A surveillance firm will become the first Chinese company to have its shares listed on the Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX) on Oct 13, paving a way that experts say other firms from the Asian giant will soon follow.
China Security and Surveillance Technology (CSST), one of the Chinese government's leading suppliers of digital surveillance technology, has already received multimillion-dirham investments from the Sharaf Group and Faisal Holdings. Its shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, but not in its home country.
Robert McMillen, the chairman of MAC Capital Advisors, the corporate finance house advising CSST on its listing, said the Gulf was the next target market for firms from China. "There are a lot of Chinese companies disenchanted with their listings in the US and the UK, especially because of the plunging markets this year," he said, adding that GCC markets until recently had "stood up pretty well".
Mr McMillen said that CSST and many other Chinese companies were not looking to float in order to raise capital, but rather as a way of penetrating new markets and expanding their shareholder base.
"This will provide our group with wider market access and a significantly higher profile in the Middle East," said Guoshen Tu, the chairman and chief executive of CSST.
"While we continue with our business strategy of expanding domestically in China, we believe that a listing in Dubai will provide the group with a foothold into the rapidly expanding Middle East markets and surrounding regions, including Africa, India and Pakistan."
It has a market capitalisation of US$681 million (Dh2.5 billion), and reported annual sales of $314m. Forbes magazine last week named it as one of Asia's top 200 companies with sales under $1bn.
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Kanguva
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Date of birth: 27 May, 1995
Place of birth: Dubai, UAE
Status: Single
School: Al Ittihad private school in Al Mamzar
University: University of Sharjah
Degree: Renewable and Sustainable Energy
Hobby: I enjoy travelling a lot, not just for fun, but I like to cross things off my bucket list and the map and do something there like a 'green project'.
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David Einhorn closed out 2018 with his biggest annual loss ever for the 22-year-old Greenlight Capital.
The firm’s main hedge fund fell 9 per cent in December, extending this year’s decline to 34 percent, according to an investor update viewed by Bloomberg.
Greenlight posted some of the industry’s best returns in its early years, but has stumbled since losing more than 20 per cent in 2015.
Other value-investing managers have also struggled, as a decade of historically low interest rates and the rise of passive investing and quant trading pushed growth stocks past their inexpensive brethren. Three Bays Capital and SPO Partners & Co., which sought to make wagers on undervalued stocks, closed in 2018. Mr Einhorn has repeatedly expressed his frustration with the poor performance this year, while remaining steadfast in his commitment to value investing.
Greenlight, which posted gains only in May and October, underperformed both the broader market and its peers in 2018. The S&P 500 Index dropped 4.4 per cent, including dividends, while the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, an early indicator of industry performance, fell 7 per cent through December. 28.
At the start of the year, Greenlight managed $6.3 billion in assets, according to a regulatory filing. By May, the firm was down to $5.5bn.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name:Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder:Areej Selmi
Based:Gaza
Sectors:Internet, e-commerce
Investments:Grants/private funding
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