My friend, Ching, and I attended an investment talk by Hong Leong Bank at Hilton Hotel, KL Sentral on Tuesday night. The fund that was introduced to us was the CIMB-Principal MENA Equity Fund. MENA stands for Middle East & North Africa region.
It took me more than hour to reach the Hilton as I was caught in heavy traffic near the KL Sentral area and had difficulty locating the hotel. When I finally found the car park, I saw two security guards stationed near the entrance. One guard signalled to me to stop my car. Then he took some device to scan all around my car while the other security guard checked the car boot. After all that was done, they moved to the side and signalled for me to enter the car park. The same thing was repeated for each and every car that entered the hotel. Poor guards, they have such a boring job.
Once I entered the lobby of the hotel, I was greeted by courteous, alert and friendly staff. I had no difficulty finding my way to the ballroom where the talk was held.
We had a drink and Ching asked me what it was. I couldn’t figure it out either.
All the tables had a goldfish bowl in the centre. As we sat down and enjoyed our meal, it was nice to see the fishes swimming around in the fish bowl. To the Chinese, fish symbolises abundance, wealth and prosperity. Yeah, I can see money swimming my way. There was also Middle Eastern music in the background.
I had the following food; the main course was made up of Middle Eastern cuisine.
After dinner, we were surprised with a belly dance performance.
Wah, very hot.
After the belly dance performance, the speaker explained why we should invest in MENA. The main reasons are:-
1) Strong and stable economic growth in the MENA region.
2) The MENA markets have bottomed out.
3) MENA markets have low correlation compared to world markets.
I think the above investment is worth exploring but I’m no expert, I need to read more on this. To know more about the investment (not the belly dance, ah) please contact Hong Leong Bank.
