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Chuweni, Nor Nazihah & Eves, Chris(2015)Islamic fund and asset management: The opportunities and challenges ofIslamic REITs. In2015 Australian Conference of Economists, 7-10 July 2015, QueenslandUniversity of Technology, Brisbane, Qld. (Unpublished)

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2015 AUSTRALIAN CONFERENCE OF ECONOMISTS

ISLAMIC FUNDS AND ASSET MANAGEMENT:

THE OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF ISLAMIC REITS

NOR NAZIHAH CHUWENI

Queensland University of Technology

Universiti Teknologi MARA (Perak), Malaysia

CHRIS EVES

Queensland University of Technology

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to present a review on the issues and challenges for Islamic Funds

and Asset Management, particularly the Islamic Real Estate Trusts (I-REITs) available in

Malaysia. The key difference between the Islamic and the conventional investment vehicle is

mainly the fund needs to adhere to the Shariah framework.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews and synthesises the relevant literature

on the framework of Islamic Asset and Fund Management, particularly the Islamic Real

Estate Investment Trusts. The paper then provides insights for further research to address the

issues and consider the Shariah framework applicable to other further research works.

Findings – The paper highlights the opportunities and challenges of Islamic REITs globally.

There is a lack of the standardisation in the screening methodology used by the Malaysian I-

REITs and Singapore I-REITs as the latter follows the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)

guideline to capture the investors mainly from the Gulf countries. In term of tenants’

selection, there is similarity between I-REITs and the Socially Responsible Investment (SRI)

or ethical investment. The gap between the investments can be bridged if the Islamic funds

skewed the investment portfolio towards the social and ethical investment. Even though there

is a limitation in the investment universe, I-REITs provide better diversification option and

show better performance compared to the equity market during the economic crisis. The

introduction of the Shariah-compliant REITs index for Asia Pacific allows the fund managers

to benchmark the performance of either the funds or the sector with other investment

vehicles. This will encourage more investors to consider I-REIT in the decision making of the

asset allocation portfolio and broadening the horizon of the investment.

Originality/value – The contribution of the study is the examination and analysis of the

Shariah framework currently adopted for Islamic REITs. This will assist in the identification

of specific issues associated with Islamic REITs that will need to be addressed in the

development and application of further research in the aspect of the management and

operations to increase the efficiency level and better performance in order to capture more

investors in this specific and promising market.

Keywords: Asset Management, Funds, Islamic REITs, Shariah-compliant

JEL Classification System: F21 International Investment

1. INTRODUCTION

The market for Shariah-compliant products and services have significantly increased and

evolved over the past years. Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Luxembourg have become the hubs

for the Islamic capital market particularly the Islamic finance sector. The growth and increase

in the number of Islamic funds globally are depicted in Figure 1. The Asset under

Management (AUM) has increased from 26 USD billions during the Global Financial Crisis

of 2008 to 57 USD billion by the year 2012. Despite the economic crisis, this positive growth

and development of Islamic fund is due to the key role of the Shariah framework and

guideline implemented to safeguard the interest of the investors.

Figure 1: Global Islamic Funds

Source: (Thomson Reuters, 2014)

The first element of difference in an Islamic Funds as opposed to other class of funds is the

extra layer added to the funds driven by the rules and regulation conglomerated either by an

in-house Shariah Board or company overseeing the Shariah Board. The Shariah

requirements need to be integrated in the fund management activities as shown in Figure 2.

The integration of Shariah requirement begins in the initial planning until the implementation

and controlling of the fund management. In the case of Malaysia, the Malaysian Securities

Commission issue and oversee the implementation of the guidelines but in other countries

such as Saudi Arabia, the banks or financial institutions have their own individual Shariah

Board and corporate governance choice. In Islamic funds, there are several mechanisms for

the Shariah audit. In general, there is emerging in market space of two greatest market trends.

Originally, it is in-house Shariah audit where a team of people in confidence review the

institutions or the funds, but currently there is a number of outsourcing Shariah audit

companies operating globally. In terms of investment perspective, whether or not leverage is

allowed in such situations is another concern, as one may want leverage for return purposes

or the use of leverage for best practice or methodologies of protection over tax management.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. The next section will discuss the

development and background of key concepts of Islamic REIT. This is followed by Section 3,

a brief review on the potential and challenges that need to be handled in Islamic Real Estate

Investment Trusts (I-REITs). The article concludes in Section 4.

IMPLEMENTATION CONTROLLING

PLANNING

The Shariah requirements are denoted by the parenthesis

Figure 2: Shariah requirements added in fund management activities

Source: (Thomas, 2014)

Investment Policy Analysis

Requirement Analysis

Investment strategy selection

Benchmark selection

(Defining Shariah ruling

source)

(Defining screening Provided)

(Defining Islamic Benchmark)

Financial Analysis

Asset universe definition

Quantitative measure for risk and

return

(Shariah -compliance

procedures)

(Quantification of Purification)

(Compliance trend)

Portfolio Construction

Portfolio Optimisation/

Strategy – Return & Risk

- Constraints

Portfolio Implementation

(Shariah-compliance

checking)

(Considering Purification

losses)

(Consider Compliance

trend)

Performance Analysis and

Portfolio Revision

Performance

measurement

Feasibility

Compliance

(Purification

reporting)

(Compliance

reporting)

(Violation reporting)

2. BACKGROUND OF ISLAMIC REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUSTS IN

MALAYSIA

Securities Commission of Malaysia classifies the Islamic capital market into different types

of investments, which comprise the Shariah-compliant securities, Sukuk (Islamic bonds),

Islamic stockbroking and Islamic Fund Management. The Islamic Fund Management

specifically comprises of the unit trust funds, wholesale funds, private retirement scheme,

exchange traded funds and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).

However, if the investment vehicles are divided into popularity, Muslims investors tend to

prefer real estate funds. For high net worth individuals or investors that would have access to

funds market, the most popular investment vehicles are probably real estate due to two

reasons. Equity is fallen because of the ease to sell and buy market in packaging, but real

estate is gaining more popularity because large investors like the fact that they can touch the

real estate and they know how to operate real estate.

Malaysia became the pioneer in the development of the Islamic REITs, with the introduction

of the Islamic REITs guideline in November 2005. The guideline was the first to be

introduced globally and the market has shown positive growth ever since. In Malaysia, the

Shariah-compliant asset management is having a positive growth in the increasing number of

market capitalisation from 2011 to 2013. As depicted in Table 1, the market capitalisation of

Islamic REITs alone increased significantly from RM 2.9 billion to RM 15.04 billion in 2011

and 2014 respectively. Currently, there are sixteen Malaysian Real Estate Investment Trusts

(M-REITs) listed on Bursa Malaysia, of which, three are Shariah-compliant namely Axis

REIT (where underlying assets are diversified property portfolio of commercial and

industrial), Al Aqar REIT (where underlying assets are healthcare properties) and the stapled

KLCCP REIT (where underlying asset include the prominent KLCC twin towers). The

number of I-REITs decreased from four to three in 2014 due to one of the Islamic REITs

which is Al-Hadharah Boustead REIT (where underlying assets are plantations) was delisted

from Bursa Malaysia and become private companies.

Table 1: Islamic Fund Management – Islamic REITs

Islamic Real Estate Investment

Trusts (REIT)

Dec

2014

Dec

2013

Dec

2012

Dec

2011

Number of Islamic REIT 3 4 3 3

Total industry 16 17 16 15

Market Capitalisation of Islamic REIT

(RM billion)

15.04 14.14 3.47 2.9

Total industry 35.67 33.13 24.59 16.3

% to total industry 42.16% 42.68% 14.11% 17.8%

Source: Author’s compilation from Annual Reports and Securities Commission (2015)

2.1 Shariah Guideline of Real Estate Investment Trust

The key difference between the Islamic and the conventional investment vehicle is mainly

that the Islamic fund needs to adhere to the Shariah principle. In Islam, the Shariah principles

and the Islamic law are based on the Holy Quran and the Sunnah (the sayings and conduct of

the Prophet Muhammad PBUH) which guide Muslims in their daily life. These Islamic laws

cover all aspects albeit the science and technological aspect to the socio-economics. In the

aspect of economics, the Islamic financial services industry includes the Islamic banking,

Islamic insurance (Takaful) and the Islamic capital market. The Islamic capital market is the

market where all transactions and operations must comply with the requirement of the

Islamic law. The main Shariah principles governing the Islamic capital market are the

prohibition of riba (usury) and gharar (ambiguity or uncertainty) in any contracts such as

sales and lease contract agreement to avoid disputes between parties.

The prohibition of riba is clearly stated in various verses in the Holy Quran. Islam renounces

excessive overcharging such as riba because it represents an unequal distribution between the

capital provider and the borrower. Documentary evidence shows that the practice of

excessive overcharging was also renounced by Christianity, Judaism and early Greek scholars

such as Aristotle, Plato and Eugen von Bӧhm von Bawer (Hossain, 2009; Rubin, 2011). On

the other hand, gharar in the fund management activities is perceived by the lack of

clarification in terms of the exchange contract. Therefore, gharar can be eliminated by

stipulating a definite and transparent terms of agreement in the sales or lease contract to

clearly clarify on quantity, quality, price and delivery of a product or services provided.

Further, in line with the Islamic and ethical attribute, the Islamic capital market shies away

from investment in certain economic activities or businesses that are considered incompatible

with Shariah law (such as the production of intoxicants, gambling, pornography) and other

unethical practices (for instance withholding the supply to increase the market price and

seller to conceal the information on price and quality of a good or service).

Among the Islamic capital market products and instruments include the Islamic Equity

Market in which I-REITs has been introduced. The revised screening methodology for

Shariah-compliant status by Securities Commission of Malaysia, which was enforced in

November 2013, highlights a stringent two tier approach which includes the company’s

business activities and the financial ratios. Firstly, a stringent benchmark of 5% is applied to

all sector for business activities except 20% benchmark for hospitality or tourism sector.

Secondly, the allowable allowance is not more than 33% for financial ratios either in the form

of cash over total assets (cash ratio) or debt over total assets (debt ratio). Otherwise, the funds

are considered as Shariah non-compliant.

Malaysian I-REITS must comply with the requirement of Malaysian Securities Commission

Act 1993 as well as the Guidelines on Islamic Real Estate Investment Trusts (Islamic REITs

Guidelines). The Guidelines require the need to establish a Shariah Advisory Committee and

to ensure all operations comply with the Shariah principle. For instance, all activities

pertaining to investment, deposit and financing of I-REITs must comply with the Shariah

principle. According to the Islamic REITs Guideline issued by Malaysian Securities

Commission (2005), the rental activities are considered permissible except for financial

services based on riba (usury); conventional insurance; gambling or gaming; manufacture or

sale of non-halal products; entertainment activities that are non-permissible to the Shariah;

manufacture or sale tobacco based products; stockbroking or share trading in non-Shariah

compliant securities; hotels and resorts. Apart from these activities, the Shariah Advisory

Committee can also apply ijtihad (process of reasoning by interpretation from the sources of

Shariah law, the Quran and the Sunnah by Islamic jurists to obtain legal ruling or decision) in

examining other non-permissible activities to be included in the tenant selection for I-REITs.

The property insurance in I-REITs must be based on Takaful scheme (a type of Islamic

insurance which comply with the Shariah laws) and in the case of forward sales or purchase

of currency, the fund manager for I-REITs is encouraged to deal with Islamic Financial

Institutions.

Figure 3 illustrate the structure of I-REITs and the key concept of Shariah frameworks. The

unit holders or the investors buy the shares of I-REITs and expects return in the future. Since

I-REITs are a form of trust, a trustee is needed to protect the interest of the public and acts on

behalf of the investors to ensure the fund manager manages the fund well. A Shariah board

which acts as an advisor, needs to be established to ensure all operations comply with the

Shariah principles. For instance, the Shariah Board will not allow an investment if their non-

permissible income exceed the requirement benchmark of 20%. A property manager is

appointed to give the property management service to ensure that all properties owned by I-

REITs are well maintained in order to secure the growth in rental or income payable by the

tenants. For the selection of new tenants once the lease expires, the fund manager need to

ensure that all tenants’ business activities comply with the Shariah principle and 20%

benchmark of non-permissible activities.

Figure 3: The key concept of Malaysian Islamic Real Estate Investment Trusts

3. ISSUES AND CHALLENGES OF I-REITs

3.1 Islamic REITs and SRI or ethical investment

Islamic funds cater to a specific market as the Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) or

ethical investment do. Therefore, there is a lot of discussion now as to what extend the

similarity of Islamic Funds are to an SRI or the ethic investment. The Islamic funds’

ISLAMIC REAL ESTATE

INVESTMENT TRUSTS

UNIT HOLDER/

INVESTORS

TRUSTEE

FUND

MANAGER

SHARIAH

BOARD

(Advisor)

PROPERTY

MANAGER

PROPERTIES

(underlying

assets)

TENANT

*No riba (usury)

transaction/

conventional loan

*Takaful

Insurance

*No gambling/

casino, liquor,

non-halal food

(20%

benchmarks)

screening methodology can be conducted through qualitative (sector) and quantitative

(financial) screening. In the case of I-REITs, to some extent the screening methodologies for

the allowable tenants (sector) are similar to ethic investment or the SRI for instance screening

out the tobacco, alcohol and weapons sector in the investment portfolio. SRI and ethical

investment screening methodology filter out any investment based on tobacco, alcohol,

animal cruelty, human rights and pollution. However, unlike SRI or ethic investment, Islamic

REITs or Shariah funds are allowed to invest in energy consumption or non-green-

sustainability investment if it could generate the return and encourage the economics growth

of the society.

It is interesting to see the performance of these unique and specific market as both SRI and

Islamic funds shows similarities of underperforming the market prior the Global Financial

Crisis, (GFC) (Jones, Van Der Laan, Frost, & Loftus, 2008; Ong, Teh, Soh, & Yan, 2012).

However, SRI outperform the conventional funds in US and EU using a non-parametric

methodology and consider the risk and return of the funds (Ito, Managi, & Matsuda, 2013).

The better performance shows a positive and high potential in the specific market for

investors’ consideration. Greater acceptance of non-Muslim investors to Shariah-compliant

capital market certainly will take some time in the future align with the market growth. The

gap between those two specific markets can be bridged if the Islamic funds investment could

focus on socially and ethically based investments to attract non-Muslim SRI investors into

the Islamic capital markets (see Bennett & Iqbal, (2013) for further reading on bridging the

gap between SRI and Islamic financial markets). There are two major developments in

bridging the gap between these specific markets. First, SRI and Islamic funds are bridged as

Islamic ‘green’ funds which are launched by UK Islamic Bank Gatehouse and the Swiss Fund

Management Company Sustainable Asset Management in 2009. Secondly, the combination

of ethical investment and Islamic principles by F&C Asset Management and BMB Islamic in

the same year (Lewis, 2010).

3.2 Guidelines in Islamic REITs

Singapore, UAE and Bahrain follow Malaysia’s lead in Shariah-compliant products when

they launched their first Shariah-compliant real estate investment funds namely Sabana REIT

and Dubai Islamic Bank’s Emirates REIT in 2010 and Bahrain’s Al Salam Bank Asian

Islamic REITs fund in 2014 respectively. Singapore’s Sabana REIT becomes the world’s first

REIT adopting the standard of Shariah compliance which has been well accepted by

investors in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Under this guideline, Sabana REIT should

not exceed than 5.0% of its gross revenue from non-permissible rental income. All tenants’

business operations are considered permissible except for riba (usury) transaction, gambling

and casino operations, sale of liquor, tobacco and non-halal food items among others. For the

purpose of leverage or debt, Sabana REIT is allowed to take up to one third of Net Asset

Value or market capitalisation if Shariah products are not available in the market. Table 2

shows the key differences in Shariah compliance policy implemented by Malaysian REITs

and Singapore’s Sabana REIT.

Table 2: The differences in Shariah compliance policy implemented by Malaysian REITs

and Singapore REIT.

Source: Thomas (2014)

3.3 Performance and diversification benefits of Islamic REITs

Previous studies adopted several methods in their performance analysis of Malaysian REITs

(both conventional and I-REITs) which include the composite index measurement of Sharpe,

Treynor and Jensen in comparison to other investment vehicles in the market. Ong et al.,

(2012); Yusof & Bin Mohd Nawawi, (2012) revealed that Malaysian REIT outperform the

equity market index during and post GFC. In a study by Hamzah, Rozali, & Mohd Tahir,

(2010), Malaysian REITs outperform the market during the Asian Financial Crisis due to the

lagging effect experienced by the property sectors, but Malaysian REIT underperform the

market in the post crisis period. The lagging effect is also evidenced in the case of Malaysian

REITs as Malaysian REITs are 2 months lag behind the Asian REITs which consist of

Malaysian REIT, Singaporean REIT and Japanese REIT (Nawawi, Husin, Abdul Hadi, &

Yahya, 2010). In their study, Singapore REIT and Japan REIT have some influenced over

Malaysian REIT as the markets differ in term of status of developed countries which have

stronger market forces and good legislative frameworks. The short term lead-lag relationship

that exists can help the investors to forecast the future performance of the markets.

Comparing Malaysian REIT with the UK REIT, Alias & Soi Tho, (2011) found that the total

revenue is the main driving factor for the better performance of both Malaysian REITs and

UK REIT.

In separate studies of the Malaysian Islamic REIT versus the conventional REITs, Mohamad

& Mohd Saad, (2012) found conventional REIT outperformed the I-REIT during the GFC.

Using financial ratio analysis of I-REITs (Chuweni, Ahmad, & Mohd Adnan, 2014;

Chuweni, Ahmad, & Ting, 2014) found that the performance of each individual I-REITs

when compared with one another reflects the different strategy used by each individual

Malaysian I-REITs to maximise the shareholder’s return and interest. In term of suitability of

corporate governance for Islamic REITs, Chuweni & Ahmad (2014) suggest the best practice

of quadrilateral model of emerging governance model due to its concentrated characteristics

and pyramidal model dominants in I-REITs. I-REITs shows both financial and management

strength of Islamic REITs during the GFC (Osmadi & Razali, 2014).

According to the Global Islamic Asset and Management report by Thomson Reuters (2014),

the main reasons for investors to invest in mutual funds are diversification purposes and

performance of the funds. In term of diversification benefits, I-REITs have shown a high

degree of robustness during the GFC and could better enhance the portfolio diversification

than the conventional M-REITs and are less correlated with the stock market (Newell &

Osmadi, 2009). Using DCC-MGARCH model wavelet coherence methodology Mokhtar &

Regulation Malaysian I-REIT Singapore I-REIT

Non-Shariah income

distribution

Must not exceed 20% Must not exceed 5%

Proportion of non-Shariah

debt

0% Up to 1/3 of NAV or market

capitalisation

Masih, (2014), show that investing in I-REITs does not add to the riskiness of the investment

portfolio indicating the diversification benefits in an investment portfolio.

3.4 Limitation of investment universe

There is a limitation in the investment universe for I-REITs. The incomes generated are

mainly from the rental activities of the tenants in the properties portfolio. The screening of I-

REITs requires the rental collected from the tenants to comply with Shariah principles. The

screening methodology based on Shariah principles need to be considered in the selection of

tenants once the lease expires. However, as depicted in Table 2, the margin or benchmark for

non-permissible income differs between the Malaysian I-REITs and Singapore I-REIT as the

former imposed a 20% benchmarks to attract other property investment sectors into I-REITs

market, and Singapore with a stringent 5% benchmarks. The non-permissible activities as

illustrate in Figure 3 include the forbidden of riba (usury given based on conventional loan)

in financial activities and the selection of tenants operations must not be based on gambling,

casino, liquor, or serving non-halal food. However, in terms of proportion of non-permissible

debt, Singapore reserved 33% of the market capitalisation or Net Asset Value for future

leverage or business expansion. The Malaysian guideline did not allow such conventional

debt. Therefore, Malaysian I-REITs opt for the issuance of Islamic Sukuk, for instance in the

case of Axis REIT and KLCC REIT, to generate more capital growth.

In separate matter, SRI and ethical investment also have limitation in the investment universe

similar to I-REITs. In a study on the non-financial attributes of ethical investment in SRI,

there is no evidence showing that the funds underperformed or outperformed their

conventional counterpart (Renneboog, Ter Horst, & Zhang, 2011). Further research could be

done as to whether the limitation of investment universe affects the performance or provide

diversification for these specific markets.

3.5 Purification of non-permissible income

Islamic REITs involve purification of non-permissible income. A portion of non-permissible

incomes from the Islamic REITs is purified by way of donation to charity. There are two

different approaches for purification. The first approach is the percent of non-permissible

income per dividend which is purified at the distribution date. So, the purification benefit

then takes place if there is a fund underwrite at distribution date. The 5% flat rule of dividend

received need to be given to charity. The latter approach is based on a percentage of non-

principle income per share, which needs to purify whether or not the investments faced gain

or loss. The calculation could be performed by simply looking out at the percentage relative

to the investment total.

The choice of charity organisation for this purification purpose is another issue to be

addressed as to whom received the right to decide on the choice of charity organisation

whether the decision lies in the hand of the fund managers or the investors. There are two

options for the purification methodologies. First, the fund manager may perform purification

deduction before distributing the dividend to investors. Second, the fund manager, after the

amount is calculated, may notify the investor and deliver the amount of money to the

investors so that the investors can make their own purification donation to charity. In order to

guide on the suitability of the charity organisation, some Muslim scholars has point out that

the money could be used for disaster relief regardless of the religion or nationality of the

victims. The money will then could be used to help the victim of disaster such as providing

basic necessities for flood victims.

3.6 Governance issue

Malaysia has the largest Islamic funds followed by Saudi Arabia and Luxembourg with 263

funds, 163 funds and 111 funds respectively (Thomson Reuters, 2014). In terms of special

purpose entity (SPE), unlike Saudi Arabia and Luxembourg which needs a company to

operate, Malaysia has a trust law for the operations. The significance of having a trust law

and not a company is that under the trust law, it is not necessary requires a company to

operate the REIT. These affect the ownership structure of REIT. In a trust, there will be no

owner as it pools the money from the investors as opposed to a company where there

ownership structure is directly to the owner of the company. The choice of jurisdiction affects

the investment strategy of targeting the right investors as the Malaysian funds target the

institutional investor while the GCC funds particularly target the Saudi Arabia with the High

Net Worth Individuals to invest and own the funds (Thomas, 2014). Both Malaysia and

Luxembourg imposed a tax exemption for Islamic funds to attract more investors into the

market. Currently Saudi Arabia is reviewing the Foreign Investment Regulation especially in

the matter of foreign ownership in order to introduce more incentives to the foreign investors

(“Herbet Smith Freehills,” 2013).

3.7 Recent development in index

IdealRating, a San Francisco-based company, recently launched the first Shariah-compliant

REITs index for Asia Pacific in March 2015. As the name suggested, the index will cover the

region of Asia Pacific with the view of expanding the index globally in the future, which

allows the fund managers to benchmark the performance of either the funds or the sector. The

creation of this index is seen as another step forward in the untapped potential of Islamic

capital market. The index require REITs operation to be at least half of their income and

revenue to comes from the Asia pacific region to be included in the index and the REITs

which is calculated in US Dollars covers the jurisdiction of Australia, Japan and Singapore

with market capitalisation-weighted and free-float index rebalanced quarterly (RedMoney,

2015).

4. CONCLUSION

This paper has identified a number of issues that need to be addressed in a Shariah-compliant

investment. There is a lack of standardisation of the screening methodology used by the

Malaysian I- REITs and Singapore I-REITs as the latter follows the GCC guideline to capture

the investors mainly from the Gulf countries. The difference can be seen in term of the

percentage of non-permissible rental and the proportioned of conventional debt. The non-

permissible income need to be purified by giving to charity organisation using either the

dividend or share approaches.

To some extent the screening methodologies of Shariah-compliant products for the allowable

tenants are similar with ethical investment or the SRI. The I-REITs do not contravene the SRI

or ethical investment and the gap between the investments can be bridged if the Islamic funds

skewed the investment portfolio towards the socially and ethically investment to capture

more SRI investors’ interest into the Islamic capital market. Even though there is a limitation

in the investment universe, previous studies report that I-REITs provide better diversification

option and shows better performance compared to equity market during the economic crisis.

The introduction of the Shariah-compliant REITs index for Asia Pacific allows the fund

managers to benchmark the performance of either the funds or the sector to encourage more

investors to consider REIT in the asset allocation investment decision making. Further

research will be undertaken by considering all the issues and challenges of I-REITs in the

aspect of the management and operations to increase the efficiency level and better

performance in order to capture more investors in this specific and promising market.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors would like to acknowledge AbdulKader Thomas, President and CEO of

SHAPETM

Financial Corp for the inputs as well as reading material given in the course to

prepare the research paper and is greatly appreciated.

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