Name: Position: Company: Based: Age: Nationality: |
Iad Georges Boustany
General manager BSEC Beirut, Lebanon 34 Lebanese |
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Could you provide a brief journey of how you arrived where you are today?
What does your role involve?
What is your greatest achievement to date?
Which of your products/services deliver the best results? Structuring and placement are the most lucrative aspects of our business; they consist of four to six months of financial modeling and legal structuring before we are able to get an offering circular for the investors. Placement is all about the roadshows.
What are the strengths of your business? Research is a critical element of our process as part of a client mandate. When pitching for a deal, we research all similar deals in detail and map the financials, build the models, identify weaknesses and strengths and try to understand the dynamics of the client’s business in depth. All of this for a mandate we do not even have. Yet we do it because, as Benjamin Franklin once said, “an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”
What are the factors contributing to the success of your company? With middle market clients one cannot afford to estimate. The client wants to know the cost practically to the dollar – margins are thin and we operate with no leeway. The error margin is therefore extremely tight.
What are the obstacles faced in running your business today? The absence of a global brand results in spending more time to build up trust and relationships, thus inadvertently imposing a longer time to mandate.
Where do you see the Islamic finance industry, maybe in the next five years?
Name one thing you would like to see change in the world of Islamic finance? Bemo Securitisation (BSEC) is a regulated financial institution focused on securitization and cross-border structured finance. In 2006, BSEC was awarded “Best Structured Finance Deal of the Year” and “USA Best Deal of the Year” by Islamic Finance news for its landmark transaction – The East Cameron Gas Sukuk (see Deals of the Year, Islamic Finance news , Vol. 4, issue 3, page 8). The deal was the first ever Islamic securitization rated by Standard & Poor’s, and the first securitization embedding Shariah compliant hedges. |