Bahrain Fund plans more investments
AS CRUDE PRICES STABILISE, FUND STUDYING ‘A NUMBER OF INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES’
Even as crude oil prices stabilise, Mumtalakat, which has a current portfolio of $7 billion (Dh25.7 billion) through 38 portfolio companies, is currently studying “a number of investment opportunities”.
Bahrain Sovereign Fund plans to close a few more investments before the end of the year, and is looking to invest in the GCC, Europe and the US, after making significant investments last year in its quest for diversification, its chief executive officer told Gulf News.
Even as crude oil prices stabilise, Mumtalakat, which has a current portfolio of $7 billion (Dh25.7 billion) through 38 portfolio companies, is currently studying “a number of investment opportunities”.
“We have been doing significant investments last year, and we hope to do significant investments this year. We are currently looking at a few investment opportunities, and hope one of them would materialise and would announce it shortly. We are currently looking at GCC, Europe and the US. We hope of make one or a few announcements before year-end,” Mahmoud Al Kooheji, chief executive officer of Mumtalakat told Gulf News.
“Whilst we cannot comment specifically on any sectors, diversification underpins our strategy, we are well funded and we would certainly expect to conclude more deals this year than we did last year,” Kooheji added.
The sovereign fund’s 2014 revenues rose 11 per cent to 1.2 billion Bahraini dinars with a gross profit of 181.1 million dinars.
Co-investors
Opening of Saudi markets would create opportunities for the sovereign fund to be coinvestors with foreign participants.
“Currently we don’t have a big portfolio of investments in Saudi Arabia. We have a few investments, but there are opportunities for us to go even further. We could partner there and make significant investments there,” Al Kooheji said.
Since Mumtalakat is a Bahrain-based sovereign fund, it didn’t have any difficulty investing in the Saudi market.
“If anybody wants to select us or make use of our experience in the region. If somebody is looking for a local partner, then Mumtalakat is the best partner they can choose. That move would boost not only the Saudi markets, but the GCC market as a whole. Everybody would benefit from this,” he added.
Last week, the Gulf’s biggest equity market with a market cap of nearly $600 billion became one of the last markets to open up for foreign investors.
Strong dollar
“A strong dollar means a strong dinar, which is good news for Bahrain and for us, since the majority of our investments are based here. A strong performance by Mumtalakat’s portfolio is reflective of Bahrain’s growing economy, which is based on strong fundamentals,” he added.
In terms of the investment strategies, the fund always takes into account the relative strength of any currency along
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“We do [consider] all these factors like interest rate hikes etc in our valuations and choose companies that would withstand financial policies, fluctuations, changes etc,” he added.