Deals & People August 4, 2009

Dow Jones Indexes Recruits Founder of Failaka

Global index provider Dow Jones Indexes has named Tariq Al-Rifai as its new director of Islamic indexes.

Reported by

According to an announcement, Al-Rifai was tapped to bring his “extensive expertise as a leading authority on Islamic equity and private equity funds to Dow Jones Indexes to further advance its leading position in providing Shari’ah compliant indexes to the investment world.” He will be based in Dubai and will focus on extending the reach of Dow Jones Indexes’ Shari’ah compliant index products globally.

The press release notes that his key responsibilities will be to work with Dow Jones Indexes institutional clients to identify new business opportunities, develop new Shari’ah compliant indexes, and work with money managers and educate investors. He will be the main liaison between Dow Jones Islamic Market Shari’ah Supervisory Board of five international scholars and Dow Jones Indexes’ maintenance, research and development teams, which are responsible for screening the Shari’ah-compliant index universe as well as building new indexes.

The 13-year Islamic industry veteran founded Failaka Advisors in 1996 to promote and develop Islamic financial instruments. Since May 2004, Al-Rifai has served as vice president, UIB Capital, Inc., Chicago. Previously he was vice president Islamic Banking at HSBC Bank in New York and was partner at The International Investor, a Kuwaiti shareholding company.

You Might Also Like:

Products & Services

November 15th, 2023

Looking to Benchmark Managed Accounts? This Firm Has a Report for That

Fiduciary Decisions explains its process for comparing personalized managed accounts to options such as target date funds.

Data & Research

August 15th, 2018

Investors Consider Fund Fees When Making Purchases

Forty percent say this information is “very important” when selecting a mutual fund, ICI found in a survey.

The Markets

November 9th, 2017

Wilshire Data Highlights Impressive Market Growth for Q3

Pension funds have benefitted strongly in the last quarter—and the last several years—from strong stock market performance.

Deals & People August 4, 2009

UBS Reorganizes Wealth Management

UBS did some more rearranging of its wealth management units, but the American business will stay the same.

Reported by

Ellie Behling

An internal memo obtained by Reuters said that UBS separated its Swiss banking business from its international franchise. Franco Morra will head the new UBS Switzerland and Juerg Zeltner will lead the international wealth management business.

The two units, which previously formed a single division co-chaired by Morra and Zeltner, will continue to cooperate closely and share some administrative and cost functions, according to the news report. UBS will keep its existing Wealth Management Americas business in place, led by Marten Hoekstra.

Hoekstra took the reins in February, when UBS announced that it would split its wealth management units into an American and international business divisions (see “UBS Splits Wealth Management into Americas, Swiss Divisions”).

In the memo, UBS said that the bank was “confronted with a number of obstacles that are further delaying the turnaround of net new money flows,” Reuters reported. The memo said those obstacles include U.S. litigation and the exit of offshore business in America, as well as a reduction of the number of client advisers.

Also today in a news release, UBS announced its second-quarter results. While Wealth Management Americas recorded a second-quarter loss of CHF 221 million (about $208 million), UBS is optimistic about the future: “We have seen increased activity levels among our wealth management clients, whose investment behavior appears progressively less risk averse. This should improve the fee earning potential of our wealth and asset management businesses.”