CAIRO: Eight of Concord International Investments’ funds were ranked among the top 10 best performing equity funds in Egypt from December 2010 until July 2011.
While the overall decline in EGX 30, Egypt’s main index was at 22.93 percent, Concord’s eight best performing funds’ losses did not exceed 9.38 percent.
“All of the funds came down because the market itself saw a plunge, there was no way for funds to go up during this time,” Mohamed Younes, CEO of Concord, told Daily News Egypt.
Younes pointed out that when comparing the performance of Concord’s investment funds with other firms, one could see a difference. “The performance of our funds means that we were able to protect our clients’ and our investors’ money better than most people,” he said.
Banque Misr, Fund II was the firm’s best performing with only a 5.19 percent decline, while the Egyptian International Fund, the second best performing, saw a decline of 6.26 percent.
Concord’s Misr Alexandria for Financial Investments came in third, with a 6.34 percent decline. Fourth on the list was Concord’s Egypt Investment Company Fund, which only saw a 7.25 percent drop.
“Our investment strategy is that we want to buy only very high quality shares,” he said. “We analyze these companies ourselves and if we decided it makes sense we buy them and as long as the company is performing well, we hold on the share.”
According to Younes, the firm only sells under three circumstances: if the company they bought proves to be a mistake, if an investment shows a sharp increase in prices, and if the policies or administration of a company they bought changes drastically.
“We don’t trade in and out, trading in and out has been proven to be a losing strategy, we buy and we hold,” he added.
Concord investment funds have diverse companies including banks, food establishments, and oil companies.
“We have about 20 or 25 companies in each fund,” said Younes. “It’s very high to find a firm that does as well as we did in this phase, sometimes you’ll find one or two funds in a firm doing great, we had eight.”
