IslamicFinance.de

Al Baraka shall provide Shari'ah-compliant finance to small projects in Egypt with cooperation with World Bank through the Social Fund and its subsidiary in Egypt. Bank authorities claimed in their statement that small projects hast become the highest priority for countries and international financial instututions due to high unemployment rates.

Capital Intelligence has reaffirmed the rating of NIG Mudaraba Sukuk at 'BBB-', even though the company's performance in past two years continues to be weak. The company is struggling due to pressure by high financing costs of its large debt and a persistently weak stock market.

Celcom has successful floated its sukuk issuance of RM5bil in nominal value, of which RM3bil received a final book. Celekom's officials also confirmed yesterday that their RM3bil sukuk has met with strong demand from asset management companies, financial institutions, insurance companies and corporate organisations.

Malaysia's CIMB Islamic Bank defended its AA+/Stable rating on MYR 2 billion Tier-2 Junior Sukuk programme, issued by rating agency MARC . The programme rating is one grade lower than bank's financial institution rating of AAA. However, MARC confirmed the stable outlook for the rating of the programme, as CIMB Bank meets their expectations for the rating category.

Saudi Binladin issued a SAR 1 billion Islamic bond, as a part of its expansion strategy. During the first 6 months of the year, total amount of issued sukuk bonds reached 13% of global Islamic bonds, due to continuous expansion of Saudi Arabian companies into funds market.

The GCC countries expect a record year for sukuk issuances in 2012. Already the first half of the year was marked by explosively growing sukuk issuances that reached to US $12.8 billion compared to US$1.9 billion issuead in the same period last year. The sukuk market shall continue growing at the current pace, due to a strong appetite of investors that are demanding Shariah-compliant products.

According to a report by KFH-Research, the volume of issuance of international Sukuk in July reached USD 12.9 billion. Since the beginning of the year, this amount is as high as USD 79.3 billion. A significant market expansion for the third consecutive month is observed. The total issuances so far for the current year mark an increase of 51.2% compared to the same period last year.

This week, sukuk yields have reached a seven-year low, the declines are expected to continue. As the main reason the strong support of the sukuk demand by Asia and the Gulf is pointed out. The average yields approach the levels of January 2005.

The Development Bank of Kazakhstan issued the first sukuk in the former Soviet Union worth $75 million. It is expexted that this sukuk will soon be followed by a number of new issues in the country. The issued bond will generates an annual payment of 5.5 per cent and is a part of the bank's Islamic note programme worth 1.5 billion ringgit. THe programme is subjected to the sharia principle of murabaha.

Additional costs for issuing an Islamic bond no longer have to be paid - the "sukuk premium" is gone. As a senior executive at Deutsche Bank explained, this will result in a hige increase in sukuk issuance. At the same time, tenors will become longer. Until last year, the reasons of common premium payment were that issuers catered to a smaller investor base. Also, in comparison with conventional bonds, investors were little familiar with sukuk structurs. This is now not the case any more since a heavy investor demand for sukuk this year can be observed.

Tamweel took the decision to delay the sale of a $235 million Shariah-compliant asset-backed securitisation after receiving feedback from the market. It seems that the deal structure was too complex by regional standards, which has only ever seen one previous Islamic asset-backed transaction.
Lead managers on the deal were: Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, UBS and Emirates NBD.

According to Dahlan Siamat, Indonesia will sell dollar-denominated sukuk toward the year-end. Dahlan didn't want to talk about the size of the offer.
This would be the third Islamic dollar-denominated sale made by Southeast Asia’s largest economy.
The selling of conventional and Islamic bonds in the past year was an attempt to plug Indonesias budget deficit.

Jebel Ali Free Zone FZE wants to raise a mix $1.85 billion from a bank facility and the sale of Islamic bonds to help refinance its 7.5 billion-dirham ($2 billion) debt maturing in November.
It appears that the company authorized Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank PJSC, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank PJSC, Citigroup Inc., Dubai Islamic Bank PJSC, Emirates NBD PJSC, National Bank of Abu Dhabi PJSC and Standard Chartered Plc to prepare investor meetings in Asia, Europe and the Middle East from June 5 ahead of a possible sukuk sale.

Syed Alwi bin Mohamed Sultan, the Kuala Lumpur-based head of Islamic banking for Asia Pacific at BNP Paribas Malaysia Bhd., talked about the trends in Islamic finance at the World Islamic Banking Conference in Singapore.
He noted that there is more diversification of the investor base. Potential issuance this year are from countries like South Africa, Kenya, and Senegal.

It seems that Dubai Islamic Bank has issued a $500 million (Dh1.8 billion), five-year sukuk sale after gaining good request.
Helping arrange the Regulation S transaction, after DIB met fixed-income investors in Asia, Middle East and Europe over the past few days, are: Deutsche Bank, DIB, Emirates NBD, HSBC and National Bank of Abu Dhabi.
Fitch Ratings assigned to DIB's $2.5 billion trust certificate issuance program a ‘A 'expected rating.

According to a top central bank official, the United Arab Emirates needs a centralized body for the Islamic finance industry to assist in developing its sukuk market further.
Saif al Shamsi, assistant governor for monetary policy and financial stability, noted that the law calls for a central sharia committee at the federal level that would work with sharia boards at the corporate level but that has not been enabled yet federally.

The National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) has launched its Sukuk Income Fund, a unique product investing in Sharia'h-compliant investment instruments that provides investors attractive returns with low levels of risk.
The NBAD Sukuk Income Fund represents an open-ended and actively managed product aiming a profit rate of 5% based on current market conditions. It is for institutional and individual investors who can invest as low as USD500 either through lump sum or regular savings plans.
The Fund is intended to catch the best opportunities available to investors by investing in a range of Sukuk and money market investments that are launched by the UAE Government.

Indonesian two-year sukuk dropped last month, raising up yields by the most since September, as Standard & Poor's.
S&P didn’t associate with Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings, which have allowed Indonesia investment-grade status in the past five months, declaring the nation at risk from “policy slippages” such as the failure to reduce the fuel subsidies.

Animated by the global economic turmoil, global deleveraging leads to a reduction in global bank credit available for Saudi companies and projects. But funds are neccessary and the government is correctly hesitant to offer it directly.
Richard Banks, Director of Euromoney Saudi Arabia Conference, states that despite the fact that important progress has been made in sukuk issuance, the active names have tended to be large companies.
This year's Euromoney Saudi Arabia Conference will tske place in Riyadh on 22-23 May 2012 in partnership with the Ministry of Finance, key figures from the public and private sector will discuss how this funding gap can be filled.

Banque Saudi Fransi arranged a $2 billion Islamic bond program as part of the Riyadh-based lender’s plans to mix up its sources of financing.
Islamic bond sales in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, progressed to a record $6.55 billion so far this year as the government’s spending plan encourages companies to raise funds to invest.
Lead arrangers of the program were Citigroup Inc. (C), Credit Agricole, Deutsche Bank AG (DBK).