IslamicFinance.de

GLOBAL CALLS FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE: THE POTENTIAL OF ISLAMIC FINANCE

Date: Wednesday 22 February 2012

Time: 6.30-8pm

Venue: Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, London School of Economics

Speakers: Mukhtar Hussain, Professor Volker Nienhaus

Chair: The Hon. Mr Justice Cranston

AirAsia X Sdn Bhd will put off a US$200 million Islamic bond issue planned for March by at least 12 months after the airline abandoned routes from Kuala Lumpur to London, Paris, Mumbai and New Delhi.
AirAsia X announced Jan. 12 that it was cutting its flights to Europe, justifying the cost of complying with the European Union’s emissions trading system and rising taxes.

Tadhamon Capital seems to have reached an agreement with UK developer Watkin Jones for joint ownership of Athena Hall.
The Athena Hall was cultivated by Watkin Jones in 2010 and is part of a new university campus benefiting from a five-year rental guarantee across the whole property and a 30-year nomination agreement with University Campus Suffolk.
The co-arrangers for the GBP26.7 million ($41.3 million) transaction were Tadhamon and Apache Capital Partners. The transaction will distribute a quarterly net cash yield of 8 per cent per annum to investors.

Tadhamon Capital B.S.C.(c) completed successfully an acquisition of 50% ownership alongside Watkin Jones, of a prime purpose built student accommodation block. The block, Athena Hall is located in Ipswich, about 70 miles north east of London. The transaction was co-organized by Tadhamon Capital and Apache Capital Partners.
Athena Hall is the only purpose built student accommodation property on campus and current request significantly outweighs supply. The property has 590 rooms, 6 retail units and a dedicated car park, and will be operated and managed by Fresh Student Living.

According to an interview with the CEO of Qatar Islamic Bank the bank signed with Banque Populaire Caisse d’Epargne an agreement to establish the first Islamic bank in France 2012.

The source is not confirmed by other media and similar news appeared in 2011 before.

The 1st Ernst & Young World Islamic Banking Competitiveness Report 2011 presented at the 18th Annual World Islamic Banking Conference stated that Islamic banking assets with commercial banks globally will reach US$1.1 trillion in 2012, a significant jump of 33% from their 2010 level of US$826 billion. In the MENA region, Islamic banking assets increased to US$416 billion in 2010, representing a five year CAGR of 20% compared to less than 9% for conventional banks. As new geographies open up to Islamic banking, the MENA Islamic banking industry is expected to more than double to US$990 billion by 2015.

Foreign issuance of sukuk in Malaysia is anticipated to increase by 25%-30% next year from 10%-15% currently owing to the global economic calamities and eurozone sovereign debt crisis.
Amanie Advisors Sdn Bhd director Baiza Bain noted that the sukuk issue would be US dollar and ringgit denominated issues mainly from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Europe.
Asian Islamic Investment Management Sdn Bhd CEO and executive director Akmal Hassan has a positive outlook regarding the fact that the Government's pump priming activities would ignore impact from the tough external environment and this would augur well for the local economy and Islamic investment.

Abstract academic paper:

Using a large international sample of 35 developed and emerging markets, we analyze
whether Islamic indices exhibit a different performance to conventional benchmarks. While there is no compelling evidence of performance differences in robust Sharpe ratio tests and after controlling for market risk, we find a significantly positive four-factor alpha for the aggregate developed markets region. This outperformance stems, however, mainly from the U.S. and is largely attributable to the exclusion of financial stocks in Sharia-screened portfolios. As the extensive downturn of financials is related to the recent financial crisis, we do not argue that this outperformance will continue over time. The style analysis reveals that

Islamic indices invest mainly in growth stocks and positive momentum stocks. This, for a passive portfolio intriguing result can, however, be explained by the strong sector allocation towards energy firms and their strong momentum characteristic during the sample period.

Adnan Ahmed Yusuf Abdulmalek, head of Union of Arab Banks, noted that interest by Gulf lenders in Turkey’s Islamic banking market is on the rise. Leading Arab banks are currently inspecting opportunities to penetrate Turkey’s growing finance market, added the top executive of Union of Arab Banks.
Arab banks and investors have been stimulated by the decision for investing in Turkey’s banking sector and possible investors consider founding new banks as well as merger and acquisitions with Turkish banks.

According to the chairman of Kuwait Finance House in Turkey, Mr. Mohammed Al-Omar, the bank plans to go on with its pivotal role in the Turkish market, in addition to binding its strategy that is based on strengthening economic relations with neighboring countries, and with Kuwait and other GCC countries.
He added that the bank also wants to further offer Islamic products and instruments that can enlarge the horizon of Islamic banking in the Turkish economy, such as sukuk, murabaha, and ijarah. He underlined the fact that the bank presented products that never existed before in the Turkish market, such as the gold account and sukuk.

Real Economy Partners (REP) is going to launch the world’s first Francophone Islamic finance resource by the name of the French Islamic Finance Review. The new service has the purpose to circulate academic research on Islamic finance in partnership with Paris’s Collège de Sorbonne in French, English, Arabic and Turkish.
FIFR will also help the development of Islamic finance not only in France, but in the French-speaking world, with special emphasis in the Maghreb and French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa.
FIFR also wants to help advance the initiatives of French banks in the Islamic finance sector and will publish articles and news in four languages throughout the Francophone world.

Ahmad Mohamed Ali, the president of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), has given notice that the euro zone sovereign debt crisis is adversely affecting the Bank's member countries and urged European leaders to find the right solutions and not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
He explained at the "Islamic Finance on the 21st Century" symposium which was held in Madrid on Dec. 1 that Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria are very much affected as exports begin to decline because of the credit crunch and economic situation in the European Union (EU).

Tamweel hired banks for a possible bond sale as it looking for financing to repay liabilities and increase lending. The shares presented a jumprecord in a month.
Citigroup, Standard Chartered and Dubai Islamic Bank will make appointments for investor meetings in Asia, Europe and the United Arab Emirates.
Tamweel plans to raise at least $300 million to $500 million from Islamic bond sale in the fourth quarter.

The euro zone crisis has constrained investment in gold-backed exchange-traded assets so high that newcomer Source now owns the world's sixth largest physically-backed gold product and sees no need to promote it actively outside Europe and the Middle East.
It is owned by major investment banks BofA Merrill Lynch., Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Nomura.

According to British Ambassador Iain Lindsay, UK and London will remain the world's leading international and Islamic financial centres. He stated that Islamic finance benefits from the UK's combination of experience, variety of skills, geographic location, infrastructure, transparency and openness.
He added that UK is in ninth place globally and is the leading Western country. The country is also seeking to consolidate its position as the gateway to Islamic finance in Western Europe.

Kuveyt Türk Chairman Mohammed Al-Omar, Vice Chairman Abdullah Tivnikli and CEO Ufuk Uyan was present at at the signing ceremony and press conference for the second "Sukuk" issuance that accepted great interest from the Gulf Region and European investors.
Other officials from lead arranging banks also attended: Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Commerzbank, HSBC, Liquidity Management House and Standard Chartered Bank.

The prime theme of this event will be the impact of the recent rapid changes on the
Islamic finance sector in all pertinent aspects. The Conference will consider the
spectacular political and socio-economic developments that we have been witnessing and
their probable effects on the performance and future position of Islamic financial
institutions (IFI’s), the regulatory set-ups, and popularity of Islamic products being
offered to the public, governments and business firms.

The Conference is being organised by Emerald Group Publishing, the world’s leading
scholarly publisher of journals and books on business and management. Over 220
academic journals are currently published by Emerald, covering some 24 managerial
disciplines, in addition to a strong and growing presence in other related fields such as
LIS, social sciences, and engineering.

This Conference follows on the success of the Global Islamic Marketing Conference held
in Dubai over the period 20-22 March 2011, organised by Emerald in association with the
United Arab Emirates University.

Conference Objective

The chief objective of the forthcoming Conference is to assess the future of this sector,

University Strassbourg is conducting a conference about Islamic retail banking for France, an opportunity to invest? The event is in French. More details below:

Nous vous invitons à participer à la *36ème Conférence PHARE* organisée par l'/Ecole de Management de Strasbourg/ et /E.M. Strasbourg Partenaires /*à l'occasion de l'ouverture de la 4ème promotion du Diplôme d'université Finance Islamique* en janvier 2012 *sur le thème :

*"La banque de détail islamique en France :
un nouveau marché à investir ? "**

Jeudi 1er Décembre 2011 à 18h00 à l'EM Strasbourg - 61, Avenue de la Forêt-Noire*/ Cette conférence sera suivie d'un cocktail offert par EM Strasbourg-Partenaires dans les locaux de l'EM Strasbourg/
*
_Animée par :_
. Michel STORCK, Professeur des universités affilié à l'EM Strasbourg, Co-responsable du Diplôme d'Université (D.U.) «Finance islamique»***

_Intervenants :_
** .** Sâmi HAZOUG, Coordinateur pédagogique du D.U. «Finance
islamique»* - EM Strasbourg
**.** Laurent WEILL, Professeur des universités affilié à l'EM Strasbourg,Co-responsable du D.U. «Finance islamique»*
**.** Le représentant d'une banque

**

This is the first Turkish Sukuk under the new Sukuk regulations presented by the Capital Markets Board in Turkey to facilitate Turkish Sukuk issuance.
The joint lead managers were HSBC, Standard Chartered, Liquidity Management House, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank and Commerzbank, and HSBC was seen as certificateholders’ representative on the issue of a $350 million (EUR 247 million) five-year Sukuk by Turkish participation bank Kuveyt Türk Kat?l?m Bankasi.

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) will hold investor meetings for a potential dollar-denominated Islamic bond, or Sukuk.
Meetings will begin in Kuala Lumpur on Nov. 17, and will cover Singapore and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), before ending in London on Nov. 21.