(MENAFN - Khaleej Times) The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, part of Dubai World, plans to pay the final installment on its five-year 200 million sukuk in the second quarter of 2010, its chief executive officer said on Tuesday.
Malcolm Wall Morris said DMCC would pay the final installment of 20 million when it is due in the second quarter this year. Speaking at a Press conference, Morris said DMCC's large-scale Jumeirah Lakes Towers development, a mixed-use real-estate project covering 87 towers, was going ahead as planned and was due for completion in 2011.
He said DMCC Authority's Shariah-compliant Dubai Shariah Asset Management (DSAM) Kauthar Commodity Funds recorded industry leading gains in the 12 months ending December 31, 2009. The DSAM Kauthar Commodity Fund (DKCF), an equally-weighted fund-of-funds comprised of four single-strategy, commodity-focused funds that invest exclusively in Shariah-compliant long/short equity hedge funds on the Al Safi Trust platform, was up 41 per cent at the end of last year.
During the same period, DKCF managers returned roughly double the average return of their equity and commodity benchmarks. The fund-of-funds total assets under management stood at 250.1 million as of December 31, 2009.
In 2009, the DKCF was one of the top-performing commodity funds among fund-of-hedge funds globally.
"At DMCCA, we are committed to supporting the expansion of the Islamic financial services sector, and our innovative DSAM Kauthar Funds represent the future for that high-growth sector," said Ahmed bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman, DMCCA.
He said the relatively new products were launched during a global downturn. "We recognise that investors are now understandably conservative in their approach. Therefore, we will continue to focus on educating the market, highlighting to investors the sterling performance of the funds and underscoring their long-term appeal," said Sulayem. DMCCA also announced that its DSAM Kauthar Gold Fund, one of four funds distributed under the DSAM Kauthar label, has received the "Outstanding Performance & Innovation Award" from MENA Fund Manager, the region's leading industry title.
For the full year 2009, the gold fund was up nearly 68 per cent, ranking number one out of 344 Islamic funds, representing all investment strategies and markets from around the world.
The DSAM Kauthar Gold Fund also ranked first globally out of 673 hedge funds with between 50-250 million in assets under management, according to HedgeFund.net.
By Issac John
