The Qatar Stock Exchange has a healthy pipeline of initial public offerings (IPOs), along with a couple of exchange traded funds (ETFs) ready for launch, a senior official said on Tuesday.

“We have four projects on the table now. We are waiting for an approval to list a family owned company, second is in the pipeline, so we are expecting their IPO in April,” Rashid Bin Ali Al Mansouri, CEO of Qatar Stock Exchange, told journalists on the sidelines of Arab IPO summit.

In addition, the Qatar exchange also plans to list two Exchange Traded Funds, from which one is a Sharia compliant one, and the other one is Qatar index ETF, Al Mansouri said. “Any IPOs or any listing is a fuel for the market,” he added.

However, more IPOs would depend on regional stability, and oil prices

“We have issues in the region, like the geopolitical issues, oil prices, which are making investor sentiment cautious,” Al Mansouri said.

Egyptian Exchange’s chairman Mohammad Omran at the same event said he hopes to see more listing from government owned companies, after the index gained 45 per cent since the pound flotation.

Meanwhile, Yarub Awadh Al Badi, head of CMA’s initial public offering unit, said they are in talks with many companies in the GCC to list on Tadawul’s parallel market

source : gulfnews