By John Lee. German business newspaper Handelsblatt reports that Chancellor Angela Merkel has personally intervened with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to persuade the Iraq Government to sign a major contract with Siemens to upgrade the country's electricity infrastructure. It is understood that the State Secretary for Economic Affairs, Thomas Bareiß, accompanied Siemens Chief Executive Joe […]
By John Lee. A telecommunications analyst has said that the recent launch of 3G services in Iraq should stabilize the revenue and profit of Iraq’s mobile phone operators this year, following the difficulties caused by the war against the Islamic State (IS, ISIS, ISIL). Omar Maher of EFG Hermes told Reuters that 2016 could see high […]
By Mark DeWeaver. Another roller coaster year for the ISX is drawing to a close. By the middle of May, the Rabee Securities RSISX index had fallen 24% from its early October 2011 peak. Since then, the market has staged a dramatic rebound. As of December 8, the index was down just 3% from the […]
By John Lee. Egyptian investment bank EFG Hermes is planning to expand into Turkey, Iraq and Libya, according to a report from Reuters. The company also plans to grow its asset management arm by 50 percent after the completion of its joint venture with Qatar's QInvest. QInvest will hold 60 per cent and EFG's holding […]
At the end of last month the Egyptian investment bank EFG-Hermes announced that it would begin offering equity swaps on ISX-listed shares to institutional investors. (See this story.) This new product has the potential to bring about a dramatic increase in foreign participation in the Iraqi stock market. An equity swap allows an investor to […]
Bloomberg reports that EFG-Hermes Holding SAE, the biggest publicly traded Arab investment bank, started offering an equity-swap product linked to Iraqi securities. This potentially allows investors to benefit from the nation's economic growth, which the World Bank estimates at 12.6% in 2012. “Despite the prevailing risk-averse nature of investment in the Middle East and North […]
