Market this year, it said in the statement. It will trade for institutional clients before adding services for retail customers next year.
At $161 billion, the U.A.E.'s two domestic exchanges have a combined market value bigger than Ireland as the federation's economy expands by about 10 percent a year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Regulators allow companies including Emaar Properties PJSC, the Middle East's biggest developer, to sell combined stakes of as much as 49 percent to international investors.
Investors from Latin America to Japan are seeking to buy Persian Gulf stocks to tap the region's petrodollar-fueled economic growth, Guillaume Hannebelle, Citigroup Inc.'s head of Middle East equities distribution, said in a June interview. Two years ago international interest in the stocks was ``virtually zero'' because few were open to foreign buyers and information disclosure was limited, Hannebelle said.
HSBC is already among 18 banks licensed to trade on the Dubai International Financial Exchange, an electronic market started by the emirate's government in 2005 to be the Gulf's first stock, bond and derivatives exchange open to issuers and investors of any nationality.
The Abu Dhabi Securities Market's benchmark index gained 17 percent this year while the Dubai Financial Market's added 2.5 percent. Source
''The Middle East is high on the radar of institutional investors around the world,'' Neil Foster, the London-based bank's head of global markets for the Middle East, said in a statement distributed to reporters in Dubai today.
HSBC Middle East Securities will start buying and selling shares on the Abu Dhabi Securities Market and the Dubai Financial Market this year, it said in the statement. It will trade for institutional clients before adding services for retail customers next year.
At $161 billion, the U.A.E.'s two domestic exchanges have a combined market value bigger than Ireland as the federation's economy expands by about 10 percent a year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Regulators allow companies including Emaar Properties PJSC, the Middle East's biggest developer, to sell combined stakes of as much as 49 percent to international investors.
Investors from Latin America to Japan are seeking to buy Persian Gulf stocks to tap the region's petrodollar-fueled economic growth, Guillaume Hannebelle, Citigroup Inc.'s head of Middle East equities distribution, said in a June interview. Two years ago international interest in the stocks was ``virtually zero'' because few were open to foreign buyers and information disclosure was limited, Hannebelle said.
HSBC is already among 18 banks licensed to trade on the Dubai International Financial Exchange, an electronic market started by the emirate's government in 2005 to be the Gulf's first stock, bond and derivatives exchange open to issuers and investors of any nationality.
The Abu Dhabi Securities Market's benchmark index gained 17 percent this year while the Dubai Financial Market's added 2.5 percent. Source
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