Zurich Takaful Malaysia has collaborated with Blackrock to launch the Shariah Global Edge Fund, according to a statement from the Malaysian firm.
Zurich Takaful, which provides shariah-compliant insurance and investment products, is a subsidiary of Zurich Malaysia and is part of the Zurich Insurance Group headquartered in Switzerland.
The underlying fund of the Shariah Global Edge Fund is an ETF managed by Blackrock, the statement said. According to the Zurich Takaful’s website, the product is a feeder fund that invests its assets into the iShares MSCI World Islamic Ucits ETF.
The fund is available through Zurich Takaful’s investment-linked products, which are accessible via the firm’s 6,000 planners in Malaysia.
This is the first time that Zurich Takaful has partnered with a foreign asset manager. Its other funds, which are focused on Malaysia’s domestic markets, are either managed internally or are feeder funds that invest in products managed by Principal Asset Management (formerly CIMB-Principal Asset Management), according to the firm’s website. Its domestic offerings include equity, fixed income and mixed-asset funds.
Blackrock believes that the fund should be resilient against the current market volatility caused by Covid-19.
“Technology and healthcare sectors comprise of more than 40% of the MSCI World Islamic Index, and these types of companies are beneficiaries from the stay-at-home economy,” Geir Espeskog, Blackrock’s head of iShares for Asia-Pacific distribution, said in the statement.
“Investors will continue to diversify and search for growth opportunities across regions and sectors amidst uncertainty and develop a preference towards companies that score highly on ESG,” he added.
