Emirates Islamic Bank launches Shari'a compliant Alternative Strategies Fund

The Fund is open to institutional and retail investors and will seek to generate absolute positive returns through all market cycles by investing in Shari'a compliant investment vehicles that in the opinion of the manager, will offer the prospect of high risk-adjusted returns

The last few years have seen an explosion in Islamic investment products being offered and have seen the nascent concept migrate into a mainstream proposition, in particular within the Middle-East. With a potential market of 1.5 billion people worldwide the current estimates of the size of the Islamic finance industry (which range anywhere from $350 billion to $500 billion) are drawing the best and most talented asset managers into this space.

Mr. Faisal Aqil, General Manager, Retail Banking at EIB said, "At Emirates Islamic Bank, we offer risk diversification to our clients by providing innovative solutions to accessing alternative asset classes. The latest offering is the Islamic Alternative Strategies Fund, a hedge fund with the ability to invest across a range of strategies, aiming to deliver equity-like returns with bond-like risk over a complete market cycle."

This product is now available for investment to the Ethmar clients at minimum ticket sizes of USD 25,000. The Fund is a Jersey registered fund with monthly liquidity and no initial lock-in period. Fund assets are Shari'a compliant as advised by the Emirates Islamic Bank's Shari'a Board. Investments into the Fund should be viewed as medium to long term investment.