QNB has announced its partnership with investment advisory firm ZyFin Capital to open the QNB ZyFin India Sovereign Bond Fund for private subscription.
The fund is an open-ended one, which focuses fully on the India Sovereign Debt and is the first dedicated fund to invest fully in the Indian sovereign debt market.
It is also the first fund to benchmark itself against the S&P BSE India 10-year Sovereign Bond Index. This index was launched recently by Asia Index Private, a joint venture between S&P Dow Jones Indices and BSE.
The QNB ZyFin Sovereign Bond fund will provide global investors a cost-efficient access to one of the most promising and attractive bond markets in Asia, which is also its third largest economy and whose debt markets have traditionally been difficult to access.
The fund has been designed by ZyFin Capital in partnership with QNB. The fund is licensed by Qatar Central Bank and once finalised, the private subscription period – will request approval from Qatar Financial Market Authority (QFMA) to list its units on the Qatar Stock Exchange.
QNB looks to define industry standards and continually explores new financial instruments in different regions that drive maximum value to investors in the Qatar market.
Given ZyFin’s “unique approach” to macroeconomic research and its “innovative fund offerings,” QNB believes that the QNB ZyFin India Sovereign Bond fund holds “immense promise” and opens a gateway to the Indian sovereign bond markets for global investors.
It is hoped that this will be the first of many future products focused on India, QNB said.
“There has been a positive change in the Indian political and economic scenario and this fund will give retail and institutional investors globally an opportunity to benefit from inclusion of Indian sovereign debt into their asset allocation, which was not easily possible until now,” said ZyFin Group chairman Sanjay Sachdev.
Sachdev added that the fund will deliver value for investors globally and enhance the access to investment avenues available to Qatari and GCC investors.
India is an investment grade destination with a reasonably large sovereign bond market ($622bn) with considerable depth and liquidity. The average daily volume in sovereign debt securities was $7.2bn as of June 2014.
