DVK Group, a UK-based commodity trading and finance investment company, is set to form a partnership with a Qatari royal to start a new Shariah-compliant US$500 million investment fund for the women, reports Arabian Business.
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DVK Saudi, a business entity set up by DVK Group formed in association with a member of Saudi royal family, is negotiating a deal with a Qatari royal for the development of a new Shariah investment fund, designed explicitly for women business leaders in the Middle East.
The fund will have a capital target of around US$500 million and will be launched after Ramadan, which ends in mid August, according to Arabian Business.
Deepak Kuntawala, founder and chairman of DVK, anticipates that the market has a huge emerging market potential. The company will roll out the new fund as a pilot project in some specific regions, the first being Qatar. Based on the response from the pilot project, the company will roll it out to the GCC and into Islamic regions like Malaysia and North Africa.
Kuntawala said: "There has been a lot of discussion around developing an investment vehicle to enable women in the Islamic GCC regions to have the opportunity to invest and do something with their capital.
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By GlobalData"What we would like to do is harness this and secure the investment vehicle and be the lead platform that promotes it and seed the capital to get it off the ground. Fund size, it will be a minimum fund size of US$100 million, but the target to raise is US$500 million.
"It is still happening. I am due to fly out to Qatar and it is moving forward. We are putting the right board together, which will be a mix of people from the UK and Middle East. I think after Ramadan we will do a soft launch."
