Ever since its inception eight years ago, Gulf Finance House has been at the forefront of infrastructure innovation across the GCC, Asia and North Africa. Today, after eight years of sustained growth, the Bank is on the cusp of a new period of growth built on three pillars: expansion of the Bank’s core business of development infrastructure through an expansion of its funding model; identification of profitable opportunities for the Bank’s own principal investments; and building its other lines of business around world class investment bankers, private equity specialists and asset managers. Our excellent performance so far has been achieved through continuous evaluation of our business strategy, adapting to market opportunities and responding to the needs of our clients. Our success can be attributed to the simultaneous identification and implementation of multiple, private equity, venture capital, asset management and wealth management opportunities within fast emerging economies.
We hope to announce more infrastructure development projects in countries outside the GCC and MENA and we’ll continue to introduce more diversity into the funding model for large infrastructure projects. It is important to understand that one of our main objectives when structuring our projects is to remove, mitigate or transfer market risk wherever possible in order to avoid or lessen the impact of changes in markets.
Our reputation in the international financial markets continues to grow. GFH has already earned the unique distinction of becoming one of the first Islamic Investment Banks in the world to receive an investment grade credit rating (BBB+) by Capital Intelligence. The world’s leading investment banks are working with us to expand our sources of funding to include the international finance and equity markets, particularly for our infrastructure development projects.
Having emerged as a top performer among investment banks in the GCC, going forward we intend to excel through the expansion of our global footprint in a phased manner with a sharp eye on delivering excellent returns to our investors. GFH aims to be the premier provider and a global leader in Islamic investment products.
None of our success would not have been possible without the continued support from the Government of the Kingdom of Bahrain, our valued shareholders, partners, investors and employees. I would like to express my gratitude to them and am confident of their support in our future endeavors.