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By Hadi Fornaji.
Tripoli 31 January 2014:
The Central Bank of Libya has given its approval to a LD 165-milion ($125-million) Islamic Real . . .[restrict]Estate Fund, shares in which will be traded on the Tripoli Stock Exchange.
It is the first private real estate fund in the country and the managers, Tadawul Financial Services, say they expect it to be oversubscribed. Returns in the region of 20 percent are anticipated.
“After a long process, we are a very pleased to announce the creation of the first private fund in Libya,” said Naaman El Bouri, CEO of Tadawul Financial Group, thanking the various authorities for their help getting it launched.
Tadawul plans to market the fund to investors in March or April 2014 through a series of road shows. The international team of advisors assembled for the fund include Sharia Solutions of the UK, PWC and Hogan & Lovells.
Several investors have already lined up to buy into fund, said El Bouri. These include leading Libyan businessman Husni Bey.
Founded by Assaray Bank which will take ten percent of the shares, the Sharia-compliant equivalent of a Closed-End Fund will be used to invest in real estate development both within the country and internationally.
The main focus on investment, however, will be in four pre-defined development projects in Tripoli and Benghazi in partnership with the landowners, These, El Bouri told the Libya Herald, cover a mix of uses – commercial, residential and office. They are expected to be built within three years. Each project will be owned by an independent real estate company.
Investments will have to be approved by a Sharia board, as yet to be appointed.
Estates funds are ideally viable as an Islamic Product,” said Husni Bey, “so we opted to have this as an Islamic real estate fund”.
His HB Group, which is one of the fund’s launchers, is increasingly involved in real estate development – a boom area in the Libyan economy despite the political problems. It is also involved in the Libya financial service sector and is major shareholder in the Assaray Bank and the Tadawul Financial Group, which was created to identify investment opportunities and provide asset management, brokerage and corporate finance services to the market.
“We look forward to participating fully in the ongoing transformation of the banking, financial and economic systems in Libya,” said El Bouri. [/restrict]
