Economy

EFG Hermes Emerges Top Frontier Markets Brokerage Firm

Published

7 years ago

12/06/2018

By Dipo Olowookere

Leading financial services corporation serving institutional and individual investors in frontier emerging markets, EFG Hermes, has for the first time been ranked as the number one frontier market brokerage firm in the Extel Survey 2018, advancing from the 9th place last year.

The nod from the high-profile industry survey comes just two years into EFG Hermes’ drive to expand beyond the Middle East and North Africa into frontier emerging markets.

Prior to this prestigious ranking, EFG Hermes was named the top Africa Ex-South Africa Equities House at the Financial Mail Top Analyst Awards 2018, solidifying its strong presence in the African market.

“Coming on the heels of our ranking as the top Africa Ex-South Africa Equities House at the Financial Mail Top Analyst Awards 2018, this industry recognition highlights the core strength of EFG Hermes Research manifested in its ability to respond rapidly to the significantly increasing demand for new investment ideas and strategies amid the ever-changing dynamics of markets and economies,” said Ali Khalpey, the London-based Chief Executive Officer of EFG Hermes Frontier.

“Our strategy is to match our growing execution capabilities with world-class research that meets the needs of our clients. Beyond EFG Hermes’ strength as a research house in the MENA region, this is proof that our calculated investments into frontier expansion has paid off and underscores our unmatched strength in new geographies that we have entered within the past two years,” Khalpey added.

The commendation follows EFG Hermes Frontier’s recent entry into Bangladesh, bringing its direct presence to eleven markets across four continents. In addition to ramping up execution capabilities to cover more than 95 percent of markets on the MSCI Frontier Emerging Index, EFG Hermes has focused its frontier efforts on providing clients with world-class, on-the-ground research spanning African, Middle Eastern and Asian markets.

EFG Hermes Research also dominated the MENA regional analyst rankings, with nine of the firm’s analysts ranking in the top 20 — four of them in the top 10, including Elena Sanchez-Cabezudo (financials, #3), Mohamed Abu Basha (economics, #5), Hatem Alaa (consumer, #6) and Nada Amin (consumer, #8). Overall, EFG Hermes was the second-ranked firm in MENA and the top-ranked MENA-headquartered firm in the poll.

“These accolades underscore the outstanding capabilities of our award-winning research team and mark the passage of another milestone in our transformation into a leading frontier player,” said EFG Hermes co-CEO of the Investment Bank Mohamed Ebeid. “We continue to seek the right opportunities to expand into high-growth frontier emerging markets, while focusing on consolidating our presence to create the right opportunities to serve our clients with a superior product offering across all markets.”

“Being consistently ranked in the top five in some of the world’s most important research surveys is a testament to our high quality standards and the firm’s overall focus on innovative products – a key component of our strategy. By the end of 2018, we plan on adding more than 35 African equities to our research coverage, in addition to new products covering strategy, macro-economy, and sector reports. Our clients can now trade banking and financial equities, while gaining insights from our research team, which covers banks in Kenya, Nigeria, Vietnam and the MENA region,” added Ahmed Shams El Din, EFG Hermes’ Head of Research.

EFG Hermes Research’s coverage universe currently spans all major frontier markets, with 65 stocks currently under coverage. In 2018, the division plans to expand coverage to over 100 frontier stocks in the financials, consumers, utilities, telecommunications and energy sectors. New markets on the coverage horizon include Georgia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Sri Lanka.

Firms ranked in the Extel Survey 2018 were selected from 506 sell-side firms, and over 10,500 investment professionals. In 2017, EFG Hermes ranked second out of 33 global and regional research houses in the Extel Survey for MENA while maintaining its position as the top research house in the MENA region.

Economy

NASD OTC Bourse Declines Further by 0.16%

Published

5 hours ago

22/01/2025

Adedapo Adesanya

By Adedapo Adesanya

The NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange recorded a 0.16 per cent decline on Tuesday, January 21, extending its loss this week to two.

This further depleted the market capitalisation of the alternative stock exchange by N1.65 billion at the close of transactions to N1.071 trillion from the N1.073 trillion it closed in the preceding session.

In the same vein, the NASD Unlisted Security Index (NSI) slid by 4.79 points to wrap the session at 3,100.33 points compared with 3,105.12 points recorded in the previous session.

The bourse ended with two price losers yesterday led by Geo Fluids Plc, which gave up 32 Kobo to trade at N4.38 per share versus Monday’s closing price of N4.70 per share and FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria Plc, which depreciated by 15 Kobo to close at N39.50 per unit compared with the previous day’s N39.65 per unit.

On the second trading day of the week, the number of deal carried out slightly went up by 8.3 per cent to 13 deals from the 12 deals executed at the previous trading session.

Also, the value of transactions increased by 97.2 per cent to N4.5 million from the N2.5 million recorded a day earlier, while the volume of securities traded in the session declined by 71.6 per cent to 183,780 units from the 767,610 units recorded on Monday.

FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria Plc remained the most traded equity by value (year-to-date) with 4.1 million units worth N162.9 million, followed by Geo-Fluids Plc with 9.1 million units valued at N44.0 million, and 11 Plc with 55,358 sold for N14.5 million.

Also, Industrial and General Insurance (IGI) Plc closed the day as the most active stock by volume (year-to-date) with 25.3 million units worth N5.9 million, trailed by Geo-Fluids Plc with 9.1 million units sold for N44.0 million, and FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria Plc with 4.1 million units valued at N162.9 million.

Economy

Naira Crashes to N1,552/$1 at NAFEM, N1,670/$1 at Black Market

Published

6 hours ago

22/01/2025

Adedapo Adesanya

By Adedapo Adesanya

Pressure further mounted on the Nigerian Naira in the different segments of the foreign exchange market on Tuesday, making its value to shrink against the United States Dollar at the close of business.

In the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM), the domestic currency crashed against its American counterpart during the session by 0.18 per cent or N2.73 to settle at N1,552.78/$1, in contrast to Monday’s closing price of N1,550.05/1.

But against the Pound Sterling and the Euro, the local currency traded flat in the official market yesterday at N1,906.98/£1 and N1,613.48/€1, respectively.

As for the black market segment, the Naira weakened against the Dollar on Tuesday by N5 to sell for N1,670/$1 compared with the preceding day’s value of N1,665/$1.

Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market heaved a sigh of relief during the session as President Donald Trump created a crypto task force dedicated to “developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto assets.”

The task force will be led by Commissioner Hester Peirce, a long-time advocate for the crypto industry, and will work closely with the crypto industry to develop regulations. This is after Mr Gary Gensler, an opponent of crypto, officially stepped down as chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after Mr Trump’s term started.

The task force will also work with Congress, providing “technical assistance” as it crafts crypto regulations.

Solana (SOL) recorded a 9.2 per cent growth to sell at $257.09, Dogecoin (DOGE) rose by 7.6 per cent to $0.36789, Ripple (XRP) added 4.0 per cent to finish at $3.18, and Bitcoin (BTC) increased by 3.7 per cent to $105,515.03.

Further, Binance Coin (BNB) appreciated by 2.8 per cent to close at $699.01, Cardano jumped by 2.1 per cent to trade at $0.9972, Ethereum (ETH) soared by 2.0 per cent to settle at $3,308.21, and Litecoin (LTC) went up by 1.5 per cent to end at $116.72, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) closed flat at $1.00 each.

Economy

Brent Falls Below $80 as US Signals Boost to Oil Output

Published

7 hours ago

22/01/2025

Adedapo Adesanya

By Adedapo Adesanya

The price of the Brent crude oil grade went below the $80 mark on Tuesday after it shed 86 cents or 1.1 per cent to trade at $79.29 per barrel after the US President, Mr Donald Trump, signaled the possibility of his country boosting its oil production.

This move raised concerns of higher US output in a market widely expected to be oversupplied this year, with the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures falling by $1.99 or 2.6 per cent during the session to $75.89 per barrel.

On his first day in office, the US President signed an executive order to unleash America’s energy by easing the barriers to oil and gas extraction and production and revoking a series of climate orders by former President Joe Biden.

As pledged in the campaign, the executive order follows the declaration of a national energy emergency.

The declaration includes measures to expedite energy infrastructure delivery, and emergency approvals by agencies “to facilitate the identification, leasing, siting, production, transportation, refining, and generation of domestic energy resources, including, but not limited to, on Federal lands.”

This will likely confirm expectations that the oil market will be oversupplied this year after weak economic activity and energy transition efforts weighed heavily on demand in top-consuming nations the US and China.

President Trump also said he was considering imposing 25 per cent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico from February 1, rather than on his first day in office as promised.

The delay helped ease concerns of an immediate tightening of the market among US refiners, many of which are geared to process the type of crude oil supplied by these countries.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) reiterated on Tuesday its expectations for oil prices to decline both this year and next.

On its part, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) projects robust demand growth in the world both this year and next.

In 2025, OPEC says demand is set to grow by 1.4 million barrels per day leaving its projection unchanged from the December report.

However, losses were also limited after the US president said his administration would “probably” stop buying oil from Venezuela. The U.S. is the second-biggest buyer of Venezuelan oil after China.

Also weighing on prices on Tuesday was the potential end to the shipping disruption in the Red Sea.

Yemen’s Houthis said on Monday they will limit their attacks on commercial vessels to Israel-linked ships provided the Gaza ceasefire is fully implemented.