Tell us more about Sedco Capital, how it started and the progress.
In 2010, SEDCO Capital was launched as a standalone investment firm and since then has leveraged the experience gained from operating the buy side of an active private family office (Bin Mahfouz Family wealth) to offer tailored asset-based portfolios. It offers a comprehensive range of services including asset allocation and management, advisory, arranging, underwriting and custody to UHNWI, family offices, and institutions while adhering to Shari’a principles.
The firm is a fully regulated active asset and wealth management business, with the technical infrastructure and processes essential to attracting external assets (as well as managing internal assets).
Sedco Capital has recently won a number of awards including the latest Global Islamic Finance Award (GIFA) 2012 for the Best Fund Manager. Share with us the experience and how do you think the future is for Sedco Capital?
It is an honour to receive such prestigious international awards. I would like to thank our team of professionals for providing our clients with the very best in wealth management services, sustainable growth, risk controls and good returns, which have been perfected to select best-in-class products and opportunities from across the globe.
Awards are a result of sticking to our core values, applying our vision and mission and only settling for the best. These awards provide a boost to the team and are indicators on how well we are doing in the market compared to our competitors. The award is complemented by our clients’ satisfaction, our team’s dedication and continuous innovation.
Our core philosophy is “partnership” with our clients, innovating and keeping up with the latest investment trends, and identifying opportunities. We do this by continually analyzing the world from an economic and financial perspective to identify these opportunities and risks. Accordingly, we build our annual investment and asset allocation strategies from an asset class mix themes and geographies thus helping us identify the most attractive opportunities and avoid excessive risks. Our investments span across a wide range of geographic and industry sectors ranging from China, India and Brazil to Australia and New Zealand in industries like agriculture, marketing and logistics. We offer private and public equity, asset and real estate management as well as platform and fund solutions to a wide range of audiences.
You have recently launched the Sedco Capital Luxembourg platform. Please share with us the aims and the vision behind it.
SEDCO Capital Global Funds (SCGF) is a multi-asset class SICAV SIF designed to hold a number of segregated sub-funds. The current sub-funds provide investment strategies in globally listed equities. The objective is to provide a diversified set of investment opportunities in the global markets, across a number of different asset classes to qualified investors seeking socially and ethically responsible, Shari’a-compliant investments.
The product is organized as a family of funds. Each fund invests primarily in one class of asset, e.g., fixed income, listed equities, real estate, commodities, and so on. Each fund is managed by best-in-class asset managers under the supervision of SEDCO Capital.
We spotted an opportunity to lead the world in providing a one-stop-shop for bespoke, innovative, cost-effective and high-returning investment solutions that are Shari’a compliant.
SCGF is the largest Shaira-compliant fund in Luxembourg and has doubled the size of Shari’a investments in Luxembourg.
How do you see the growth of Islamic banking and finance going forward both globally and in the GCC?
The virtue of Islamic finance is the creation of real value in the economy thus creating real growth and jobs. One of the biggest issues in the future for the whole world is job creation and you have seen that unemployment in Spain, for example, is over 25 percent now. In the United States, it is close to 10 percent.
It is a serious issue and we need to invest to help the creation of these jobs and achieve sustainable growth for the economy. You are not taking
advantage of the situation where you make money because somebody lost that money. Here you are making money, the employer makes money, the employee makes money and the economy grows. That is Shari’a investment. And is exactly in line with what some companies worldwidefocus on and call “responsible investing”. Now you have the index KLD 400, which measures ethically responsible companies. So you have investors around the world, such as institutions, sovereign funds and individuals investing ethically. We are very happy that we have the same beliefs and focus as ethically responsible investors from around the world.
