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AIM High: Marketing in the Middle East · Two in Twenty

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to another episode of AI.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Twink Field.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the host of these podcasts, which are specifically for marketers in investment management.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: And today we are talking about marketing in the Middle East.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Not a region I have to say that I know particularly well.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm glad to say I've got two experts on the matter, and one being Nigel Salito, who is the CEO and founder of Insight Discovery, who I've known for many years.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And Emmanuel Lorena, who's the head of uh Middle East and Africa for State Street Global Advisors.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: So without further ado, I'll hand straight to them.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much, Emmanuel Nigel, for joining me today to talk about marketing in the Middle East, which I have to say, I don't know a huge amount, so I'm fascinated about the discussion.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps to start us off, you can introduce yourselves and then we'll get into some of the essentials around um marketing in the region.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: So if I come to you maybe first, Emmanuel, and then Nigel.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um nice to meet you and thanks for having me.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh my name is Emmanuel Lorina.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I run the Middle East and Africa region for State Street Level Advisors, um, which is one of the largest asset managers in the world.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: I'm originally from Belgium and um I've been in the region for eight years now.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Nigel.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you, Georgina.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, my name is Nigel Siliter.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've been in the region for 20 years.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was originally transferred over here by uh Bank New York Mellon.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: So my background is asset management, but I've been running my firm inside discovery for 10 years, and we support financial services companies with press relations and market research.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Fabulous.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Two great experts to talk us through, walk us through this.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um again, maybe just to you, Emmanuel, to start us with what would you say are the essential things to know about the kind of the nature and the fundamentals of the Middle East investment industry?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think the first thing to know is that it's not a homogeneous region in terms of its uh idiosyncrasies, in terms of the um the marketing rules uh and restrictions across the different uh Middle Eastern and specifically Gulf countries.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's a very complex region that um requires a lot of thought and a lot of preparation, um, a lot of controls to uh to make sure that you navigate the different um regulatory environments um uh in the right way when you're marketing products in particular, when you're marketing um complex investment solutions to um um to investors um and um you know across the region.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we funny enough, we've heard a bit of that when we did a separate podcast about marketing in Asia and actually to some degree, obviously Europe as well.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's um obviously very nuanced.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Anything from your side, Nigel, uh about that or even the distinct differences country to country?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's true.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think the biggest challenge is it's a very opaque market, it's very difficult to find out who the uh end investors are, whether they be some wealth funds or um private banks, and the family offices on which there are thousands, it's very difficult to find out who they are and the key decision makers.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: So opaque, and also um, I'm sure Emmanuel would agree, um, as a massive management company looking to do business here, patience is required.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, business does not come easy, and it can take many years to develop very deep relationships.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I guess that sorry, that was the thing I was going to add um before, is that um unlike perhaps some parts of Europe, which I've covered in the past, it is very much a relationship-driven uh type of market here, where um you know you first have to build up trust um and you first have to get to know your potential clients before they buy anything from you.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that that process alone can take years.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so you can have the best products in the world if they don't know who you are, if they don't know your reputation, if they haven't, if you haven't been recommended, um it's gonna be very difficult to um um to get a footprint here.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so, to that with that in mind, do you think you have to be in the region to be successful in the region?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do you see other asset managers trying to sort of do it from afar?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and does that work?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I would say the flying flat model um has been the norm uh for many firms for many years too.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we've seen that change in the past 10 years with more firms sort of opening uh some form of a presence in the region, uh trip typically in the United Arab Emirates and now increasingly in Saudi Arabia as well, uh, largely driven by client demand, by changes in regulation as well.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think uh uh in the future it's going to become increasingly difficult to do business with Middle Eastern investors without having some form of a presence, whether big or small, will depend on who you are as a firm and on what your ambitions are.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: What I would say, I guess, is um if you're um a large uh diversified type of asset manager and you don't have an office here, you should not expect much success to come out of it, um, unless you're very specialized in just one thing.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: If you're a boutique, it's a bit of a different story.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, a boutique that has one or two offices globally cannot be expected to have an office here.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so clients tend to be understanding uh relative to uh the nature of the firm they're dealing with.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: But I would say um if you're a boutique and if you don't have an office here, you'll need to spend time here.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: Either way, uh you'll need to spend a lot of time on the ground, either directly or through uh a third-party marketer, uh, if you know you're inclined to do that.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: But you will need local representation in some shape or form to get yourself known.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: And again, as I said before, to build up relationships and trust uh with your potential investors.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'd just like to add that uh if you look at the top 30 global asset management companies, nearly all of them have a local presence, normally in um Abu Dhabi or Dubai.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And there are two firms, one manages about a trillion, the other manages 250 billion that aren't yet here, but are looking very closely at setting up in this market because they realize they need to have a local presence.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it's quite staggering actually how many of the global firms have a local presence, mainly in the UAE.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and and maybe you could to the kind of complexity and the nuances kind of country to country within the region, maybe Nigel, you could just start us with kind of how they differ.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: The sort of the the different appetite for product or or the way in you in which you distribute.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: How did just to sort of educate us a bit on that?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, sure, of course.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's quite complex because you have MENA, you have um um the GCC, which is the Gulf Corporation Council, and then obviously within the UAE, you have seven emirates.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: So for those of uh for those investment management companies who are let's say in uh the states, it does look mighty confusing at times.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the easiest way to describe it is that most of the wealth is in the GCC, which comprises of seven countries, um, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, etc., etc.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd say the UAE, which has a population of about uh nine million, is very much dominated by um the intermediary business plus international life companies.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd describe it as more wholesale, whereas Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi is definitely more institutional with some very well-known uh large sovereign wealth funds like uh ADIA, for example, and KIA in Kuwait.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And um Manuel might disagree me, but you know, there are some other countries in the GCC, but I don't think you know they warrant too much attention for this particular podcast.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: I guess maybe one one um one additional comment I would make on that.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh when I when we when you look at the United Arab Emirates, there's really two markets here.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you've got the sovereign wealth market or the public funds markets, uh, which tends to be located in Abdhabi, uh, where you've got the public pension funds, the uh the very sovereign wealth funds um that invest internationally, as opposed to Dubai, which is home to uh many of the intermediary clients that uh that Nigel was referring to.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: So you've really got both sides here.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and probably if you look at the entire region, um, the UAE and specifically Dubai is probably where the intermediary market is the most developed and the most advanced.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And to the question of what product appetite they have, are there particular funds, you know, thematics or or or product types that um in a particularly favored country to country, or kind of from a in a sovereign wealth fund perspective versus that more intermediated market, Emmanuel?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so um it's um I guess what's interesting here, if you think about um, as an example, public pension funds, um, and you compare them to a public pension fund in the Netherlands or in Denmark, for example, um, very different kind of um regulatory framework surrounding the activities of those funds, uh, in the sense that in the Netherlands, for example, you're having to um um to abide by a specific funding ratio and to demonstrate that to the regulator, which in turn uh has an influence on the amount of risk that you can take and your asset allocation.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's no such thing in the region, uh, and I'm not saying there's no regulation, but it's certainly not as prescriptive, uh, especially when it comes to pension funds, which has the benefit of giving them uh the ability to be more nimble in terms of their asset allocation, in terms of where uh they um they they place their bets and and how often they change those bets.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um so um you're seeing investors that are extremely sophisticated, extremely thoughtful, very long-term orientated, uh very focused on capital preservation and growth.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so really both.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I'm not saying that they're avid risk takers, I'm just saying that they're they have more flexibility than the average European or even US pension fund does uh in their ability to implement their investment views uh rapidly.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: So um that makes for I think a very interesting client base for us to work with.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um when you when you um you know they they they have exposure to the majority of the asset classes you can think of in the majority of the regions you can think of.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: We just recently wrote um a study on how public pension funds invest globally, uh and it it actually looks at those kinds of elements.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: So um there's of course more of a bias towards um you know emerging markets, uh given that the region and all of the region is an emerging market is part of emerging markets.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um so you're gonna tend to see a larger allocation to emerging markets than uh again, um say a Western uh investor would.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um I would say that many Western investors are underinvested in emerging markets.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: So probably the clients here have the right allocation.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um so that that's one aspect.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, another aspect I would um I would um underline is that um clients in this region, uh in particular institutional clients like customization, um, they obviously have a certain amount of restrictions in terms of what they can invest in uh that have to do with um sharia uh law and um the various Islamic principles, uh, which invariably leads them to work with asset managers that have the flexibility to customize their exposures in terms of the sectors in which they invest, the countries in uh the countries in which they invest, um, the styles, um uh active versus passive, um, et cetera, et cetera, um, and uh also the benchmarks that they use to track their investment.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of customization around the exposures, which uh effectively reduces the amount of managers that can work with because not everyone is equipped to provide that sort of framework to um to large uh complex uh institutional investors.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: And then if you look at um the fund buyers, uh what we call the intermediary investors, um, we tend to see that they're much more interested in uh thematic funds, uh, funds that sort of have a theme that resonates, uh, whether the theme is downside protection or inflation protection or emerging markets, uh, and within emerging markets, maybe even the consumer story um uh within emerging market stocks.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's a flurry of themes that are being explored by these investors, and uh it's then a case of having the right fines uh with the right permissions, of course, to distribute um the right track record, the right you know, ratings, et cetera, et cetera.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: To look at all those things.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if it's helpful, Georgina, for your listeners, uh maybe it's worth my while just looking at the different business channels which exist over here for investment management companies, because I think this is highly relevant.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: So at the tier one level, you also have all these um uh sovereign wealth funds.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they're small in number, they manage in total, let's say, more than um$2 trillion.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then next level down, you have the um tier two institutional investors.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Emmanuel will know all these.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you've got the pension funds, endowment funds, development funds, and obviously family offices, of which maybe about 150 I would have thought are relevant to investment management companies out of the thousands that exist.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then as you go down, you've got um uh private banks.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, we've done a study on this recently.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: We've found out there are 61, and 31 are global.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, obviously, all the Swiss private banks are here, the rest are local.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Then you have um banks looking after mass affluence, and each GCC country has uh a myriad of um uh banks, which is why there's a spate of uh bank merger going on at the moment.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then you obviously have intermediaries, which is dominated, as we mentioned earlier, in the UAE.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then finally you have um lots of platforms like um life companies, Zurich, Friends Providence, RL, um, MetLife or here.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And the most interesting development, I think, is um the um new fund platforms.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you've obviously got uh Swiss quote, you have Promemium, which I know is doing very well.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the um um growing um channel, if you like, um fund and ETF platforms, which offer low-cost alternatives.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant, thank you.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um so with that in mind, it's great talking about those sort of target audiences um and product appetite and the need for customization, as you say, Emmanuel.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: How does that then start to inform your marketing strategy?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you're sort of working alongside your your peers in the region, Emmanuel, and how you're helping clients, Nigel, what you know, what does best practice then look like for really focused marketing strategies to engage those audiences?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: How do you start to put that together?
• 15:07
  unknown: Sure.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so again, looking into two um types of clients that we've described, when we when we think about, let's say, public clients in general, um, um, we we tend to adopt a solutions-oriented consultative selling approach.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: So it's very much about working with the client to understand their um you know the their objectives, their limitations, uh, their constraints, and build something that is unique to them, that works for them, uh, that is um, you know, cost effective, um, and that is uh long-term as well.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I guess one thing that I believe we've been pretty good at is to to not just uh place a product with the client.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: We don't tend to do that.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's more about evolving with the client.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: So we've had clients where we've been in a relationship for more than 20 years, and the portfolio that we run for them looks nothing like the portfolio we were running 20 years ago because we've built again that trust, uh, we've built that ability to evolve with them, uh, to work with them on their asset application changes, but also to um to guide them on new trends that they may not have identified.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: So that's very much the approach we have, and and we don't necessarily tend to advertise um what we do uh for that specific audience.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: What we do um rather is actually work with someone like Nigel to get exposure um uh in terms of our thought leadership capabilities.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, one thing that sort of public fund investors really appreciate from firms like like us is our ability to not just manage money, but also to think about the markets in which we invest, uh, to think forwards and to try to um um help them understand the macro environment in which they they are and in which they might be tomorrow to better inform their decision.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: So we write a lot of research.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, some of it is macro, some of it is uh focused on one uh type of investment, whether that's quantitative equities or stock picking equities or emerging market debt.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a ton of research.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: There's almost too much of it.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um and part of the work we do with Nigel is to make sure that the research that we think is going to be relevant to those clients gets exposure.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: And the exposure is given through um you know a variety of things, uh, press uh interviews, uh webinars, uh outreach um campaigns, etc.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: etc.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: And again, we work with uh with with uh from like Nigel's uh on that.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then if you look at um the again the fund buyers, the intermediary clients, um that that's you need to be very cautious about marketing uh to those clients because again, there's an element of having to register funds in order for people to talk about them.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um so um, you know, a lot of firms are are very limited in their ability to do so, which is why you don't tend to see a lot of fund specific app adverts in a newspaper or anywhere uh as it pertains to foreign uh funds, because uh, you know, many of them are just not registered for sale here.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it's gonna be a case of um the intermediary, which can be a bank, knowing about what we do, who we are, knowing about our funds, because maybe we have a global relationship with them and our funds are on the global platform for them to direct their clients into our funds.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: But we're not gonna be the ones pushing that out to clients.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a bit more subtle, I guess.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it's uh it's a bit more of um, you know, um, you know, being there and then uh delivering good performance, making sure that the funds are on the various rating uh platforms that you know.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna cite them here, but you know who they are.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and of course, uh on the consultant databases as well, so that they can be picked by the clients if they need them.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but certainly from our perspective, we don't advertise our mutual funds or our ETFs in the region today.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how interesting.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And do you see some of your competitors advertising, or is it all it's all just generally felt to be inappropriate and not quite the nature of that relationship, reliability sort of orientated approach?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I can answer that.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've only seen one um well-known firm, it's Global advertise, and that's within the DIFC, which is the main financial center here in the UAE.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: So they have some electronic uh billboard, and it's very rare.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: So uh most um best management companies do not do any advertising, they rely more on obviously Zoom pictures these days, RFPs, and lots of um Zoom and team uh webinars.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, too, when you're working with your clients, Nigel, in terms of uh kind of having some brand awareness and the visibility in the market, if you're sort of advising people coming coming to the region and wanting to grow their profile with the you know these audiences, how how do they start?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: How do you start to sort of look at the marketing strategy and tactics?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: If they're a company which isn't familiar with this market, then we would help them with a market entry study which looks at all the different business channels, the regulations.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: We normally work with uh Pins and Masons on the regulatory side and also giving advice on where they should set up an office.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's for companies wherever they are that you know looking to enter the market.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: For those companies that are already established, like um SSGA, then um, we would want to support them with uh press relations.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: And um, there are many, many broadcasters over here like uh Bloomberg, who have a uh Middle East show between um eight and ten during the week.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: You've got CNBC International and National Fact, there are seven well-known uh TV shows, all wanting um guests whether they'd be economists or fund managers.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: So most of our activity is actually working with broadcasters.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's one local um business radio station.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I'd say 70% of our work is broadcast, making sure we get clients on the right channels.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's important because decision makers from sovereign wealth funds, pension funds are forever now, they're um often at home as well.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um they often have um Bloomberg on in the background or CNBC.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: So um Adia, which is one of the biggest sovereign wealth funds, um, they have, I think, over 400 Bloomberg terminals in their head office.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you can see why it's so important for Emmanuel's colleagues to be on Bloomberg as much as possible.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: We try to have um two State Street um uh speakers on um every month, um, and the same with some other um broadcasters.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it helps if um the client obviously has a big global brand because the guest producers from um Bloomberg would obviously rather have.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Them someone from State Street than an unknown quantity.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: But then you have loads of local newspapers, online portals like Zaoya, Argam, which is in Saudi.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: So there are many different uh media outlets, and um there are always new ones coming along.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: For example, there's a joint venture between Ashak, which is a uh well-known um Saudi-owned business, uh, and Bloomberg.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's a JV and it's um um producing um TV interviews every minute of the day 24-7.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's how interesting.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I I when I've talked to the marketers, kind of heads of marketing, about their approaches for sort of the global marketing strategy, there's always this tension between being globally efficient with what you're doing and then making sure you don't compromise the local relevance.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, do you when you're working with your marketing colleagues, Emmanuel, or or with your clients, Nigel, how much can they bring those global concepts, that global thought leadership or uh the kind of the efficiencies of a global approach, um, and how much does it have to be very, very local?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I think it's it's a bit of a balancing act.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and at the end of the day, um, you know, there are some very, very good regional asset managers that know the region better than we do from an investment standpoint.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um so um when when when a client works with a firm like will tend to work with us on international exposures outside the Middle East, um, and they also want to hear our views on on those markets that that you know in which they don't they don't they don't operate, uh be Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, etc.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and that's our core business.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: So this, you know, uh what we do as a global asset manager is the reason we get hired by these clients uh most of the time.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um so and I think that over the past, I would say three, probably two to three years, we've seen growing appetite for um sort of more local capabilities or regional capabilities where we we can sort of leverage on our heritage and our core capabilities and try to localize that.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um but that that is still a small part of our business today.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I think the same is true when it comes to thought leadership, uh, research, advance, um, and and just generally the themes that we talk about.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it it again it's a bouncing act.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: I would not want to be in a situation where we we ignore the region, um, because at the end of the day, we are invested in the region to a small extent.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we have a large presence in the region.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: So it's only normal that we we think about the region and write about it.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: But we try to look at it from the angle that we know, which is um macro, which is um oil prices, uh, which is um you know the debt management programs of the different Gulf countries, and uh, you know, how how we think that can help support uh different economies.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: So we write about all those things um as opposed to writing about equities.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that's not our specialty, right?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: So we try to be thoughtful about what topics we write about because we want to be credible.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: And we also don't want to be in a position to almost sort of teach clients about their own region.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: They know their region better than we do.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: So we our perspective is that they pay us to have access to our money master capabilities, but also our thought leadership capabilities about the world.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so much of what we produced in in the US or in in the UK or in Asia will be relevant to clients in this region.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and um, and so yeah, so uh you know it's delivered in a variety of formats, uh including press, including uh one-to-one meetings, discussions, but also more recently, uh, you know, during COVID, uh online webinars, uh, and and there we just need to we just need to coordinate with our European colleagues to make sure that the the the events are organized in the time zone um that makes it sort uh manageable for everybody, P9 Middle East, uh not on a Friday because people don't work Friday here.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's it's more I guess the logistical aspects that um you know need to be factored in, I guess, to make sure everyone can benefit from from those events.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: But um, you know, marketing team is very good at you know adapting uh to those needs.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: So um, you know, it's it's been quite successful for us.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh Georgina, I have a question because um we have quite a few retained PR clients, and they're all very different, of course.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Some produce some excellent um thought leadership and content.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um, State Street's a good example where um uh they might do a global study on several wealth funds, and because obviously it refers to SWS in the Middle East, that's very easy to place with journalists and producers.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: They lap it up because it's got a local angle.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, other clients might produce some really good global content, however, it doesn't have a local angle.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, where we add value is we will create that local angle, send it back to the client for approval.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: And um I think it's worth um adding that with any um uh PR client, we try to evaluate who the best spokespeople are and which ones will be relevant for this market.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: So if they've got an excellent uh spokesperson who's media approved, um sorry, media trained, and um can talk about um emerging market debt, obviously that's great.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: If it's meaner equity, even better.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so um gold, um, oil, EMD, emerging markets, frontier markets, these sort of strategies are really popular with a lot of um local journalists and producers.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: But someone like Bloomberg, they want both global speakers and local.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so interesting, really interesting topics that you mentioned there in terms of um you know what's popular and topical.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: How about sustainability?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is that is that uh something that the region's embracing or sort of struggling with?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh how how I see you nodding, Emmanuel.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to take a lead on that one?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, it it that that's been um, I would say a big surprise uh for me.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, having been here for eight years, um having covered Scandinavian markets and the Dutch market, where you know investors have been looking at sustainable investing for 15 years plus, right?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um and when I arrived here, this was not even a discussion topic.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it became uh more of a hot topic when um you know uh the Paris Agreement was was signed.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh as you know, uh several uh clients from this region, Sovereign Wealth specifically, signed the uh the One Planet Sovereign Wealth Funds initiative with uh President Macron in France.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but also the um the various uh GCC governments, specifically the UAE and Saudi Arabia, made commitments to reduce the carbon footprints uh over a number of years and taking a number of initiatives to um deploy solar energy uh and move away from fossil fuel uh over the next sort of 10 to 30 years.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: Very ambitious plans, but also more generally, if you look at ESG broadly, this is the E part, of course.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the S and the G are also very important.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's been a lot of progress in in the space of um gender diversity.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we've seen that.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um again, I think that's been an amazing, uh, an amazing progress.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um the UA government has uh implemented a number of rules uh in its in its in its cabinet, for example, to have uh a full gender balance uh among the ministers.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um they've uh just announced just a few days ago the Securities and Commodities Authority, which is one of the regulators in the UAE, just uh announced that it would impose uh to every UAE listed company to have at least one female director on his walls.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um and these are the kind of bold moves that you're seeing here in the region.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: So the pace of progress is staggering.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: They uh granted they they they were probably a little bit behind other countries when they started, but they're progressing so much faster that it's just fascinating to see.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: And the same can be said about Saudi Arabia uh and the progress that we're seeing there.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um so clearly um it's it's many different aspects of ESG that are important.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I can tell you that um ESG as an investment topic is something that I discuss with my clients on every single meeting that I have in the region, whether that's in uh Abu Dhabi or in Cape Town or in Riyadh, ESG is a staple.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a it's a permanent topic on everyone's agenda.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not just about talk, it's about deploying capital.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: So whereas maybe two, three years ago, people were just talking about it, trying to understand.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a number of uh research um papers and data that are coming out that are starting to demonstrate evidence that from an investment standpoint, companies that are more diverse, that are more uh conscious of sustainability of the environment and of all these different aspects uh tend to make better decisions, uh tend to have better long-term development.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: So as an investor, that makes that that that that should resonate.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're starting to see clients adopt those kind of strategies in their portfolios, um, which is which is fascinating.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_02: So um clearly uh very, very important topic across the region.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and not just again, um people have started moving to execution.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: How how interesting.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and Emmanuel, are they in terms of the investor conversations, are they looking for um both to understand how ESG is integrated within your investment process as well as actually very product-specific labeling?
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, so I mean, the labeling is important because again, uh many of our investors and have to answer to either shareholders or stakeholders, uh, whether it is these are uh governments uh or board of directors.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh in many instances they they are being asked to invest in ESG compliant products.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: So the labeling is very important.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we we've personally made a big effort of changing the labeling of our funds to bring up the fact that they're ESG compliant, even though they were ESG compliant before.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we were just not really advertising that.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: So that has changed.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but also from um uh to your point on the investment process, um, you know, ESG has existed for a lot of years and has gone through many different uh iterations and generations uh with the first generation ESG approach that was about just creating out companies and not investing in them.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's uh it's definitely evolved um uh to a situation where investors are now engaging with the companies rather than divesting from them.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then you you also have the thematic products where you're looking to actually make more of an impact in your portfolio.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: So there's there's a whole range of things you can do with NESG.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you both.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really conscious of time and uh I feel like we've covered a lot of ground.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um I just uh was wondering we we talked briefly uh about Emmanuel.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned you know some of over the last 12 months a few changes in terms of tactics, kind of given um the pandemic and sort of marketing, particularly doing the more and more digital events and uh digital support and content uh communications.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder whether as we wrap this up and think about final tips or or thoughts for the region that we haven't covered, uh equally, it could be you know what's changing in terms of trends um, you know, based on the last year and how you kind of foresee things going forward.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess I mean from my perspective, what I what I would say is that um there's um, you know, this is an increasingly competitive market, first of all.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um the investors are um very sophisticated and very demanding.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh so that is clearly a factor that people that want to do business here need to take into account.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um they expect professionalism, they expect quality, they expect service availability, and they expect um top-notch performance.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um those are all factors that need to be taken into account if one wants to be successful in the region.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and as you said, I think uh the local presence is is increasingly important to the point that it's going to become a must in the years to come, especially for big firms that operate in uh in the region.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: And Nigel, um yeah, sure.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think uh obviously Emmanuel's covered um the institutional side very well, so I can't really add anything there.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think if you're looking at the um wholesale market, then it's worth exploring some joint ventures.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, one or two well-known asset management companies have JVs with banks in let's say UAE or Saudi, which has raised um um considerable assets.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think the most interesting segment of the market that's growing is the middle ground between private banking and financial advisors.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: So the kind of quake by um uh private bank, often run by people who used to run at private banks and have set up a business, let's say, in the DIC, regulated by the DFSA.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: So they're looking after high net worth individuals with, let's say, between one to five million dollars.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, I've noticed that a growing number of firms, there may be about 30, have set up in the DIC that are one level down from private banks.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the other trend I've noticed is that there are a growing number of financial advisory firms that were regulated by, let's say, the insurance authority, who've decided to um um step up and actually be regulated by the DFSA.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Feels like there's a lot going on in the region.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: Fascinating.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: And um clearly, both of you are great experts and having great success in the region.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so very much for taking the time today, sharing your insights and thoughts.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, really, really appreciate it.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: My pleasure.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.