• Dates for your diary
• Roundup: IVSC AGM 2018, Dubai - Abu Dhabi adopts IVS; Taqeem reflects on 5 years of adoption
• Interview with Bloomberg's Global Head of Evaluated Pricing Service (BVAL), Varun Pawar
• Download our 2018 Annual Report "Confidence through the use of IVS"
• New and proposed members
• Download IVS online

Last week the IVSC held its AGM in Dubai. This was  the first time our AGM has taken place in the Middle East and comes during a period when many emirate states are working to adopt the standards. The AGM was hosted by the Dubai Government with sponsors including Taqeem.

In total, 162 delegates attended this year's AGM representing more than 50 different countries and six continents. Over the three day programme all of the IVSC’s standards boards met for private and public sessions, as did the Advisory Forum (representing IVSC member organisations). The IVSC Board of Trustees and the Membership and Standards Recognition Board also met and received presentations on a broad range of subjects which are likely to shape the future of the valuation sector.

A full update on the discussions and outcomes of the various board meetings will be published in next month’s eNews.
 
             

AGM delegates heard presentations from the Chief Operating Officer of the Dubai Government’s real estate innovation agency (ERES) on the role of technology and artificial intelligence in valuation; from Taqeem’s leaders on five years of IVS adoption in the region; from IVSC trustee and Moore Stephens International CEO, Anton Colella, on the future of professionalism; and from a panel of senior government and investment leaders representing Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia on the role of international standards as a facilitator of global business and investment. Presentation slides are available for member organisations to download from the IVSC website.

     

On the periphery of the main AGM programme, IVSC Chairman, Sir David Tweedie, held meetings with His Excellency Sultan Butti bin Mejren, Director General of Dubai Land – the government authority responsible for regulating the real estate and valuation sectors – and his senior team to discuss Dubai’s progress in the adoption of IVS.  As a centre for international investment into the real estate sector, Dubai is committed to adopting global best practice within the rules it sets for valuation, working with local VPOs and IVSC member organisations to ensure confidence in the domestic valuation profession.



IVSC CEO, Nick Talbot, was also invited by the Chairman of the Real Estate Regulatory Authority of Bahrain, His Excellency Sheikh Salman, to meet senior leaders from the Bahrain Government to discuss their adoption of IVS. Bahrain’s regulatory authority was established in 2017 and launched earlier this year with the mandate to regulate the real estate industry and to promote economic growth in the country. Earlier this year they began efforts to establish market rules for valuation, building on IVS as a foundation.  

 

During the AGM, the Abu Dhabi Government officially launched their new valuation standards which will set the framework for valuation in the emirate. The Abu Dhabi Valuation Standards now incorporate IVS and include additional market-specific instructions for valuation professionals.
 

The IVSC caught up with Varun Pawar, Global Head of Bloomberg’s Evaluated Pricing Service (BVAL) to find out what trends are shaping the fixed income valuation space and how Bloomberg is supporting efforts to enhance global standards.

“The challenge is big but it’s also incredibly important when you consider the size of the market for fixed income assets and the bearing it has on the financial system as a whole.”

I joined Bloomberg a little over ten years ago at a time when we had a fledging BVAL service. At that time we recognised the growing importance of reliable and integrated pricing data and we wanted to develop tools which could navigate the fast-changing regulatory environment – a landscape that was evolving rapidly in the context of an unfolding global financial crisis. 

Since the credit crisis, there has been a consistent push to have stricter controls around mark to market practices. In particular with sell side entities, we have seen a strong shift away from internally marked books to using third party vendor prices to verify marks. The regulations around liquidity have also had an influence on the way our clients look at valuations. Whilst the focus was previously only around the price, nowadays due to regulatory requirements, clients are also looking to contextualise that price data. 

Over the past few years, we have also seen a sizable increase in the number of risk management professionals wanting to look at third party valuation data, as well as research desks looking to integrate valuations within their assessment of risk and return.

Click here to read the full interview with Varun.

The IVSC is pleased to welcome the following new members, proposed in October:

The following applications were received and approved by the Membership Committee: 

If you have any comments you would like to make regarding to these, please do so by emailing us via contact@ivsc.org

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