Experience & track record: All the core team members have been with Ajeej effectively since inception. As a result the experience curve that the team has lived through together has encompassed the financial crisis, a euro crisis, Arab Spring, oil crash and aggressive in reform programmes as well as financial markets evolutions. Ultimately, the lessons learnt are reflected in the way we invest and run our business today.
Process oriented & institutionalisation: from inception, it was paramount that we built Ajeej into a process oriented institution, whereby all operations including research, portfolio management, trading, marketing, data processing, and many others are detailed and documented in an internal control repository (ICR). The ICR represents all business lines with the aim to highlight weaknesses and risks, allowing us to implement the necessary controls and mitigate risks.
Strategy:
Benchmark Agnostic: we implement a bottom-up fundamentally based conviction strategy. Investments are a reflection of stock specific opportunities which do not fall under any strategic allocations to country or industry relative to the benchmark or otherwise.
Conviction & Concentration: a concentrated conviction approach allows us to take advantage of the inefficiencies and irrationalities that are present by magnifying the effect that high concentration investments have on a portfolio.
Same team since inception: We have maintained the same team since our inception (pre-financial crisis); a rarity in our industry and region. In addition to the aforementioned experience gained, the sense of family and mutual respect within the team are two of our greatest strengths.
Independence & management owned: We are a management owned independent asset manager. This independence allows us to avoid conflicts and focus on the job at hand. In addition, the team members have also directly been invested in the Ajeej MENA Fund, with founders having seeded the fund themselves in 2007.