Wealth & Finance International - Fund Awards 2016

Fund Awards 2016 16 Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector Best Sharjah Compliant Open-Ended High-Yield Income Fund (Since Inception): ICD Money Market Fund (ICD MMF) & Most Innovative Asset Management Firm 2016 - Apac-Mea Region The Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (“ICD”) is a multilateral development financial institution and is part of the Islamic Development Bank (“IDB”) Group. We invited Head of Income and Capital Markets Funds Abdullah Ashy to provide us with an absorbing overview of the firm and its service offering. Company: ICD Name: Abdullah Ashy, Head of Income & Capital Markets Funds Email: [email protected] Web Address: www.icd-ps.org Address: P.O.BOX 54069 Jeddah 21514 Saudi Arabia Telephone: 966 12 646 8174 Established in 1999, ICD is a financing institution that provides fund- ing, advisory, and assistance to the private sector in ICD’s member countries. Funding is provided in many forms including equity and Shariah-compliant debt financing to private sector entities in ICD mem- ber countries. ICD has an authorized capital base of $4 billion and has 52 countries as part of its shareholder base. ICD’s clients are the private sector, sovereign wealth funds, and high net worth investors. Abdullah is particularly proud of the work his asset management division has undertaken, and outlines how it has worked to ensure that it provides the very best services and solutions to clients. “The Asset Management Department within ICD manages various sector-based funds mainly divided into three programs, Private Equity, SME, and Income & Capital Markets Funds. All ICD Funds are subject to strong corporate governance and risk guidelines and they are all incorporated in regulated jurisdictions within different financial hubs. “Historically our Funds platform has been performing well and mostly beating the market average performance. This is due to ICD’s wide spread and global reach in its member countries. ICD’s multilateral status allows us to attract the best partners and invest in the best op- portunities within our member countries, this grants us superior access to the clients and partners such that we negotiate the best terms for our fund investments resulting in superior performance of our funds vis a vis the market” Winning this award is a great honour and ICD appreciates the recogni- tion of its funds from globally recognized media agencies. Abdullah is keen to talk us through the secret’s behind the firm’s success. “Here at ICD, we believe that the secret behind our success is our client-focused attitude, as well maintaining strict underwriting discipline in terms of the credit worthiness of potential investments portfolio moni- toring process as well as our procedure to maintain commercially viable sustainable investments which contribute to the real economy and has developmental impact results in superior sustainable performance.” Within the wider funds market currently, the political situation and the decline in global oil prices has caused many investors to reduce their investment activities beside governments in the MENA region to increasingly tap local and international debt markets to meet funding requirements. This has caused liquidity shortfall in the regional banking industry which has made it difficult to fund raise. Lack of available fund- ing is the primary challenge facing ICD’s funds currently. In addition to that the currency devaluation mainly occurred in CIS countries has affected the availability of new promising investments in that region. Additionally, lack of a unified Shariah code followed by member countries makes it difficult to navigate regulatory requirements in terms of placing funds with local financial institutions. Some countries allow Islamic banks to deal with conventional banks while some do not. This makes it challenging to adapt to every country’s regulatory framework. LA16012