Kuwait Finance House (KFH) and KFH-Capital have organized a forum themed “Investment Opportunities & Markets Development” for customers.

The forum demonstrated the major economic development in the region and the world, while introduced the investment and banking services KFH-Capital offers to its customers such as asset management, wealth management, restructuring consultancies, specialized financial and investment consultancies, managing and arranging merger and acquisition operations, brokerage in trading, in addition to listing companies on the stock exchange.

The forum witnessed huge participation of high net worth individuals, investors and officials from the bank and KFH-Capital.

Abdullah Al Haddad-Chief Investment Banking Officer at KFH-Capital said that the GCC economy is witnessing a restructuring stage where most of the GCC countries are heading towards diversifying their income resources by depending on financial assets rather than oil as a main source of income especially after the sharp drop of oil prices over the past years which put pressure on the budgets of those countries; thus led to reducing some forms of subsidies, imposing new taxes and fees while borrowing through Sukuk and bonds.

The total funds borrowed by the GCC since the beginning of the year account for nearly USD50bln. This makes an opportunity to stimulate capital markets for debt instruments. The vision 2030 of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was set to stimulate the economy. Saudi Arabia set up a USD2 trillion sovereign wealth fund.  He added that the Kuwaiti economy is one of the best economies in the region despite some challenges.

"KFH is one of the largest Sukuk issuers in the region and the world, and has successfully participated in leading the issuance of sovereign Sukuk to the governments of Hong Kong, South Africa, Turkey and Sharjah, in addition to several companies and financial institutions" said Al Haddad, indicating ALAFCO closes USD300mln murabah facility where the transaction was advised by KFH-Capital.

Meanwhile Portfolios Department Senior Manager at KFH-Capital, Abdulaziz Alhumaidhi said the Company follows prudent criteria based on technical principles in portfolio management. He demonstrated the stages and criteria of building a portfolio, which depends on diversification, risk management, quality of assets and the returns, pointing out that the returns of some of the company's portfolios reach 11% annually.

Senior Dealer – Trading Services at KFH-Capital, Mohammad Aladsani said that customers can open a KFH trading account through KFH branches or at the company's headquarters. Customers can also use the KFH trading application for trading in the GCC markets. KFH Trading offers multiple services to dealers.

Saleh Al Khamees- Chief Real Estate Officer at KFH-Capital said that the real estate assets managed by KFH are valued at USD2.5billion and are distributed across the GCC, North America and Europe in all sectors; residential, industrial, logistic, offices and health care. He added that the annual distributions of real estate funds range from 5% to 7.5% annually.