Seera Investment Bank launched a white paper on Islamic banking and investment in partnership with Dow Jones Private Equity at the WIBC.

Seera, formerly United International Bank, a Bahrain-based Sharia-compliant investment bank, was the innovation sponsor of the event.

'The WIBC has emerged as a global forum for communicating the values of Islamic banking to a wider audience,' said Seera general manager and acting chief executive Abdulla Janahi.

'With industry leaders gathered under one platform, it was the ideal forum to launch the white paper, where peers were able to discuss the emerging concepts in this vital banking sector that is seeing robust growth and progress worldwide.

'We believe that Seera's inaugural report will provide some thought-provoking insights into Sharia-compliant private equity investment.

Seera's chief investment officer Dr Raed Sarhan and the head of Sharia compliance department Dr Mohammed Arbouna, were among the key speakers at the WIBC.

'With Seera's growing investment portfolio, we feel that it is important to explore ways of how to leverage our Sharia-compliant mandate to create interesting investment opportunities that are suited to today's market,' said Dr Sarhan.

'Although private equity is not a new concept but its application as an Islamic investment instrument is relatively new.

'The white paper identifies the opportunities and challenges faced by Islamic banks in investing in private equity transactions.

'Seera recently completed its second private equity transaction, through the acquisition of BWA Water Additives in UK, and the paper has used it as a case study to highlight the benefits and challenges faced during the completion of this acquisition,' he added.-TradeArabia News Service