Egypt's investment bank Pioneers Holding wants to attract excess liquidity from the oil-rich Gulf region and Egypt to Morocco and North Africa where it has recently expanded, its vice president said on July 14.
"We are trying to create new investment opportunities in new markets for the liquidity in the Gulf and that's why we thought of Morocco," Khaled El Tayeb, who is also managing director of the investment bank, told Reuters in an interview.
Pioneers, which operates in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Syria, recently acquired 76 percent of a Moroccan brokerage and El Tayeb said this was Finergy Societe du Bourse. Finergy owns 6.25 percent of the Casablanca Stock Exchange and has a market share of 8 percent in share trading, but El Tayeb declined to disclose the value of the purchase.
Acquisitions by Gulf Arab investors outside their region more than tripled to $89.1 billion in 2007, London-based research firm Dealogic said in April, driven by liquidity from record-high oil prices.
El Tayeb said he believed Morocco was a good destination for Arab investors seeking to diversify their holdings to offset possible volatility in other Middle East markets. "Diversifying sectors and markets is a solution to the regional downtrend and fluctuations," he added.
The Casablanca Stock Exchange had 75 listed companies by the end of May, with a total market capitalisation of $91.79 billion - 20.75 percent up from the end of 2007. El Tayeb said he expected the relatively untapped Moroccan market to grow at high rates in the medium term.