Shamil Bank of Bahrain has incorporated a new company in the name of Shamil Funds Company (SFC), which will provide Shari’ah-compliant products to investors. SFC is a Bahraini fund company approved by the Bahrain Monetary Agency (BMA) and incorporated on September 2, 2002 as a Bahraini Shareholding Company (closed).
The purpose of creating the company is to issue Sharia’a-compliant investment funds in accordance with the BMA’s collective investment schemes guidelines. Shamil Bank also announced that the first fund to be issued is The Arab Islamic Equity Fund (Taief). The investment objective of Taief is to achieve long-term capital appreciation by investing in Sharia’a-compliant equities that are traded on Arab stock markets or exchanges.
The fund is open-ended, allowing investors to subscribe to or redeem units of the fund on monthly basis at the respective net asset value at the time. The target fund size upon the initial closing is set at $10 million, to be raised from institutional investors in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The fund will also be offered to retail investors within six months from the initial closing which is scheduled during mid-November this year.
“Shamil Bank believes that there should be higher capital and investment inflow into the Arab stock markets during the coming few years for a number of reasons including attractive valuations, low market capitalization to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Arab governments’ drive to privatize and the possibility of including some of these markets in global emerging market indices. Naturally, the increased inflow will result in enhancing the valuations at which the listed equities trade which is the drive for the capital gain potential for Taief,” the bank in a statement said.
Shamil Funds Company has appointed Shuaa Capital, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), as the investment manager of Taief. Shuaa is licensed and regulated as a financial investment company by the central bank of the UAE and has dual listings on the Dubai Financial Market and the Kuwait Stock Exchange.
Shamil Funds Company aims to create a number of other funds with various investment objectives such as leasing, real estate and equities. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
