Mr. Walid Hayeck heads the Asset Management division at The National Investor (TNI). He has overall responsibility for leading the portfolio management team, guiding the buy-side research activities and implementing the overall business strategy for asset management. Additionally, he is the chairman of the Investment Committee of the division and is ultimately responsible for all portfolio management decisions.

Notably, Mr. Hayeck spearheaded and launched TNI UAE BLUE CHIP FUND, TNI MENA Real Estate Active Fund (equity long strategies) and TNI MENA Special Situations fund (absolute return strategy), and acted since then as principal fund manager. He has more than 14 years of relevant experience, particularly in the MENA capital markets, and has occupied senior positions with regional investment banking and investment management institutions spanning from sell-side to buy-side research to portfolio management. He was appointed head of the Asset Management division at TNI in June 2008.

The Asset Management division has been awarded “Best Asset Management House” by Banker Middle East for three consecutive years in 2006, 2007 and 2008 and both equity long funds have been rated “A” by Standard and Poor’s in January 2009.

Mr. Hayeck started his career in France where he worked for prominent institutions such as BNP Paribas and Groupe Viel & Cie. He moved to the MENA region to set up the regional office of the European credit rating agency Groupe ORT. He also worked with Arab Finance Corporate (Beirut) and Shuaa Capital (Dubai) before joining The National Investor in November 2004.

Mr. Hayeck has a Masters in Economics from Université Saint Joseph (Beirut) and holds a post-graduate diploma from ESCP-EAP (Paris) - Major Finance.