Oasis Global Fund Managers, the award-winning Islamic fund management company, has launched its Middle East operations from its newly licensed subsidiary Oasis Crescent Capital (DIFC) Limited with its Public Fund, a landmark offering, which will be a feeder fund linked to other global equity funds, including the Oasis award-winning high-performance Crescent Global Equity Fund, which is rated “AA” by Standard and Poors and holds a 4 Star Morningstar rating. Oasis Crescent Capital will offer a range of financial services to the Middle East market from its offices located at the DIFC, including Shariah compliant collective investment funds as well as managing segregated portfolios.
Nasser Al Shaali, Chief Executive Officer, Dubai International Financial Centre Authority, said, “Globally, demand for Shariah-compliant financial services continues to witness exponential growth. As the leading international financial centre serving a vast region stretching from Western Europe to East Asia, the DIFC is uniquely positioned to help meet that demand. We are extremely pleased, then, to welcome Oasis Crescent Capital Limited to the DIFC, and are confident that their innovative Shariah-compliant products will prove highly successful both within and beyond the Middle East.”
According to Oasis CEO Adam Ismail Ebrahim the new office located at the DIFC and the new Public Fund offering are part of the Oasis regional strategy to build its operations across the Middle East. “There is enormous potential for growth across the region’s Islamic financial markets, despite current market conditions. Given our track record in managing risk averse portfolios that have yielded strong returns to investors through all the vicissitudes of the market, we offer regional investors a proven, successful, internationally recognized strategy that will achieve their investment objectives. We are proud to be offering the first public fund offer authorised by the DFSA, which we believe will pave the way for more and diverse offerings in the future.
To underscore the high performance Oasis has achieved, Ebrahim outlined the results of the Crescent Global Equity Fund. “This fund generated an annualized return net of fees of 14.3%, since inception in December 2000 to March 2007, versus the 3.0% performance of the Dow Jones Islamic Index (DJIM). In this respect an investor would have more than doubled his money if invested with Oasis whilst only having received a 19% increase if invested in the DJIM. Oasis had been recently awarded the best investment manager in South Africa by Standard & Poor’s on a one year and five year basis.
“The Crescent Equity Fund generated an annualized return of 32.2% in US dollars in comparison to its South African bench mark of 14.1% and the MSCI performance of 5.8% per annum. These returns have been strong even with little downside correlation in the market. During this period the fund participated in approximately 92% of the up-cycle, whilst only participating in approximately 48% of the downside cycle, thereby out-performing its bench mark as well as its piers.
In recognition of its contribution to Islamic Finance, the company received the HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Achievement in Islamic Finance in the United Arab Emirates. This is the most prominent award in the global Islamic Finance and was complimented by the recent accreditation of the Crescent Global Equity Fund as the best Islamic Global Equity Fund by Falaika International, a leading Islamic fund research and consultancy, for two years in a row.
Overall, Ebrahim was very optimistic that Oasis will be able to manage the first public fund offer authorized by the DFSA in ways that will deliver superior returns, as it has done so for many other funds in the past.
"Our philosophy always has been to generate superior returns at lower than market risk. We have been able to do this successfully by identifying securities that have undervalued stream of sustainable cash flow and well diversified exposure to various asset classes. This approach successfully minimizes the inclusion of securities that erode investor capital,” he ended.
