How was 2009 for CIMB-Principal Islamic?
It was a challenging year for us as 1 July 2008 was when we cut out the Islamic business into a legal entity. The Islamic business previously operated under the CIMB-Principal Asset Management window, but it is now cut out and housed as a legal entity called CIMB-Principal Islamic Asset Management. As such, for the first year till 2009, it was challenging because we were setting a robust foundation for our business to operate on a global basis. A good foundation is required to ensure that we achieve a global standard. To our knowledge, CIMB-Principal Islamic is the first bank-owned Islamic entity for asset management that is GIPS (Global Investment Performance Standard) compliant. Thus if you are GIPS compliant, you have client reporting based on both global and consultant standards. So to ensure that we are GIPS compliant, we make certain that the investment team is globally trained. This involved a lot of training, from marketing to investment to back room and to consultant expectati
