The Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) has granted a licence to Lazard Asset Management to establish a representative office in Bahrain.
Lazard Asset Management provides investment management and advisory services to institutional clients, financial intermediaries and private clients.
Lazard Asset Management will provide asset management advice to clients located in Bahrain and the wider GCC, including both conventional and Shari’a compliant products and services. The representative office in Bahrain will be managed by Edward Remington-Hobbs, Lazard Asset Management’s director of client service & business development for the Middle East. He will report to Bill Smith, head of Lazard Asset Management’s London office.
The licence was formally ratified at a meeting in Manama hosted by Sheikh Mohammed bin Essa Al-Khalifa, chief executive of the economic development board of Bahrain (EDB) and attended by Bill Smith, Edward Remington-Hobbs and Mr Rasheed Al-Maraj, governor of CBB, Mr Mohammed Ayman Al Tajer, director of financial institutions, CBB, and Mr Ahmed Bassam, director of licensing, CBB.
“Lazard Asset Management has been managing mandates for clients in the Middle East for a number of years, and it has been our intention for some time to establish a presence in the region,” says Bill Smith, head of Lazard Asset Management’s London office, commented:. We have been delighted with the relationships we have built with many investors in the Middle East. Our new Bahrain office gives us the opportunity to develop these relationships further.”