Time to pack and leave?

Even as the fabric that once held together the brokerage industry in the United Arab Emirates comes apart, the steps taken by the country’s stock exchanges and its regulator to stich together the rips are hardly moving the needle. Of the 110 brokers that existed on the market at the start of 2011, almost half have now closed – of those remaining, only 10 percent turned a profit last year.  To add to the misery of UAE brokers, their markets failed twice this year to be upgraded to ‘emerging markets’ status by the MSCI, an equity benchmark with $3 trillion worth of assets tracked by global investors. The effect the upgrade would have had on liquidity is widely debated, but the rejection has without doubt left local investors and brokers with a bitter taste in the mouths.  Missing the MSCI mark One of the key requirements for the upgrade by