Upbeat on Oman

Al Anwar forays into India, upbeat on prospects for Oman: Oman Observer - May 2009

By Hasan Kamoonpuri Tuesday, May 19, 2009 ………………………..

MUSCAT — Al Anwar Holdings SAOG, which makes in¬vestments in ventures across Oman's financial and industri¬al sectors, has expanded into India with its maiden investment in a financial services company.

Al Anwar has invested in $5.7 million Almondz Global Securities Limited. Headquartered in New Delhi, Almondz is one of the leading full service category-I investment bank in India. Listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, Almondz has strong presence across 17 major Indian cities, Krishna Kumar Gupta, CEO, Al Anwar, told the Oman Ob¬server.

Since its inception in 1994, Al Anwar has been on the forefront of pioneering new investments. In 2008, Al An¬war made public its industrial venture – Voltamp Energy SAOG - whose IPO was oversubscribed over 23 times.

Of late, Al Anwar changed its business model and reposi¬tioned itself as a private equity firm. As such, Al Anwar now focuses more on managing its investments rather than man¬aging the investee companies. This exercise has yielded rich dividends improving the per¬formance, Gupta said. Al Anwar's profit has more than quadrupled since 2004.

Even in a difficult year such as 2008 where companies have been affected due to the global meltdown, Al Anwar made a profit. Its profits have increased steadily RO 675,000 in 2004 to RO 2,699,000 in 2008. Al Anwar also reported profit in the financial year ended March 2009. In the present market con¬ditions, Al Anwar has decided to be more cautious but opportunistic.

Al Anwar also has some investments that have matured and are ready for di¬vestment, said Gupta. "As a result of the global financial crisis, there was a decrease in access to credit, which affected the companies and financial institutions dur¬ing the last two quarters of our financial year.

However, we believe the credit squeeze is not expected to last long as the local banks are strong, well capitalised, and are not much exposed to the crisis af¬fecting financial instruments or institutions", he said.

The prudent business strat¬egies, risk mitigating practices and extensive monitoring of Al Anwar's investee compa¬nies ensured that the company was not severely affected by the global financial crisis. An effective representation on the boards of investee companies, use of strong tools for moni¬toring and performance evalu¬ation, providing timely guid¬ance and effective support to the investee companies, yielded satisfactory results, he said. "We feel that we have just seen the last of bad times. In a broad sense, the global econo¬my should start picking up by the second half of this year”, he added.

Gupta said, "The future of the holding investments in¬dustry largely depends on cre¬ating a conducive atmosphere for investments. These would be governed by the macroeco¬nomic and fiscal policies. This would be of particular importance to a company like Al Anwar which has just ven¬tured out of the Sultanate for making investments.

Second most important thing is the availability of liquidity. The timely availability of credit is important as many investment companies leverage their bal¬ance sheet to obtain optimal returns". For companies in the hold¬ing investments industry, Gupta said, "the growth op¬portunity lies in expanding the investment portfolio and tim¬ing your divestments.

To be sure, opportunities are plenty at present in the GCC as the regional market continues to develop. However, the growth achieved by the companies in this industry depends largely on how they select the tar¬get geography, sector, stage of company, desired level of involvement and ownership, investment size, and time horizon".