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Axiata Group Bhd’s 10-year US$500mil Sukuk received strong response with a final book of over US$900mil orders. The telco company said this was a bid-to-cover ratio of over 1.8 times, and a final yield of 4.357%. The bookbuilding exercise commenced with an initial price guidance of US Treasuries (“UST”) + 2.60% area. Demand for the Sukuk issuance led to a final price guidance of UST + 2.45% area ± 0.05% at Asian close/London mid with books in excess of US$1.4bil. The Sukuk would be issued by its Malaysian-incorporated special purpose vehicle, Axiata SPV2 Bhd. Proceeds of the Sukuk Issuance will be utilised to fund the proposed acquisition of Ncell Pvt. Ltd.

Malaysian telecoms giant Axiata Group on November 13 issued a US$500 million Wakala Sukuk, or Islamic bond, to fund its investment into a Myanmar towers business. This is the largest-ever corporate bond issued with proceeds to be invested into a Myanmar towers business, demonstrating considerable investor confidence in the frontier market. Telecoms towers companies have led the way in terms of innovative cross-border financing into Myanmar – last year Pan Asia Majestic Eagle completed the first cross-border, non-recourse financing arrangement in the country.
A spokesperson for Axiata told The Myanmar Times yesterday that around $125 million of the bond’s proceeds will be used to fund the acquisition of a majority share in Myanmar Tower Company (MTC) under Axiata’s wholly owned subsidiary Edotco Group.
The remaining funds will be used for “general corporate purposes,” she said, though did not disclose whether or not this would include capex for MTC’s Myanmar rollout. In the bond’s prospectus the use of proceeds is listed as “general corporate purpose/other”.

Axiata launched a multi-currency sukuk programme followed closely by a dim sum sukuk issue. This is seen as a new level of flexibility for underlying assets in an individual deal. In September, an issue of RMB 1 billion ($158.7 million) was launched which is so far the largest RMB-denominated dim sum sukuk. For the programme itself $1.5 million were designated.

Read more on: http://www.iflr.com/Article/3101307/Capital-markets/Axiata-sukuk-signals...

As part of its Sukuk programme, Axiata Group has priced its maiden two year Chinese yuan renminbi (CNY) denominated Sukuk. The whole multi-currency Sukuk programme is planned to be worth about $1.5bn. On Tueday Axiata priced the first part of the Sukuk. It is expexted that the issue will be listed Bursa Malaysia Securities and on the Singapore Exchange. Among the banks which worked on the issue are CIMB Investment Bank, HSBC and Merrill Lynch Singapore.