Kuwait’s Emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah has appointed three new members to the board of the Capital Markets Authority (CMA).

The management of the CMA is run by five full-time commissioners appointed by the emir after their nomination by the new minister of commerce & industry, Anas Khalid Al-Saleh on 5 March.

The new members are:

• Faisal Abdul Wahab al-Fahad
• Basel Ahmad al-Haroun
• Mishaal Musaed al-Osaimi

Al-Fahad is a professor of law at Kuwait University and a former member of the higher commissariat for the transparency of elections in 2009. Al-Haroun was formerly foreign operations manager for the Central Bank of Kuwait.  

They join Mubarak al-Fatah, the chairman of the board of commissioners and Mahdi Ismail al-Jazzaf, the vice-president. The new board members replace Saleh Mohammad al-Yousuf, Naif Falah al-Hajraf and Yusuf Mohamed al-Ali, who were appointed in September 2010 and removed by a cabinet decree in October last year.  

The CMA was established in February 2010 with the passing of the capital market law by the National Assembly, Kuwait’s parliament. It has the authority to enforce the regulations of the CMA Law and develop the supporting secondary legislation.  

UK-based bank HSBC is advising the CMA on privatising the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE), the Gulf’s third-largest bourse by market capitalisation. Under the plans, 50 per cent of the KSE will be floated for Kuwaiti citizens, with the remainder sold in 10 per cent blocks to five private companies.