EFG Hermes, an investment bank in the Middle East and North Africa region, has launched its first UCITS funds, which are now available to European investors.

The EFG Hermes Frontier Equity Fund and the EFG Hermes MENA Equity Fund will provide investors with access to frontier markets and MENA markets, respectively.

Amr Seif, Head of Asset Management at EFG Hermes, said: “This is our first entry into frontier markets and also offers a vehicle to accommodate a large pool of European assets.”

“We will use our rigorous investment process used in MENA markets in the extended frontier universe. We are confident about generating superior risk-adjusted return as the fund capitalises on opportunities that benefit from growing domestic demand, driven by shifting demographics and an emerging middle class,” he said.

The EFG Hermes Frontier Equity Fund can invest in all frontier markets, but the fund is currently focused on opportunities in, Sub-Saharan Africa, South and East Asia and the Middle East.

The Frontier Equity Fund will be benchmark agnostic and will constitute 15-25 holdings of high conviction investment ideas selected on their individual underlying merits.

The EFG Hermes MENA Equity Fund, a UCITS equivalent of the firm’s flagship MEDA Fund, is designed to provide European investors with access to the latter.

The MEDA Fund is one of the oldest and best-performing Middle East and North Africa-dedicated equity funds in the region.

Since December 2011, it has outperformed the S&P Pan-Arab Index by 62.7%.

Sherif El Haddad, Fund Manager of the MEDA Fund, said: “We are confident about our ability to continue to outperform in different market conditions — it is our ability to identify and select the stocks that exhibit the growth attributes in bull markets and quality and resilience in bear markets.”

EFG Hermes has fully dedicated asset management teams based in Cairo, Dubai and Saudi Arabia, with total assets under management of $2.6bn invested across a diverse array of single country and regional fixed income, money market and equity products; the equity portion of the total stood at $ 1.5bn.

The EFG Hermes Frontier Equity Fund and the EFG Hermes MENA Equity Fund are managed from Dubai and domiciled in Ireland, with HSBC as custodian.