Arab
News, Wensday, Nov 23, 2022 | Rabi Al Thani 28, 1444
Saudi Arabia to launch index to measure investment funds’ performance: CMA official
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia is on track to launch an index to measure the performance
of investment funds in the market, Asharq reported, citing the assistant
undersecretary of Listed Companies and Investment Products at the Capital Market
Authority.
The announcement comes as the Kingdom aims to raise the subscriptions and assets
of investment funds within the financial sector development plan, Fahd bin
Hamdan said.
The new index will aid fund managers as well as investors to measure and compare
the fund's performance with similar funds within the same sector, he added.
The new index is set to cover both public and specialized funds that are offered
privately such as private equity funds, venture capital funds, and real estate
development funds, according to bin Hamdan.
The reason behind the launch of the index is mainly attributed to the surge in
demand for investment funds in the recent period, he said.
This comes despite the fact that total assets of the Kingdom’s investment funds
dropped by SR23.2 billion ($6.2 billion) in the second quarter of 2022,
according to data from the Saudi Central Bank, also known as SAMA. This drop
recorded the steepest fall the Kingdom has seen since the second quarter of
2006, when the decrease in total fund assets amounted to SR30 billion.
Meanwhile, the Dubai Financial Market has already launched a new general index
that offers investable and tradeable benchmarks for the equity market to
participants in the market, Zawya reported.
S&P Dow Jones Indices will act as the calculation agent of the new index aiming
to elevate investor’s experience in the process.
This joint venture plans on capping the threshold of a DFM index individual
constituent at 10 percent of the index weightage instead of the current 20
percent. This will help limit the number of firms on the index.
Moreover, there will also be a quarterly rebalancing instead of the semi-annual
review currently.
Other chief features of the new methodology include independent methodology
oversight and index calculation based on actual free float.
Following ongoing discussions with market participants, DFM will also launch
eight sectorial indices in addition to the DFM Sharia Index.
New sectors such as communication services, consumer staples, materials, real
estate, utilities, financials, industrials, and consumer discretionary will be
tracked by institutional sectors.