25 October 2010

Rasmala Investment Bank Limited (“Rasmala”) announced the appointment of two new senior hires to their MENA Equity Research team, Hans Zayed as Head of MENA Equity Research and Senior Analyst Chemicals/Industrials, and Saud Masud as Senior Equity Analyst, Real Estate and Construction.

Tamer Bazzari, CEO of Rasmala, commented on the new appointments, “I welcome both Hans and Saud to the team and look forward to their contributions. This further strengthens our MENA Equity Research team which, in conjunction with RBS, is providing first class MENA Equity Research to our international and regional clients. Rasmala-RBS research is expected to cover 50 to 60 MENA listed stocks by this time next year.”

Hans Zayed has over 15 years experience covering emerging and developed market equities across several sectors with Credit Suisse First Boston, BNP Paribas and Société Générale in London. Hans started covering MENA Market Equities with Merrill Lynch in 2006, consistently achieving top rankings from Institutional Investor and Extel investor surveys. He holds a Masters in Petroleum Engineering from Imperial College – London and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He is a CFA Charterholder.

Saud Masud joins Rasmala after being Head of MENA Research and Senior Analyst – Real Estate and Construction, with UBS Investment Bank since 2008. Prior to that, Saud was part of a top 3 ranked team of analysts covering US Technology companies with UBS in New York. Saud has a Bsc in Electrical Engineering and an MBA from Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech).

Earlier this year, Rasmala announced an exclusive agreement with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to produce equity research on a number of shares listed on Middle Eastern stock markets.