The fund was originally launched in January 2011, with the aim of being the first vehicle to take advantage of the country’s estimated $2.2bn bourse. However, it was withdrawn in mid-February when the exchange was suspended due to civil war. 

 

“The reasons why we established the Libya fund vehicle, and why we believed in the prospects for Libya, haven’t actually changed,” Invest AD’s head of asset management Mohammed Al Hashemi told Mena FM. “In fact, the reasons have become a lot more tempting and stronger now.”

 

“The Libyan economy has a huge set of needs – improvement in infrastructure whether its energy, electricity, social, schools, hospitals – that’s been the case under the old regime and it still is the case.”

 

Al Hashemi added that the asset manager had seen a lot of investor interest in the fund in recent months. “We feel we have an advantage – we’ve been on the ground in Libya before the changes and we feel we’ve seen the opportunities, we’ve set up a structure and we’ll soon be able to hit the ground running with that,” he said. “We are already doing a lot of the work in the background, looking at the opportunities and assembling a pipeline, so we will very soon be able to commence looking into it.”

 

Although hopes are high for the country’s redevelopment post-Gaddafi, Al Hashemi said he does not expect the bourse to be back in action until Q1 2012.