IslamicFinance.de

Abu Dhabi Equity Partners (ADEP) has successfully initiated Brazil's first Shari’ah-compliant livestock finance programme of $25 million, to fund fattening of 70,000 cattle heads - the metric tonne equivalent of entire U.A.E.'s annual import of beef. ADEP's Brazilian Shari’ah livestock transaction allows a select group of Brazil's "Top 40" cattle feedlot operators to increase their capacity utilization. The financing was structured as a combination of Wakala and Murabaha agreements enabling investors to buy and take title from Rancher, of liquidly traded cattle, insured and stored physically in separate feedlots inspected and supervised by a global monitoring company. Shari’ah-compliant funding of the growing multi-billion US Dollar Halal food industry is a natural yet untapped market segment.

In order to allow Brazilian farmers to sell their crops between harvests and therefore achieve higher return, Abu Dhabi Equity Partners (Adep) provides inventory finance to them. In return, Adep takes title of the soft commodity. The Abu Dhabi firm has struck deals with Brazilian growers to provide financing worth $100 million for the first half of this year. Despite the risks in form of natural disasters the business has been widely welcomed by Adep founder Muneef Tarmoom's investors.

Abu Dhabi Equity Partners (ADEP) closes first Sharia-compliant agricultural inventory finance transaction in Brazil. The investment deal is a combination of a mix of asset backed financing, capital and profit protection from Global investment bank, five to ten times US Dollar deposit yield pick-up, and global trading houses as counterparties. According to the Managing Partner of the company - Mr. Muneef O. Tarmoom - the combination of "back-to-basics" physical asset backed financing and Global 'A' rated banks' capital and profit protection features enables ADEP to originate financing opportunities with a yeald 5 to 10 times larger than current US Dollar murabaha rates. The company's landmark Brazilian agri-based inventory transaction shall serve to finance a leading sugar and ethanol producer in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

According to ADEP Managing Partner, Muneef O. Tarmoom, primary industry research proovs that approximately 24 per cent of leading Islamic banks' balance sheets are invested in cash or its equivalent often because of no other reason other than sparse availability of alternative liquidity management instruments.
He added that Abu Dhabi Equity Partners made it its mission to develop asset-backed liquidity management solutions that would lessen low-yielding excess cash, assist in improving asset liability matching particularly in the 0-three month maturity space, and enhance banks’ overall risk adjusted return.