Egypt’s EFG Hermes named top frontier markets brokerage firm

Egyptian investment bank, EFG Hermes has been named top frontier markets brokerage firm in the Extel Survey 2018.

The investment and market analysis firm operating in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region advanced from 9th position last year to rank number one for the first time in 2018.

Ali Khalpey, the London-based chief executive officer of EFG Hermes Frontier, said the feat is coming on the heels of the firm’s ranking as the top Africa Ex-South Africa Equities House at the Financial Mail Top Analyst Awards 2018.

“This industry recognition highlights the core strength of EFG Hermes research manifested in its ability to respond rapidly to the significantly increasing demand for new investment ideas and strategies amid the ever-changing dynamics of markets and economies,” Khalpey said

The nod from the high-profile industry survey comes just two years into EFG Hermes’ drive to expand beyond the Middle East and North Africa into frontier emerging markets.

EFG Hermes strategy is to match growing execution capabilities with world-class research that meets the needs of its clients.

“Beyond EFG Hermes’ strength as a research house in the MENA region, this is proof that our calculated investments into frontier expansion has paid off and underscores our unmatched strength in new geographies that we have entered within the past two years.”

The commendation also follows EFG Hermes Frontier’s recent entry into Bangladesh, bringing its direct presence to eleven markets across four continents. In addition to ramping up execution capabilities to cover more than 95 percent of markets on the MSCI Frontier Emerging Index, EFG Hermes has focused its frontier efforts on providing clients with world-class, on-the-ground research spanning African, Middle Eastern and Asian markets.

EFG Hermes researchers also dominated the MENA regional analyst rankings, with nine of the firm’s analysts ranking in the top 20.

Four of them in the top 10, including Elena Sanchez-Cabezudo (financials, #3), Mohamed Abu Basha (economics, #5), Hatem Alaa (consumer, #6) and Nada Amin (consumer, #8). Overall, EFG Hermes was the second-ranked firm in MENA and the top-ranked MENA-headquartered firm in the poll.

“These accolades underscore the outstanding capabilities of our award-winning research team and mark the passage of another milestone in our transformation into a leading frontier player,” said sai Mohamed Ebeid EFG Hermes co-CEO of the Investment Bank.

“We continue to seek the right opportunities to expand into high-growth frontier emerging markets, while focusing on consolidating our presence to create the right opportunities to serve our clients with a superior product offering across all markets.”

“Being consistently ranked in the top five in some of the world’s most important research surveys is a testament to our high quality standards and the firm’s overall focus on innovative products – a key component of our strategy.

By the end of 2018, we plan on adding more than 35 African equities to our research coverage, in addition to new products covering strategy, macro-economy, and sector reports. Our clients can now trade banking and financial equities, while gaining insights from our research team, which covers banks in Kenya, Nigeria, Vietnam and the MENA region,” added Ahmed Shams El Din, EFG Hermes’ Head of Research.

EFG Hermes Research’s coverage universe currently spans all major frontier markets, with 65 stocks currently under coverage. In 2018, the division plans to expand coverage to over 100 frontier stocks in the financials, consumers, utilities, telecommunications and energy sectors.

New markets on the coverage horizon include Georgia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Sri Lanka.

Firms ranked in the Extel survey 2018 were selected from 506 sell-side firms, and over 10,500 investment professionals. In 2017, EFG Hermes ranked second out of 33 global and regional research houses in the Extel survey for MENA while maintaining its position as the top research house in the MENA region.