By Ikley Satterthwaite
This week sees the launch of a new publication called The Sukuk Files from Eaglemont Media, publishers of The Islamic Globe and Majlis magazine.
The fortnightly publication takes the unique approach of focusing each issue on a single Sukuk and explores it in depth. The target audience for The Sukuk Files is the growing professional Sukuk market of issuers, arrangers, managers and their legal teams as well as the professional investment community.
The publication is produced as a PDF and the publishers hope that each issue will build into a comprehensive reference library on recently issued Sukuk.
The publishers are quite clear that The Sukuk Files are not geared towards the mass market of readers interested in Islamic finance. Paul McNamara, managing editor of The Sukuk Files said, “We are writing very much for the professional end of the market. This is such a fast growing sector that we feel that there is a growing demand for some independent comment and analysis of Sukuk – written from a position of experience and authority”.
The Sukuk Files is published every two weeks with the launch issue of the publication focused on the third Sukuk from Sharjah Islamic Bank. Technology director for The Islamic Globe, David Parker, said “We decided to make The Sukuk Files a subscription-only publication since it is clear that the audience for this product is at the top of the market. We would like to play our part in helping this sector to grow.”
The launch of The Sukuk Files is the second new initiative from The Islamic Globe in recent months and follows on from the launch of a Bahasa segment of the portal.
To read the FREE launch issue of The Sukuk Files , you should register your details here and then you will be able to download your free The Sukuk Files here.
Qatar Islamic Bank has reported a 25 per cent dip in profits for Q1 this year after the lender booked higher provisions to meet losses. QIB made a Q1 profit of $80m( QAR291m) compared to $106m (QAR388m) for the same period last year.
Australia’s Islamic finance cooperative, the MCCA, has indicated that it plans to set up an $185m (A$180m) Sukuk fund in collaboration with a high profile GCC entity. As their name suggests, Sukuk funds invest in Sukuk - and it can be hard to achieve significant returns from Sukuk funds when profit rates paid on Sukuk are low – as they are at present, dogging the Eurozone bond rate.
