The financial services and investment company Bemo Saudi Fransi Finance, a subsidiary of the Syrian private bank Banque Bemo Saudi Fransi, has received final approval from the Syrian Commission on Financial Markets and Securities allowing it to provide discretionary and non-discretionary portfolio management services for shares listed on the Damascus Securities Exchange.

The firm said the new service will attract high net worth individual and institutional investors interested in accessing the DSE through a dedicated investment manager – Bemo has appointed Hamza Hamza in that role. Hamza joins Bemo from Sucden Financial in London, where he was a fund manager.

"I am very pleased that we have received the final go ahead from the Securities Commission to activate our asset management division, which is the first to be provided to a financial services company in Syria,” said Omar Al-Ghraoui, general manager of Bemo Saudi Fransi Finance.

The go-ahead comes two years after the DSE was launched. It now consists of 20 listed companies with a capitalisation of over SYP115 billion ($2.5 billion). Bemo Saudi Fransi Finance's brokerage operations hold the largest market share among financial intermediaries working at the exchange, with a share of around 29 per cent for the first quarter of 2011.