Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for ten years – Warren Buffet

At the time of going to press last month, we were rather excited that the MSM index had touched an all-time high of 11,125.35 points on Sunday, April 20. Next day, the index carried on its stellar path to touch a fresh all-time high of 11,198.83 points. While Omantel was Sunday’s star performer, investor favourites BankMuscat and Renaissance Services did the honours on April 21 with a 1.95 per cent and 4.26 per cent gain respectively.

We can’t say we planned it but we couldn’t have hoped for a more appropriate time to bring you a listing of the top 50 companies on the Muscat stock exchange based on their performance across five indicators (with appropriate weightage assigned to them as explained in the methodology on pg29). The financial indicators of the past three years (2005-2007) have been taken into account to arrive at the aggregate weighted growth. The sample base includes 80 companies which forms 94.6 per cent of the total MSM market capitalisation of RO9.011bn as on December 31, 2007. In an effort to compare apples to apples, companies have been segregated by market capitalisation and ranked in order to get a clearer picture of performance among equals. The three market groups are over RO75,000, between RO75,000 and RO25,000 and below RO25,000.

We were fortunate to get an exclusive interview with H E Maqbool bin Ali Sultan on a sector that is beginning to capture a lot of attention - mining, along with the profile of National Mining Company, whose officials have a great story to tell. As a contrast of sorts, we have a rather fascinating insight into Kenya’s financial markets provided by the governor of the Central Bank of Kenya, Njuguna Ndung'u and a peep into the world of high fashion with Concetta Lanciaux, who was part of the Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton core team. Enjoy.

Mohana Prabhakar
mohana@apexstuff.com
Managing editor