Last checked at 
DUBAI, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Kingdom Holding Co, theinternational investment firm of Saudi billionaire PrinceAlwaleed bin Talal, has formed a sharia board of prominentscholars in order to raise more of its funding through Islamicfinance.
The decision by one of the most prominent investment firmsfrom the Gulf is likely to be seen as a boost to the Islamicfinance industry, which obeys religious principles such as banson interest payments and pure monetary speculation.
"The sharia committee was established to study the gradualconversion of future sources for loans for the company to besharia-compliant," Kingdom said in a brief statement.
Sharia boards decide whether products and activities obeyIslamic principles. Kingdom's four-member sharia board includeshigh-profile Saudi scholars Sheikh Mohamed Ali Elgari and SheikhAbdullah Sulaiman Al Manee'a, who will serve as chairman.
Elgari serves on several sharia boards including the Islamicarms of HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank. AlManee'a is chairman of the sharia board of Saudi Arabia'sNational Commercial Bank and a member of the seniorscholars council of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Kingdom Holding officials could not be contacted toelaborate on the statement, which appeared to be a recognitionof the growing size and liquidity of Islamic capital markets.
Global issuance of sukuk (Islamic bonds), which arestructured to avoid the payment of interest, hit about $121billion in 2012, according to Thomson Reuters data, up fromaround $85 billion in 2011. Islamic banking is estimated toaccount for about a quarter of the Gulf's banking sector.
Kingdom, which holds stakes in major Western companies suchas Citigroup, News Corp and Twitter, did not giveany indication in its statement that it would adjust itsinvestment strategy in response to Islamic principles.
Last week the company posted a net profit of 209.6 millionriyals ($55.9 million) for the three months ended in December,up 11.6 percent from a year earlier.
Last October, banking sources told Reuters that Kingdom wasplanning to raise up to $500 million from a syndicated loan,with the proceeds largely to refinance existing debt. Earlier,the company had considered a maiden debt issue in the Saudi bondmarket.
