[photopress:dtz.jpg,full,alignright]The net for investors in China spreads wider. China Resources, a central government-owned conglomerate, has partnered with Al-Rajhi Investments to offer Islamic investors an unprecedented opportunity to access Sharia’h compliant (those that do not offend the tenets of the Muslim religion) investments in the Chinese market.
(An aside. Al-Rajhi was the company that sued Arthur Anderson for allowing it to lend $100 million to Enron before Enron collapsed.)
SAIF, Sharia’h Asia Investment Fund, is primarily targeting projects in China’s real estate market. The total equity capitalization target for SAIF is $500 million. The two founding companies have committed to invest $100 million. The rest is being marketed by Al-Rajhi Investments and DTZ Corporate Finance to Islamic institutions and high net worth individuals.
(Another aside. With DTZ you can, in a sense, date it back to 1784 when one of the predecessor firms, Chesshire Gibson, was founded in Birmingham, UK. Then, in 1853, Frank Gissing Debenham and Edward Tewson founded Debenham & Tewson in Cheapside, London. This, in 1913 after a merger, became Debenham, Tewson & Chinnocks. This was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1987, as the parent of the DTZ group of companies.
The ‘T’ and ‘Z’ of DTZ originate from the company’s European joint venture in 1993 with Jean Thouard of France and the Zadelhoff Group in Germany and the Netherlands. Which allowed the company to be called DTZ instead of Chesshire Gibson, Debenham, Gissing, Tewson, Chinnocks, Jean Thouard and Zadelhoff which, lets face it, is a bit of a mouthful even in real estate. DTZ has doubled in size every five years since 1983. It now has eleven offices in China.)
Charley Lin Song, President of China Resources, said, ‘Real estate is the first of the markets to be targeted, but with the broad range of industries in which both CRC and AR operate, this partnership forms a solid foundation for future investment opportunities across a wide range of industries.’
China Resources, through its holdings in China Vanke and CR Land, is recognized as one of the most dominant investors and developers in the PRC property market.
Simon Berrill, Chief Executive of DTZ said, ‘With the excess supply of capital in the real estate market, access to a strong pipeline is an important factor for investors and one which distinguishes SAIF from the rest of the market.’
Al-Rajhi Investments, one of Sheikh Sulaiman Al-Rajhi’s group of companies, will oversee SAIF’s compliance with Islamic law.
Source: Khaleej Times and research.
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