MENA Asset Management Survey 2012 - National Bank of Abu Dhabi

Benchmarks
Q/ What have been the main drivers of your choice for fund domicile? Have you
made any changes to the domicile of your funds?
A/ Both funds are currently Cayman domiciled. Future planned funds would be European
UCITS. No changes to the domicile of the current funds have been made or are planned.
Q/ What are the fee trends for your funds/portfolios?
A/ From the start, we placed emphasis on providing better value to investors in
differentiated products. For the current funds, management fees are 1.5%, and
performance fees are 20% of gains above an annual hurdle rate of 10%. The Value Fund
also has a share class with management fees of 1% and performance fees of 20% with
no hurdle rate.
Q/ What have been trends in fees for your services in the last three years?
A/ The fee structure has not changed, but this is predominantly because when we
launched our funds, both of which are considered alternative/hedge funds, we set the
fees at a level in-line with what most long-only regional funds charged at the time to offer
better value to the clients. This was in anticipation of a reduction in fees for more
conventional funds following the lead of international competitors. Future fund launches
particularly for mutual funds, are likely to follow a similar pricing strategy to be in line-with
the best priced funds in that category (typically around 1%).
Q/ What have been trends in flows ?
A/ In 2011, there was a three-fold increase in our AUMs from USD 25 million to USD 100
million. We have seen only a marginal increase year-to-date in 2012, but it is worth
bearing in mind that we have only started marketing our funds to a wider set of investors
since October 2012.
Q/ What factors were the drivers for the flows described above?
A/ The three-fold increase in 2011 was based on good performance in our first fund and
the launch of an attractive and differentiated vehicle (the Value Fund) which allowed us
to receive new fund flows from existing investors.
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