On Wednesday 19 January the Corporate Finance Faculty Middle East network held their first panel discussion in Dubai with the topic on Liquidity, fact or fiction? It was the second event organised by the faculty’s Middle East network, with the first event held at the end of last year in Bahrain.
Chaired by Chris Ward of Deloitte Corporate Finance Limited, the panellists included Amir Ahmad of HSBC, Khaled Muhairy of Evolvence, Mazen Nahawi of News group, and Ziad Makhzoumi of Arabtec
Around 100 faculty members and their guests attended the event including the networking session.
Key points to come out of the discussion included:
- Access to funds is still a reality. Example being the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where corporate confidence is booming, reflected by the flow of funding circulating the market place
- Banks in the region should be lending more
- Capital is scarcer, more expensive and provided on shorter term than before. Before the crisis, banks were not as stressed, regulation was much lighter.
- Loan market is now 5 year terms (not 7/8 year terms, which would be more ideal).
- SMEs will make economies grow. However, we need institutions that can lend to them.
- Private equity thrives when there are strong IPOs
- High yield bonds, new to this area
- Growth of capital markets will be essential for growth of market – eg hedge funds, equity market funds as they can better cater to SMEs
- In addition, stronger legal structures need to be built to frame lending facilities – presently, lack of strong legal parameters means that court procedures can take years to resolve
The next event for the Corporate Finance Faculty Middle East network will be held in Bahrain on 28 March 2011.
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