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Dana Gas announced it will appeal against a British court’s ruling on its $700 million sukuk, after a UAE court lifted an injunction preventing it from participating in the British proceedings. Dana previously said the sukuk was invalid under UAE law and refused to repay holders of the sukuk which matured at the end of October. The energy producer sought a declaration on the sukuk’s lawfulness at courts in the UAE and Britain. Last month, a British court ruled in favour of Dana creditors, deciding the purchase undertaking was valid and enforceable. Dana has said it aimed to appeal against the ruling because it could not take part in proceedings. A hearing in Sharjah on the validity of the sukuk under UAE law is scheduled for Dec. 25.

Pakistan gained $2.5 billion from selling two U.S. dollar-denominated sukuk and Eurobond issues in New York, according to senior official. These issues had attracted total offers of $8 billion in the process.
Pakistani authorities however decided to only sell $2.5 billion at, according to officials „affordable rates“. In an interview an delegate said: "We have raised $1 billion through five-year sukuk at rate of 5.625% and $1.5 billion from a 10-year Eurobond maturity at a rate of 6.875%," Federal Secretary Finance Shahid Mehmood said.
These two deals have been the largest in the country's history so far. The 10-year bond was the cheapest bond ever launched by Pakistan. Last year the country borrowed $1 billion in the global sukuk market at 5.5%. It also floated a 10-year, $500 million Eurobond at 8.25% in 2015.
The government appointed a consortium of Standard Chartered Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank and Noor Bank as the lead managers for conducting sukuk transactions. Noor Bank thereby will manage the Middle East sukuk bond.

The International Islamic Liquidity Management Corp (IILM) plans to expand issuance of sukuk beyond its current short-term programme to address latent demand from Islamic banks. Establishing a new medium-term programme would allow the IILM to offer a wider range of highly liquid financial instruments. The IILM currently has around $3 billion in outstanding sukuk and it could gradually increase this to between $3.5 to $4 billion, depending on consistency of demand. Around 60% of demand for IILM sukuk comes from Islamic banks in Gulf countries with the rest split across Asia and international banks. But there is also potential for IILM sukuk in non-member countries, such as Oman and Britain as well as jurisdictions such as Hong Kong and Singapore.

Nasdaq Dubai and the Nairobi Securities Exchange have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to facilitate the creation of a Sukuk sector in Kenya. The MoU was signed in Dubai by Hamed Ali, CEO of Nasdaq Dubai, and Geoffrey Odundo, CEO of the Nairobi Securities Exchange. Hamed Ali assured that by cooperating and sharing expertise, the two Exchanges will provide powerful support for the growth of Islamic finance in Kenya. Geoffrey Odundo said the development of the Islamic capital markets can provide significant support for funding national development while strengthening international relationships. Other recent steps for the sector include a Sukuk transaction on Nasdaq Dubai’s Murabahah financing platform carried out by the Africa Finance Corporation.

Emirates REIT will hold fixed income investor meetings until Dec. 1 ahead of a debut dollar-denominated five-year sukuk sale. The issuance is expected to range between $350 million and $425 million. The company has mandated Standard Chartered as sole global coordinator, and Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates NBD Capital, Standard Chartered and Warba Bank as joint lead managers and bookrunners to arrange the meetings ahead of the planned issuance.

Standard and Poor’s (S&P) assigned a preliminary ‘B’ long-term rating to the proposed dollar-denominated sukuk issuance by Pakistan. A similar rating was assigned to the proposed benchmark sized US dollar-denominated senior unsecured sukuk, which will be issued by The Third Pakistan International Sukuk Company. The government may raise the amount with pricing in the range of 5.5 to 7% for 5 to 10 years. This is expected to provide the much needed support to Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves. In October last year, Pakistan raised one billion dollars through issuance of 5-year sukuk at a historic low rate of 5.5%. The country floated a 10-year Eurobond of $500 million at 8.25% in 2015. These bonds had S&P rating of B-.

Pakistan is all set to generate up to $3 billion by issuing euro and sukuk bonds in the international debt market. Road shows for introducing bonds will soon start in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Europe and United States. The government’s plans to raise loans from the international market by issuing bonds would support the foreign exchange reserves, which are under pressure due to widening trade deficit. The deficit surged by 100% to $5.013 billion in the first four months of the current fiscal year as compared to $2.259 billion of a year ago. Both Sukuk and Eurobond are expected to be offered with tenures ranging from 5 to 30 years. The S&P earlier has assigned preliminary B rating to Pakistan’s proposed dollar bond issue.

Oman's Capital Market Authority (CMA) has recently approved a plan by Golden Group to issue sukuk worth OMR200 million. The sukuk will be issued in different tranches and the first issuance will be for OMR50 million by way of a private placement. The first issuance is with a tenor of five years, it matures in 2022, and has a profit rate of 6.5%.

Dana Gas plans to appeal the UK court ruling on $700mn of its outstanding sukuk. According to Dana Gas, the decision by the London court is flawed because the UAE-based company was barred from participating in the proceedings due to an injunction at home. Judge George Leggatt said the English law contracts are enforceable in the case. Dana was challenging a provision called purchase undertaking, which allowed the trustee on behalf of investors to force Dana to buy them out of the agreement at par. Dana shares fell as much as 5.6% on the Abu Dhabi stock market on Sunday. The court ruling puts investors one step closer to resolving a dispute over the sukuk that highlighted one of the Islamic finance industry’s weak spots.

A High Court judge in London ruled in favour of creditors in a case regarding the validity of the purchase undertaking for about $700 million of sukuk issued by Dana Gas. The idea that Dana Gas has been able to assert for the past five months that its own sukuk were non-sharia-compliant has struck many observers as unusual. Judge George Leggatt said that Dana Gas' challenges to the validity and enforceability of the purchase undertaking were unfounded and declared the purchase undertaking for Dana's sukuk as valid and enforceable.

Dana Gas share prices fell 4.17% following Friday’s English High Court ruling against Dana Gas and in favour of bondholders. Danas said it plans to appeal the decision by the London court that declared the company’s $700 million sukuk valid and enforceable. Friday’s ruling was made in Dana Gas’s absence from the court. Dana Gas had earlier refused to repay debt owed to investors for two mudaraba sukuk worth $350 million each. The latest ruling does not mean that Dana Gas has to pay bondholders just yet, with another hearing in a UAE court scheduled for December 25.

An English High Court judge has ruled in favour of Dana Gas’s bondholders, reported the Financial Times.

More details at the source.

Acccording to Jaiz Bank CEO Hassan Usman, more West African countries and companies are likely to adopt Sukuk to finance infrastructural development and corporate growth plans. He said the envisaged passion for Sukuk issuance in the near future could make the non-interest capital market grow bigger and faster than its conventional counterpart. Nigeria recently issued its maiden sovereign Sukuk and successfully raised N105bn for its N100bn Sukuk, raising optimism on the depth of the market. Usman added that Islamic banking had a lot of potential due to the economic growth in many West African nations supported by improving fundamentals, growing domestic demand and stronger regional integration.

Global sukuk issuance will likely reach US$85 billion-US$90 billion (RM356-377 billion) in 2017, driven by stronger issuance from Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. RAM Rating Services said Saudi Arabia and its GCC neighbours had raised sukuk worth US$42 billion at end-October, which was a 215.3% increase from a year ago. Malaysia recorded RM138.7 billion worth of sukuk issuance as at end-October, which exceeded RAM’s full-year projection. Bank Negara Malaysia’s decision to maintain overnight policy rate at 3.0% could spur more sukuk issuance before the end of the year after hinting that monetary policy might be tightened next year.

To confute speculations about the N100 billion Sukuk, the Nigerian government said the money was intact in the appropriate account opened for it at the Central Bank of Nigeria. The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, earlier said the fund will be used to finance the construction of 25 key road projects across the county’s six geo-political zones. She said each of the zones was to benefit about N16.67 billion for road projects in their respective domains. After a month no money has been disbursed to contractors to start the construction works, which fuelled speculation that the money may have been diverted by the government. Director of the Debt Management Office, Patience Oniha, said the Sukuk was not available to government for general spending purposes, but went directly into the account opened for it. Although she did not say the exact time the process for the disbursement will be completed, she assured that once the contractors fulfil the requirements, the disbursement of the money would commence.

Pakistan has allowed immediate borrowing of up to $3bn from international debt markets by floating three sovereign bonds. The country is going to float the bonds in the largest transaction to take pressure off the central bank’s foreign exchange reserves that are depleting at a rapid pace. Earlier, the government borrowed $2bn in 2014 through similar capital market transactions. A consortium of banks have initially indicated that five-year sukuk, ten-year Eurobond and another 30-year Eurobond with combined proceeds of around $2bn to $3bn can be floated. The cabinet waived a dozen income taxes to make the float attractive for foreign investors. Road shows are expected to be held in the UK, US, Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong. Standard Chartered Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Citibank and Deutsche Bank were appointed for the Eurobond issue. For the proposed Sukuk, the Fourth Pakistan International Sukuk Company is being incorporated by the Finance Division.

Many West African countries and companies may fall back on Sukuk to finance infrastructural development and corporate growth plans. Managing Director of Jaiz Bank, Hassan Usman, said there could soon be a frenzy of the facility issuance in West Africa. Nigeria recently issued its maiden sovereign Sukuk. It successfully raised N105 billion for its N100 billion Sukuk. Usman added that with a population of about 329 million people, the emerging middle-class segment of the region is expected to boost demand for retail banking, takaful and Islamic funds. According to him, as the market for Islamic Finance develops in Nigeria, each segment of the market will provide potential career paths for young and middle-level professionals. He also noted it might take some time because the ecosystem is currently narrow with only one full-fledged bank, one window operation, one capital market operator and two Takaful operators.

In the last few years, the growth in Sukuk market has been subdued. Sukuk market is mainly led by Malaysia now. It is important to have stable growth in the Middle East for the global Sukuk issuance to grow. The development infrastructure related to meeting sustainable development goals needs to be prioritized. Sukuk can be used to provide necessary funding which is required to purchase tangible fixed assets, technological infrastructure and real estate. Sukuk can also help in developing infrastructure in Africa to meet the existing infrastructure deficit. Agriculture remains the mainstay in economic structures of many African economies. Thus, Sukuk can be used in financing new technologies and modernizing agriculture.

Financial services company Saad has been ordered to pay around $668 million to Citicorp Trustee Company and Golden Belt Sukuk Company. Saad's obligations are tied to sukuk bond and linked to the leasing of land in Saudi Arabia. The judgment was handed down Friday in London's High Court, where Judge Peter Macdonald Eggers ordered Saad to honour its obligations.

Standard & Poor's downgraded Qatari real estate developer Ezdan Holding on Monday. Therefore, yields on the company's $500 million sukuk jumped by about 2 percentage points after the downgrade. S&P cut the Qatari company by two notches to BB from BBB-minus and revised its outlook to negative from stable. The rating agency cited a weakening of the company's financial risk profile partly caused by the neighbouring Arab countries' boycott of Qatar. Ezdan's sukuk, issued in 2016, were yielding around 6% last week, now the yield has surged to over 8%. The sanctions have worsened a slump in Qatar's real estate market. Housing and utility prices sank 4.7% from a year ago in September, their biggest drop for at least several years, and fell 0.7% from the previous month.