IslamicFinance.de

Bahrain-based Seera Investment Bank B.S.C. has announced the successful completion of a new transaction in the UK Dementia Care sector. The transaction comprises a Shari'a compliant equity investment in a dementia care focused housing development in London, United Kingdom. The development, the first of its kind, when completed will provide circa 115 housing units providing specialized care to dementia sufferers. The project will be developed over a 3 to 4 year period. The units are expected to be sold over the development period with distribution of substantially all the originally invested capital in the 4th year of investment together with a part of the profits. Upon completion of the development the project will then be held to benefit from the ongoing care revenues.

Bahrain-based Tadhamon Capital BSC has announced its successful exit from Paris Gardens - its first investment in a Central London student accommodation property. The sale of the property saw investors of Tadhamon Capital achieve more than 70 per cent return on their invested capital within a 30 month period. Since completion in the summer of 2013, the property has generated a stable net income of 8 per cent to investors. The sale of the property generated an IRR in excess of 25 per cent. Simultaneously, Tadhamon Capital has entered into a JV agreement for the development of a new, high-quality student accommodation, located at the centre of Kingston-Upon-Thames (South London).

Bahrain's Gulf Finance House will study the continuation of its equity listings in London and Kuwait. The investment firm is listed in four places, a potentially costly arrangement: Dubai Financial Market, where its shares are often the market's most heavily traded, Bahrain, Kuwait, and London in the form of global depository receipts. Moreover, shareholders approved reducing the firm's capital to $598 million from $1.49 billion to eliminate accumulated losses, and the company will change its name to GFH Financial Group. GFH did not give details of what its review would involve or say when it might be completed.

Saudi Arabia-based investment bank Sidra Capital is changing its Islamic trade finance fund, initially established as closed-ended, to an open-ended format as it sees growing appetite from regional investors in the Gulf, its chief executive Hani Baothman said. The first tranche of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) investors came with $50 million, and the firm expects more and more interest to come through. The fund, launched in 2012 with an initial $15 million in assets, has received approval from the Luxembourg regulator to become open-ended and it expects the Saudi regulator's approval as early as April, Baothman said.

One of the reasons the Gulf has been so slow to introduce bankruptcy legislation is because there is still a stigma associated with the process. While some of the biggest companies and business names in the West have gone through the process, in the Arab world it is still seen as taboo and a major cultural failure. One company that has gone through the process, come out the other side and is slowly beginning to scratch away at the doomsday perception associated with bankruptcy is Bahrain-owned, US-based firm Arcapita. Atif Abdulmalik, chief executive, believes the Arcapita experience should be seen as an example to authorities in the region who might be reluctant to push ahead with the introduction of similar procedures in the Arab world for fear of the taboo associated with it.

Gatehouse Bank has appointed David Swan in a newly-created role as head of real estate investment. Swan will lead the firm’s real estate investment department in the origination, management and realisation of real estate equity investments. Gatehouse currently advises funds with approximately £1bn assets in the UK and US. The business is focused on diversifying its investment capabilities and expanding the geographical footprint of its portfolio. Swan has more than two decades of experience in the real estate investment sector. Prior to Gatehouse, he founded Bridgeport Real Estate in 2012, a real estate company advising investors on a range of large scale off-market transactions.

Gatehouse Bank is marketing a new CMBS-style transaction backed by the rental cashflow from a Paris office property. The deal is backed by an acquisition facility of more than EUR100m, where the rental payments will be securitised through two classes of fixed-rate certificates. This new structure, labelled a commercial rental-backed security (CRBS) by Gatehouse, removes the uncertainty because the certificates are backed by the direct legal ownership of the building. The bank will look to attract typical CMBS buyers, which are increasingly seeking to access this asset class.

Islamic finance products are more and more being seen as a mainstream source of financing for governments and not as a niche product for Muslim communities. In December, Kenya banned fifteen NGOs accused of funding terrorism, as the country struggles to defend itself from attacks by the al-Shabaab terror militia based in neighboring Somalia. In 2013 a similar crackdown in the UK had 250 money transfer companies put on notice by Barclays Bank as part of a move to meet stricter money laundering rules. Somalia to date as no formal banking system and therefore relies on companies from abroad to send remittances.

Bahrain-based Gulf Finance House has completed a capital reduction plan, a move that helps the Islamic investment firm to cut accumulated losses. It had received approval from the Bahraini authorities for the step, which reduces the nominal value of its shares by 13.8 per cent to $0.265 per share from $0.3075. As a result, paid-up capital had been reduced to $837.9 million from $972.3 million. Accumulated losses on GFH’s balance sheet had been reduced by $134.4 million under the measure. The reduction doesn’t involve any cash transfer and doesn’t impact on shareholder positions as the bank’s net equity remains unchanged.

Tadhamon International Islamic Bank, a Sharia'a-compliant Bank licensed by the Central Bank of Yemen, has announced management changes in its investment arm in Bahrain, Tadhamon Capital BSC, by appointing Mr. Ahmed Hatam Sultan as its new Chief Executive Officer. In addition and as part of Tadhamon Capital's new changes, the company has appointed Mr. Hesham Al Gassab as the Executive Director of Investments overlooking the investment portfolio managed by the company and Mr. Maisarh Yaseen Omar as Director of the Treasury Department. Tadhamon Capital specializes in structuring and managing new investments and products across its business lines, consisting of Real Estate, Alternative Investments, Treasury & Capital Markets and Investor Relations.

GFH Capital has signed an agreement to sell a $25 million prime property in one of London's most prestigious postcodes. The investment firm said it has sold the Queen’s Gate Gardens property that it had acquired last year. The property is a Grade II listed building located in the prime Kensington area of London overlooking the gardens. According to the terms of the agreement, the buyer has paid an initial deposit with a target to complete the transaction in six weeks, subject to receiving relevant approvals. GFH Capital said investors in the deal can expect to make a return that can reach 21 percent return per annum. The deal is expected to positively reflect in the Q4 financial results of GFH.

EIIB-Rasmala, the Dubai-based investment bank and asset manager, will expand its leasing and property fund products amid increased investor demand in the Arabian Gulf region. The group yesterday said that it was finalising the launch of two leasing fund strategies and planning to expand its UAE property business. This came amid a surge in demand driven by progressive regulatory activity of regional markets, particularly in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, as well as greater investor confidence in the underlying market fundamentals of the region. EIIB-Rasmala said that it expected to raise about US$1 billion for its growing leasing and alternatives business and approximately $250 million to invest in a broad mix of property transactions in the United Kingdom.

The investor group has acquired a significant minority stake in Gems Education’s emerging markets business, covering the Middle East, North Africa and East Asia.
Mumtalakat Holding Company, the investment arm of Bahrain, and Tactical Opportunities funds managed by Blackstone are the other partners in the investment consortium. Gems Education, a UAE-grown global brand that was founded 54 years ago, and is now the world’s largest provider of K-12 private education — operating more than 50 schools, educating over 140,000 students and employing over 13,000 people across 19 markets in the Middle East, North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Sukuk issuance and investing is expanding outside of the Islamic world. The asset holders range from sovereign wealth funds and high-net-worth-individuals in the Arab Gulf, to retail investors in other Muslim majority countries such as Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia. According to Moody’s Investors Service, Malaysia at present dominates the sukuk market when it comes to both sovereign and corporate issuance. Other major issuers include the governments of Indonesia and Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The overall outstanding amount of sukuk will probably reach around $115 billion this year.

Seattle-based Falah Capital is preparing to launch an Islamic exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks large U.S. stocks, the latest sharia-compliant product in a market. The ETF will be advised by Exchange Traded Concepts and Mellon Capital Management, with Bahrain-based Shariyah Review Bureau acting as sharia advisor, according to a filing with the SEC.

According to the finance minister, Luxembourg has issued its first 200 million euro ($254 million) five-year Islamic bond, distributed across 29 accounts, although the market favours dollar-denomineted sukuk. Nevertheless the country thereby becomes the first AAA-rated government to issue euro-denominated sukuk, or Islamic bonds, following London, Hong Kong and South Africa. Luxembourg hired HSBC, BNP Paribas, Banque Internationale à Luxembourg and Qatar-based QInvest to arrange its sukuk.

The Dubai International Financial Centre has launched the Qualified Investor Fund (QIF) targeting wealthy investors. It requires a registration process of 48 hours. QIFs offer a short time to market solution for asset managers. The DIFC houses over 400 regulated entities and over a 1,000 companies with over 80 firms managing assets and over 2,000 funds marketed from the DIFC.

Jeddah-based Islamic investment firm Sedco Capital has launched the first fund managed by its own in-house team, looking to bulk up its asset management capabilities. The Gulf equities fund, domiciled in Luxembourg, has an intial $30 million in assets and is Sedco's 14th fund overall. It is part of Sedco's strategy to source two-thirds of its assets under management from outside Saudi Arabia in four to five years. Previously, Sedco relied on external advisors for its funds. Sedco Capital said it had also signed the United Nations' Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI), becoming the first Gulf-based Islamic asset manager to do so.

The $1.6 billion restructuring of Bahrain-based Arcapita Bank B.S.C. has a significance that extends far beyond simply returning value to its creditors. Arcapita was established in 1996 as the world's first Islamic investment bank. This means it had to comply with principles set out by Islamic law. The Chapter 11 restructuring of Bahrain-based Arcapita Bank, led by Gibson Dunn, saw U.S. bankruptcy courts faced for the first time with the world of Shariah law.

The Islamic International Rating Agency (IIRA) has assigned international scale credit ratings to Gulf Finance House (GFH) at 'BB' (Double B) in the medium to long-term and at 'B' (Single B) in the short-term. On the national scale, ratings have been assessed at BB+/B (Double B Plus / Single B). The rating outlook for the Bank has been assessed as 'Positive'. IIRA has assessed the rating outlook for the institution as 'Positive' that hinges on developing a steady stream of core revenues and sustaining improvements to capital structure. The fiduciary score has been assessed in the range of '61-65'. Certain weaknesses of the bank's governance framework have been identified that require to be addressed.