ameinfo.com - Moody's Investors Service has assigned a Baa bond fund rating to the Bank of London and The Middle East Plc 'BLME' Sharia'a Umbrella Fund - USD Income Fund, a Luxembourg-domiciled fund (the 'Fund').
The Fund is structured as a Luxembourg domiciled SICAV-SIF and aims to provide a competitive level of income together with a high degree of security of capital. The fund seeks to achieve this by investing in a diversified portfolio of high quality Islamic money market instruments, Sukuk (an Islamic 'bond') and Ijara (the leasing of assets). (source)
Nigel Denison, Director and Head of Wealth Management at BLME, said: "Moody's rating is a great endorsement of our fund of which we can be proud. The Baa rating demonstrates that Islamic funds can compete with their conventional counterparts, a view that is supported by our year to date top percentile performance ranking from Lipper Hindsight. This investment grade rating demonstrates that our Sharia'a fund is managed successfully and has performed well to date. The rating also offers an international visibility."
Jason Kabel the Fund Manager added: "The fund has maintained above benchmark performance over the few months when the markets have been particularly volatile. Larger credit spreads will raise the cost of borrowing in the primary market for issuers compared to earlier in 2011, and the Fund should benefit from greater margin income opportunities as a result."
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