Dubai: UAE and Qatar are scheduled to become part of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index starting late May, there are expectations of about around Dh600 million coming into the two markets in due course.
According to Abdullah Al Hosani, general manager of Emirates NBD Securities, the entry into the elevated category has in fact encouraged several companies in recent weeks to announce a higher limit for foreign ownership. Mashreq, Dubai Islamic bank, Dubai investments and Union Properties are among those which raised foreign ownership limit.
“More and more companies are being liberal and they are trying to show themselves as eligible to be listed on MSCI,” said Al Hosani. “That will give us a bigger chunk of the MSCI index — now we have less than one per cent, that will give us a bigger part of MSCI. That’s where we have to work on.”
He expects that as a result of the move up, more companies will be listed in the index and from our expectations around one billion dirham will be directly invested in the market through the funds which are following the MSCI.
“A lot of cash will come, with a lot of foreign institutions starting to invest,” he said. “I think the market will start taking this into consideration from now onwards till May — a lot of investors will start considering to buy now.”
Regulations
On the merger of the Dubai Financial Market and the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, he said, the two need more time as it involves various aspects, including technical development and putting regulations in place.
“So far they have been running two different systems,” Al Hosani said. “ADX is moving to [a new] system very soon to be similar to the DFM. I think we need to give them more time to finalise it and make it in a proper way.
“Especially, when one is a public joint company and the other one is totally owned by the government. A lot of work [needs] to be done in back office rather than just announcing it [the merger]. From the announcement date, I think [it will require] not less than one year.”
