Determinants and stability of dividend payment: the case of Malaysian public-listed Shariah-compliant firms

The purpose of this paper was to examine the determinants and stability of dividend payments in Malaysia from 2007 to 2016. The purposes of this research were (1) to analyse the stability of dividend per share, (2) to examine the determinants of dividend yield, and (3) to examine the effect of dividend per share on the sustainable growth rate of Shariah-compliant firms in Malaysia. Static model and dynamic model estimated using Generalised Method of Moment were used in this research. The results indicated that the stable earnings per share can afford the firms to pay a larger dividend. Futhermore, the higher dividend from the previous year with the lower speed adjustment indicated high smoothing and stability of dividend payment. The results on determinants of the dividend yield revealed the five factors that are lagged dividend yield, firm size, sales growth, leverage, and market value to book value have a significant impact on dividend yield, with lagged dividend yield and firm size showing a significant positive effect, while sales growth, leverage, and market value to book value have a significant negative impact. In addition, the results indicated that dividend per share had a significantly positive impact on the sustainable growth rate. The results of this study are important for the management team of companies to decide an appropriate dividend policy for the company to maintain a stable dividend payment and have the financial health of a company, These results also provided the understanding of dividend policy behaviour in Malaysia, particularly on Malaysian public-listed Shariah-compliant firms

Implementation of IFRS 13 fair value measurement : issues and challenges faced by the Islamic financial institutions in Malaysia

Fair value (FV) is claimed to be superior to other forms of measurement mainly because the former is easily understood by investors and stakeholders. However, the challenges faced in deploying International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 13 FV Measurement could result in inconsistent application and unexpected costs related to the requirements of the standard. As such, this study explored the issues and challenges of implementing IFRS 13 FV Measurement faced by financial instruments, particularly within the context of Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs). Upon adopting the qualitative approach, in-depth interview sessions were held with several academicians, accountants, auditors, and professional body representatives. The study outcomes revealed that issues in implementation of FV measurement were related to the relevance of measurement and hierarchy of level of FV measurement. Notably, issues pertaining to FV measurement were highlighted from the Shariah perspective. Valuable insights on the issues revolving around IFRS 13 implementation, particularly on financial instruments in Malaysia, are presented in this study

Sovereign credit ratings and macroeconomic variables: An application of bounds testing approach to Malaysia

This paper aims to investigate the short- and long-run macroeconomic determinants of sovereign credit ratings in developing countries.Malaysia is used as a case study.This study employed quarterly data from 1991 to 2004.We apply a recently developed time series technique called ‘Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag’ (ARDL) [Pesaran, Shin, and Smith,Journal of Applied Econometrics, 2001] which has taken care of a major limitation of the conventional cointegrating tests in that they suffer from the pre-test biases.Based on the above rigorous methodology, our evidence tends to suggest that both in the short-and long- run, Debt ratios such as (Debt to GDP, Debt Service to Reserve) and US Treasury Bill rate (3-months) appear to have had a significant impact on Malaysia’s sovereign credit ratings.The findings of the study tend to indicate that Malaysia’s short- and long-term ability to pay its debt contain information for the prediction of her credit ratings.These findings are plausible and have strong policy implications for developing countries like Malaysia

Macroeconomic determinants of corporate failures in Malaysia

This research investigates the long-run dynamic linkages between the corporate failures in Malaysia and selected macroeconomic variables by employing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound test, a robust and recent time series technique which is applicable irrespective of whether the regressors are I(0) or I(1).Corporate failure rate is the ex-ante variable in a linear function model with five explanatory macroeconomic variables. A dummy variable to decipher the corporate failure rates during the Asian financial crisis was also included. The results show that corporate failure rates in Malaysia are significantly and positively associated with the average lending rate, inflation rate and, gross domestic product (GDP) in the long-run

Intermediary role performance analysis of Malaysian Islamic and conventional banks

The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of bank specific characteristics and macroeconomics variables on bank margin (NIM) which reflects the intermediary role of Islamic and conventional banks in Malaysia for the period of 2006 to 2014. By using static panel analysis, the results show that management efficiency is positively related to the bank margin for both Islamic and conventional banks. For Islamic banks, bank size and liquidity ratio have significant negative relationship on bank margin. The default risk is positively related to bank margin for Islamic banks. As for conventional bank, the non interest to total asset ratio has significant positive relationship on bank margin. Therefore, the results show that there are similarities and differences in terms of determinant factors that affect the bank margin between Islamic banks and conventional banks. These empirical results suggest an important policy on issues pertaining to how Islamic and conventional banks have to adjust the changes in the banking environment. The conventional banks have more comparative advantages specifically on management efficiency as its intermediary role performance is also not affected by size

Factors Influencing Individual Participation In Zakat Contribution: Exploratory Investigation‟, Conference Paper on Seminar for Islamic Banking and Finance, Kuala Lumpur: Faculty of Economic and Muamalat.

ABSTRACT Zakat is one of the sources of funds available within the Islamic economic and financial systems and has become a part of ijtima'i studies. Although it is obligatory for Muslims to contribute to zakat, however the amount collected is relatively very small compared to the income tax collections. One of the reasons that led to this incident could be the lack of motivation among Muslims. The aim of this study is to investigate the factors affecting individual decisions in zakat contribution hence, provide an understanding of their motivation. In this exploratory study, factor analysis has been used to provide insights into the underlying structure of motivating factors of individuals participating in zakat. Data was collected using a survey questionnaire that was designed based on past studies from both the conventional as well as Islamic literature. The main dimensions were characterised by religious, utilitarian, self satisfaction and organization factors. In the analysis, the factor extraction method used was the principal component method with the Varimax rotation. Principal factor analyses identified five factors that explained 67.32 percent of the variance in the dataset and these were the "altruism", "level of faith", "self-satisfaction", "organization", and "utilitarian" factors. Further analysis indicates that the "altruism" has the highest score followed by faith (iman), self satisfaction, organization, and utilitarian factors. Based on the sample surveyed, the initial findings indicate that participation in zakat is not only motivated by religious factor but also self-satisfaction and organizational factors. The implication is that the efforts to raise the level of zakat activities should emphasise not only the religious aspect but also the individual's and organizational dimensions. This may have significant impacts on the personal financial planning and development of Islamic economic systems in general

ATTRIBUTES AND PERFORMANCE OF FUND MANAGEMENT COMPANIES: EVIDENCE FROM THE LARGEST SHARIAH-COMPLIANT FUND MARKETS

Background and Purpose: The study examines the effect of fund management companies’ (FMCs) attributes on FMC performance in the four countries with the largest number of Islamic funds from 2007 to 2018.   Methodology: The study uses pooled regression analysis on 70 FMCs, comprising Saudi Arabia (25), Malaysia (20), Indonesia (14) and Pakistan (11). The sample is further divided into FMC with Islamic funds focused (IFFMC) and conventional funds focused (CFFMC).   Findings: Only past flows are insignificantly related to performance. Both proxies for size positively relate to returns, but only in the case of Saudi Arabia. In Pakistan, performance improves with assets under management (AUM), while in Malaysia and Indonesia, an increasing number of funds negatively relate to performance. A relatively high number of better performing funds positively affect FMC and vice versa. Additionally, there are significant differences in the factors determining IFFMC and CFFMC performance, with the number of funds and AUM positively affecting the performance of IFFMC but not CFFMC. Poorly performing funds adversely affect CFFMC but not IFFMC.   Contributions: This study provides useful information for investors using a top-down approach to FMC then fund selection, and for managers in evaluating the impact of factors like FMC scale and scope on performance. The impact of these attributes differs between CFFMCs and IFFMCs which lies in the performance differences commonly observed, at the FMC and fund level.   Keywords: Islamic funds management industries, Islamic mutual fund, fund performance, Islamic finance.   Cite as: Marzuki, A., Bani Atta, A. A., & Worthington, A. (2022). Attributes and performance of fund management companies: Evidence from the largest Shariah-compliant fund markets. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 7(1), 114-141. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol7iss1pp114-14

Comparative fund flows for Malaysian Islamic and conventional domestic managed equity funds

Islamic finance, Mutual funds, Fund flows, Fund performance

ISLAMIC VS CONVENTIONAL FUNDS WITHIN THE FAMILY: SELECTIVITY SKILLS AND MARKET TIMING ABILITY

ABSTRACT The aim of the study is to compare the performance of Islamic mutual fund (IMF) and conventional mutual fund (CMF) within the same family, in addition, to examine the performance of fund family in Malaysia for the period from 2007 to 2018. The study used eight measures of performance, raw returns, excess returns, Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio, Jensen alpha, Carhart four-factor model as selectivity models, In addition to Treynor & Mazuy (TM) and Hendrickson & Merton (HM) as market timing models. The study contributes by investigating and compares the performance at the family level. The results reported that IMFs exhibited some fund selection ability over CMFs. However, both types of funds displayed poor market timing ability. At a fund family level, the results show the fund families exhibited good fund selections skills, at the same time, fund family still exhibited poor market timing ability. The novel result of this study that the difference in performance between Islamic and conventional funds shrank compared to the results of previous studies. Due to the common advantages offered by the families for both types of funds. The findings are important to investors because the results provide new evidence about the fund families' performance. Most investors follow the top-down approach, where mutual fund investors initially choose fund families before deciding which funds to hold. In addition, the results are important for managers to decide which types of funds that they may issue in their own families, so that they can perform well in the future