Global Investment House
Encyclopedia
Global Investment House (Global): is an investment company
Investment company
An investment company is a company whose main business is holding securities of other companies purely for investment purposes. The investment company invests money on behalf of its shareholders who in turn share in the profits and losses....

 incorporated in 1998, and falls under the regulation of the Central Bank of Kuwait
Central Bank of Kuwait
The Central Bank of Kuwait was established in 30 June 1968 to offer a flexible currency system on behalf of the State of Kuwait. The Central Bank is currently building their new building in the Sahrq area....

. In late 2008 and early 2009 Global was hit by cash flow problems affecting its operations in several countries. Kuwait's Global Investment House 2010 loss $260 million.

Today, Global stock lists on the Kuwait, Bahrain, and Dubai Stock Exchanges, with branches and affiliates in Bahrain
Bahrain
' , officially the Kingdom of Bahrain , is a small island state near the western shores of the Persian Gulf. It is ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. The population in 2010 stood at 1,214,705, including 235,108 non-nationals. Formerly an emirate, Bahrain was declared a kingdom in 2002.Bahrain is...

, Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...

 and Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi , literally Father of Gazelle, is the capital and the second largest city of the United Arab Emirates in terms of population and the largest of the seven member emirates of the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi lies on a T-shaped island jutting into the Persian Gulf from the central western...

 (UAE), Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...

, Qatar
Qatar
Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...

, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 and Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

.

They immediately reduced their workforce by 30% in Feb 2009 after defaulting their loan payments.

Media and Industry Reports

Global’s current asset
Current asset
In accounting, a current asset is an asset on the balance sheet which can either be converted to cash or used to pay current liabilities within 12 months...

s under management has reduced to KD 1 billion (USD3.6 billion) as at 31st Dec 2010.

For the third consecutive year, Euromoney magazine awarded Global this year’s Award for Excellence as the “Best Investment Bank in Kuwait 2007”. In 2008 Global introduced several new funds during year among them are Asia Real Estate Fund, a Shari’a compliant fund, the Palestine Dedicated Fund, the first of its kind in the region.

The Company still struggles with mark-to-market losses due to its proprietary investments although these are slowly being divested with a likely return to profitability on the back of fee-generative business lines.

Global is a building in which many hard working employees complete the challenges required to keep them afloat in the ocean of finance worldwide.

Default

On 22 December 2008, following Standard and Poor's downgrade of their debt to "speculative default" from investment grade a week before,it was reported that the company defaulted on $200 million in loans, and that HSBC
HSBC
HSBC Holdings plc is a global banking and financial services company headquartered in Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom. it is the world's second-largest banking and financial services group and second-largest public company according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine...

had been appointed to deal with renegotiating this and other debts.

Despite the default, Global, reflecting the relative strength of its position, has continued to pay all interest on
outstanding debt obligations which many similar companies in the region have not done. Global is in the process of restructuring to reflect this new operating environment and create a more robust business going forward. As previously announced a debt rescheduling process is underway. The Principal Investments and Real Estate assets are being ring fenced away from the core business and will eventually be sold to facilitate the debt rescheduling and deleveraging of the company.

The business is being refocused on the fee driven Asset Management, Investment Banking and Brokerage businesses to leverage off the inherent stability of cash flows from asset management clients and USD 3.6 billion assets under management ("AUM"). Through this restructuring process Global's management believe that the company will emerge as a more streamlined, fee driven business well positioned to take advantage of a recovery in their focus geographies, particularly the GCC and wider MENA regions.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK