• June 23, 2021

    Landscape of valuation services in GCC

    Interview with Mr. M. R. Raghu, CEO, Marmore MENA Intelligence What is the market size of private firms in GCC? Private firms encompass of any non-listed firms, these firms could be large family run businesses or small and medium enterprises. Private firms have great importance in terms of its contribution to the GDP for their respective economies and for employment generation. In the GCC, SMEs constitute close to 90% (i.e. about 1.5 million SMEs) of the total companies’ base. The...

  • August 6, 2017

    Is GCC a good place to hunt for yield?

    Sizable issuances The emergence of GCC bond markets have been a fallout of the low oil prices and decline in foreign reserves, which has forced the regional governments to look for alternative routes to fund their diversification plans. Recently, debt issuances has been an important avenue for fund raising activities of the government. Out of the USD 38.5Bn that has been raised in the Middle East region since the beginning of 2017, 61% has come from the GCC countries. Saudi...

  • May 7, 2017

    GCC bond market story-Just beginning to unfold

    While the GCC equity markets came into prominence in the early part of the millennium the bond market took a back seat, primarily due to the lack of urgency to raise funds, ample liquidity in the system at low cost and certain cultural taboos. Family run organisations which control the majority of the economy were reluctant to expose their books to outsiders and sovereigns never had a dearth of capital. The data collated by Marmore clearly indicates an uptrend in...

  • January 31, 2017

    Neutral outlook for GCC stock markets

    According to Kuwait Financial Centre “Markaz” report on GCC stock & debt market outlook 2017, Boursa Kuwait has started this year on an explosive note. The much followed price index gained 16% while the weighted index gained by 11% as compared to 1.4% for MSCI GCC index and a negative 2.7% for Saudi Arabia. This has been among one of the sharpest rallies for Kuwait main index in recent years as the index posted positive gains for the fourteenth consecutive...