IslamicFinance.de

In an announcement on Wednesday, Bank of London and The Middle East plc (BLME) informed about a significant senior secured transaction with Greenergy Biofuels Limited. BLME is the lead arranger and the main shareholders with equal stakes are BLME and a bank basedin Qatar. The facility is secured against the assets of a biodiesel plant located in Immingham, Humberside, UK.

More on: http://www.zawya.com/story/BLME_arranges_senior_secured_Murabaha_finance...

Arcapita Islamic investment bank, which finds itselb in Chapter 11 bankrupcty, plans a new financial move. It will make a $1.9m Murabaha financing with a profit rate of 15% possible. The money will flow into District Cooling - a joint venture with Dalkia Utilities Company serving for district cooling and other services to three developments in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi. The financing is supposed to play the role of a bridge. Meanwhile Arcapita and District Cooling are occupied to renegotiate a concession agreement with Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC).

Istanbul Real Estate Investment Trust Is REIT signed a Murabaha facility worth $50 million in a syndicate with a number of GCC banks. The facility has a two-years tenor and a profit rate of LIBOR +250 bps. Playing different roles, banks included in the syndicate are Qatar Islamic Bank, Barwa Bank, First Gulf Bank, and Mashreq Bank. Sole Bookrunner and Structuring Advisor to Is REIT was QInvest .

Development Bank of Kazakhstan has lately decided to swap their 240 million-ringgit sukuk (five-year murabaha Islamic note) to U.S. dollars. The Astana-based bank already sold debt denominated in the Malaysian currency in July of this year, in order to prepare the dollar swap that comes due in August 2017.

Dear Reader,

IslamicFinance.de is privately funded for many years. Now, for the first time, you have the possibility to make a contribution, from one Dollar upwards!

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

http://www.kapipal.com/islamicfinance

On the blog I gave some more thoughts about Islamic finance media for those interested: http://www.islamicfinance.de/?q=node/3454

Please also note: The fundraising action has a deadline, so act today, not tomorrow and tell your friends about it!

All donors who will leave a message will be listed in the article, which follows after closure of the fundraising period.

I am happy to meet you in person either on 19th March in Milano (http://www.islamicfinance.de/?q=node/3396) or on 10th May in Frankfurt (http://www.islamicfinance.de/?q=BAFINII) at the respective Islamic finance conference.

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...

The 2nd Quarter 2011 issue of the Malaysian ICM quarterly bulletin published by the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) is now available online at:
http://www.sc.com.my/eng/html/icm/11_2Q_msianicm.pdf

SWIFT said the certification would pave the way towards the automated processing of Murabaha treasury transactions, which reportedly represented 60 per cent of all Islamic financing.

Over 240 Islamic banks representing 84 per cent of global syariah-compliant assets are members of SWIFT.

Technical details:
http://www.swift.com/solutions/by_business_area/islamic_finance/index.page
Contact:
Asim Butt, asim.butt@swift.com

Steuerliche Würdigung im nationalen und internationalen Kontext

Der Markt Islamic Finance wächst rasant und umfasst bereits heute ein erhebliches Anlagevolumen. Demgegenüber besteht ein großer Kapitalbedarf in der europäischen, speziell auch in der deutschen Realwirtschaft ebenso wie ein Bedarf an Investoren.

Bei der Umsetzung von Islamic-Finance-Vertragsmodellen kann die Besteuerung im Einzelfall eine ausschlaggebende Rolle spielen. Daher erläutert die Autorin in diesem Buch für ausgewählte schariakonforme Finanzierungs- und Anlageformen zunächst die Scharia-Rahmenbedingungen der jeweiligen Vertragsmodelle aus deutscher rechtlicher, ertragsteuerlicher und verkehrsteuerlicher Sicht. Die steuerlichen Fragestellungen werden anhand von Beispielen im grenzüberschreitenden Corporate Bereich im Schnittpunkt von deutschem internationalem Steuerrecht und ausländischem Steuerrecht der weiteren beteiligen Staaten verdeutlicht.

Inhalt

* Einleitung
* Grundzüge von Islamic-Finance-Vertragsmodellen
- eigenkapitalbasierte („Musharaka“ und „Mudaraba“),
- fremdkapitalbasierte („Murabaha“ und „Tawarruq“) sowie

ResearchGATE is the largest social network for academic research globally. Dedicated social profiles of researchers allow to enter academic careers, published articles in journals and books, announce fields of research for international exchange just to name a few of the features.

IslamicFinance.de took another effort to create a dedicated group and invite researchers globally to use this platform and foster research in Islamic finance. The last academic initiative taken was to sponsor and start a full fledged platform for the Islamic Finance WIKI, the online encyclopedia.

Researchers are invited to participate in these initiatives.

Please visit:
http://www.researchgate.net/group/Islamic_Finance/

Press Release

Today sees the launch of a new Journal on Islamic finance from dedicated Islamic finance media entity Yasaar Media.

The Journal, called So Far – the Journal of Strategic Thinking in Islamic Finance, is written and edited by members of an Islamic finance Think Tank and is modelled on traditional academic journals. The difference with So Far is that the members of the Think Tank are predominantly practitioners rather than academics.
Member of the Think Tank are drawn from the ranks of committed Islamic finance professionals around the world and range from the Gulf and the Far East to the USA and Europe.

Each issue of So Far is dedicated to a single topic of core importance to the Islamic finance industry – and the launch issue looks at the thorny issue of the problems facing the Sukuk market. Unlike many other journals So Far is distributed free in PDF format and is available from a variety of sources including Yasaar Media thus guaranteeing maximum readership and exposure.

IslamicFinance.de has created a fanpage on Facebook - for all the users wishing to follow the news abstracts on the Facebook platform. Please join and enjoy!

The Bahrain Financial Exchange and Bursa Malaysia signed an agreement to study a common platform on which Islamic finance products such as commodity murabahas can be traded. Malaysia's stock exchange launched a platform last year on which murabaha, an Islamic money market instrument, can be traded using palm oil as the underlying commodity.

Eastern District Cooling Co. Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zamil Industrial Investment Company (Zamil Industrial), has signed with The National Commercial Bank (NCB), the first non-recourse project financing done in the region for a district cooling project. In November 2007, Zamil Industrial signed a 22-year Energy Performance contract with Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) for the complete outsourcing of process and comfort cooling, including the building of a central cooling plant to supply 20,000 tons of refrigeration within the premises of
Saudi Iron & Steel Company (Hadeed) in Jubail Industrial City.

Bahrain-based Sakana Holistic Housing Solutions and BMI Bank (BMI), an associate of Bank Muscat, signed a Commodity Murabaha Islamic Financing facility whereby BMI Bank provided BD 3 Million funding for 1 year to Sakana towards working capital requirements.

This agreement is in continuation of a 2 year relationship which both organizations with Islamic financing facilities amounting to BD 8.2 Million extended by BMI to Sakana which were repaid on due date.

Malaysian and the United Kingdom Islamic banks signed off on a standardised wakala deposit agreement, which some bankers said could help the industry reduce its reliance on the controversial commodity Murabaha structure.

IslamicFinance.de is calling Islamic financial institutions to become member of the UNEP Finance Inititiave to learn and contribute to international best practice in ethical and faith based finance:

"UNEP FI is a global partnership between UNEP and the financial sector. Over 180 institutions, including banks, insurers and fund managers, work with UNEP to understand the impacts of environmental and social considerations on financial performance."

membership information package:
http://www.unepfi.org/fileadmin/forms/MembershipInformationPack.pdf

The Financial Times produced a special looking into the Future of Islamic Finance.

The download is free of charge.

Yasaar media published a new report called Islamic Finance in North America 2009 for free download, which is co-published by Codexa Capital, UM Financial Group, King & Spalding, and Doha Islamic.

According to the report Islamic finance in North America has developed along two quite separate paths:

• The first path focuses on retail Islamic finance and centres mostly on home financing products and credit cards.

• The second path involves a number of high profile GCC-based Islamic investment banks and their deployment of hundreds of millions of dollars in private equity and real estate developments in North America.

Read the full report for free at the link below.

Ashurst has formed a multidiscipline team of lawyers from across its global network to assist clients with Islamic finance restructuring and Sharia compliant distressed financings. This comes as a result of increasing client demand for assistance with Sharia compliant transactions and investments that require restructuring due to current market conditions.