Akber Khan, Senior Director – Asset Management, Al Rayan Investment
The asset management sector is fast growing in Qatar with the industry’s Assets under Management (AuM) totalling an estimated $19.6bn at the end of 2019.
The QFC-based investment managers, such as Al Rayan Investment and QInvest, dominate the Shariah-compliant funds space in Qatar with $1.6bn combined AuM by the end of 2019.
QFC latest report on Qatar’s capital market noted that QFC has emerged as the epicenter of Qatar’s asset management sector. Outside QFC, there are two smaller asset managers, which are fully Shariah-compliant.
Some of the local banks have also been active in the funds space, including Qatar National Bank and Doha Bank. The increasing volatility in global markets driven by COVID-19, investment portfolios worldwide will be undergoing rebalancing and perhaps structural reformation in 2020.
Investment managers will also begin to rethink their operating models, aiming for leaner and more efficient structures. This may occur to a lesser extent for Qatar-focused funds as substantial financial incentives offered to the private sectors and government support for listed Qatari corporates help maintain a relatively stable outlook for the domestic equity market.
With domestic portfolios somewhat protected in the short term, still ongoing infrastructure and existing free zone developments in Qatar present both local and foreign investment managers with opportunities to introduce new, and potentially more lucrative, investment products, the report said. The introduction of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) over the past two years has transformed Qatar’s asset management landscape.
The planned launches of ETFs demonstrate the efforts being made by asset managers to mainly attract international and sophisticated Qatari investors. They also enable asset managers to tap into the retail market, as the structure of exchange-traded funds makes them more readily accessible to retail investors. “The asset management community is supported by QFC’s accommodative structure and favourable tax regime.
Looking forward, Qatar’s economic diversification strategy, which includes a focus on fintech, finance, logistics & manufacturing and Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) present unique opportunities for the investment community”, said Sheikh Hamad Al Thani, Senior Vice President – Investment & Treasury, Qatar Insurance Company (QIC) SEO, Epicure. Al Rayan Investment (ARI) is proud to have been the first Islamic investment house established on QFC’s platform, said Akber Khan, Senior Director – Asset Management, Al Rayan Investment.
“QFC has played an active role in ARI’s journey to be a regionally respected brand as well as the largest Islamic asset manager in Qatar with over US$1 billion in assets under management. QFC’s supportive infrastructure has enabled ARI to assemble a worldclass team of talent that now manages the world’s largest Islamic equity ETF and largest Islamic Gulf equity fund. As its ambitions and mandates grow, ARI aims to remain a key participant in the development of Qatar’s capital markets; and the QFC, which has grown to be a vibrant financial centre, will remain the base for all our operations”, QFC report quoted Akber as saying.
The QFC report noted that the next addition to the Qatari fund market is set be real estate investment trusts (REITs) after the Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority (QFCRA) amended its rules to allow their introduction, while the QSE is looking into listing this type of fund.
