Investment Approach

The Fund aims to provide a total return, taking into account both capital and income returns, which reflects the total return of the FTSE EPRA Nareit IdealRatings Custom Global Extended Islamic 30/18 Capped Net Tax Index, the Fund’s Benchmark Index (Index), in conformity with Shari'ah investment principles.

The Fund is passively managed and will invest, in line with Islamic law (Shari'ah), in equity securities of real estate companies and in Real Estate Investment Trusts (“REITs”) on a global basis in developed and emerging markets that, so far as possible and practicable, make up the Index. The Index is designed to track the performance of real estate equities and REITs on a global basis. The Index applies stringent screens to exclude certain securities based on Shari'ah principles as applied by the index provider. These screens exclude equity securities and REITs on the basis of an issuer's involvement, or a tenants’ operations, as defined by the index provider, in prohibited business activities or of an issuer's financial ratios exceeding the index provider’s requirements and thresholds. The index is market capitalization weighted and free-float adjusted and also applies liquidity, size and revenue screens to ensure that it is an investible index.

The Fund uses optimising techniques to achieve a similar return to its Index. These may include the strategic selection of certain securities that make up the Index. The Fund may hold some securities which are not underlying constituents of the Index where such securities provide similar performance (with matching risk profile) to certain securities that make up the Index, provided that such action is undertaken in compliance with Shari’ah.