Thomson Reuter and Crescent Wealth launched on Wednesday Australia’s first research-based Islamic index. The index aims to provide investors who want to build Islamic-compliant Australian equity portfolios a powerful new tool for benchmarking.
The index, called the Thomson Reuters Crescent Wealth Islamic Australian Index, screens companies listed with the Australian Stock Exchange ( ASX ) for compliance with Islamic investment principles. It will initially cover 134 securities which have combined market capitalisation of over $160 billion………………………………………..Full Article: Source

An Index for investors who want to build ‘’sharia-compliant” Australian equity portfolios has been launched in Australia. It comes ahead of potential changes to federal tax guidelines that could clear the way for Islamic investment products to enter the local market.
The Thomson Reuters Crescent Wealth Islamic Australia Index, launched yesterday, covers more than 140 stocks with a combined market capitalisation of $160 billion. It joins a list of major global Islamic sharemarket indices, including the family of Dow Jones Islamic Market indices, and the FTSE Global Islamic Index series. ……………………………………….Full Article: Source

The Australian financial services sector has taken another step in wooing regional investment through the creation of an Islamic equities index. The Thomson Reuters Crescent Wealth Islamic Australia index launched today to tap the burgeoning Islamic-finance market domestically and abroad.
Pharmaceutical stock CSL makes up 10.1 per cent of the Islamic index, followed by Woodside Petroleum at 9.5 per cent, and Original Energy at 8.7, per cent. The index, which has a bias toward resources and energy stock, excludes businesses involved in pornography, alcohol, cinema, insurance, gambling, hotels, music, pork and tobacco, among others………………………………………..Full Article: Source

January was a remarkable month for the global sukuk industry and marked a very promising start for the year. USD 20 billion sukuk were issued in the month according to Zawya Sukuk Monitor, making January 2012 by far the best month on record in terms of issuance since 1996. Issuance was inflated by two exceptional sukuk in terms of size - Saudi’s General Authority for Civil Aviation (GACA) USD 4 billion sukuk and Malaysia’s PLUS USD 10 billion sukuk.
Three banks from the UAE managed to sell USD 1.3 billion sukuk in January. The three sukuk were sold in the international market, and were met by oversubscription, partly reflecting international investors’ confidence in the financial strength of these banks on one hand, a thirst for Islamic bonds, and a shift away from the deteriorating credit rating of Europe based issuers. ……………………………………….Full Article: Source

In many ways, the sukuk market is the visible barometer of the Islamic banking (IB) industry. There are many factors leading to this: A global product - accessible to issuers and investors in all locations around the world, Involvement of Islamic, conventional, regional and global deal arrangers and distributors.
There are many more causative factors that have resulted in the sukuk market becoming the global flagship product for the IB industry. One consequence is that trends of volumes of issuance of global sukuk are closely followed by analysts (and the wider IB market itself) and are seen as an overall indicator of how “healthy” the IB industry is………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) Holding LLC, sole franchisee of hypermarket chain Carrefour in the Gulf and operator of malls and hotels across the Middle East, raised $400 million (Dh1.47 billion) with its maiden sukuk (Islamic bonds).
The five-year sukuk was raised at 5.85 per cent. Majid Al Futtaim is rated the second-lowest investment grade of BBB by Standard & Poor’s. Considering the fact that the company is a non-government issuer tapping the sukuk market for the first time, analysts said the pricing is competitive………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Capital markets in the MENA region have been for a long time underdeveloped and only in the last few years have we started seeing activity there. The bond market more specifically has been the unnoticed little brother of the equity market.
In 2008 we had less than a dozen issuers including three sovereigns whose curve consisted of one or two bonds. Also, the involvement of locals in the bond market has increased tremendously in the past couple of years to a level where their partaking became a game changer……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Yields on Abu Dhabi property developer Aldar’s 2014 bond rose over 30 basis points on Tuesday, a day after Reuters reported the emirate held talks to offload the government’s stake in the struggling firm.
While the share price has slumped, Aldar’s bonds had rallied on the implicit government support, most importantly in the form of the stake held by Mubadala. Aldar repaid on time a $1.18 billion Islamic bond that fell due last November………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Amidst concerns over the Euro debt crisis, and whilst the disarray in global credit continues to increase, opportunities exist for Islamic Finance to blossom in non-Muslim countries. The financial crisis hit conventional financial institutions the hardest, which resulted in analysts taking notice of the continued stability of the principles and system that underpin Islamic Financial Services.
With more than 500 million Muslims inhabiting the African continent, it remains a surprise that the Islamic finance industry in Africa is a rather untapped market, and consequently the majority of these Muslim populations remain unbanked. This is despite the fact that Islamic Finance is fast gaining popularity globally………………………………………..Full Article: Source

This year, the World Economic Forum in Davos had a unique subtitle: The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models. Global corporate leaders, bankers, politicians, policymakers, and a good number of billionaires discussed the challenges to a system that defines their wealth, their roles, and their future.
Meanwhile, outside, camped in igloos, were the critics of the system, the Occupy WEF movement. The 99% were protesting in the cold, seemingly unaware that the culprit behind our current predicament is not the so called 1%, but a thought, held by billions………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The sponsors of Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) Pakistan Limited has no plan to divest equity of the bank, said the bank’s top official. “The bank’s management and its shareholders have no intentions of divesting any portion of its equity to local investors,” said Junaid Ahmed, CEO, DIB while shunning rumors about divestment of the bank at an inauguration ceremony of bank’s Learning and Development Centre on Tuesday.
The main shareholder DIB UAE was not only been supportive of current progress but also encouraged to present another aggressive strategic expansion plan for the next five years, the CEO said………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The Islamic banking system is an attempt to return to the Islamic civilisation, which still has its impact in all fields in the western and eastern countries, according to Sheikh Dr Abdulsatar Abu Ghuda, who is specialised in the field of jurisprudence as the chairman of legitimacy monitoring in a number of financial Islamic authorities.
Abu Ghuda, who works at Makased Company for Islamic Financial consultations, said in an Oman Tribue interview that money is not the goal but it is a means to a better life. “The Islamic banking system is a national product that comes from the civilisation of Muslims and meets the requirements of people,” he said………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Outliving a strong Christian opposition, the Islamic banking has finally started operations in Nigeria to fulfill Muslim needs for Shari`ah-compliant financial products.
“This is coming after over five years of raising fund for capitalization, stiff opposition from some Christian groups and media bigots amidst a myriad of other challenges,” Disu Kamor, spokesman of the Muslim Public Affairs Centre (MPAC), said………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Arshad Khan, the chief of the Bahrain Financial Exchange, had envisaged a global Islamic trading platform when he set out to work with Malaysia’s stock exchange earlier this year. Though the talks fell through, Khan thinks there is still the possibility of partnerships in the future, including the planned commodity murabaha platform.
This reflects a desire to collaborate that could help close an age-old divide between the two regions which has impeded the growth of Islamic finance………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Islamic investors must obey the Koran’s prohibitions on dealing in a variety of activities. That can include everything from trading in derivatives to hocking pork products. Düsseldorf-based commercial bank WestLB has just launched an investment product in line with Sharia law.
To protect investors from serious loss, WestLB has built an airbag into the certificate. If a closing rate on the Islam Index is at least 8% lower than opening price or closing rate of the last adjustment, then on the following business day all capital is moved to a no-interest money account………………………………………..Full Article: Source

A two day international summit on ‘Scalable business models for Islamic Microfinance’ kicked off in Istanbul on Tuesday. Themed ‘Prepare the framework, attract commercial funding & diversify product development’, the summit gathered Islamic microfinance experts and practitioners from across the globe.
The Summit focussed on the issues of creating a conceptual framework to understand Islamic Microfinance, ensuring access to finance for unbanked Muslims and the role of the Islamic Development Bank in advancing Islamic Microfinance………………………………………..Full Article: Source