United Development Company (UDC), one of the leading public shareholding companies in Qatar, has completed the fundraising for the first fully Shari’a compliant closed-ended real estate development fund in Qatar.

The fund has raised a total of $600 million of equity committments and committed financing, which will be used to invest in a Shari’a compliant manner exclusively in the Qanat Quartier development (Qanat Quartier), a residential and retail development project in Doha, Qatar, said an official spokesman.

Qanat Quartier is part of The Pearl Qatar. Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ) acts as the fund manager and CBQ, National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD), Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) and Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) are the joint mandated lead arrangers for the financing.  QIB will act as investment agent for the Shari’a compliant financing.

Qanat Quartier is strategically located on the Pearl, a man made island 350 metres offshore of Doha. The Pearl has been created by UDC through reclamation of 4.1 MM sqm of land in the Arabian Gulf.

On this island a residential community with a total of 5.9 MM sqm of built-up area is being developed, consisting of beachfront villas, town homes, luxury apartments, penthouses, luxury hotels, marinas and schools with related infrastructure and community facilities.

It is envisaged that the Pearl will eventually house more than 41,000 residents in an up-scale, multi-cultural residential community; a true “island retreat” in the heart of Qatar.

Qanat Quartier is one of the most upscale residential and retail developments on the Pearl and will enjoy a unique position on the island. It is located in the north-western section of the Pearl and comprises approximately 200,000 sqm of reclaimed land, five per cent of the island total land area.

The total built-up area of Qanat Quartier amounts to ca. 480,000 sqm, or eight per cent of the Pearl.

“We are very satisfied with this extremely successful outcome. The interest from institutional and private investors has well exceeded our expectations and we have received more subscriptions than we could accommodate. We are very happy and proud to have the Kuwait Investment Authority and other leading regional government investment bodies amongst our lead investors,” said managing director and president of UDC Khalil B. Sholy.

“This fund certainly is a milestone for the Qatari financial community. It is the first real estate private equity fund of this size and scope in Qatar. It is fully Shari’a compliant and documents very clearly the strong demand from sophisticated international investors for a Qatari private equity product,” said deputy chief corporate banking officer and head of International & Public Sector Banking of Commercial Bank of Qatar Salman Mohannadi. – TradeArabia News Service