Abu Dhabi's investment fund, Invest AD has tied up with Morocco's Attijariwafa bank to set up an investment fund to invest in African listed equities. Both institutions signed an MoU to jointly invest in resource-rich Africa on Tuesday in Casablanca. They will jointly seed the fund which will be co-managed by Wafa Gestion, an asset management arm of Attijariwafa bank and Invest AD Asset Management. The fund will be managed from Invest AD's new licenced office in the Casablanca Financial City in Morocco. Under the terms of the MoU, Attijariwafa bank and Invest AD will also introduce to each other investment opportunities in the Middle East and Africa, notably through the DIFC subsidiary of Attijariwafa bank in the Middle East. Attijariwafa bank will also provide brokerage and corporate banking services to Invest AD in its key African markets. Attijariwafa bank is based in Morocco and operates in 23 countries. In addition to its banking activity, the Group provides a wide spectrum of financial services through several subsidiaries: insurance, mortgage, consumer credit, fast transfers, leasing, factoring, stock brokerage, asset management, M&A and market advisory. "The fund will leverage on the African platform of the bank and rely on the operational research, brokerage, asset management, and trading operations of the capital markets division of the group in North and West Africa," said Chakib Erquizi, Chairman of Attijariwafa bank Middle East Ltd and Global Head of Capital Markets, after signing the agreement in Casablanca, in presence of Mohamed El Kettani and Boubker Jai, respectively chairman and CEO and Co-CEO of Attijariwafa Bank Group. Nazem Al Kudsi, Chief Executive Officer of Invest AD, said he was impressed by Attijariwafa bank 's ambition and the bank's growth into a pan-African business. Attijariwafa has subsidiaries in Burkina Faso, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Cameroon, Gabon and CongoBrazzaville as well as branches in the GCC and Europe. "Africa's economic emergence is being driven by rising incomes and living standards across a broad cross-section of society, and across the whole continent and this is partly due to increasing intra-regional trade and business links," Al Kudsi said. "The Sahara desert no longer divides Africa." In a recent survey of 158 global institutional investors by Invest AD and the Economist Intelligence Unit, a majority of respondents believed Africa will be the most attractive emerging market for investment over the next decade. By 2016, all intend to have some investment in Africa, with a third expecting to allocate at least five percent of their total funds to the continent. Currently, almost half of respondents say they have either no exposure, or less than a one percent allocation to Africa. Invest AD, an investor in the Middle East and Africa for over 30 years, manages UCITS IV-compliant equities and fixed income funds, as well as private equity funds. Khaleej Times
