Maybank Islamic Bullish, on Track to Record RM1Bil in Pre-Tax Profit for 2012

By CHOONG EN HAN
han@thestar.com.my

PETALING JAYA: Maybank Islamic Bhd is on track to record RM1bil in pre-tax profit for its financial year 2012 by leveraging on its parent Malayan Banking Bhd's (Maybank) global wholesale business and community financial services to carve its own niche in the market for Islamic finance.
Maybank Islamic chief executive officer Muzzaffar Hisham told StarBiz that healthy deposit levels, coupled with a growth in asset base with a good mixture of deposit and liabilities, would help to fuel the company's growth.

“Maybank Islamic is well on track in achieving the target of one-third Islamic financing contribution to the group's total domestic loans and advances by 2015,” he said.

Last year, the Islamic bank's total group domestic loans contribution expanded by 28.5% from 26.1% a year earlier, while also recording a pre-tax profit of RM567.1mil. “The beauty of Maybank Islamic is that we can cut across the three key pillars of the larger group and embrace a pragmatic approach to venture into different areas of businesses that we don't want to lose out on,” he said.

Riding on the slew of projects under the Economic Transformation Programme, the bank is also excited on the prospects of fund-raising activities arising from these projects. “We have identified many opportunities to tap on, especially with regards to raising funds as private parties are expected to finance most of these projects. For example, it has been announced that the My Rapid Transit project is expected to raise as much as RM30bil for the development,” he said.

He said the sukuk business in Malaysia had grown tremendously well, with more sukuk issuance compared with conventional bonds. “Besides the strong support from the authorities, it is just simple economics where liquidity from Islamic funds would need a home, and these corporate issuance via sukuk would open up opportunities to two sets of investors,” he said.

Besides focusing on the domestic market, Muzaffar said the bank was also looking at key regional markets to expand like Singapore and Indonesia. “We are seeing pockets of expansion, with the region being an obvious growth area for us. Last year, we were able to grow our cross-border financing to Indonesia by about US$500mil to US$600mil from practically zero with the welcome change of ruling in the withholding tax structure,” he said. On reports that Maybank was open to options to buying into Philippines' only syariah-oriented commercial bank Al Amanah Islamic Investment Bank, Muzaffar said the bank was always looking for opportunities to grow pragmatically and that the reports were just an overstatement.

“As what we've mentioned, we are always on the lookout for ventures and not only acquisition. Right now, our immediate opportunities are to leverage on the 50 Maybank branches to grow the Islamic finance business,” he said.

Resource : http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/4/20/business/11138664&sec=business

 

The Economic Vision of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Millionaires

Hassan Malek lives in Heliopolis, an upper-class neighborhood in Cairo full of high-end shopping malls, Italian restaurants, modern apartment buildings, and ornate villas. Much of Cairo is chaotic, crowded, and poor, and Heliopolis’s broad, manicured avenues create an atmosphere of exclusivity and privilege. It was likely jarring when, early one morning five years ago, policemen barricaded Malek’s street, ransacked his home, and threw him in jail. This was what the Mubarak regime did to men like Malek, who was not only a member of the Muslim Brotherhood but also very rich.

“They allowed me to reach a certain level, but there was a ceiling,” says Malek, 53, who as the chairman of the Malek Group runs the Egyptian branches of a Turkish furniture company, Istikbal, and a clothing brand called Sarar. Mild-mannered and serious in conservative suits, Malek would easily blend in with the Wall Street crowd. 

He calmly recalls how a state security official once told him, “You always come close to the red line.” Malek recounts: “And I said, ‘Okay, what is it so I don’t come near it?’ And he said, ‘That’s why we bring you to prison. To know it.’ ” “But what the country needs now is to look ahead,” he says on a Sunday evening in March. “We don’t want to settle scores. We bear the responsibility now.”Malek is sitting in the same Heliopolis apartment that had once been destroyed by the police. On one wall hangs a large, brown stretch of leather engraved with the 99 names of Allah; the rest of the furnishings are modest, most of them Istikbal, the brand he sells. As Malek talks, his 26-year-old son passes out chocolates; his 16-year-old daughter displays a drawing she’s done of a woman with long hair; Malek’s wife laughs about the family’s two vacations since her husband’s release. Another son plays peek-a-boo with Malek’s tiny granddaughter, who runs around squealing.

The Maleks are all the same: humble, idealistic, and self-possessed. With their polished looks and dutiful pledges to rebuild Egypt, the family gives off an earnest, “ask not what your country can do for you” vibe, as if dispatched from a less cynical era. They are part of a generation of religious conservatives ascendant in the Muslim world, whose devotion to God invigorates their determination to succeed in business and politics. As Malek says, “I have nothing else in my life but work and family.” These Islamists pose a formidable challenge to secular governance in countries such as Egypt—not only because of their conservatism but because of their work ethic, single-minded focus, and apparent abstention from sloth and sin. They’re up for winning any contest.

One year since the revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak’s government, Egypt’s former pariahs have become the country’s newest elite. Last fall the Muslim Brotherhood won 50 percent of the seats in the parliamentary elections. A few weeks ago the Brothers’ political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), nominated Khairat el-Shater, the former deputy supreme guide of the Brotherhood and its de facto leader, as the party’s presidential candidate. Malek and el-Shater are business partners who spent more than four years in jail together until their release after the revolution. On April 17, Egypt’s electoral commission permanently disqualified el-Shater and nine other prospective candidates from the race, declaring el-Shater ineligible because of a prior criminal conviction. El-Shater says he will back the candidacy of Mohamed Mursi, FJP’s chairman.

Regardless of the election wranglings, men like el-Shater and Malek, both millionaires, are likely to form the leadership core of the Muslim Brotherhood—acting, in the words of Kent State University political scientist Joshua Stacher, as the organization’s “neoliberal face.” These Brothers of the 1 Percent believe they can empower a new class of businessmen—those Egyptians who didn’t have clout during the Mubarak era—while also improving the lives of poor Egyptians and attracting investment from abroad. Their model resembles that of Turkey, where a religious middle class, encouraged by the country’s Islamic government, has driven a spectacular economic boom. But talking the language of growth is one thing; making it real in a country whose economy is as ravaged as Egypt’s is another. As Ihab el-Fouly, a businessman who isn’t a member of the Brotherhood but works with Malek on economic issues, says: “This is make-it-or-break-it time for Islamists.”

Resource : http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-19/the-economic-vision-of-egypts-muslim-brotherhood-millionaires