SICO Arab Financial Fund has been awarded MENA Equity Fund of the year and named specialist fund of the year by MENA Fund Manager, according to Bahrain-based Securities and Investment Company (SICO) statement issued on Sunday.
MENA Fund Manager is the only magazine dedicated to providing cutting-edge insight to the MENA fund management space.
Funds were judged by a panel of industry experts based on quantitative and qualitative data from 1 November 2008 to 31 October 2009.
The MENA FM awards methodology rewarded funds that demonstrated strong 12-month and year-to-date returns as well as low volatility.
“SICO Arab Financial Fund has demonstrated consistent growth over the past three years, with relatively low standard deviation, and this year it was once again a best-in-class performer. In a competitive category it stood out for its impressive year-to-date returns (up to 31 October 2010) in particular,” said Kathryn Gaw, editor of MENA FM.
SICO Arab Financial Fund, managed by SICO’s asset management arm, recently closed its third year, with a gain of over 25% in 2010. The fund’s research intensive bottom up investment approach has helped it become one of the best performing funds in the MENA region producing top quartile returns over the past 3 year period. Despite turbulent market conditions, SICO Arab Financial Fund produced a return of 22% since its inception in August 2007 versus -31% returns for its benchmark. The fund has hugely outperformed both its benchmark and other GCC & Mena funds over the last 1 and 3 year period.
SICO Arab Financial Fund is a unique and only product of its type. It offers investors the opportunity to capitalise on the rapidly growing financial sector in the MENA region by investing in financial sector securities listed on the stock markets of the MENA region. SICO Arab Financial Fund has also been rated “A” by Standard & Poor’s.
“The main reason for our strong performance is the quality of our investment team and a bottom up, value driven research based investment process,” added Shakeel Sarwar, Head of Asset Management at SICO.
SICO is a wholesale bank offering a selective range of investment banking services, including asset management, brokerage, corporate finance and market-making, on a regional basis and with a particular emphasis on Bahrain. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, SICO Fund Services Company (SFS), SICO also provides custody and fund administration services.
As of September 30th, 2010, SICO reported total assets of BD75.139 million, with shareholders’ equity of BD54.650 million. SICO’s shares have been listed on the Bahrain Bourse since May 2003. SICO was the first ‘closed’ company to list on the exchange.