BFX set to woo family-owned businesses (Interview)

Bahrain Financial Exchange (BFX) seeks to target family-owned businesses by providing them an opportunity to raise funding by offloading a stake less than 50 per cent, thereby retaining management control. The exchange hopes to have a hundred members in the first year of operations after its scheduled launch in "the early part of the first quarter of 2010", BFX Director Arshad Khan told Emirates Business. The fledgling bourse is confident of attracting listings once the marketing drive begins, he said.

Will Bahrain Financial Exchange be launched on time?

We're still on time and as promised to the market, BFX will be operational in the first quarter of next year. Considering the progress we made, it should be early part of Q1. We have finalised a lot of things including product structure, guideline document, internal rules and regulations of exchange, membership structure, conditions for listings, rules of trading and clearing, etc.