​Cairo, Egypt — EFG Hermes, the leading investment bank in the Arab world, is pleased to announce that its Research Division has been named Best Research House in the Middle East for 2011 at the Banker Middle East Product Awards. Following a string of recent recognition, the award firmly positions EFG Hermes as the leading provider of research products and services in the region. “This is the first time that we have been recognized by the Banker and we are exceptionally proud,” said Wael Ziada, Head of EFG Hermes Research. “This award reflects the wide range of superb research products that we now offer to both institutional and individual clients, and is a testament to the unparalleled efforts of our team in maintaining such high-quality, value-oriented products and services.” The prestigious awards are voted for by 10,000 unique voters who are all registered users of CPI Financial products (the parent company of the Banker Middle East magazine), making them the most widely known and credible product awards in the banking sector. The Banker awards recognize financial products and services that are either exceptionally innovative or have generated excellent financial results for clients in the Middle East. The Banker Award caps off a year in which EFG Hermes Research has excelled on multiple fronts with distinctions that have placed it well ahead of its global and regional peers. The Division closed 2011 with number-one rankings in 8 of 14 sectors covered by the annual Euromoney Research poll, seeing it finish ahead of leading global and regional firms including HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Crédit Suisse, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and JP Morgan. This was the fourth time in the past five years that EFG Hermes came out on top of the Euromoney poll which asks global and regional institutional investors to rank research houses based on the quality of its research products, including the prescience of its insights and the timeliness with which it is released. EFG Hermes Research has recently expanded its offerings to include coverage of more than 130 companies representing more than 50 percent of the region’s aggregate market capitalisation as well as in-depth economic and strategy coverage of 11 key markets in the Arab world.