Muhammad Farhan

COMPARISON OF VARIOUS SCREENING CRITERIA

The preferred Islamic investment format is equity. However, equity comes along with
ownership. Hence Islamic investors have to ensure that the selected companys activities and structuring are not repugnant to Shariah norms. Due to exigencies of modern business and particularly the pervasiveness of interest transactions, fully Shariah compliant equities are extremely rare. So, Shariah scholars have arrived at minimum compliance criteria which, while excluding companies in gross violation, yet provide investors a reasonably wide choice of Shariah-compliant equities.

Comparison according to the nature of business

detailed comparison of the three sets of screening norms given in the previous chapter is instructive. Dow Jones has provided an exhaustive list of different types of industries which its Shariah advisory board has classified as non-compliant. We shall use that list as the primary list for comparison. There is some unanimity regarding the industries considered as Shariah non-compliant. Convergence of views for screening on basis of nature of business is only to be expected since the Shariah compliance of an industry is mostly directly deduced from the injunctions of the Holy Quran and the Hadith. Thus, all the three sets of norms include industries engaged in the business of (conventional) finance and insurance, liquor, non-halal foods, entertainment and gambling in the list of prohibited industries. The Dow Jones list also includes the industries of Hotels, Broadcasting & Media, Defense and Real Estate and Property Development among the non-compliant industries. SEC of Malaysia explicitly allows investment in companies with mixed businesses. It has screening norms for such companies too. If such companies have a good image and their core activities are considered maslahah then such companies too can be accepted if their incomes fall within set (income screening) norms. It has three parameters here: a basic parameter applied across the board, accepts those companies whose income from non-compliant activities is less than 5% of the total income. The second parameter, allows a higher tolerance level of 10% for this ratio in case of income arising out of generally prevalent activities that are difficult to avoid (umum balwa) in a particular industry,. The third parameter lays down a still higher tolerance level of 25% for the ratio in case of companies whose business has an element of masalahah on account of that industry being in the interest of Muslims or the country, impinging on rights of non- Muslims, etc.

Meezan too does allow, though indirectly, some leeway to companies with mixed activities. It accepts companies as Shariah-compliant if; a) Its investment in non-compliant business is less than 33% of its total investment, and b) Its income from non-compliant activities is less than 5% of its total income. Dow Jones on the other hand, apparently, indirectly makes an exception only in the case of interest earnings. It accepts a company as shariah-compliant if the ratio of its cash and interest based securities to TTMAMC is less than 33%. (This ratio is discussed in detail in the next chapter). From the above it can be deduced that though Dow Jones is more stringent in excluding other non-compliant activities, it is quite liberal when it comes to interest-earning activities. Then comes Meezan. SEC Malaysia appears to be the most liberal. SEC screening criteria also has a subjective element in that it allows mixed businesses if the company has a good public perception and core activities are considered maslahah. Such subjective criteria are not advisable.

Screening on the basis of financial ratios

Some ratios used for screening companies by the three organisations have been already discussed in the preceding section on screening by nature of business. This is because those ratios were related to the nature of business of the unit. SEC, Malaysia does not use any ratios other than those earlier discussed. Dow Jones and Meezan on the other hand have screens relating to other criteria. These are the level of indebtedness of the unit, the level of receivables or total or net current assets and the level of interest income. Level of Indebtedness Dow Jones sets the acceptable level of indebtedness at less than 33% of market capitalization, whereas Meezan puts it at 45% of total assets. Considering the BSE 500 index data and applying the Dow Jones and the Meezan screens to the data we find that: a) The aggregate borrowings vary between US$ 43701 million in 2001 to US$ 55707 million in 2005, aggregate total assets correspondingly vary between US$ 140128 million in 2001 to US$ 246574 million in 2005 and the aggregate market capitalization varies between US$ 119994 million in 2001 to US$ 269790 million in 2005. b) As the ratio of aggregate total assets: aggregate market capitalization is mostly (except for 2005) greater than 1.0 (varying from a high of 1.63 for 2002 to 1.09 for 2004), the cut-off level (of 33% of market cap) of the Dow Jones criteria is more conservative than the Meezan criteria (of 45% of total assets). c) Even for 2005 (for which the above ratio is 0.91), since the Meezan criteria ratio is 45% whereas the Dow Jones is only 33%, in spite of the lower total assets to market cap ratio the Meezan criteria is still almost 25% more liberal than the Dow Jones one. d) The mean deviation of total assets values is lower than that of the market cap values. As a result even in 2005, though the aggregate of total assets at US$ 246.59 billion is lower than that

of market cap at US$ 269.79 billion, still the number of companies individually qualifying on a screen of 33% (at 294) with respect to total assets is 16% higher than that (at 253) with respect to market cap. e) Consequently the number of companies qualifying on the Meezan criteria is consistently higher (312 to 378 -78% to 85% of the sample) than the number qualifying (152 to 253 - 38% to 57% of the sample) on the Dow Jones criteria. Hence it can be concluded that the Meezan criteria is by far much more liberal on the factor of indebtedness than the Dow Jones criteria. Level of Receivables Currently the Dow Jones index sets the acceptability limit for the ratio of receivables to market capitalization at 33%. Earlier its limit was 45% and the denominator was total assets instead of market capitalization. It also stipulates another ratio, i.e. of cash and interest-earning securities to market cap with a ceiling of 33%, presumably to put a cap on the level of liquid assets. As against this, Meezan assesses the liquid assets on the basis of two screens: one using the ratio of total liquid assets to total assets with a cut-off value of 90% (i.e., minimum 10% for illiquid assets) and the other using the ratio of net liquid assets to market cap with a cut-off value of 100%. Classification of data with CMIE does not give a clear breakdown of investments into interest bearing and non-interest bearing investments, as well as into liquid and illiquid investments. Instead the available classification of data gives the breakdown of investments into other categories. The different categories and the percentage of investments in each category over the period of study is given below. Category-Wise Breakdown on Investments Investment Category
Investments in group companies Investments in mutual funds Investments in government securities Investments in approved securities Investments in assisted companies (by banks) Investments in debentures/PSU bonds Investments in shares (by banks) Other investments

Percentage of Investments
47% to 58% 10% to 12% Negligible Negligible not applicable 4% to 10% not applicable 19% to 29%

From the above it can be seen that the categories drawing the bulk of the investments are group companies and other other investments. It is not clear what part of these investments is interest-earning and what part is liquid. Investments in group companies could be in the form of shares or loans, similarly mutual funds invested in may be growth funds (equity based) or income funds (securities based). This latter category of investments will however, be liquid. Apart from the investments head, the other account head which gives the quantum of liquid and/or interest earning funds is cash and bank balances. The bulk of these comprise fixed (time) deposits with banks which earn interest but can be withdrawn at short notice, albeit with some loss of interest. However, the ratio of cash and bank balances to investments varies

from 0.44 to 0.61, i.e. the quantum of cash and bank balances is only about half of that of investments. Hence the only definite conclusion that can be drawn is that the 4% to 10% in debentures/PSU bonds is interest-earning, and the 10% to 21% in mutual funds liquid. In view of the above it is not possible to exactly quantify either the ratios for the companies studied on the basis of aggregate values, nor to know as to how many companies qualify on the basis of the relative screens using ratios based on liquid investments or interest-earning investments. As a result the only ratio that can be assessed on the basis of the database is the Dow Jones ratio relating to receivables. Comparing the two sets of criteria and using the BSE 500 data, gives the following empirical findings: a) The aggregate values for receivables vary between US$ 37.38 billion to US$60.79 billion. b) As we have seen in the previous section, a ratio using 45% of total assets in the denominator is much more liberal than a ratio with 33% of market cap. Hence, the change in the parameter has made the Dow Jones screen for assessing level of liquid assets more conservative. c) Though it is not possible to exactly quantify the ratios involving liquid or interest-earning investments or securities, it can still be deduced that the Meezan criteria of liquid assets to total assets is more liberal than the Dow Jones criteria of Receivables to market cap as even the ratio of cash and bank balances plus investments (liquid as well as illiquid) to receivables is consistently lower than 1.0 (varying between 0.5 and 0.9. c) Comparing the parameters used by Dow Jones and Meezan, we find that on the criteria of liquid assets too, Meezan is more liberal than Dow Jones. d) The only criteria that can be applied to the companies in the BSE 500 set is the Dow Jones one involving receivables. On this criteria between 101 companies (in 2002) to 263 (in 2005) qualify. The data has been extracted from a Harvard Paper, Shariah Compliant Equity Investments by M.H. Khatkhatay & .Shariq Nisar.