Bahrain-based Securities and Investment Company's (Sico) flagship Khaleej Equity Fund been ranked first in the GCC Equity Conventional category in a survey by the Zawya web portal.

Sico Gulf Equity Fund, a GCC excepting Saudi fund, was ranked second by Zawya.

Sico's funds have constantly been amongst the top ranked ever since Zawya started these rankings. The ranking follows a rigorous process of quantitative research, analysis and deliberation by Zawya analysts.

The fund's ranking factors in its template returns, volatility, compliance and fees.

"Sico Khaleej Equity Fund is one of the most compliant and transparent funds available in the GCC and given that Zawya funds ranking methodology stresses on that factor, the fund excelled among its peers and scored top position in its category," said Zawya vice-president and head of mutual funds Pamela Chikhani.

The Khaleej Equity Fund, managed by Sico's asset management arm, recently closed its sixth year, with a gain of over 90 per cent since its inception in 2004.

The fund's research intensive bottom up investment approach has helped it become one of the best performing funds in the GCC producing top returns over the past three and five-year periods.

The fund, which invests principally in equity securities listed across the six GCC stock markets, has delivered an annualised return of around 11 per cent versus 4 per cent for the MSCI GCC Total Return Index since the fund's inception in March 2004.

Khaleej Equity has been rated AA by Standard & Poor's and in 2008 was awarded the best GCC fund by Lippers.

"The main reason for our strong performance is the quality of our investment team and a bottom up, value driven research based investment process," said Sico head of asset management Shakeel Sarwar.

Sico offers additional funds in the form of the Sico Selected Securities Fund, a Bahrain dedicated mutual fund, which invests principally in equity and debt securities listed on the Bahrain Stock Exchange, and Sico Arab Financial Fund, which 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 Mena stock markets.

Sico has recently closed its latest fund, Sico Money Market Fund, which invests in short-term, investment grade regional money market instruments. – TradeArabia News Service