DOHA: QInvest, Qatar’s leading private investment group and one of the world’s prominent Islamic financial institutions, yesterday announced an increase of 36 percent revenues for the first quarter (Q1, 2016) to QR102m ($28m) and net profit up 34 percent to QR37m ($10m) for the period.
Tamim Hamad Al Kawari (pictured), Chief Executive Officer of QInvest, said: “2016 started with significant negative market headwinds. I am especially pleased with our ability to deliver growth and profitability in these conditions, which I see as further testament of the sustainability ofQInvest’s strategy thought business cycles. The Firm continues to grow and we remain vigilant to ensure new business activities, transactions and most importantly people are fully in line with the Firm’s culture and risk-return framework.”
Al Kawari added:“Continuing the new phase of our strategy to deliver proprietary transactions not only for our balance sheet but also for clients and shareholders, the first quarter of 2016 saw the successful syndication of our first German retail transaction which generated significant demand in the region and is already yielding returns above the original plan. We are currently in the market with a serviced apartment redevelopment project in the City of London and continue to build our pipeline for the rest of the year. We also completed the acquisition of Ergo Portfoy, Munich RE’s Turkish asset management business, adding onshore execution capabilities in a key Islamic finance market.”
In the Investment Banking division, the structured finance business completed its first transactions in the renewable energy and aircraft financing sectors – both offering strong risk adjusted returns in line with the firm’s investment criteria. There is significant growth in these two sectors and QInvest has teamed up with specialized sector players to monetize the opportunity for clients and the Firm’s own balance sheet. QInvest continued to deploy capital in Islamic Financial Institutions and completed KuveytTurk’s Tier Two Sukuk issuance in this reporting period. Also, the team successfully exited one of its telecom tower financing transactions in January, with mid-teen percentage returns.
QInvest’s Mergers & Acquisitions franchise remains extremely busy after having completed the sale of Miramax to beIN Media Group, as well as the acquisition of a strategic stake in a leading regional food and beverage group for a key family office client. The Firm is currently active on a number of regional sell-side and buy-side mandates for government related entities and families in the region, and continue to build up its capital markets pipeline, despite difficult market conditions.
The Principal Investments division continues to deploy capital and reinvest in both equity and high yielding credit. In the real estate sector, it recently closed on transactions in London (serviced apartments), Germany (retail) and the US (value-add hospitality) and is currently assessing multiple real estate opportunities in sectors such as private rented residential, student accommodation (mainly in Germany) and forward purchases of commercial real estate. Additionally, the team continues to search for opportunistic equity investments and mezzanine financing transactions in the US and Europe (including the UK).
The Asset Management division has experienced a good start to the year despite global market volatility, with a strong performance producing healthy growth across a number of mandates. The key development for the division was the completion of the acquisition of Ergo Portfoy, with whom QInvest Asset Management has previously collaborated on the launch of an onshore Turkish fund series.
Ergo Portfoy is one of the leading asset management groups in Turkey with over TRL 1.5bn in assets under management, providing pension and mutual fund and discretionary portfolio management services. It has generated strong revenues in recent years, outperforming the peer group, and its unparalleled client servicing capabilities have helped it to become the largest Islamic asset management company in Turkey.
Ergo Portfoy has been rebranded as QInvest Portfoy and will continue to be headquartered in Istanbul. The addition of QInvest Portfoy brings the total assets under management for QInvest Asset Management to close to $1bn, within three years of launching the division.
