Qatar's leading investment bank QInvest said it has joined hands with US-based Pramerica Real Estate Investors to launch  a new sharia’a-compliant real estate fund.

The new fund will be hosted on QInvest Managed Account Platform (QMAP), the Qatari company’s sharia’a managed account platform.

Qinvest said it was the world’s first open architecture sharia’a-compliant managed account platform, bringing best in class capability from the conventional fund industry to sharia’a investors through a range of global partnerships.

It provides investors with the opportunity to select from a range of high-quality Sukuk and equity funds that are managed by both in-house and top-tier third party teams, it stated.

Pramerica, which will serve as the subadvisor of the fund, is one of the largest real estate investors in the world with gross assets under management of $61.5 billion.

The new fund will invest exclusively in high yielding sharia’a-compliant real estate investment trusts and other real estate-related securities, sourced globally by the real estate securities team at Pramerica.

Marc Halle, the head of Global Real Estate Securities, will actively manage the fund as part of his role as chief investment officer and senior portfolio manager for all global real estate securities funds and investments at Pramerica.

The team at Pramerica has been investing in REITs since 2005, focusing exclusively on global public real estate securities and is recognized as a leader in the global real estate securities industry.

Pramerica CEO Eric Adler said: "We are very pleased to partner with QInvest to launch a sharia’a compliant real estate securities strategy that will combine the broad international experience and deep regional knowledge of QInvest with the depth and breadth of Pramerica’s global real estate platform."

"We look forward to maintaining a strong, on-going relationship to serve this important investor base," he stated.

On the new venture, Halle said: "We are excited to offer sharia’a-compliant investors access to our value-oriented investment approach, which is based on intensive top-down fundamental research and bottom-up security analysis by our global portfolio management team."

"This new fund leverages the substantial infrastructure of Pramerica’s fully integrated global real estate organization, which has been investing in direct real estate since 1970, and the deep local knowledge and investment expertise that we have been deploying to manage REIT portfolios and funds at Pramerica for the last decade," he added.

QInvest CEO Tamim Hamad Al Kawari said the company has focused on expanding the capabilities of its asset management, particularly QMAP.

"The addition of this fund further broadens the product offering available to our investors, with the addition of a new high quality asset class with attractive yields and for which there is an active demand," he noted.

Dr Ataf Ahmed, the managing director and head of asset management at QInvest, said: "We are very pleased to offer investors access to a fund which aims to provide both an above average distributable income yield, relative to other funds of its type, as well as an opportunity for strong capital appreciation."

"The launch means that investors could benefit from a better entry point in the near term, following the recent sell-off in global markets," he added.-TradeArabia News Service