Gulf International Bank wins ‘Credit Specialist’ at the 2015 Alt Credit Intelligence European Performance Awards

Gulf International Bank is pleased to announce its Emerging Markets Opportunities Fund (EMOF) has won ‘Credit Specialist’ award at ‘Alternative (Alt) Credit Intelligence European Performance Awards’ recently held in London. 

The Alt Credit Intelligence Awards are a recognition and reward for funds that have outperformed their peers over the past 12 months. Alt Credit Intelligence is an international publication developed by Hedge Fund Management Community (HFM), an information and membership networking group providing services for the global hedge fund management community. 

Mr. Mark Watts, GIB (UK) CEO, commented on the award, saying: “This award recognises our market leading risk adjusted returns for GIB Emerging Markets Opportunities Fund and is a testament to the experience and hard work put in by the investment team. We would like to extend our sincere appreciation to the Fund’s prime brokers Barclays Bank and Credit Suisse, and all our counter-parties that contributed to this result.” 

The award winning GIB Emerging Markets Opportunities Fund (EMOF) is GIB (UK)’s flagship long/short Global EM Credit Fund. EMOF seeks to provide consistent risk adjusted returns over the medium to long term with low correlation to underlying market indices whilst preserving capital and minimising short term volatility. The disciplined investment approach employed led to the establishment of a proven track record of minimising the negative returns in extremely volatile markets as experienced during the past 12 month period, thereby preserving capital and creating a unique drawdown record. 

Despite challenging market conditions between August 2014 and August 2015, EMOF return 3.89% net of fees to its investors. Positioning in the Fund and sound risk management contributed to the delivery of this positive return. EMOF also prudently managed its liquidity situation and brought its leverage ratio down to around 2 times from 3 times, putting the Fund in a comfortable situation to navigate current market turbulences. 

“The Investment Team has steered EMOF through turbulent waters and achieved impressive positive numbers in risk adjusted terms each calendar year since inception and we expect this to continue. Prospects are very strong for the next twelve months. We see the context of higher market volatility and re-pricing in emerging markets securities as a perfect opportunity for EMOF to identify new investment opportunities,” added Mr. Watts.

GIB is owned by the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund owns 97.2% of GIB. 

Gulf International Bank (GIB) is a pan-GCC universal bank that specializes in corporate and investment banking and has a growing retail footprint. In addition to its main subsidiaries, London-based Gulf International Bank (UK) Limited, and Riyadh-based GIB Capital LLC, it has branches in London, New York, Abu Dhabi, Dhahran, Riyadh and Jeddah with representative offices in Dubai and Beirut.