Qinvest, Qatar's leading private investment group and one of the world's prominent Islamic financial institutions, said on Tuesday that its revenues rose to $65.7 million and net profits increased to 25.3 million (QR92.1 million), compared to $24.4 million (QR88.7 million) in H1 2015, as a result of increased activities across its different business lines. Exits in the firm's investments, strong performance in its international real estate portfolio and increased fee revenue are among some of the drivers behind the Firm's results. At the same time, in light of significant market headwinds around Brexit, Turkey and continued subdued oil prices, the Firm has commenced a detailed review of its portfolio positioning and risk buffers to ensure value maximization across all its exposures. Tamim Hamad Al-Kawari, Chief Executive Officer of QInvest, said: "We recorded satisfactory half-year performance across all of our business lines in the face of economic uncertainties in different markets. We remain committed to our strategy of investing within our risk parameters and offering our proprietary investment opportunities to shareholders and clients. We are now firmly in highly volatile market conditions in the UK, Europe and Turkey where a number of our investments are located. We will be carefully reviewing and stress-testing our portfolio to match the heightened volatility levels and headwinds that the markets are experiencing." Looking more closely at QInvest's business lines, the Investment Banking and Real Estate Advisory businesses continued to show growth, with mandates across equity, debt, and M&A transactions among regional institutional and family office clients. There are significant transaction flows driven by the lack of regional liquidity and QInvest is ideally positioned to support clients and shareholders with capital and best in class execution. The Structured Finance business exited a number of transactions in the telecoms, industrial, financial and construction industries while redeploying capital in alternative energy and aircraft financing. In light of market conditions, the Firm is actively monitoring its credit investments in the UK, Europe and Turkey to ensure sufficient precautions are taken whilst managing the portfolio to ensure value maximization for the firm. The real estate principal investment business has enjoyed a strong first half of 2016 in terms of quality of earnings in both financing and equity, and has recently closed on transactions in London (serviced apartments), Germany (retail) and the US (value-add hospitality). The business is currently assessing multiple opportunities in various geographies with a focus on strong risk-adjusted returns. The asset management's performance across all its funds and portfolios remained strong despite highly volatile markets, which presented opportunities for active managers to attain robust results across a broad number of clients' funds and portfolios. The division completed the integration of the QInvest Portfoy platform whilst expanding the use of its unique Shariah-compliant portfolio management system, QMAP, to its Turkish subsidiary. QInvest continues to seek more value for its shareholders and assess opportunities to maximize and help consolidate its position as a leading investment group.
