Oasis CEO advises investors to apply long term investment strategies

"There is nothing at all wrong with optimism," Ebrahim said from Oasis Middle East headquarters in the Dubai International Financial Centre," but we are seeing the same boomtown abandonment that led to the 2006 crash of Middle East markets. It is high time for individual and institutional investors to follow a more conservative, long-term strategy that yields sustained returns through every boom and bust cycle."

Ebrahim knows what he is talking about. The Oasis Group has won numerous awards for its high performance investment strategies, most recently from Failaka for 'best global equity fund over  3 years' and 'best global equity fund over 5 years'.

Since launching the group with his brothers, Shaheen and Nazeem, more than a decade ago, Oasis has built an unmatched track record, delivering sustained returns for investors through the economic cycle, including the dot.com bust and the recent market crashes. Ebrahim is confident that the same will hold true regardless of the current global credit crisis.

"There needs to be a greater focus on research and analysis and a low volatility fund management philosophy aimed at reducing risk and protecting investments. When markets are booming, investors and their fund managers tend to throw caution to the winds and go for higher risk investments promising quick returns. This is Thomas Friedman's 'Electronic Herd' at work. It is simply bad practice. When inexperienced individual investors get pulled in to this boomtown rapture, you have a recipe for disaster. This is what has triggered every market crash in history. Mature investors know that markets always change and act accordingly. Inexperienced investors, intoxicated by fast returns don't and panic when the cycles change."

Mark Smyth, Managing Director at Failaka Advisors said: "The team at Oasis has proven a keen ability to focus on long-term results and they understand better than anybody that down-markets can equal opportunity. As early pioneers in the development of Islamic equity, property and income products with a focus on in-house fund management; their cornerstone global equity fund has proven a resilient, long-term winner in both down and up markets."

While under no illusion that the region is at risk of slowing down, Ebrahim cautions investors to follow a conservative, long-term approach, backed by careful research and analysis aimed at identifying and selecting securities that have a great potential to out-perform the market at lower down-side risk. "This approach has served our investors well for a decade marked by volatility. "It is time for Middle East investors to mature and follow a more risk-averse policy, which will nonetheless produce sustained growth.