EFG Hermes Named Top Frontier Markets Brokerage Firm in Extel Survey 2018

EFG Hermes, a leading financial services corporation serving institutional and individual investors in frontier emerging markets, has for the first time been ranked as the number one frontier market brokerage firm in the Extel Survey 2018, advancing from the 9^th place last year. 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, specifically East Africa with a base in Nairobi.

“The awards reaffirm our view that independent, thought-provoking research remains critical to the investment process. Our East Africa research team, based in Nairobi, has been at the forefront of this with insightful analysis across multiple sectors but specifically in the oil and cement sectors where stand out reports were published during the last 6 months,” says EFG Hermes CEO, Ali Khalpey.

“We have enjoyed considerable support from Institutional Investors and anticipate to further consolidate our market-leading research position in East Africa.”

Having entered the Kenyan market less than a year ago, EFG Hermes Kenya has already established itself as a meaningful market participant on the Nairobi Stock Exchange. We continue to strongly believe in the growth of regional pension fund and mutual fund assets, and the growing needs of the Institutional Asset management industry for a world class player like EFG to continue to grow within the region to service their requirements. 

In the last 6 months we have increased our headcount significantly in Nairobi, and over the next 12 months have further plans for growth as we continue to see opportunities in both brokerage as well as Investment Banking. We will continue to expand both our research coverage and investment banking franchise into Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Zambia.

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,” continued Ali Khalpey. “Our strategy is to match our growing execution capabilities with world-class research that meets the needs of our 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.” 

“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, and the MENA region,” added Ahmed Shams El Din, EFG Hermes’ Head of Research.

“We are very excited about the region and continue to believe in its high growth potential and discovering investment ideas for our clients and working with the many interesting companies in the region looking for growth capital,” concluded Khalpey.

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.