Mahaana's cash fund grew 164 percent in 15 months, then PACRA put its rating on watch

Mahaana Islamic Cash Fund held Rs2.914 billion at the end of December 2025, up 164 percent from Rs1.102 billion in September 2024. The Islamic money market category it competes in grew 67 percent over the same 15 months. In March 2026 the Pakistan Credit Rating Agency, known as PACRA, kept the fund at AA+(f) but placed the rating on Rating Watch. And since 19 October the company has charged savers 1.5 percent if they withdraw within 30 days.

A licence before a product

Mahaana Wealth is led by Muhammad Shamoon Tariq, a former partner at the Swedish fund manager Tundra Fonder. In August 2022 it announced a $2.1 million pre seed round led by Vostok Emerging Finance, the accelerator SparkLabs and IGI Insurance, with Tundra cofounder Mattias Martinsson also investing. The company said the money would go directly to meeting regulatory capital requirements, because a licensed fund manager must hold capital of its own before it runs other people's money. Mahaana calls itself a digital only asset management company licensed by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan.

Its first product, Mahaana Islamic Cash Fund, launched on 29 March 2023 and is sold to savers as Mahaana Save+. It is a Shariah compliant money market fund that holds bank deposits, short term sukuk and bank financing. A second product, the Mahaana Islamic Index ETF, began trading on the Pakistan Stock Exchange on 11 March 2024. It tracks 30 Shariah compliant shares, each of which must have traded at least Rs10 million a day on average over the previous 12 months.

Growth against the category

PACRA's March 2026 report and its earlier reports give six quarter ends. The fund held Rs1.102 billion in September 2024, Rs1.649 billion in December, Rs1.920 billion in March 2025, Rs2.157 billion in June, Rs2.501 billion in September and Rs2.914 billion in December. Over the same dates the category grew from Rs560 billion to Rs937 billion. Dividing one by the other, Mahaana's share of the category rose from 0.20 percent to 0.31 percent.

The last two quarters were the fastest. The fund added about 16 percent in the quarter to September and again in the quarter to December, while the category shrank 2.6 percent and then grew 5.2 percent. Growth that stays strong while the category is flat suggests new savers arriving, not the market lifting every fund.

It did not come from out earning rivals. For calendar 2025 the fund returned 10.41 percent, against 10.43 percent for its benchmark and 10.17 percent for the peer average, a gap of 0.02 points on one side and 0.24 on the other.

The cash fund is also most of the company. PACRA puts Mahaana Wealth's total assets under management at Rs3.827 billion in December 2025, so the Rs2.914 billion fund is 76 percent of it and Rs913 million sits in other products. PACRA's report does not give the management fee. As a guide, every 0.5 percent of annual fee on Rs2.914 billion is Rs14.6 million a year.

What the rating watch says

A PACRA stability rating measures how steady a fund's returns are likely to be, judged on credit risk, liquidity risk and interest rate risk. AA+(f) is the second notch from the top of its scale, which describes a very strong capacity to hold returns steady with low exposure to risk. The rating has stood at that level since 2024. The report dated 5 March 2026 repeats it with a change: the rating remains under downward pressure and has been placed on Rating Watch, citing non compliance with the criteria assigned to it.

The report does not name the criterion. It does show what moved. Government and AAA rated paper made up 55.5 percent of the portfolio in June 2025, 38.4 percent in September and 25.3 percent in December. Over the same period the share rated AA grew from 19.8 percent to 37.5 percent. By December the fund held 39.9 percent in Bai Muajjal, 37.5 percent in bank deposits, 12.1 percent in short term sukuk and 10.3 percent in Musharaka. It held no government Ijara sukuk.

A Bai Muajjal is a deferred payment sale: a bank buys an asset and sells it on credit at an agreed markup, which is the return the fund earns in place of interest. The fund's risk therefore sits mostly with the bank that owes the payment, and the bank's own rating decides how safe that claim is. The weighted average maturity of the portfolio fell from 64 days in March 2025 to 32 days in December, which cuts the fund's sensitivity to interest rate moves.

PACRA calls the redemption risk moderate. The ten largest holders owned 40 percent of the units in December 2025. At the end of June 2024, when the fund held Rs385 million, the ten largest held about 81 percent. Concentration has fallen as the fund grew, but a fund in which ten holders own four units in ten can still shrink quickly if a few of them leave.

The price of leaving early

On the fund's page Mahaana says that money withdrawn within 30 days of being invested pays an early exit fee of 1.5 percent of the amount withdrawn. The fee applies to money invested after 4 pm on Monday, 19 October 2026. Each deposit has its own 30 day clock, withdrawals are taken from the oldest deposits first, and withdrawals after 30 days are free.

At the fund's 2025 return of 10.41 percent a year, a saver earns about 0.86 percent in 30 days. A saver who puts in Rs100,000 and withdraws after 20 days earns about Rs570 and pays a fee of about Rs1,500. At that yield, every withdrawal inside the first 30 days is a loss.

This is the magazine's reading, not the company's, which has not said why it introduced the fee. The effect is to reward savers who stay for a month and to penalise those who use the fund to park cash for a few days. The page does not say whether the fee goes back into the fund for remaining holders or to Mahaana.

The first deposits made under the new rule pass the 30 day mark in the third week of November.