NEW YORK, Feb. 5, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, today announced that it has been named best Islamic index provider of the year by Euromoney magazine. Rushdi Siddiqui, global director of business development for the Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes, will accept the award tonight at the 2008 Euromoney Islamic Finance Awards Gala at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London.
Launched in 1999, the Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes were the first indexes to measure the global universe of investable equities that pass screens for Shari'ah compliance. The Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes combine Islamic investment principles with Dow Jones Indexes' objective, transparent and rules-based methodology.
"The Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes are the premier benchmarks for capturing the performance of Shari'ah-compliant stocks and bonds. As Islamic finance has continued to grow in recent years, industry participants have consistently recognized our leadership and commitment to providing objective, comprehensive measurement tools for this market segment," said Michael A. Petronella, president of Dow Jones Indexes.
The Best Islamic index provider award is a new category this year. Award recipients in 19 categories were selected by a panel consisting of Euromoney's editor, journalists who cover the region, and the head of the awards research department. Selection criteria include innovation, quantity and quality, international dimension and promotion of the Islamic finance industry of the products and services.
The Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes includes more than 70 regional, country and industry indexes derived from the flagship Dow Jones Islamic Market World Index. In 2006 the index family expanded to include the Dow Jones Islamic Market India Index, Dow Jones Islamic Market Sustainability Index, which combines Islamic investing principles with sustainability criteria; Dow Jones Citigroup Sukuk Index, the first index to track Islamic bonds; and Dow Jones Islamic Market BRIC Equal Weighted Index, which tracks Shari'ah-compliant stocks in Brazil, Russia, India and China. Islamic blue-chip indexes for Sri Lanka, Dubai and China and Hong Kong were launched last year.
A six-member supervisory board of Islamic scholars also counsels Dow Jones Indexes on the Shari'ah compliance of eligible stocks for the Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes.
There are currently more than 60 licensees with more than USD5 billion in assets benchmarked to the Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes.
For more information on the Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes, please visit www.djindexes.com. For more information on the awards, please visit the Euromoney Web site at: www.euromoney.com.
Journalists may e-mail questions regarding this press release to PR-Indexes@dowjones.com or contact Dow Jones Indexes/STOXX press office:
New York: +1-212-597-5720 Frankfurt: +49-69-29-725-290
Note to Editors:
About Dow Jones Indexes
A full-service index provider, Dow Jones Indexes develops, maintains and licenses indexes for use as benchmarks and as the basis of investment products. Best known for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow Jones Indexes also is co-owner of the Dow Jones STOXX indexes, the world's leading pan-European indexes, and together with Wilshire Associates, provides the Dow Jones Wilshire Global Index family, which is anchored by the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 and covers more than 12,000 securities in 59 markets. Beyond equity indexes, Dow Jones Indexes maintains a number of alternative indexes, including measures of the hedge fund and commodity markets. Dow Jones indexes are maintained according to clear, unbiased and systematic methodologies that are fully integrated within index families. www.djindexes.com
Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com) is a News Corporation company (NYSE:NWS) (NYSE:NWS-A) (ASX:NWS) (ASX:NWSLV) (www.newscorp.com). Dow Jones is a leading provider of global business news and information services. Its Consumer Media Group publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch and the Far Eastern Economic Review. Its Enterprise Media Group includes Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Factiva, Dow Jones Client Solutions, Dow Jones Indexes and Dow Jones Financial Information Services. Its Local Media Group operates community-based information franchises. Dow Jones owns 50% of SmartMoney and 33% of Stoxx Ltd. and provides news content to radio stations in the U.S.
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