Friday 12 January 2018

2017 Middle East Investment Banking Fees -- Get out Your Microscopes

Researchers at Arqala University Help AA Find MENA IB Fees

AA had a moment of near total shock as I read the headline Middle East investment banking fees total $912 billion in 2017” in the 10 January edition of AA’s newspaper of record the Gulf News.

Quite a change from 2016 or so it would seem. 

It only took the first paragraph to dash AA’s fervent hope for “investment bank fee riches” in MENA much less in Saudi Arabia to come crashing to the ground.   USD 912 billion quickly turned into USD 912 million. 

Thompson-Reuters estimate that global investment banking fees total some USD 104 billion in 2017.  MENA  fees  at USD 912 million are some 88 basis points of the total. 

AA’s point in writing this isn’t GN’s editing mistake, but rather to use it point out once again that in the grand scheme of matters financial MENA IB fees remain miniscule, more a rounding error that meaningful.  A hobby rather than a mainframe business.