Gulf International Bank UK (GIB UK) will focus on growing its asset management business across the GCC, a top official said.

GIB UK Chief Executive Officer Mark Watts said: “Asset management is a key growth area for the bank and indeed will continue to be a growth area in the Saudi and GCC markets. Our brand of asset management focuses on institutions and our investment philosophy and process is aligned with what institutional investors typically seek. In developed markets we have consciously taken the decision to offer low cost passive strategies, preferring to focus alpha generating capabilities on less efficient areas of the market where we focus on strong risk adjusted returns with robust downside risk control.”

Last year, GIB UK was awarded Bahrain Asset Manager of the Year and Regional Equities Manager of the Year at the MENA Capital Markets Summit and Awards 2015.

Held in Dubai, UAE, last November, the awards was presented by Global Investor/ISF, the flagship asset management and asset servicing title within Euromoney, with 7,000 readers globally. 

Head of Equities Peter Carey said the bank was delighted to receive the awards as recognition for all the team’s hard work on behalf of clients over the last 25 years. 

“Our equity business has consistently delivered benchmark plus returns by combining passive replication strategies with the exploitation of market inefficiencies on the segregated mandates that we run,” he said.

GIB UK has assets under management totalling $12.3 billion as at December end managed on behalf of institutional clients in asset classes that range from passive equities to actively managed EM fixed income strategies in the hedge fund space. The London-based team has been managing assets since 1978.

The Bahrain-based GIB is owned by the six GCC states with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund owning a majority 97.2 per cent stake. The pan-GCC bank specialises in corporate and investment banking and has a growing retail footprint. In addition to its main subsidiaries, London-based GIB UK and Riyadh-based GIB Capital, it has branches in New York, Abu Dhabi, Dhahran, Riyadh and Jeddah with representative offices in Dubai and Beirut.