Summit Notebook

Fatwa shopping? Not for Barclays

The limited number of Sharia scholars has meant the same group of men are on various advisory boards which has led to criticism that people can go “fatwa shopping” and that scholars are in it for the money.

Not so, says Harris Irfan, head of Islamic products at Barclays Capital.

“We’re not out fatwa shopping,” he said at the Reuters Islamic Banking and Finance Summit. “We want to work with the scholar who’s willing to say ‘no’ (to non-Sharia products)”

A study last year by Funds at Work, a consultant for the fund industry, looked at scholars’ engagement by financial firms in the Gulf Arab region. It found the top 10 scholars hold about 46 percent of all available positions in the region.

Internationally, excluding the Gulf, the top 10 scholars – out of 70 active outside the region — hold 58 percent of board positions.

Scholars can earn up to $150,000 per project and it can take four to six months for a Sharia-compliant project to be developed. For the scholar, that can mean between four to six weeks of work on a project.

It may look cushy but often these same scholars will work for nothing to help develop standards for the industry.

Skeletons in the closet, sprawling ownership stymie Gulf bank consolidation

Anyone waiting for Gulf banks to consolidate — a long talked about prospect — can forget about it for now.

With debt markets shut, leaving only pricey equity financing, budding suitors are standing frozen, unable to make a commitment.

But the lack of reasonable financing for mergers is not the only obstacle, according to Frederick Stonehouse, head of strategic mergers and acquisitions at Bahrain’s Unicorn Investment Bank .

Valuing the assets of privately-owned banks, the best candidates for consolidation, is no easy task.

“Many of the banks which I feel should be looking for consolidation are unlisted, so how do you value those?” he says.

 And then there is the old, familiar issue of transparency — as in, the lack of it in the region. 

“You think everything may have come out of the woodwork but maybe it hasn’t. You could be going into an institution and paying quite a price for it and then finding that the problems are a lot deeper than you imagined,” he says.

from Global Investing:

Clear road ahead for depressed Dubai

Dubai's deepening real estate slump has brought unexpected benefits to its time-poor urban residents.

Speaking at the Global Islamic Financing Summit, Dr. Humayon Dar, CEO of Shariah-compliant consultancy BMB Islamic, said Dubai was a much nicer place to live now that the immature infrastructure system was not overwhelmed with construction traffic and armies of property speculators.

"When you got to Dubai you will find that right now, traffic is actually much less but people like me like it because I used to be stuck in that traffic all the time," Dar said, eyes agleam. "But now, going from A to B is so fun - I like it."

The desert city - famed for its dramatic skyline and commonly referred to as the Gulf's biggest building site - is reeling from a global meltdown in demand for its unique brand of luxury real estate.  Dozens of development projects worth billions of dollars have been axed, threatening the livelihood of thousands of construction workers and their families.

But those banking on a rapid rally in Dubai's property market can draw some comfort from Dar, who believes the city will recover quickly -- with a little help from its wealthy neighbours.

"People who know the market say actually this is the time to invest... In the past whenever there is a problem in Dubai, the big brother sitting in Abu Dhabi comes to rescue. This time they took their time because they wanted to teach a lesson to Sheikh Mohammed because he was trying to be a renegade boy.

"Many people say Dubai is just gone, hopeless. But Dubai will never, ever go away. It has achieved a level of economic development which will help him to come out of this crisis...My own assessment is that the worst is over," he said. "That is a statement you wouldn't hear from very many people."