HC people seem to be missing the fact that Oman Infrastructure...

HC people seem to be missing the fact that Oman Infrastructure Fund (OMIF) is the sovereign fund of Oman, Oman is a muslim state and their financial institutes operate under Sharia Law. In particular they are not allowed to charge interest on loans.

Looking at the two investments made in BEC the simplest one is the 9.9% share issue - no problems there.

The JV on retirement villages has all the hallmarks of a Sharia Law loan, in particular

No interest is charged
OMIF gets 50% of profits
Investment will be repaid by BEC in 5 years at 50% of then enterprise value (with OMIF option of extension)

You cant call that a standard JV

There will probably be more of these as muslim banks are, generally, in good financial positions and not hit by GFC (no loans). These arrangements are not peculiar to muslim banks as a similar scheme has been operating for some time by WA government, here it is called "first home owners shared equity"

Will be interesting to see how BEC covers this in their annual accounts, though suspect it will be hidden off-sheet in equity accounting.

Neil