Cross-border acquisitions in spotlight
Muscat, March 4, 2008
The growing importance of foreign capital and cross-border acquisitions was highlighted at an exclusive gathering of top regional depositary receipt issuers in Muscat.
The Bank of New York Mellon held its 10th Annual International Equity Conference for Emerging Europe, Middle East and African Depositary Receipt Issuers at which Bahrain's Global Banking Corporation chief executive Mark Hanson was one of the speakers.
Leading investors, bankers and advisers from organisations such as the Bank of New York Mellon, London Stock Exchange and Comm-ercial Inter-national Bank attended the prestigious invitation-only three-day event.
Hanson gave his insights on foreign capital and outlook for cross-border acquisitions and investments in the region.
"The emerging markets of the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region continue to boom, in contrast to the faltering economies of Europe and especially the US," he said.
"This, in addition to the weakness of the US dollar, leads us at Global to forecast increased acquisitions from the Mena region into western markets, companies and institutions.
"We expect sovereign wealth funds to play an increasingly active role over the coming year," he added.-TradeArabia News Service