Boursa Kuwait holds first investor relations workshop
100 industry professionals attend workshop
KUWAIT: Building on its recent partnership with the Middle East Investor Relations Association (MEIRA), Boursa Kuwait held its first Investor Relations (IR) workshop, catered to listed companies and brokerage firms, in collaboration with MEIRA and Zain Group. The workshop took place at the Boursa Kuwait premises, on 17, April 2017 in an effort to raise awareness and knowledge of the major role of Investor Relations in Kuwait, from an organizational and practical point of view.
Boursa Kuwait Executive Director - Strategic Transformation and CEO Office, Eman Abdul-Aziz Ali, reinforced the organization’s commitment to supporting MEIRA’s Kuwait Chapter and ensuring that it promotes IR best practices, due to the importance of this function in elevating the overall investment status of the Kuwaiti market. She said: “The high turnout of attendees to the workshop is a clear indication that the Kuwait market understands the importance of this function and more importantly, is ready to establish and develop a specialized unit within. Ensuring that the significance of this exercise is clearly and efficiently communicated is surely a Boursa Kuwait duty and focus, as well sharing best practices with our stakeholders and developing the means in which we reach the investment communities.”
“I would like to thank the CMA for attending the session and for their continuous support of Boursa Kuwait’s initiatives,” Eman added.
Ahmed Kiswani, Risk, Compliance and Corporate Governance Executive Director at Boursa Kuwait initiated the workshop and led the first session with two main topics, which addressed the importance of IR in light of the new regulatory environment in Kuwait, and its importance from a Boursa Kuwait strategic point of view.
MEIRA have covered five main areas namely; IR in a global context, international regulation and practice, investor perspective, the role of the Investor Relations Officer (IRO) and last but not least, IR as a function.
Mohammad Abdal, Chief Communications Officer of Zain Group and Chairman of MEIRA Kuwait Chapter expressed his gratitude to Boursa Kuwait, for initiating the first of a series of IR events. He said: “We are confident that our partnership with Boursa Kuwait will surely result in a positive and resilient turnaround for the Kuwait market in specific, and the region as a whole. I would also like to thank Boursa Kuwait in advance, for hosting the ‘Certificate of Investor Relations’ (CIRO) two-day program at its premises later this month, as a start to deploying IR certified professionals into the field”.
During the workshop, Abdal shared Zain Group’s successful experience with IR from the perspective of a mature and well- established company, as a practical case study. This allowed participants to better relate to the role of IR and its importance in supporting the overall success of an organization and its operations. Abdal also highlighted the nature of the challenges faced by Zain Group at the start when the IR unit was established in 2002, and how these challenges were overcome and leveraged to further grow the IR unit into a fully-fledged function that serves the Group’s IR needs.
The Boursa Kuwait IR Awareness workshop witnessed more than 100 participants from the listed companies and brokerage firms from the fields of investor relations, Finance, Compliance, Corporate Governance and Corporate Communications.