Shamil Bank first to offer a Pan-GCC Islamic equity fund

The signing ceremony followed by a press conference took place at the Gulf International Convention Centre on 29 May 2005.

Shamil Bank's Jamal Tartir, Group Head of Private Banking and Ahmad Tayara, Head of Investment Banking attended the signing ceremony along with Anthony C. Mallis, CEO and Shahid Hameed, Head of Asset Management of Securities and Investment Company; and Ali Al-Laith, Vice President of Gulf Clearing Company.

Jamal Tartir of Shamil Bank in announcing the launch of the Al-Aseel Islamic Equity Fund said that "Shamil Bank is always looking for opportunities to expand investment potential for its customers and has taken this innovative step to create this open-ended Fund investing in a portfolio of select Sharia'a compliant equity securities listed on the stock exchanges of Gulf Cooperation Council ("GCC") countries. The Fund uses a research driven approach towards identifying and investing in attractively valued stocks with the objective of producing attractive investment returns over the medium to long term. The Fund's investments are selected with strict adherence to Sharia'a investment guidelines and are supervised by an independent Sharia'a supervisory board."

Ahmad Tayara of Shamil Bank indicated that the fund is a regulated financial product authorised by the Bahrain Monetary Agency (BMA) on 9 May 2005. It acts to the breadth of investment opportunities offered to Shamil's client base. As to its expected performance, Mr Tayara indicated that the investment methodology of the investment manager coupled with the projected medium term buoyant oil prices and adequate corporate fundamentals should all lead to the fund fulfilling its objectives.

Commenting on the market potential for Islamic equity fund, Anthony C. Mallis, CEO of Securities and Investment Company said that "We would be cautiously optimistic about the prospects for the regional equity markets and would emphasize the importance of making investments on a selective basis with a long-term view. We believe, we are now entering an environment where one could no longer take a passive approach to investing in the region and buy a broad based basket of equities. In today's markets, our bottom-up approach i.e. picking stocks on a selective basis becomes even more crucial in ensuring that risks are managed in the most efficient manner. We would be looking to develop a concentrated portfolio of Sharia'a compliant equities in a cautious manner over the first two months of the life of the fund and take advantage of the recent consolidation that has taken place in regional equities.

Ali Al-Laith of Gulf Clearing Company drew the attention towards the fact that during the 2001 to 2004 period, GCC equity markets produced superior returns compared to leading global and emerging market equity indexes, demonstrating a low correlation to global equity markets performance. GCC markets continue to demonstrate the potential for medium to long-term growth combined with the benefits of low currency risk in a tax-free environment.

The Al-Aseel Islamic Fund will be officially launched on 1st June 2005 and will be available for subscription by the Middle East investors including resident expatriate community.

Shamil Bank's activities cover a wide range of Sharia'a compliant retail, commercial, private & investment banking product and services. In September 2004, Capital Intelligence, a leading rating agency, upgraded the Bank's foreign currency long term rating from BB+ to an investment grade of BBB-, attributing the upgrade to the healthy growth of the Bank's operating income; continued reduction in non-performing assets and last but not least the strong support of DMI the parent company.