EFG Hermes, the leading financial services corporation in the MENA region, has launched operations in the United States with the opening of an office in New York. As of 1 September  2017, EFG Hermes USA Inc[1] has been officially licensed and approved as a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) tooperate in the United States.   The New York office will allow EFG Hermes to expand its pool of brokerage clients — the largest North American client base among all MENA-based investment banks — and function as a starting point for as the North American base for the Firm’s entire product offering.   “The launch of our independent, stand-alone office in the heart of the global investment community is not only a key milestone in our expansion strategy, but also serves as a vital entry point that will bring us closer to our sell-side clients,” said EFG Hermes Group CEO Karim Awad. “As regional appetites shift towards non-conventional investment destinations outside MENA, our presence in New York will facilitate the provision of better services to our US client base, especially with the recent growth in our product offering and market reach.”   The new office will leverageEFG Hermes’ growing reach into frontier and emerging market, giving US investors access to a group of more than 20 markets spanning fromNigeria to the Middle East and Vietnam with a combined population larger than 2.1 billion, whose rapidly growing economies are not highly correlated with global markets. These markets form a corner in the global investment map where growth handily outpaces global averages.   “Our markets of presence and those in which we have execution capabilities are full of compelling opportunities across diverse industries such as consumer foods, manufacturing, healthcare and transportation. Tapping these opportunities is challenging for North American investors given the natural information asymmetry and the quality of counterparties on the ground,” noted Karim Baghdady, CEO of EFG Hermes USA Inc., “Our on-the-ground presence in many these markets for more than three decades andour quality research products will bridge the gap between North American investors and compelling emerging-frontier opportunities.”   EFG Hermes’ presence in New York comes just one month after it launched operations in Kenya and three months after the launch of EFG Hermes Pakistan made it the first foreign investment bank to directly enter the Pakistani market and the first foreign broker to have a local footprint in that country since 2008. The firm acquired a brokerage license from Kenya’s Capital Market Authority and began trading on the Nairobi Securities Exchange in late July. EFG Hermes USA Inc. is a member of FINRA and SIPC​