Jawdat Al Halabi, Chief Executive of NCB Capital, and top executives of Trust Company of the West (TCW) and Amundi during the signing of MoU recently.JEDDAH – NCB Capital, the investment arm of National Commercial Bank – the Kingdom's biggest bank by assets – plans to launch four investment funds this year and target up to 15 percent growth in assets under management, its chief executive said. Jawdat Al-Halabi said NCB Capital, which has SR44 billion ($11.7 billion) in assets under management, will launch the funds in the second half of the year, with two aimed at foreign markets and two domestically focused. "We will launch two new (international) funds ... a mix between equities, commodities and sukuk. The initial target for these two open-ended funds would be around $30 million per each and we hope we can raise more," Halabi said. It recently entered into a global strategic alliance with the Trust Company of the West (TCW) and Amundi to manage its international equity funds and aid the expansion of its products and services internationally. The alliance will create one of the largest and most diversified Shariah fund platforms in the world. NCB Capital's award-winning asset management business is the market leader in Saudi Arabia with a strong range of funds, and a portfolio of SR44 billion ($11.7 billion) of assets under management (as of Dec. 31, 2011). The domestic funds will invest in small- and medium-sized businesses in the Kingdom as well as real estate "We have ambitious growth targets, I would like us to grow (our assets under management) by 10 to 15 percent this year." Halabi said the alliance was a "perfect match" and would help the Saudi company spread its Islamic products in global markets and enable it to tap global markets as they recover. "In Europe and the US, there is a significant Muslim population and there is a fast growing demand (for Islamic products)," he said. NCB Capital is helping arrange two domestic initial public offerings on the Saudi market this year, Halabi said, though he declined to give details except that they would be "small to medium in size." In 2011, the Saudi bourse saw five IPOs but values were tiny in comparison to telecom operator Zain Saudi's 2008 debut, which raised SR17.8 billion. Halabi said there is a strong demand for sukuk issuances in the Kingdom and that NCB is keen to tap this market to boost its wealth management platform. "There is a need for more sukuk issuances, the market is developing but still very nascent. This is an area we have a lot of interest in ... to support out wealth management portfolios. "The demand is more on the project side," he said referring to the need to finance huge investment in infrastructure and development projects.
