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How can marketing management be related to the below case study: BUYING SHARES in a company run by one of the finalists in this year's

How can marketing management be related to the below case study:

BUYING SHARES in a company run by one of the finalists in this year's World Entrepreneur Awards helped finalist Adam Ismail Ebrahim - CEO and CIO of Oasis Group Holdings - fund his company.

"In 1997 - when I realised that my time as an employee was coming to an end - I sold shares that I had bought in Naspers a year before its listing at R1,45, for R50," says Ebrahim, whose brothers, Mohamed Shaheen (chairman) and Nazeem (deputy chairman), pooled resources with him to start an investment company.

They wanted to provide a particular service not previously offered to Muslims, both in terms of savings and retirement. Muslims have the dilemma that their religious rules prohibit them from benefiting from the proceeds of companies involved in alcohol, tobacco, financial services, entertainment and pork products as well as companies that are highly leveraged. The use of derivatives is also prohibited.

Oasis began with R3m seed capital, with a strong focus on developing the niche market of investments that complied with Shari'ah religious law. It has since grown to be the leader worldwide in Shari'ah-compliant investments and both its global funds were rated AA by Standard & Poor's and its Crescent Global Fund received a five-star rating from MorningStar.

Ebrahim, who hails from District Six, holds a BSoc (Hons) from UCT. He later studied accounting, completed his articles at Deloitte and was seconded to the firm's London office in September 1986.

"It was an interesting time, with new regulations being implemented in the financial services sector. On top of first-hand experience of changes in the regulatory environment, I witnessed the stock market crash the following year," says Ebrahim, who gained insight into the world of investment while witnessing the contrast between "absolute euphoria caused by booming market conditions and utter depression" when the tide turned.

He returned to SA in 1988 and joined Allan Gray as an analyst, but was soon promoted to partner responsible for training managers. "Until 1996 things went very well and I felt that I was living my dream," says Ebrahim, who later found it "increasingly difficult to get motivated by my environment".

"When I resigned to start out on my own, Allan Gray offered to fund my business. However, I felt that it would be inappropriate and that I wouldn't really be independent. I wanted the freedom to paddle my own boat, to follow my own philosophy and target untapped markets with my own resources. Thus we became competitors after I had eight good years with Allan Gray gaining confidence and understanding of the industry.

"But then I made a huge mistake," says Ebrahim. "I believed people who made promises of vast amounts of money that they'd invest in the new business. On the strength of that I made the next mistake: I hired 16 people - six being highly paid CAs.

"We had no revenue, no assets, a very expensive salary bill and a very expensive cost structure - and the losses just kept mounting. To make matters worse, two weeks after getting our first institutional client, markets were hit by the Asian crisis. I know it has since become a sensitive image to use, but it was like a toddler taking his first steps along the beach just when a tsunami hits...

"But we survived - on the foundations of an investment philosophy of no volatility, which, combined with our ethical offering, proved to be a very definite and successful niche.

I fired everybody after realising they were having a ball doing nothing. We started managing the money we did have very strictly, our performance improved, losses disappeared and the company - and each of its operating subsidiaries - has never made a loss again," says Ebrahim.

"After having made every mistake possible, and having learnt very expensive lessons, performance started picking up and we decided to enter the retail market, which provided the breakthrough the company needed. People started coming to us, whereas before we had to call on people trying to convince them to invest R300 a month. Up to 65% of our sales were based on that direct model, which has led to our having the lowest churn ratio in the industry and proving how important personal relationships are in business. We now have 30 000 direct retail clients."

The Oasis Crescent Equity Fund, its flagship fund, has been the best performing equity fund since its inception in August 1998: R100 000 invested in that fund is now worth more than R1,1m and the fund has now crossed the R2bn mark.

December 2000 was another landmark for the group, when it registered its first global fund, the Crescent Global Equity Fund. That has since established itself as the world's best performing Shari'ah-compliant equity fund.

The retail retirement business was launched in 2002, providing all investors access to Shari'ah-compliant and ethical retirement savings not previously available. "We find that 30% of our clientele aren't Muslims," says Ebrahim. Oasis also launched the first Shari'ah-compliant prudential unit trust in April last year and the first listed Shari'ah-compliant property fund in November last year.

Ebrahim ascribes the success of the business - voted best collective investment scheme manager in SA for the past two quarters - to an owner-based culture and adherence to global regulatory and ethical standards. He says the Oasis model is also built on selling a product tailored to what people need and not so much on what they want, a result of building up a personal relationship with a client.

Oasis has more than R25bn of assets under management, employs 140 people in SA and Ireland and will shortly launch operations in Dubai. Through a joint venture in Malaysia, the group has exposure to Singapore, Indonesia and Brunei.

"We see SA as a great investment destination and intend to run our global business from our head office in Cape Town," says Ebrahim.

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