Crescent Wealth is Australia’s first Islamically-compliant super fund, Crescent Finance is an Islamically-compliant lender, while the Crescent Foundation and Crescent Institute are not-for-profit organisations focused on community and refugee support and networking events respectively.

Ms Silva has more than 20 years’ experience managing large and geographically diverse teams, across multiple industries including pharmaceuticals, banking and agribusiness. As Deputy Managing Director her focus at Crescent will be holistic, she said.

“My ‘why’ is to be of service to others, and I am committed to being of service to everyone within the community. In my experience, for an organisation to be really great it needs to have balance between for profit and for the good of the community, and thanks to Crescent Wealth’s track record and investment in its not-for-profit entities, it is well placed to realise this.

“A key part of my role will involve refreshing the focus of the Group to ensure it continues to build and resonate with our growing community, while also providing clarity and differentiation in an increasingly competitive financial services sector,” she added.

Ms Silva has held a number of leadership roles including Acting CEO of TAFE South Australia, Chief Operating Officer for FleetPartners, a leading leasing and fleet management company across Australia and New Zealand, General Manager Commercial Operations at Elders, responsible for operations on a national level and prior to that held a number of roles with the ANZ Banking Group.

She has extensive board and committee experience including being Chair of InTouch Multicultural Centre Against Family Violence, Chair of Contemporary Arts Precincts, Director of AMES Australia, the South Australia Film Corporation and the Malek Fahd Islamic School.

In 2022, Ms Silva was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and has previously been named as one of Australia’s inaugural 100 Women of Influence in the Westpac/AFR Awards.

Crescent Wealth Founder & Managing Director Talal Yassine OAM said Ms Silva’s appointment was a significant milestone for the Group as it builds solid capabilities to rapidly build scale, take market share and have a much stronger community impact over the next five years.

“As a well-respected business and community heart leader with a tremendous ability to empathise and articulate a compelling vision that others will follow, Miriam is the perfect person to help the Crescent group of companies achieve its wide-ranging goals.

“She is equally at home discussing balance sheets as she is talking about cultural capital and cross-cultural relations, whether in the boardroom or community hall. I look forward to the enormous contribution she will make,” Mr Yassine said.

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As Chief Operating Officer and Head of Marketing & Growth, Rachel will lead and manage the strategic and operational growth remit that includes customer and digital engagement for the Crescent group of companies, including, Crescent Wealth, Crescent Finance, Crescent Foundation and the Crescent Institute.

Crescent Wealth is Australia’s first Islamically-compliant super fund. Rachel’s experience includes launching Islamic Banking and financial service products in the Middle East and South Asia where she drove financial empowerment strategies throughout the region.

In Australia and New Zealand, she has led the development and roll-out of marketing and communication strategies for BT Financial Group and JP Morgan, experience that will help Crescent’s growth aspirations as it looks to build out its suite of brands to realise a ‘one ethos many brands’ approach to serving Crescent’s customers and stakeholders.

Crescent Wealth Founder and Managing Director Talal Yassine OAM said the appointment was part of a strategic push by the group to rapidly build scale and increase assets under management to $5bn over the next five years.

“As a marketing and operations leader and with a background in law, Rachel has an in-depth knowledge of the Australian and global financial services ecosystem. Her focus is on ‘putting the customer first in everything we do’, which will include an innovative approach to customer service and relationship management across the Crescent group of companies.

“Beyond investing in industries and companies that comply with Islamic investment guidelines, Crescent is passionate about bringing positive change to the Australian community through support for not for profit initiatives. Rachel will also play a key role in this facet of our business,” Mr Yassine said.

Rachel holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB Hons) from the University of South Wales and is RG 146 accredited.

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Sayd Farook

Islamic finance specialist Crescent Finance has launched two innovative investment funds that for the first time will give the clients of Australian financial planners, Self-Managed Super Funds and institutional investors access to a fully diversified portfolio of hundreds of Australian residential properties.

Chaired by economist and former Liberal Party leader Dr John Hewson, the company’s flagship Crescent Growth Fund will give investors access to leveraged capital appreciation of the value of residential real estate in a broad portfolio that spans Australia’s property markets.

Residential Australian real estate has returned an average of 10.1% p.a. over the past 25 years. The companion Crescent Finance Income Fund will give investors access to rent received from the growth fund’s residential properties leased out to tenants with targeted returns of 3% – 4.45% p.a.

The funds expect to raise an initial $100 million by the end of this year and finance more than $5 billion of property transactions over the next five years.

Crescent Finance Managing Director Dr Sayd Farook said that as well as giving investors unprecedented access to ‘safe as houses’ pooled residential real estate, his company sought to turn two problems into investment opportunities.

The first was to find a way to meet strong demand from institutional investors, especially those from Southeast Asia that wanted to invest in Australia’ residential property market in an Islamically compliant way. Crescent Finance will achieve this through the structure of both funds, which will be endorsed by world renowned scholars.

Because the funds will be Islamically compliant, this in turn will allow them to be a source of residential finance for hundreds of thousands of Australians who cannot participate in Australia’s property market due to the lack of authentic Islamic options that avoid the paying of interest, which is forbidden in Islam.

Dr Farook, who is the former Global Head of Islamic Capital markets for Thomson Reuters, said the authenticity of Crescent Finance’s approach to Islamic finance set it apart.

“Crescent Finance – unlike other Islamic Finance institutions, plans to provide authentic structures whereby they co-invest funds that are not simply borrowed from a conventional bank at an interest rate and wrapped in legalese to make them appear Islamically compliant.

“Such providers have been around for many years and in effect are mortgage broking firms with a twist and do not pass the basic smell test on ‘where did you get your money from?’ Crescent Finance plans to answer that question decisively and transparently,” he said.

The potential size of the market for Islamic residential finance in Australia is estimated to be almost $200 billion. In Australia 42% of Muslims are married and Australian Muslim women have 2.5 children on average and yet only 15% of Muslims own their own homes.

Dr Farook said Crescent Finance funds would be available for investment for everyone and not just Muslims and would be offered to anyone who wanted an equitable and ethical partnership-based approach to financing their homes.

“One of our first customers is not Muslim and wants to use the legal infrastructure to purchase properties for his children using a self-managed super fund,” he added.

Dr Hewson, a long-term supporter of Islamic Finance in Australia, said he was pleased to be able to help steer the launch of the two innovate financial products.  “What excites me most is the equitable and social implications of the funds, allowing younger and previously excluded Australians to enter the residential property market, which has become increasingly unaffordable and inaccessible, given the stratospheric rise in property values relative to incomes.

“I also believe that these products will have significant appeal to a wide cross-section of Australians who are looking for ‘integrity and transparency’ in financial planning after the excesses and abuses identified by the Hayne Royal Commission,” Dr Hewson said.

Crescent Finance was established in 2020 to provide Islamically compliant residential finance. It is part of the Crescent Group which also includes the Crescent Wealth Islamic super fund which has a member base of more than 10,000 and manages approximately $300 million in funds, as well as not-for-profit entities the Crescent Institute and the Crescent Foundation.

Apart from Dr John Hewson, Crescent Finance’s board members include Miriam Silva, member of the board of CEDA, Keri Pratt, Non-Executive Director for several superannuation trustees and financial institutions, Professor Talal Yassine, Managing Director of Crescent Wealth, and Dr Farook, who until recently was Strategy and Innovation Advisor to the Office of the Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

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Bill Kelty

Australia’s newest independent think tank is celebrating its launch by arranging a star-studded discussion on the future viability of Australia’s superannuation system, just weeks before a government review body is to issue a public consultation paper on the topic.

The not-for-profit Crescent Think Tank, formed by a group of Australian and overseas academics, has confirmed former ACTU Secretary Bill Kelty, former Liberal Party leader John Hewson and former Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor Professor Di Yerbury to discuss the topic Superannuation: ‘Rebooting the system that is failing many Australians’ with over 200 business and civic leaders in Sydney on 24 October.

The invitation-only lunch and panel discussion at the Intercontinental Sydney will be moderated by multi-award winning journalist and television presenter Hugh Riminton. Bill Kelty is widely regarded as one of the fathers of Australia’s superannuation system, while Mr Hewson is one of Australia’s most experienced economists and post-politics has forged a career in sustainable development.

Emeritus Professor Di Yerbury has been a member of more than 20 government reviews in Australia and overseas and is the inaugural chair of the Crescent Think Tank, which has been formed to generate new ideas and dialogue on the issues of nation building, Australian infrastructure, socially responsible investment and Islamic finance.

Professor Talal Yassine OAM, Think Tank Board member, Adjunct at Western Sydney University and Honorary Professor at Australian National University, said the event was an ideal way to launch the Crescent Think Tank.

“A viable superannuation system is critical for the strength of the nation’s economy and the ability of future generations to retire in dignity. I expect our panel of distinguished thought leaders to quickly highlight the flaws and outdated aspects of our current system and give the three members of the retirement income review panel some valuable pointers as they get ready to start work. Keeping the status quo is not an option if Australia is to progress,” Professor Yassine said.

Mr Kelty said it was time for Australia’s politicians to once again make bold decisions, as the Hawke and Keating governments had. “Vested interests must be pushed aside as the superannuation guarantee is progressively increased to 12 percent. Superannuation funds backed by government policy should create new asset classes to address demands for infrastructure investment. These new investment classes should be partially backed by government guarantees and help fund critical infrastructure including public housing, water and roads. Super should be the backbone of Australia’s own belt and road initiative,” he said.

Professor Yerbury said the current super system favoured ‘the haves’ over ‘the have less and the have nots’. Women were also unfairly disadvantaged by an uneven playing field. “It is time our superannuation system returned to the centre and served middle Australia rather than trust fund families in the posher suburbs and the army of self-serving advisers that support them,” she said.

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Talal Yassine

Prominent businessman and academic Talal Yassine OAM has called on the Federal Government to break Australia’s cycle of underinvestment in infrastructure by underwriting local superannuation fund investment in needed infrastructure assets and using Islamic financing.

Mr Yassine, who is managing director of Crescent Wealth and has served on the boards of Australia Post, Sydney Ports and Macquarie University, said the lack of investment in infrastructure was nothing less than ‘intergenerational theft’ at a time when Australia was wealthier than at any point in its history.

Speaking at the National Infrastructure Summit in Sydney today, Mr Yassine said close to a trillion dollars of additional infrastructure investment was needed to ‘future proof’ Australia’s economic growth trajectory and quality of life for future generations.

“However, while this asset-rich, infrastructure-poor reality is becoming increasingly well-known, solutions seem too hard for the nation’s leaders to apply. This can’t be allowed to continue. It is not enough to simply be the ‘lucky country’. We need to think, plan and invest now to maintain our standards and grow into the forward-thinking nation that we all want to be a part of,” he told conference attendees.

The superannuation and Islamic finance solutions

Mr Yassine said one obvious solution was to encourage and incentivise the managers of Australia’s rapidly growing $2.5 trillion superannuation stockpile to invest in Australian infrastructure rather than send large amounts overseas to support the infrastructure needs of other nations. Currently many fund managers believed they could get better returns from lower risk infrastructure investments overseas and felt compelled to chase these because Australian law required them to invest in fund member’s ‘best interests’ which they interpret as financial. However, there were simple fixes for these issues, Mr Yassine said.

“The first would be to set up a hybrid public-private limited partnership structure under which the Federal Government could provide seed funding and use its large reserves to underwrite guaranteed minimum returns for necessary infrastructure projects, while the superannuation funds would syndicate the investments to their members.

“Member investors and all Australians would benefit now and well into the future from the government and superannuation funds taking the risks that each is best placed to take for the national good.

“It would be a relatively quick fix to amend the legislative covenant requiring superfunds to act in member’s ‘best interests’ to also include investing in projects that support Australia’s economic wellbeing. Isn’t improved infrastructure also in the best interests of superannuation fund beneficiaries?” he asked.

Islamic finance investment as a serious option

My Yassine said another source of funding for Australian infrastructure was the growing regional and global Islamic finance market. “If Australia’s burgeoning superannuation industry cannot or will not invest in infrastructure for Australia’s future, Islamic finance investment should be seriously considered.

“Islamic investment principles and values align with low risk-medium returns over the long period and with Islamic banking assets expected to reach about US$3.4 trillion globally this year, Islamic finance has the scale to be a real alternative. Only a very small fraction of this would be needed to provide Australian infrastructure with the lifeblood it needs,” he said.

“Australians who think it may be hard to source Islamic debt need only look at the United Kingdom, which in 2014 became the first Western country to issue an Islamic bond, otherwise known as a sukuk. This five-year sukuk raised GBP£200 million and was 10 times oversubscribed, with investor demand exceeding GBP£2.3 billion.

“The Australian Government is equally well placed, and possibly even better placed by geography, to issue sukuks to assist in the funding of our infrastructure. Local financial institutions, such as National Australia Bank and Crescent Wealth have expertise in building compliant Islamic debt structures, and could be used in these funding initiatives,” Mr Yassine said.

“It is also worth noting that our relatively close neighbour, Malaysia has been using the sukuk market to support its infrastructure push for a prolonged period. Malaysian data suggests that up to 60% of the US$31 billion raised via debt from Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries last year came through the Islamic finance market,” he added.

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