The asset management group at National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) has signed up Standard &Poor’s Custom Indices for the calculation and maintenance of the NBAD UAE Listed Islamic Index.

The index has been developed and maintained by NBAD since it was incepted in August 2006 and designed to measure the overall performance of Shariah-compliant securities listed on Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) and Dubai Financial Market (DFM).

'NBAD's Asset Management Group (AMG) has decided to engage an internationally recognized third party firm for the calculation and maintenance of the NBAD UAE Listed Islamic Index to further ensure independence and greater transparency to one of its benchmarks,' said Dr Giyas Gokkent, NBAD's chief economist.

'As the leading asset management group in the UAE, we are very keen on working in partnership with the best in class and we are delighted to assign Standard & Poor’s Custom Indices for the calculation and maintenance of the NBAD UAE Listed Islamic Index as it has proven its mettle in running local, regional, and global indices,' he added.

The NBAD UAE Listed Islamic Index tracks securities that have been qualitatively and quantitatively filtered and conform to Shariah-compliance requirements.

To be eligible for inclusion in the index, stocks must have an average daily traded value of more than $100,000 over a three month period from review date.

Constituents of the index are reviewed quarterly and rebalanced in the event of securities becoming no longer compliant.

Price Return Index levels will be calculated daily at 11PM GMT (2:00 am next day UAE Timing) and made available at Reuters Ric: NBIS and Bloomberg Ticker NULIIP.

'Standard & Poor’s is proud to partner with NBAD to provide the data, tools and support needed to calculate Shariah-compliant indices for the bank's clients,' said Charbel Azzi, regional head-Business Development of Standard & Poor’s Index Services.

'As a global leader in custom index design and calculation, Standard & Poor's strong brand name, expertise and independence as a third party index provider are widely recognised and valued by investors across the Gulf's fast growing financial markets,' he added.-TradeArabia News Service