Global Investment House "Global" announced today that its Global Opportunistic Fund II (GOF II) placement received commitments of over USD750 million during its first four weeks, while its first investment witnessed a capital appreciation of over 65% on listing.
Global launched the USD1 billion Pre-IPO and IPO fund last April in Dubai, UAE. The Fund focuses on 17 countries in the GCC, MENA & Asian regions including China, India, and Pakistan and is open to investors from all over the globe.
Mr. Omar M. El-Quqa, Executive Vice President at Global said that to date, GOF II continues to receive overwhelming response from the regional and international investors and has already received firm commitments of over USD 750 million.
He pointed that the fund’s first return on investment came from a Pre-IPO in an international petroleum firm.
Mr. El-Quqa explained that GOF II first investment was in Reliance Petroleum Limited (RPL), which witnessed hefty activity on the first day of its listing on the Indian stock exchanges.
The shares of RPL, slated to be the sixth largest refinery in the world on completion, were listed at about 100 Indian Rupees (INR) per share on Wednesday, May 10th on both the National and Bombay Stock Exchanges.
“This translates to a premium of over 65% over the acquisition price of GOF II, which invested USD30 million in the Pre-IPO tranche of the issue.”
The main promoter of RPL is Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), a Fortune 500 company with USD18 billion market capitalization and currently operating the third largest refinery in the world.
Global currently manages another Pre-IPO/IPO fund, Global Opportunistic Fund I (GOF I), which witnessed similar success. The fund focuses primarily on the investment opportunities in the GCC markets. GOF I managed to raise its full capital of USD550 and has presently committed to invest over USD400 million.
El-Quqa affirmed that the investors in the GOF I has already benefited from the fund’s impressive performance that has made capital gains of over 70% on the partial sale of two of its investments, thus enabling a distribution to its unit holders in less than 8 months since closing.
GOF I has lined up several of its investments for sale in the next twelve months which is expected to yield a capital appreciation of over 150% and return almost half of the invested capital back to the investors.
Besides the success of the earlier fund, the recent correction in the GCC stock markets have given all the more reasons for the regional investors to capitalize on this opportunity to diversify their holdings across the ‘hot’ and emerging markets of Asia and North Africa, he followed.
GOF II proposes to invest 60% of its Net Asset Value outside GCC, especially in the high growth economies in North Africa, China, India Pakistan, and Turkey, Global Executive stated.
In addition to Reliance Petroleum, the fund has built up a significant pipeline of transactions that includes opportunities in China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, India and the UAE. Furthermore, there is a significant number of IPOs planned in the target countries, e.g. China has over 80, Saudi Arabia in excess of 70 and India over 100 IPOs, which will give the Fund significant opportunities to earn returns.
He affirmed that Global, through its strong relationships and presence in these key markets, is ideally positioned to capitalize on these opportunities.
In conclusion, El-Quqa said Global expects to receive the required commitments of USD1 billion much earlier than the indicated closing date.
“The allocation to the Fund will be on a first come first serve basis and the Fund may be closing in the month of May itself, as was indicated earlier.”
