Cedrus licensed to execute trades on BSE

Bank expanding global asset management service, and raised capital to $52 million

Cedrus Invest Bank was recently granted license to execute trades on the Beirut Stock Exchange (BSE) on behalf of their wealth management and private banking customers. The bank, established only last year, also raised its capital to $52 million from $44 million in June.

The bank offers ‘multi-family office services’, whereby they manage clients’ global wealth across multiple accounts with several banks across the globe, auditing transactions and producing a single global statement of account for clients.

“The minimum account we take on for multi-family office services is $15 to $20 million in global assets, the average size of account is $50 million,” said Raed Khoury, one of the bank’s general managers. “To date we have ten such accounts, mostly local and Arab clients. We aim to increase that number by five to ten clients each year.”

At present, the bank only manages bank accounts under its multi-family office service but next year they aim to include management of client’s global real estate holdings and their global companies under this service as well.

The bank also does private equity and direct investment and is in the process of setting up its own real estate investment arm. “We aim to develop real estate projects and invite our clients to invest in them,” said Khoury.

Cedrus Invest Bank covers the Levant and the GCC as well as countries in Africa, Latin and North America that have a significant Lebanese Diaspora. The bank is registered as number 137 on the banks list and has been licensed by BDL as a specialized bank.

The chairman and general manager of the bank is Ghassan Ayache. Raed Khoury and Fadi Assali are also general managers. Shareholders include Georges Atik, Ibrahim Al Jammaz, and Elias Abou Farhat, who are also board members. Ghazi Youssef and Assaad Razzouk are both independent board members. The bank is based in Sofil Center in Ashrafieh.

By Hani Bathiche