Dana Gas

London court to hear Dana Gas #sukuk case in September

London's High Court plans to hold a full hearing in September on efforts by Abu Dhabi-listed Dana Gas to restructure $700 million of its outstanding sukuk. Dana Gas declared the bonds invalid last month, saying they were no longer compliant with changing interpretations of the Sharia law. The judge upheld an interim High Court injunction blocking holders of the bonds from enforcing claims related to the securities against Dana Gas. However, he imposed restrictions on asset sales by Dana and its ability to raise more debt or pay dividends. The case has worried the Islamic finance industry as it has raised the prospect that other firms could justify not honouring obligations by claiming sharia-based financial standards had changed.

CIMB Islamic CEO says Dana Gas’ case is a dud, won’t hurt market

According to Mohamed Rafe Mohamed Haneef, CEO of CIMB Islamic Bank, Dana Gas’s case will leave the global Islamic finance industry relatively unaffected. Dana Gas said it no longer considered its two securities due in October as compliant with Islamic principles under UAE law. Unlike Malaysia, most Arab countries have no centralised Shariah boards to approve deal structures. In Haneef's opinion, Dana Gas’s case will probably be dismissed, as the sukuk agreement is subject to laws in both the United Arab Emirates and the U.K. A U.K. court is due to issue a ruling on Dana Gas' attempt to extend an injunction preventing sukuk holders from taking action regarding the debt. The company has proposed restructuring the notes on terms that are less advantageous to investors and plans to explain the legal action on a conference call with investors on July 6.

UAE's Dana Gas will try again to hold call on #sukuk restructuring

Dana Gas has rescheduled a telephone call with sukuk holders to this Thursday at 4 p.m. The call would outline the company's proposal to restructure its outstanding $700 million of sukuk. Dana is claiming it must exchange the instruments because they are no longer lawful following changes in Islamic finance. The company had originally scheduled the call for June 21, but on that day it decided to postpone the call. Dana said it made several approaches to an ad hoc committee of creditors to arrange a call but each invitation was declined.

Dana debacle highlights need for unified Islamic finance regulator

A recent report from Standard & Poor’s said that Islamic financial assets had accelerated toward the end of 2016, but that such progress was unsustainable in the long term. The agency pointed out too that a lack of standardization was a barrier to creating a truly global industry based in the Middle East. The Islamic economy would continue to grow but at much lower rates than in the boom years from 2007 onward. It is against this background that recent events at Dana Gas should be seen. In 2013, the company issued sukuk totaling $700 million. Dana, which does a lot of its business in Egypt and Iraq, had problems getting paid in those countries. Earlier this month, Dana said it had received new legal advice which meant its sukuk were no longer to be considered Shariah-compliant. The Dana debacle confirms the belief that what is really needed is a much more standardized regulatory approach in the Islamic finance market.

Fitch: Dana Gas case highlights #Sukuk's legal uncertainties

According to Fitch Ratings, credit rating implications for sukuk arising from Dana Gas's attempt to have its mudaraba sukuk declared unlawful will take time to emerge. The impact of the move remains unclear until all relevant proceedings are resolved. Fitch added that sharia compliance typically does not have credit implications for Fitch-rated sukuk. Fitch does not rate Dana Gas or its sukuk. Dana Gas started court proceedings in the UAE to have its sukuk declared unlawful and unenforceable in the UAE. Sukuk regulations have been introduced and updated in several countries in recent years, but standardisation, harmonisation and legal precedents are limited in most jurisdictions. This case could set an important precedent for the relationship between sharia compliance and credit risk, and give greater clarity on enforceability.

Moody's: Dana Gas Shari'ah breech is credit negative for #Sukuk investors

Dana Gas petitioned the English High Court of Justice for injunction after commencing legal proceedings in Sharjah courts to have its Mudharaba Sukuk declared unlawful. Dana Gas publicly stated on 13 June 2017 that its $700 million Sukuk in its present form is not Shari'ah compliant and is therefore unlawful in the UAE. If the company's petitions are upheld by the Sharjah courts, it would trigger a standstill on the two upcoming contractual payments, a credit negative for the Dana Gas Sukuk investors. Although most investors regard the company’s announcement as a tactical move in its debt negotiations, a ruling in favour of Dana Gas would potentially send shockwaves among Islamic finance and Sukuk investors.

Fitch: Dana Gas Case Highlights #Sukuk Legal Uncertainties

According to Fitch Ratings, credit rating implications for sukuk arising from Dana Gas's attempt to have its mudaraba sukuk declared unlawful will take time to emerge. The impact of the move remains unclear until all relevant proceedings are resolved. Fitch added that sharia compliance typically does not have credit implications for Fitch-rated sukuk. Fitch does not rate Dana Gas or its sukuk. Dana Gas started court proceedings in the UAE to have its sukuk declared unlawful and unenforceable in the UAE. Sukuk regulations have been introduced and updated in several countries in recent years, but standardisation, harmonisation and legal precedents are limited in most jurisdictions. This case could set an important precedent for the relationship between sharia compliance and credit risk, and give greater clarity on enforceability.

Goldilocks Investment builds Dana Gas stake

An Abu Dhabi Global Market fund, Goldilocks Investment, has acquired 5% of Dana Gas. Goldilocks has a reputation of buying companies going through financial difficulties. Goldilocks has recently acquired 350 million shares in Dana Gas, which has seen its share price rise by nearly 70% in the past month. Goldilocks is part of Jassim Alseddiqi's Abu Dhabi Financial Group, a diversified investment company with about US$5 billion under management. Dana Gas has assets in Egypt and the Kurdish region of Iraq that have had good operational results but have suffered from erratic payments. Dana Gas also has an ongoing dispute with holders of its $700 million in sukuk, for which it has taken preemptive legal action to avoid a declaration of default.

Lessons from Dana Gas #Sukuk debacle

Dana Gas invited holders of its outstanding sukuk to open discussions on restructuring the payment. The reason given by Dana Gas was that the sukuk has now been declared non-syariah compliant and, therefore, not valid. The company also proposed to exchange the sukuk with a new four-year enforceable, syariah-compliant instrument. It seems that Dana Gas is trying to restructure cheap on the back of credit deterioration, hiding behind the façade of syariah validity. Moreover, the company has filed for protection in the Federal Court in Sharjah to impose its structuring plan on certificate holders. It is obvious that the sukuk debacle may have serious implications for Dubai’s ambitions of being a premier sukuk origination and Islamic economy hub. The Dana Gas sukuk is a failure of inadequate capital market legal framework, underdeveloped regulatory framework and a serious lack of uniformity.

Dana Gas’s #sukuk move is a surprising one

Dana Gas’s sukuk move is a surprising decision as it could have a detrimental effect on Dubai's goal of becoming the Global Centre for Islamic Finance. Financial analysts agree that Dana's manoeuvre to invalidate its own sukuk on Sharia non-compliance grounds harms the whole Islamic finance sector. Several questions arise and Dana Gas provides no answer. It is difficult to understand how Dana went from "discovering" the "unlawful" nature of the sukuk to getting injunctions in at least two jurisdictions without actually managing its communications. When DG acts in this way, it does not only potentially harm Dana's creditors but every investor in the UAE and the whole financial system.

#UAE's Dana Gas gets injunction from English court blocking claims on $700 mln #sukuk

Dana Gas obtained an injunction from the English High Court of Justice in London restraining sukuk holders from taking any hostile action against the company. The company obtained similar injunctions from the Sharjah Federal Court of First Instance in the United Arab Emirates as well. Dana Gas announced last week that its outstanding $700 million sukuk were not sharia-compliant and were therefore unlawful in the UAE. The company said it would therefore halt coupon payments on the sukuk, and proposed exchanging the sukuk for new Islamic bonds with lower profit distributions.

Islamic finance #risks raised by Dana Gas case

Dana Gas applies Shari’ah non-compliance as a cause for restructuring. Dana Gas has proposed a restructuring to holders of its $700 million of Sukuk maturing in Oct 2017. Its proposal is on the basis that these Sukuk are no longer Shari'ah compliant because standards of interpretation have changed since they were issued in 2013. Dana Gas is seeking to have its existing Sukuk declared invalid in a UAE court and this court has granted Dana Gas an injunction protecting it from claims until the case is decided. If the precedent of revisiting Shari'ah compliance infects the Islamic finance industry, there is greater risk of a loss of confidence in other markets too. There are many examples of distressed conventional bond borrowers engaging in opportunistic negotiating positions. The result was higher cost of borrowing for them rather than for the broad asset class.

Dana Gas bid to void #debt stuns analysts who question motive

The gas producer's decision to declare its own Shariah-compliant bonds unlawful has baffled investors all over the world. Sharjah-based Dana Gas said it no longer considered its two Islamic bonds totalling $700 million issued four years ago as Shariah compliant under UAE law. The move comes after Dana Gas announced plans in May to restructure the debt. The company is owed about $1 billion from Egypt and the self-governed Kurdish region in northern Iraq. Dana Gas plans to replace the current sukuk with four-year bonds paying less than half of the current profit rates and without a conversion feature. The Sharjah Federal Court of First Instance has issued an injunction while it considers Dana Gas’s application. Dana Gas said it won’t pay its next two profit distributions on July 31 and Oct. 31, and that they will be accounted for as part of the new instrument.

#UAE's Dana Gas invites #sukuk holders to a call to discuss sukuk's "unlawfulness"

Abu Dhabi's Dana Gas has invited holders of its outstanding $700 million sukuk to discuss the planned sukuk restructuring. The energy company plans to provide background on its declaration of the current sukuk's "unlawfulness". Dana Gas announced last week that its sukuk were not sharia-compliant and were therefore unlawful in the UAE.

Mideast Debt: Islamic finance industry frets as Dana Gas deems its #sukuk invalid

The decision by Dana Gas to declare $700 million of its sukuk invalid has raised concern about the safety of sharia-compliant debt instruments in general. Dana Gas received advice that its sukuk were not compliant with the Islamic sharia code and had become unlawful in the United Arab Emirates. The firm said it would halt payments and proposed that creditors exchange the sukuk for new Islamic instruments. Dana has struggled to obtain payments from its production assets in Egypt and Iraq's Kurdistan. With a cash balance of just $298 million in March, it had been expected to have difficulty redeeming its sukuk in October. Mohammed Khnifer, a senior associate at the Islamic Development Bank, said this specific sharia compliance risk was unprecedented and this incident had startled the Islamic finance industry.

#Dana Gas #venture #seeks #$26.5b damages from #Iraq Kurds

Dana Gas and its partners are looking at recovery for damages of at least $26.5 billion from Iraq’s self-governing Kurdish region for all delays in oil and natural gas projects. Dana Gas is based in the UAE and its partners in the venture named Pearl Petroleum, filed a petition in May at a federal court in Washington, DC, seeking “recognition and enforcement” of awards in a London arbitration case. The petition is part of a legal process that may allow Pearl Petroleum to seize Kurdish assets if the Kurds don’t pay awards decided in arbitration.
According to the Kurdish Energie Minister stated, the Kurdistan Regional Government “considers that the claimants’ approach in the arbitration is unconstructive and unnecessarily escalates the dispute. It will continue vigorously to pursue its rights and defend its position in all appropriate forums.”
Dana Gas and partners are pursuing claims in the London Court of International Arbitration against the Kurdish Regional Government for damages related to delays they say were caused by the Government in developing the projects.

Dana Gas receives partial payment of $50m from #Egypt

Dana Gas has received an initial payment of $50 million (Dh184 million) from the Egyptian government as partial payment of its outstanding receivables. This payment represents 18% of Dana Gas Egypt’s total overdue receivables of $283 billion (Dh1.038 billion) as of the end of first quarter 2017. Dana Gas, which pumps most of its gas at fields in Egypt and Iraq, is seeking to recover payments from both countries for overdue bills. The company was owed $1 billion from Egypt and the self-governed Kurdish region in northern Iraq. CEO Patrick Allman-Ward had previously said that the company will not make any new investments in Egypt due to delay in receiving payments. In the first quarter 2017, Dana Gas reported gross revenues of $118 million and net profit of $11 million. Overall group production was 69,900 barrels of oil equivalent per day, 16% higher compared to first quarter of 2016.

#UAE’s Dana Gas begins refinancing talks on $700 mln #sukuk

United Arab Emirates' energy producer Dana Gas has started refinancing discussions with the holders of its $700 million sukuk maturing in October 2017. The company has faced a cash shortage in the last period and is now planning to restructure its dollar sukuk which was issued in May 2013. Dana Gas CEO Patrick Allman-Ward refused to comment. The energy producer in April repaid an outstanding $60 million loan for its Zora gas field project in the UAE to avoid a breach on the facility. Dana is owed receivables of about $1 billion from Egypt and the Kurdistan Regional Government. Its cash balance as of the end of March was $298 million, slightly below $302 million as of the end of last year. To focus on cash preservation, the company reduced its operational and capital spending in the first quarter.

Dana Gas reports progress in operations, sukuk restructuring

Dana Gas said it has collected a total of Dhs271m ($73.7m) in receivables so far this year. Payment delays were behind Dana Gas's default on a $1bn convertible sukuk last year on Oct. 31, the sukuk's maturity date. Dana Gas added it was on track to complete the Sukuk refinancing process in the second quarter of 2013. The sukuk-holder meeting and final shareholder meeting to approve the refinancing transaction will be held on April 23 2013.

Dana Gas restructures sukuk

Dana Gas will pay $70 million in cash to bondholders and offers aditionally 8% coupon on remaining debt in order to buy time to restructure its sukuk. The company is facing difficult times as it missed a bond redemption on its sukuk that has matured on October 31. In order to fix this problem, Dana has made an agreement with adhoc committee of creditors, and thus earned time to restructure its finances.

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