Life as a public company

29 May

The culture of investor relations (IR) best practice is slowly growing in the Middle East. This month, we highlight a few points that have arisen from conversations we’ve had over the past couple of months with clients (current and future ones!) relating to investor engagement.

Establish a strong IR team and have a plan of action

Engaging with the investor community is key to attracting investors to the region. IR functions need to have the right structure and the right team to complete investor targeting exercises; develop a strategy for investor marketing; arrange and prepare for upcoming investor conferences and analyst meetings, and get ready for the company’s earnings announcements. Having a strong infrastructure in place ensures that a public company is talking to the right people at each of its reporting milestones and gaining credibility with each interaction.

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Online excellence

29 May

Any investor or analyst should be able to easily access all-important disclosures about a company. A simple Google search should be enough to pull up most of the company’s historical news as well as up-to-date quotes from and statements by its executives.

Unfortunately, all too often, important information is not so easily accessible.

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ADX in April

29 May

In comparison to the previous month, April saw a significant fall in trading volumes as just 1.2bn shares changed hands – a 40% drop on March activity.  Two companies, ALDAR and Sorouh Real Estate, made up almost half of all share transactions with 334m and 241m shares trading during the month. ALDAR and Sorouh are currently in merger discussions. If it goes ahead, the $15bn merger would be the largest consolidation of listed property assets in Abu Dhabi.

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Executive pay: steady steps towards transparency

25 Apr

It is not so long ago that UAE-listed firms were being admonished for their opaque attitude to operational transparency. Even in the bull markets of 2007 when share price growth was meteoric, the lack of clarity over executive salaries was a gripe among investors who could never be sure how much executive compensation reflected performance.

One bear market later, and things are looking rather different.

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Physician health thyself: how NMC Health cured its capital woes with a London listing

25 Apr

“There are no investors who understand healthcare in the UAE, it is not a mature market.”

A pretty bold statement by Khalifa Bin Butti, Executive Vice Chairman of NMC Health, the Abu Dhabi based company which recently floated 30% of its shares on the London Stock Exchange, raising AED 700m in the process. The London listing provides funding to allow NMC to exploit opportunities in the GCC healthcare market.

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ADX in March

25 Apr

March was a busy month for the ADXas over 2bn shares changed hands. Highly traded stocks included Dana Gas (272m shares), Methaq Takaful Insurance (105m shares), RAKCC Cement (143m shares), RAK Properties (242m shares) and SOROUH Real Estate (501m shares). However, despite this, all five of these securities saw their share prices fall slightly in March.

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Interview with Rashed Al Baloushi, CEO, ADX

14 Mar

In early March, Rashed Al Baloushi was named as CEO of Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX), Bladonmore caught up with him to talk about recent developments and the future of ADX.

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