Joining me at the Arab Federation of Capital Markets conference in Abu Dhabi is Dr. Bhaskar Dasgupta, Chairman of the Middle East Stablecoin Association. Doctor Bhaskar, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you very much for having me.
What is your temperature check on the event and the room — are there any standout themes people have been discussing?
I am here wearing quite a lot of hats. Obviously I have my own companies in my portfolio which I am hoping to take public next year. So I am looking at the sense check because before you take something public, the timing absolutely has to be right. The second thing is I am also representing funds which do several things — one is cross-listing from an ETF and then cross-listing on the local exchanges. More importantly, I have several funds over here who are actively trading stocks. So we are very interested to see how the capital markets in this part of the region are developing, because my funds want to trade and trade more.
And the technology piece?
Going back to the technology piece — as His Excellency was talking about, ADX is looking at tokenisation of securities which will make the liquidity of assets better. You can pay for them with stablecoins. Lots of things happening.
Can you share a little more about the companies in your portfolio that are preparing for IPO?
These are not very large companies — they are heading towards CDC and then very soon we will go for an IPO. They are coming from places like Brazil and India, and there are some home-grown ones as well. You can obviously exit these companies into another private equity firm or they can be bought out. But I am an old school man — I would prefer for them to list, because public markets give the kind of depth of liquidity that others do not. These companies are in fintech and in food and beverage. I am particularly interested in the food and beverage space. I really want to see perhaps one of the first IPOs of a food and beverage company here.
Do they have their eyes set on listing on exchanges in this part of the region?
I will give you an example. One of my firms — we have already tokenised that company. So if you wanted to invest in their products, you can buy tokens. You can invest in them using stablecoins. And I would love for this food and beverage company to be tokenised on a public exchange because it just builds up the ecosystem. I am hugely supportive of how fast the local exchanges are getting on to the tokenisation game. I cannot wait.
You have talked about the importance of Arab exchanges connecting. What is your read on that?
It is very important that we should not have fragmentation of liquidity — and that is the kiss of death. I started working in equity markets since the last century. That is how old I am. I used to work for a small firm called Salomon Brothers in the 90s. And fragmentation of liquidity is the death knell. So I am very excited that the Arab exchanges are coming together. If we can get that help with tokenisation, make sure that we can make payments using CBDCs or stablecoins or any of the new things — it will really, really boost the market.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
Thank you for having me.
