IslamicFinance.de

UK-based asset manager Aberdeen has launched its plans to arise two Syariah compliant unit trust funds to get onto the malaysian local retail market. According to the newest informations, the application process is in advanced stage. As industry sources familiar with the process claimed it would be an important addition to the Malaysia's Islamic financial landscape. Aberdeen Asset Management would be absolutely first fund manager to get a domestic asset management licence in Malaysia.

The Turkish AV Havalimanlari Holding announced a consortium including TAV secured $1.2 billion in Islamic financing for Medina Airport. The financing facility was secured from Arab National Bank, The National Commercial Bank and The Saudi British Bank.

Islamic Development Bank (IDB), based in Jeddah, is willing to spend almost $1 Billion USD for development projects in a number of countries. The sum of $912.8 million USD will be used for projects regarding water, energy, food and security in countries in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

At the 12th meeting of the Centennial Fund's board of trustees works of the fund and a strategic plan until the year 2020 were revisited. The goal of the plan is to boost small and medium enterprises (SMEs). A large number of projects will receive money from the fund. The new strategy also aims to increase the amount of jobs and to fight poverty and unemployment.

Sidra Capital (Sidra) and Gatehouse Bank (Gatehouse) finalized their second real estate acquisition in the United Kingdom Real Estate Fund (SURF) for GBP 22.4million.
The fund will deliver a diverse real estate portfolio in the UK, providing Saudi Arabian investors access to one of the world's most transparent and well-regulated markets.
The SURF fund has the purpose to hand over an average annual distribution yield of 7.00%.

Bangladesh has launched an Islamic interbank money market, having the purpose to help sharia-compliant banks administer their short-term funding.
Apparently the market would supply Islamic banks with a channel to use surplus money. Islamic banks are responsible for over 15 percent of the country's banking sector.
This will help banks who apply Islamic sharia will have the possibility to overcome any funding crisis like the conventional banking system.

MUSLIM Australians will have the possibility to deposit their cash with today's launch of Crescent Wealth's first Islamic cash management trust, which has the purpose to attract up to $100 million during the next few years.

The National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) has launched its Sukuk Income Fund, a unique product investing in Sharia'h-compliant investment instruments that provides investors attractive returns with low levels of risk.
The NBAD Sukuk Income Fund represents an open-ended and actively managed product aiming a profit rate of 5% based on current market conditions. It is for institutional and individual investors who can invest as low as USD500 either through lump sum or regular savings plans.
The Fund is intended to catch the best opportunities available to investors by investing in a range of Sukuk and money market investments that are launched by the UAE Government.

An interesting concept, slowly gaining momentum in the Indian mutual fund industry, is mutual Fund houses launching specific schemes catering to philosophies reproduced by a particular community.
There are currently 3 Shariah compliant funds in the mutual fund space, one being a passively managed fund, while the other two funds are actively managed.
An observation of the AUM of these funds demonstrates that the ETF's corpus has actually witnessed a downward trend. If a closer look is taken at the total AUM of all equity diversified funds, it could be seen that the actively managed Shariah funds constitute only 0.11% of this total AUM. This clearly shows that the investors for whom this product is actually designed are not really aware about this offering.

TCW will oversee NCB Capitals international equity funds and expand distribution of NCB products and services internationally.
TCW was selected from a field of other contending US asset managers for its leadership in US markets.
TCW will operate three funds for NCB; US, Small Cap and Healthcare equities. These funds will be available only to Saudi investors at this point, but the distribution will eventually develop internationally.

Potential for marketing Islamic funds cross-border in the Asia-Pacific and Asean is starting to be seen through the UCITS (undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities) platform. Despite the fact that it has already been used in Europe, it's the first time that it's being used in this region.
On January 16 2012 Kuala Lumpur-based CIMB declared the launch of three Islamic UCITS funds designed for cross-border distribution in Asia.
These funds will be registered and allocated in seven jurisdictions including the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.

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The technical details, and the money transfer via paypal is organised by Kapipal a new online fundraising tool:

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Wa at Taufiq min Allah, all the best,

Michael Saleh Gassner

Dear Readers,

Islamic finance media are a tricky service. This is true for various reasons: The Internet eats up the revenues, because everything ought to be free. Islamic banks are still a niche phenomena, and international banks like UBS or Deutsche are almost as large as the entire global Islamic finance industry. Consequently the marketing budgets are much lower, too.

Last not least, who should advertise? The banks among themselves or to the clients? Advertising from bank to bank, does usually not make much sense, but real client oriented formats are hard to find, too. May be this is a niche. Others, who could finance Islamic finance media are basically the service providers to the banks, but due to the limited number of Islamic financial insitutions, direct marketing, e.g. face to face meetings will be preferred.

This in short is the background why Islamic finance media are not so well established in terms of journalism and research, but mostly reflecting the press release as criticised by the makers of the Islamic Globe. See: http://www.theislamicglobe.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...

In order to comply with the needs of the real economy, Islamic finance offers a complete and competitive solution in meeting funding and investment requirements of businesses.
Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, the Governor of Bank Negara Malaysia, noted that considering its international outreach and dimension, and ability to supply a total financial solution, Islamic finance is now at the point where it offers new opportunities to support the economy and overall financial stability.
The governor added that the now well-developed existing Islamic financial markets, involving the sukuk and Islamic money markets, have been especially instrumental in intermediating funds in the Islamic financial system.

Interim Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali noted that the Tunisian Government will try to establish a legal framework to manage the Islamic economy in Tunisia. He added that the country wants to become a regional centre of Islamic finance.
Moreover, he attested that Islamic banks can provide part of these funds.
IDB President Ahmed Mohamed Ali stated the Bank wishes to see the Tunisian private sector play a more significant role in implementation of the bank's projects in Tunisia and Africa.

A new report shows that sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) and cash-positive pension funds from Asia and the Middle East are an arising force behind the high level of global capital currently flowing into the Central London commercial real estate market.
Central London has always had a pivotal role in international commercial property investment in an European and global context, completely overshadowing other global cities in terms of cross-regional investment into European real estate, because of its traditional strengths of transparency, long income flows and relative liquidity.

Takaful Emarat will reveal the first investment fund conceived and developed in-house, which the company sees as a milestone in its fourth year of operations. All the necessary approvals have been gained, including the crucial one from the company's Sharia board.
The open-ended fund has a multi-year tenure and will be managed by Riyadh Capital.
This is a crucial year for the Islamic insurer, being a joint venture between Al Buhaira National Insurance Co and Austria's Uniqa Group.

Al Hilal Bank will launch its first sukuk fund, the Al Hilal Global Sukuk Fund, advocating the bank's full commitment to product and service innovation and its keen interest in strategic segments of the financial services sector.
Investors will have the opportunity to allot a minimum subscription of $10,000 at an initial NAV of $10 per unit.
Fund sponsor will be Al Hilal Bank while CIMB Principal Islamic Asset Management will serve as the fund's investment advisor.

Tebyan Asset Management (Tebyan) launched its debut Tebyan CHIME Opportunities Fund (Fund). This is the first of its kind Shari'ah-compliant product to present investors a gateway to the emerging economic axis of the Arab-Indo-China regions.
The new Fund will be managed by Tebyan, established and regulated in the Cayman Islands and co-managed by Gulfmena Investments (Gulfmena) as Investment Manager who will supervise the MENA and Africa investments and Lion Global Investors (Lion Global).
The fund will cover what is known as CHIME (China, India, and Middle East).

Ireland has conducted its first Malaysian-managed fund platform. The Central Bank of Ireland has approved the establishment of CIMB-Principal Islamic Asset Management (Ireland) Public Limited: a joint venture between Kuala Lumpur headquartered CIMB Group and Principal Global Investors.
The newly created joint venture will uphold a range of international Islamic funds on the platform from its Dublin domicile. Three equity UCITS are being registered: Islamic Global Emerging Markets Fund; Islamic Asia-Pacific ex-Japan Fund, and Islamic ASEAN Equity Fund.
Once registered the funds will be spread in the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Singapore.