Securities & Investment Company UAE (SICO UAE), a subsidiary of Bahrain based wholesale bank group SICO on Monday has announced joining Nasdaq Dubai’s equity derivative market as a member. This latest move by the group is a step towards regional expansion and will also provide its clients in GCC and MENA region with access to new market opportunity and take positions in regional and international shares in the Middle East. Earlier in March 2017, SICO UAE has also obtained equities membership of Nasdaq Dubai in its regional push.
Being an individual member of Nasdaq Dubai, SICO UAE will able clear its own and clients trades. This adds to its successful list of services offered which includes brokerages, market making, asset management, investment banking and custody, and fund administration. This will also further improve liquidity, pricing and trading services offered to the investor.
Nasdaq Dubai, launched in 2016 has executed more than 2.9 million contracts. As an expanding and liquid exchange, It offers clients attractive opportunity to make markets in a large variety of securities. The equity derivate market currently consists of single stock futures on contracts of 17 leading UAE-listed companies. The exchange has added stock futures of ADNOC Distribution, Emaar Malls and GFH Financial Group in the past three months and has also launched futures on the DFMGI index of Dubai Financial Market (DFM) and ADI index of Abu Dhabi Securities Market (ADX) earlier this month.
Hamed Ali, Chief Executive of Nasdaq Dubai, said on the development: “SICO UAE provides a significant new investor channel into our equity derivatives market as we prepare for further growth, which will in due course include the addition of a variety of futures products on regional share markets. Our cooperation with SICO, backed by its substantial brokerage and other expertise and experience around the GCC, will support the continuing expansion of the region’s capital markets framework.”
The client base of SICO UAE largely consists of institutional and high net worth investors and relationship with Nasdaq Dubai will help the company to develop new asset classes and expand as region’s international listing centre for valued companies.
Najla Al Shirawi, Chairperson of SICO UAE, said: “Nasdaq Dubai’s expanding equity derivatives market offers attractive investment opportunities to our growing range of mainly institutional and high net worth individual clients and paves the way for us to introduce new investment products which our markets until recently were lacking the tools to make such products feasible. Benefits to investors include the ability to hedge and take a position on the expected movement of UAE share prices, both up and down, using leverage to magnify the financial outcome of their futures trades.”
