Shariah-Compliant funds are a $60 billion industry forecasted to grow to at least $77 billion by 2019, while the underlying demand for Shariah funds is projected to grow to $185 billion over the next five years according to The Global Islamic Asset Management Outlook published by Thomson Reuters. The study based on a survey of key […]
Pioneer investments is one of the largest mutual fund companies in the entire world. Their funds have been around since before the Great Depression. But now, the company has taken a turn for the worse and SFW readers may wish to consider this in making their own personal financial decisions: QInvest, Pioneer launch Shariah fund […]
Banco do Brasil is planning to launch a Shariah-compliant fund in partnership with Singapore-based Islamic Bank of Asia. The fund will focus on stocks listed on theSão Paulo Stock Exchange and specifically in the commodities, mining, oil and gas sectors. The fund will be managed in Brazil and marketed around the world. Brazil is a significant exporter […]
The financial jihadis are celebrating at the World Islamic Funds and Financial Markets Conference in Bahrain. They are celebrating the meteoric growth of Shariah-Compliant Finance, a development that the West should be deploring, since the main purpose of Shariah-Compliant Finance is to promote Shariah itself. Estimates announced at the conference indicate that investors globally hold more […]
An International Conference on Islamic Funds and Investment opened this week in Karachi, Pakistan. According to the Pakistan Observer, among the large number of attendees were investors from the USA and Canada. The report indicated that some $1.3 trillion is invested in 650 Shariah-Compliant funds worldwide, including 230 in Saudi Arabia, 172 in Malaysia, 59 in […]
Australia is about to get their first Shariah-compliant equity fund and the fund distributor is already busy touting the fund to capture money from non-Muslims by fraudulently claiming that his fund is “socially responsible.” We’ve covered much of this before on SFW, but it never hurts to refresh ourselves to debunk the notion that Shariah-Compliant […]
London bank launches key Shariah fund
Bank of London and the Middle East (BLME) has announced the launch of a Sharia-compliant fund which targets institutional and high net-worth investors in Gulf countries. http://www.tradearabia.com/news/BANK_201006.html
The first Sharia-compliant pension fund has been launched in the UK. The fund which does not invest in companies that trade in guns, alcohol, gambling, tobacco or pornography, nor does it receive interest, has been launched by Pointon York and the Islamic Bank of Britain (IBB). Investors will be able to save in a self-invest […]
Rasmala, a Dubai investment bank, has withdrawn its private equity fund as part of its restructuring efforts. The fund, which is Sharia-compliant, was launched last year and had targeted investment of US$300 million (Dh1.1 billion). Rasmala will now focus on single deals. “We felt in this private equity fund investors had less of an appetite […]
NEST is seeking to include a passive or actively managed Sharia compliant global equity investment option as part of its optional suite of investment funds in order to fully provide for the needs of scheme members. http://www.professionalpensions.com/professional-pensions/news/1938529/nest-offer-sharia-global-equity-fund
Incumbent Ohio treasurer Kevin Boyce has handed control of his office over to his top staffer, Deputy Treasurer Amer Ahmad, who has a habit of hanging around people who are well-known for ties to Islamic radicals and terrorists. Ahmad does so in his professional capacity, as well as in his personal life, choosing to attend an […]
Kiplinger Shills for Shariah
It is usually a mistake to write about something you know nothing about. This is advice that Janet Bodnar of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance should follow. In a new column, she decided to praise the Amana group of mutual funds for adhering to Islamic law. We assume that Ms. Bodnar knows nothing about “Islamic law,” properly […]
Islamic private equity firms face a reality check in the wake of the financial crises, delegates at the Islamic Financial Services Board summit were told. The key phrase: The same was true for conventional and Islamic private equity businesses… http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/NewsDetails.aspx?storyid=288336
Spanish-based Allfunds bank has signed on to the financial jihad with their announcement that it has launched an “Islamic Services Unit.” The bank offers 80 Shariah-compliant funds to investors in Spain, Italy, Chile, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom and 17 other countries. Allfunds’ Islamic Services Unit was created with a fatwa issued by a Shariah advisory […]
Reliance Capital Asset Management’s subsidiary is set to launch two Shariah-compliant funds in Malaysia by July 2010. http://assetmanagement.banking-business-review.com/news/reliance_capital_to_launch_two_islamic_funds_in_malaysia_100629/?
North Jersey Federal Credit Union has designed a Shariah-Compliant banking division. Through a partnership with New England Financial, North Jersey is also offering Shariah Mutual Funds. Clients of New England Financial may wish to take this into account when making investment decisions in the future. Note that the release linked below claims that there are […]
In the middle of last year, New Jersey-based Javelin Investment Management announced it would offer an ETF based on the Dow Jones Islamic Market Titans 100. http://www.kippreport.com/2010/02/plus-ca-exchange/
Palisades Park Capital, a new Los Angeles-based hedge fund firm, has unveiled a new hedge fund, a Shariah-compliant vehicle called Palisades Park Multi-Strategy Fund. Interestingly, Palisades Park Capital has no web site and the firm is not listed in any online or Los Angeles-area telephone directory… http://www.hedgefund.net/publicnews/default.aspx?story=10801
From time to time, readers will email us asking for a list of Shariah-Compliant companies. A complete version of such a list is extremely difficult to come by. Some of the better sources for such a listing would be the annual and semi-annual reports of the various Shariah-Compliant investment funds. These reports usually include portfolio […]
World’s Worst Polluters to Invest in Clean Energy Fund
The energy-producing nations of the Islamic world are generally regarded as among the world’s worst polluters. Therefore, it is quite ironic that a Hong Kong-based clean energy fund is set to attract investments by introducing a Shariah-Compliant component… We guess even the Green movement can be bought… http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5AM23320091123?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=GCA-GreenBusinessUK&rpc=401
I for one am glad I don’t own a “piece of the rock.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/6509447/Prudential-starts-Sharia-compliant-fund-management-business.html?
Shariah Finance industry holds award dinner
Though it is not the main theme of the article linked below, a major awards dinner was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Tuesday night and we thought the listing of recipients was interesting in that it provides insight into the major players working to promote Shariah through its financial arm. It is always also […]
Prudential to launch two Islamic funds
British insurer Prudential plans to launch two Islamic equity funds in Dubai in the coming months and apply for an asset management licence in Indonesia… http://www.business24-7.ae/Articles/2009/10/Pages/26102009/10272009_e06349b8453c4b278cce9e206bdf29d6.aspx
CNN has published a piece on Islamic finance. It may as well be a marketing brochure. This article is so irresponsibly written that you won’t even find the term shariah anywhere in the article, despite the fact that shariah is the doctrine underpinning Islamic finance and despite the fact that it is shariah scholars who […]
South Africa’s third largest fund management company, Stanlib, has put on hold plans to launch a global equity Islamic fund. http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL456474320090804?rpc=401&&pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
Moves to plug the gap in Islamic finance carry risks
The Financial Times has published an article detailing some of the risks involved in Shariah-Compliant Finance. For instance, a new term has been developed for the financial world: “Shariah risk.” Shariah risk is the risk that a product that was previously believed to be shariah-compliant could be declared “un-Islamic” by a prominent shariah scholar. Basically, […]
Dow Jones Indexes has appointed Tariq Al-Rifai as its new director of Islamic indexes. As the leading Islamic finance expert Al-Rifai will be the main liaison between Dow Jones Islamic Market Shari’ah Supervisory Board of five international scholars and Dow Jones Indexes’ maintenance, research and development teams, which are responsible for screening the Shari’ah compliant […]
Less than a month after the introduction of a Shariah-Compliant Exchange Traded Fund in the USA, there is now a report that a similar fund will launch in Canada soon… It may be simply an oversight, but the language used to describe the criteria for this new ETF in the article linked below is slightly […]
We wonder if anyone at Dow Jones even knows what Shariah is… “Dow Jones has launched a new Islamic index, which has been simultaneously licensed to an exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider in the US. The Dow Jones Islamic Market International Titans 100 Index will track 100 companies outside the US which have passed sharia screening […]
A Caliphate of Toxic Assets
Alyssa A. Lappen has been writing about Shariah and Shariah-Compliant Finance for quite some time and there are few, if any, writers who are as informed on these subjects as she. Her latest work appears on FrontPageMag.com and we enthusiastically recommend it to our readers… http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35378
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