As a relatively young player in the Islamic investment management space, Saudi Arabia’s AlKhair Capital has established itself as a formidable competitor after about five years being in the field, serving a distinguished set of high net worth individuals, corporations and small institutions. With portfolios covering equity and money markets, the firm made its foray into the fixed income space with its recently launched maiden Sukuk fund as it seeks to expand its reach and deepen its roots in the fraternity. VINEETA TAN takes a look the asset manager’s new strategy.
Initially launched on the 1st June, the AlKhair Sukuk Plus Fund aims to generate medium to long-term capital gains and income distribution returns by investing in an array of global Shariah compliant securities as well as other credit instruments such as Murabahah facilities, Shariah compliant deposits and cash equivalents. This diversified portfolio affords it a more balanced portfolio risk and return profile.
As of now, the fund portfolio includes securities from the UAE and Turkey but the firm plans to expand its geographic reach — it is currently studying the prospect of several Malaysian Sukuk with issuances from the wider Middle East also being in the pipeline.
With its plain vanilla structure, the growth fund is clearly designed with simplicity in mind in order to appeal to investors and while the investor base is pre-dominantly from the Saudi market, being denominated in US dollar opens up the doors for this Shariah compliant bonds fund to the rest of the world and based on its performance thus far, buoyed by overwhelming response for the global Sukuk market, AlKhair Capital Sukuk Plus Fund seems to be on the right track.
Table 1: AlKhair Capital Sukuk Plus Fund fact sheet | |
Fund category | Bonds international |
Fund sub-category | Shariah compliant |
Fund classification | Growth |
Base currency | US dollar |
Inception date | 1st June 2014 |
Fund benchmark | LIBOR three-month |
Initial price | 100 |
Unit price | 100.85 |
Net asset value | 1,513,147 |
Amount invested in the fund by the fund manager | 1 million |
Year-to-date | 0.85% |
Management fee | 0.75% per year |
Subscription charge | 0.5% |
Minimum subscription | 10,000 |
Redemption charge | 1% |