The Lebanese Central Bank’s quarterly bulletin shows some 35.04% depreciation in the net value of the securities portfolio on the books of the Lebanese financial sector (banks and financial institutions) during the year 2020 to LBP 2,070.4 billion ($1.37 billion), from LBP 3,187.0 billion ($2.11 billion) at year-end 2019. In details, the value of equity securities, which constituted 68.54% of the Lebanese financial sector’s net securities portfolio, contracted by 22.80% year-on-year to LBP 1,419.1 billion ($0.94 billion). Concurrently, long-term debt securities, which represented some 31.38% of the sector’s net securities portfolio, fell by 51.59% to LBP 649.7 billion ($0.43 billion).

Medium & long-term banks controlled the lion’s share (43.12%) of the financial sector’s placements in equity securities, followed by commercial banks (26.84%) and financial institutions (16.35%). Commercial banks detained the largest stake (38.16%) of the financial sector’s placements in long-term debt securities, trailed, and by far, by insurance companies (28.51%) and medium & long-term banks (24.51%).

From an asset allocation standpoint, the Lebanese financial sector’s securities portfolio was majority concentrated in U.S. equity instruments (27.12%), U.S. long-term debt securities (19.12%), and U.K. short-term debt securities (58.82%). The allocation of the investment portfolio by type of instrument across other countries at end of year 2020 is sketched in the table below: