Ahmer Fareedi

In January 2008, I joined Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) as Joint Director in their Specialized Companies Division (SCD) - Monitoring and Inspection Wing. Specialized Companies Division regulates NBFCs (Non Bank Finance Companies) & Modarabas. These NBFCs are Investment Banks, Asset Management Companies / Mutual Funds, Leasing companies, Housing Finance Companies, Venture Capital, Modarabas, etc. During the course of my stay with SCD-Monitoring and Inspection Wing I led inspections of Mutual Funds, Investments Banks, Leasing companies and Modarabas.

During the course of inspection of depository institutions special focus is given on assessing overall financial health of the entity being inspected. Detailed analysis of the firm's asset portfolio (Lease, Loans, Equities, Fixed income, non-fund based exposures) is conducted and opinion is built about quality of assets held in the portfolio. Then liability profile of the entity is objectively examined and risk of mismatch (between interest rate sensitive assets and liabilities) on the Company's balance sheet is assessed. In the end assessment of the capital adequacy of the Company is done.

With respect to Mutual funds, attribution of funds' performance is performed & quality of the investments (equity securities, fixed income securities, etc.) and investment decision making is assessed. Their Research processes are thoroughly examined and quality of analysis done at their end with respect to Company and Sector being invested is assessed. Appropriateness of rationales behind various important investment decisions is also ascertained.

Apart from above, examination with regard to assessing overall governance & control structure of the entity is also performed.

The above two exercises help identifying true financial problems and risks (both on operational and financial level) being faced by the entities.

In August 2010 I was transferred to the Enforcement Wing of SCD. As Joint Director of Enforcement Wing I was posted in wing up till June 2012 and was responsible to ensure surveillance of the NBFCs operating under the supervision of the SECP. Main functions include examination of sector report on monthly basis in which sector wise (Leasing cos, Investment Banks, Modarabas and Mutual Funds) analysis of the NBFC sector is conducted, points of risks (i.e. increasing loan defaults, increasing impairments in the investment portfolio, liquidity risk on account of increased mismatch in assets and liabilities, increased default on financial obligations, etc.) are identified and suitable strategy is designed on the departmental level to address these risks. These risks may pertain to the overall sector (i.e. Leasing Cos, etc.) or to a particular entity. Other than this, once in each quarter, financial condition of each entity in the sector, whether it is a leasing company or a mutual fund is assessed, and problems, if any, are highlighted and suitable actions are designed to address these problems. Meetings with the senior management / board of the respective NBFC are conducted to discuss major issues faced by the entity and evaluation is done on the action plans submitted by the Company's Management / Board to redress these issues.

From July 2012 till date, I am heading Offsite Surveillance Wing of SCD and leading a team of seven members. In June end of the year 2012, I was given responsibility to start from scratch offsite surveillance & monitoring function. During the last one year I have been able to perform the following:
• Involved in building departmental infrastructure & capacity building of team members
• Develop standards for examining financial condition of the entities being supervised
• Standardization of offsite review reports
• Detailed analysis of the entire sector
• Detailed analysis of important investment and financing transactions
• Development of risk based offsite surveillance plan

Overseeing the risk management function of the asset management company

In September 2006 I joined National Fullerton Asset Management Limited (now NBP Fullerton Asset Management Limited) as Manager-Risk Management. NBP Fullerton Asset Management Limited is an Asset Management Company, managing various types of mutual funds (equity, balanced, fixed income, sharia'h compliant, pension schemes, etc) . I was responsible to assess risk of proposed investments (equity and fixed income) at the pre-investment stage and monitor risk profile of the investments (especially fixed income investments) at the post investment stage. In case of equities, published results and other information pertaining to the company in question was being used to ascertain risk of the investment, while in case of fixed income investments, published financials, rating updates and other published information was being used for risk assessment purpose. I also developed various models and initiated improvement in the then existing risk models, like, VaR (Value at Risk model, based on variance-co-variance method), Portfolio Scoring model, Model to capture risk adjusted performance of portfolios (sharpe measure, Jensen alpha, etc), Portfolio Duration model, etc. At the same time, I was also responsible to check status of compliance of funds' investments with respect to the constitutive documents and other relevant regulations. I also acted as a permanent invitee member of the investment committee of all funds managed by the Company. I am well versed in mutual funds operations.

Responsible for providing operations support (including cash management and trade related support) to the Corporate customers of the bank.

Handled following assignments:

International Trade
Credit Risk Assessment
Compliance
Branch banking, etc

Trade Finance

Handled Following assignments:

International Trade / Trade Finance
Branch banking