Sharia-compliant insurance company Amana Takaful will issue 800,000 shares in an initial public offering (IPO) on the Maldives Stock Exchange (MSE).
In a first for the country, 20 percent of the shares will be made available to expatriates and 15 percent to overseas applicants. The remaining 65 percent will be offered to Maldivians.
The Sri Lanka-based company hopes to generate Rf16 million (US$1.4 million) in proceeds through the IPO, by selling shares at a low issue price of Rf20 (bundled in packages of 25).
Amana Takaful’s board of directors announced the IPO on Monday afternoon at the Nasandhura Palace Hotel.
CEO of Amana Takaful Maldives, Hareez Sulaiman, said the IPO would “change the way the Maldivian Stock Exchange operates as this will be the first time that Maldivians, expatriates and foreigners will be able to purchase securities in a Maldivian listed company.”
The decision to price the shares low “at a price affordable to any average Maldivian” also promised to “be a kick starter for an active stock market which may benefit the entire economy at large,” the company said in an accompanying statement.
The company expects the Sharia-compliant nature of its business to be a key attraction in the market, it noted in its prospectus, with the “growing religious awareness within the domestic market further reinforcing [Amana Takaful Maldives’] decision to embark on expanding its shareholder base in the Maldives.”
Globally, Director of Amana Takaful Osman Kassim, also chairman of the first licensed Islamic bank in Sri Lanka, Amana Bank, explained that Islamic finance was “a phenomenon worth 1.4 trillion and growing at a rate of 20 percent annually.”
It functioned, he explained, through the prohibition of riba, or interest.
“Taking a return without participating in the risk of the return is not allowed, be it 1 percent or 99 percent. Any additional revenue is riba,” he said. “Even if you give a loan and he gives a gift, and is not in the habit of giving a gift, that is also riba.”
Islamic finance in its current form emerged 40 years ago, Kassim explained, first in Egypt and the Arab Emirates.
“It promises to be a just system. Interest is oppression – the charging of something where nothing is due,” he said, noting that in the wake of the global financial crisis, “All major banks now have Islamic financing products, and the more adventurous have their own Sharia Councils.”
Certain terminology used in Islamic finance was now routinely used in normal banking, he said, also observing a rise in financial offerings that were all but labelled Sharia-compliant.
In its IPO prospectus, the company predicted strong potential growth on the back of a higher disposable income as the rufiya eased against the dollar, brought on by a “significant” decrease in the cost of imports.
The key areas of the Maldivian economy – fishing and tourism – had shown strong growth, the company noted. Tourist arrivals grew 18 percent in 2010, while bed nights grew 13 percent even as capacity grew by almost 3000 beds to roughly 24,000.
Fishing was a key area of interest to the company given the high number of insurables. The industry had registered a slight decline in productivity in recent months, the prospectus noted, but nonetheless annual fish purchases had increased 29 percent and fish exports by volume had risen fourfold. Higher prices had led to 77 percent increase in monthly earnings.
The company has set a target of 30-40 percent growth in the Maldives, identifying a key market as the local, atoll and city councils following the government’s policy of decentralistion.
“Considering the current trends in religious conciousness, it is generally believed that the level of awareness and preference for investing in Sharia- compliant investments would be greater at the grassroots level,” the company noted.
It also indicated its intention to offer a micro-insurance product in the Maldives targeting the expatriate market.
The IPO will open on September 20 and close on October 19. The company has pegged a minimum subscription of Rf 2.4 million (US$156,000) or 15 percent to proceed with the IPO.
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