ABOUT

Sherzod Yusupov participated in panel discussion at Italian Night Event in Davos which is aimed at to enhancing Italy’s presence and engagement with the influential global network of Davos.

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Extract of the panel discussion:

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Samir Mastaki (moderator): Good evening everyone, welcome to Davos. For those of you who don’t know our first speaker, Sherzod Yusupov is a financier with over 20 years in investment banking and investment management, who has spent many years working for UniCredit Group. My question to Sherzod is: how we make Italy a destination of choice for investments?

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Sherzod Yusupov (Sofemi): “As I was on the way to WEF, knowing that I was invited to speak at this panel, I called my partner and CIO of our equities fund, to ask him, if we had any Italian companies in the long or shortlist of targets for investment - and since we invest only in small & mid-sized public companies - my question was about Italian public companies.

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His answer was: No - we did not have any targets in our shortlist. It came to me as a surprise. We all know great Italian companies and brands, many bright small and medium sized Italian firms known to the whole world. However, when it comes to the investment universe of publicly listed companies in Italy - we are lagging behind: total market cap of listed companies to GDP in Italy is around 30% - significantly behind US where market cap is 148% of GDP, UK 71%, even neighboring european markets of Germany stand at of ~50% of GDP and for France its 134% respectively. So there is a significant room for improvement for Italy, as there are only around 500 listed Italian companies.

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In my opinion, incentives should be developed in both the supply side -i.e to stimulate companies to go public and tap into equity markets - and on demand side, by incentivizing local institutional investor base and private investors to actively participate in equity capital markets.

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International investors will come to invest automatically if there will be (A) more listed names to choose from and (B) increased liquidity in the local capital markets. In the end strong capital markets and especially equity capital markets is a critical component to boost investments and economic growth“

Over 150 guests including artists, painters and others figures of culture gathered for a private screening of the award winning film OnlyHuman at the Cinema Scuderie Granducali in Seravezza. The event was aimed at raising funds for charitable cause.

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OnlyHuman, the feature film directed by Yana Klimova-Yusupova has won numerous awards in including:

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• Best International Feature Film – award at Santa Clarita International Film Festival, Hollywood, USA;

• The Best Film – award by International Human Rights Film Festival “Stalker” which has in the past been backed by European Union and US based MacArthur Foundation, Moscow, Russia;

• Best Debut and Youth Jury Award – award from Asti International Film Festival in Piemonte, Italy;

• Best International Feature Film – award from The Shawna Shea Memorial Film Festival Massachusetts, USA;

• Winner of August 2023 at Dubai International Cine Carnival, Dubai, U.A.E. 

Everyone knows the digitalization of the economy of the Republic of Uzbekistan is the state's priority focus. Today, a number of significant projects are underway in the Republic to develop infrastructure and train the necessary personnel. Among these projects is the One Million Uzbek Programmers project announced by President Sh. Mirziyoyev.

 

In order to promote the development of IT in the Republic of Uzbekistan, Sherzod Yusupov provided financial support for the purchase of computers, projectors and other necessary equipment for IT training of students. The charity program is being implemented in secondary schools No. 2, No. 4 and No. 17 in the Khorezm region. Funding was transferred to support the Khan Academy O'zbek project in the Republic of Uzbekistan, by ensuring the purchase of equipment and its transfer to end users.

 

Khan Academy O'zbek is a project to localize the Khan Academy international educational platform into the Uzbek language, implemented by the non-profit organization Bilim Onlayn. To date, the work is underway to localize 26 subjects of secondary education and higher education. Within the framework of the project, more than 7,000,000 words of interactive examples and tasks were translated into the Uzbek language, and more than 4,100 video lessons were played.

​A monument to a great poet, thinker, and statesman Alisher Navoi has been installed in Lakitelek Hungary,  with the financial support of Sofemi Group. 

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This monument is the first cultural object to be opened in Hungary within the framework of Hungarian-Uzbek diplomatic relations and is directly related to Uzbekistan. The project was executed by Hungarian sculptor György Lantos.

The opening ceremony was attended by representatives from both Uzbekistan and Hungary.

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Uzbekistan’s Ambassador to Hungary Oybek Shahavdinov emphasized that Alisher Navoi’s works on friendship and the human soul transcend temporal and geographical boundaries, elevating him to the status of a universal figure in world literature. His contributions to the development of the Uzbek language and his support for the arts and sciences vividly demonstrate how significantly he enriched the cultural heritage of Central Asia.

Hungary’s Deputy Speaker of Parliament Sándor Lezsák added, “This monument, dedicated to the great ancestor of the fraternal Uzbek people, symbolizes our respect for the land where our ancestors left a piece of their soul. This monument has become the foundation for a strong friendship between the Hungarian and Uzbek peoples.