British commodity trading and finance investment firm DVK Group is currently in talks with a Qatari royal to launch a Shariah-compliant investment fund targeted at women and with a capital target of up to US$500m.
London-based is DVK Group set up DVK Saudi in 2012 with a member of the Saudi royal family as a non-executive chairman and this month set up an office in Bahrain. It plans to expand into the wider Gulf region this year and will target infrastructure projects in the Gulf, China, Russia and North Africa.
Deepak Kuntawala, the company’s founder and chairman, revealed one of their first projects is the launch of a Shariah investment fund which will be aimed solely at ladies in the Middle East.
“We meet [contacts] in London and their advice to one of the princesses out in Qatar was the synergy was there. 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,” Kuntawala told Arabian Business.
“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 $100m, but the target to raise is $500m.”
Kuntawala said a pilot study project will be started this year and, if successful, this will be rolled out across the Gulf and beyond.
“Women want to get involved in business and get involved in careers and there are limited avenues and this is something that will be pioneering and it has a huge emerging market potential.
“As part of the strategy we will pilot it in regions and roll it out. First Qatar and then we will evaluate progress and eventually roll it out to the GCC and into Islamic regions like Malaysia and North Africa,” he added.
The Middle East has seen the emergence of wealthy women controlling their family’s fortunes. A 2011 report claimed women control 22 percent of the region’s assets, amounting to $700 billion. This is expected to increase eight percent in the next four years.
A Barclays Wealth survey also found Arab women are the world’s most confident group when it comes to investing in funds and they are now being targeted by investment firms like Merrill Lynch.
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