Emirates Islamic Bank has started offering Emirates Sukuk Fund No. 1 Limited, a callable, four-year closed-ended Shari’a compliant fund which will hold a portfolio of Sukuks issued by companies, predominantly in the Middle East and North Africa.
The company has said that Emirates Investment Services will manage the fund. The fund can be opened with a minimum investment of $25,000 for individual investors and $1 million for institutional investors. The fund’s initial fee is up to 3% and the annual fee is 1.10% pa (institutional share class), 1.35% pa (sophisticated share class).
The fund will distribute income on a semi-annual basis throughout its life beginning in mid-2009. The distributions will be derived from income generated by the underlying Sukuks, maturity proceeds and any Sukuk sold that are not sought to be reinvested by the portfolio manager.
The fund will be open for subscription until February 26, 2009 and will be due to mature in 2013, but may be called prior to maturity.
Faisal Aqil, general manager of retail banking at Emirates Islamic Bank, said: The primary investment objective of the Emirates Sukuk Fund is to achieve a maximum total return over its tenure. The fund aims to offer attractive risk adjusted returns due to temporary anomalies in the Sukuk market. Offering it at this period of time is mainly to provide our priority banking customers a promising opportunity of investment through a well thought out product.
