Roundup of numbers and sentiments

After a long and depressing dry spell that made local markets yearn for fresh investments, the Lebanese investment climate is looking up, says Jamil Koudim, the head of the asset management team at Beirut-based Banque Libano-Française (BLF). He presides over a family whose offspring has just doubled from a single fund to two. After the BLF Total Return Fund, which saw its inception in September 2012, the team put to effect the BLF Income Fund in November of last year. This new fund is open-ended, denominated in dollars and focused on fixed-income instruments. “We have mainly government bonds, central bank [certificates of deposit], maybe preferred shares of banks [in the portfolio] and any other fixed-income securities by institutions or corporations, and securitized products. Any fixed-income security is our market for this fund,” Koudim explains. Though Koudim concedes that funds of this type are already offered by several Lebanese banks, the