(MENAFN- The Peninsula) QInvest, Qatar's leading investment bank and a prominent Islamic financial institution, yesterday announced 57 percent rise in net profit to $7.48m (QR27.21m) for the first quarter ending March 31, 2015 compared to $4.76m (QR17.32m) in corresponding quarter 2014. Revenue was up 27 percent to $20.70m (QR75.36m) for the first quarter this year, compared to $16.26m (QR59.18m) in same quarter last year.
"I am very pleased with QInvest's performance over the last quarter. All three of our key business lines - Investment Banking, Principal Investments and Asset Management - have continued to grow and prosper. We anticipate an active pipeline of activity for the remainder of 2015 and I am confident that we will reach our capital deployment targets for this year," said Tamim Hamad Al Kawari, CEO of QInvest.
In the Investment Banking division, the debt capital markets franchise continued to grow and, notably, acted as joint lead manager and book runner on Noor Bank's debut $500m Sukuk, which was oversubscribed by more than four times. QInvest continues to actively work on a number of mandates for both sovereign and corporate entities, which the team expects to execute in the second quarter of the year.
QInvest's structured finance business built on last year's strong performance and closed approximately $100m (QR364.05m) of new transactions in both developed and emerging markets. The team is continuing successfully to syndicate these new transactions and those in QInvest's existing financing portfolio.
The Principal Investments unit continues to see significant interest from QInvest's shareholders and clients in real estate investments, which are currently at various stages of execution and completion in Europe and the US. The team continues to assess and secure both equity and financing opportunities. However, there are signs of an excess of capital in both markets, which make securing good equity opportunities challenging.
In the first quarter of 2015, the real estate team secured yielding equity opportunities in the German retail market, additional mezzanine debt transactions in the US and new equity transactions in the GCC, the UK and the US are continually being assessed.
During the quarter, QInvest made a selected number of new equity investments; in aggregate deploying approximately $35m (QR127.42m). The transactions took the form of both direct co-investments and fund investments; in all situations, the investments were made alongside leading investment groups.
The Asset Management division formally launched the QInvest Pioneer European Fund, increasing the QMAP exposure and successfully rolled out Qatar Islamic Bank's capital protected note that offers shareholders and clients an upside exposure to a range of GCC companies in a two-year period.
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