DUBAI: In regards to the Securities and Commodities Authority’s (SCA) self-Regulatory Organization plan, the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) has completed the first phase of transferring responsibilities of licensing brokerage firms to DFM; whereby the licensing activities for all brokers were transferred to the market management.
As part of these arrangements, the DFM modified the Margin Trading rules providing greater flexibility to investors. In cooperation with SCA, work is under way to complete the second phase of the Self-Regulatory Organization approach pertaining to listing of stocks and other products.
Commenting on DFM’s efforts to further diversify its listed securities, DFM’s Chairman Essa Kazim said, “Over the past years, the DFM endeavors to educate private and family businesses on market developments and the favorable regulations in order to enhance their presence on the market with the ultimate goal to achieve a better diversification of Dubai’s dynamic and growing economic sectors”.
DFM’s world class listing infrastructure provides companies in the UAE and beyond flexible listing alternatives including the “Main Market Listing”, the “Dual Listing” and the “Second Market” listing for private companies in light of their size, operational development and legal status.
“During 2018, DFM welcomed the listing of Bahrain’s Ithmaar Holding B.S.C. and Egypt’s Naeem Holding for investment. These listings further strengthen the attractive position of DFM as the most favoured listing venue for leading local and regional companies. We believe that the market is well-positioned to attract more listings in the future,” Essa Kazim said.
The DFM has been organizing the roadshows since 2007, in a leading initiative amongst regional markets. During 2018, the DFM roadshows in New York (May 2018) and in London (September 2018) have witnessed further success. The latter was held in cooperation with HSBC alongside the Global Emerging Markets Forum – one of the world’s largest emerging markets events — and has successfully attracted 49 international institutional investors, more than a quarter of them (28%) participated for the first time.
Roadshows’ success underlines DFM ability to further attract various types of investors due to its lucrative and diversified investment opportunity as a proxy of the sound fundamental of the national economy. During 2018, the DFM has attracted more than 2000 new investors lifting the total number of its registered investors to approximately 844,000 investors.
In 2018, the DFM launched an electronic Dividend Distribution System (DDS), a unique milestone that solidifies DFM’s position amongst the most innovative markets. Accordingly, the market successfully distributed AED 17.6 billion in cash dividends for the fiscal year 2017 to nearly 575 thousand investors on behalf of 46 listed companies compared to 35 companies in 2017.
It is noteworthy that during GITEX 2018 the DFM launched the pilot of the Annual General Meetings service for listed companies featuring the Block Chain technology, and the pilot of the Chatbot interactive communication service.
“As part of our unwavering efforts to strengthen Dubai’s position as the Capital of Islamic Economy globally, considering DFM’s status as the world’s first Sharia-compliant exchange since 2007, the DFM issued updated versions of three of its Sharia standards.
The updated standards include; standard on Shares issued in 2007, Standard on Sukuk issued in 2014 as well as the draft of Standard on Investment Funds, which was circulated for consultation during 2018.
“DFM’s Sharia-compliant standards are the first of their kind that thoroughly explain the Islamic investment instruments including Sukuk, shares and green investment funds and called for expansion in utilizing these instruments. The updated versions of the standards provided further details on the development of green instruments whether Sukuk, shares or investment funds,” H.E. Essa Kazim concluded.