Crescent Wealth managing director Talal Yassine said he believed there was a lot of "pent-up demand" for Islamic investment opportunities.
"As Australians we have zero of that market," Yassine said. Islamic funds need to comply with sharia law and so will not invest in industries involved in alcohol, weapons, pornography and gambling.
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Crescent Wealth has modeled itself on Saturna Capital in the US, which has attracted close to US$4 billion in FUM within four years, 80% of which is from outside the Islamic community, according to Yassine.
The Australian equities fund will be heavily weighted to resources, in part because of the reduction of choice that an Islamic compliant portfolio manager has at their disposal.
The equity fund is the first in a range of products Crescent Wealth plans to introduce in the next year.
Crescent Wealth expects to launch property and international equity funds by the end of this year, followed by a fixed-income fund in the first quarter of next year and a superannuation retail product at the same time.
Yassime said Crescent Wealth had the support of three of the 10 wealth creation firms working with them to bring ”grunt” to their products.
