By Lynda Kiernan, Global AgInvesting Media

Leading UK  private debt investment manager Prestige Funds announced the launch of Premium Alziraea Fund, a dedicated Islamic, Shariah-compliant real assets and project financing fund focusing on agriculture, horticulture, and renewables in the UK, which the firm notes have operated with lower defaults compared to other sectors.

Prestige Funds has raised more than $2 billion to-date internationally for its range of alternative finance funds. It is active in the SME market in the UK and the U.S., and has developed a significant in-house well of expertise in terms of managing finance for the critical smaller companies market in the UK, which accounts for more than 99 percent of the jobs in the country’s economy.

“With rising costs across almost all industrial and commercial sectors, farming, food and agriculture often remain deeply inefficient while at the same time the UK wastes more food than any other country in Europe and has a rising population,” noted the firm in an announcement outlining the fund’s launch. “There is an increasing demand for finance in productivity.”

Domiciled in the Cayman Islands, the fund, which will operate as an open-ended vehicle, is targeting an asset raise of between $50-$75 million within the first year, which it plans to deploy across a range of secured assets and project-based finance projects within its core sectors. Prestige noted that this represents an investable opportunity pipeline of between US$685 million – US$960 million over the next one to three years. It is also targeting net capital appreciation of 5-7 percent per annum with annualized volatility of 1 percent, while operating without using leverage or performance fees.

“Premium Alziraea is our first Islamic – Impact financing product and is targeting an exceptionally important part of the UK economy at a critical time in its ongoing development,” said Craig Reeves, founder, Prestige Group. “Our portfolios often finance landowners who are taking food, farm and animal waste and turning it into biogas and electricity, projects in turn supported by the UK government.”

Its strategy will follow a similar project and financing investment mandate as is managed by Prestige Fund Management, which has generated positive, consistent, uncorrelated returns for more than 12 years on approximately $750 million of assets under management.

It also will be able to leverage the combined expertise of both the Prestige Group and the team at Privilege Finance – Prestige’s dedicated, specialist Finance Arranger with a team of almost 60 people with extensive commercial banking experience with backgrounds in agriculture, renewable energy, and waste-to-energy financing.

The Fund’s Shariah advisor is Sheikh Dr. Mohamed Ali Elgari, former professor of Islamic Economics and a former director of the Center for Research in Islamic Economics at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He is also a member of numerous Shariah Boards of Islamic banks and Takaful companies worldwide.

In addition, Prestige has retained Dubai-based Kroma Capital Partners, which is regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority, as its Middle East distribution partner.

 

– Lynda Kiernan is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She can be reached at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.