IslamicFinance.de

International Investment Bank (IIB) announced the disposal of a Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft, resulting in over 30% IRR for the Bank. The aircraft, which was purchased by IIB in a sale and leaseback transaction earlier this year, is on lease to a leading regional airline on a non-cancellable basis for a period of nine years, and has recently been sold to an international buyer. IIB is currently exploring other attractive deals in the aviation market, IIB Chief Executive Officer, Subhi Benkhadra said.

The Digital Finance Institute, a Canadian not-for-profit, has entered into an arrangement with an Iranian firm and as the first part of the arrangement is joining forces with Sana Pardakht. The two sides will have bilateral cooperation on the role of innovation labs to drive technology, banking and finance, Bitcoin, smart cities and renewable energy, emerging payments, Iran’s potential to emerge as a finance hub post-sanctions, business opportunities in Iran and the growing importance of social banking with a case study on payments to solve financial inclusion for the refugee crisis.

Qatar Islamic Bank will hold investor meetings in Asia, the Middle East and Europe starting on Friday for a possible benchmark offer of U.S. dollar-denominated Regulation S senior sukuk, leads said on Wednesday. The bank mandated Barwa Bank, Citi, HSBC, Noor Bank, QInvest and Standard Chartered as joint lead managers for the possible issue, which would be off Qatar Islamic's existing $1.5 billion Trust Certificate Issuance Programme. Benchmark usually means at least $500 million.

The International Islamic Banking Summit Africa will take place on November 4-5 in Djibouti. The conference will convene international industry leaders to boost economic development and facilitate greater trade and investment flows between Africa and the OIC markets through Islamic finance. It has a format spread over 2 days and will be officially inaugurated on the 4th of November with special keynote addresses by Ahmed Othman, Governor of the Central Bank of Djibouti; Abdelrahman Hassan Abdelrahman Hashim, Governor, Central Bank of Sudan; and Ijlal Alvi, Chief Executive Officer, The International Islamic Financial Market (IIFM).

King & Spalding has advised the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) on the establishment of a $25 billion Sukuk programme, triple listed on the London Stock Exchange, Nasdaq-Dubai and Bursa Malaysia. The programme is rated “AAA” by S&P and Fitch and “Aaa” by Moody’s. King & Spalding’s Kanji advised the IDB on the transaction with assistance from Dubai-based senior associate Hamed Afzal and Washington, D.C.-based transaction specialist Gina Bunker. The lead manager on the transaction was Standard Chartered Bank plc and dealers included CIMB, HSBC, National Bank of Abu Dhabi, Natixis and Standard Chartered Bank.

Sunrise Properties has secured a 515 million dirham ($140.22 million) Islamic loan for the development of a luxury hotel project, banking group Emirates NBD, the main arranger of the deal, said. Emirates NBD, joined by Doha Bank, are providing the money to finance the Emerald Palace Kempinski Hotel project on Dubai's Palm Jumeirha group of islands. The tenure and margin on the murabaha-structured loan were not disclosed. Bank lending to real estate sector remains buoyant, with credit to the construction and real estate sector totalling 216.2 billion dirhams in the second quarter of this year from 210.6 billion dirhams in the year ago period.

Family businesses in the GCC have made significant progress in putting corporate governance structures in place but are lagging when it comes to strict implementation — something that could eventually challenge their very existence, a study by the Gulf Family Business Council (GFBC) and McKinsey & Company has revealed. The study, which surveyed the largest GCC family-owned businesses, showed that only 33 per cent of GCC-based family businesses have fully implemented governance systems. The study recommends that the ‘rules of the game’ should be clearly stated to the next generation as early as possible to allow for effective succession planning and transition of leadership.

The International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA), the country's largest and the only state-owned bank, has closed its Islamic banking department. Behnam Gurbanzade, IBA's director of Islamic banking, said the department was closed last week, but did not give the reasons. The department started the service in April 2013. The decision was reportedly linked to structural changes in the bank.The bank's Islamic assets rose to $526 million at the end of 2014 from $160 million a year earlier. "The agreements signed with international financial institutions within the framework of Islamic banking, as well as the bank's liabilities in this area will remain in force.

Saudi Arabia's Al Rajhi Bank posted its first quarterly rise in net profit in nine quarters, helped by lower expenses. Net profit rose 3.6 percent to 1.72 billion riyals ($458.8 million) for the three months to Sept. 30, in line with an average estimate from analysts of 1.77 billion. The bank had posted declining profits in the preceding eight quarters, which it attributed to higher provisioning and higher operating expenses. Al Rajhi said operating income fell by 4.1 percent to 10.15 billion riyals, while profits from special commissions increased 2.4 percent to 7.47 billion riyals. Loans and advances at the end September stood at 209.91 billion riyals, up 3.1 percent, while deposits rose 6.2 percent to 265.48 billion riyals.

Saudi Arabia’s NCB Capital (NCBC) has launched a new AlAhli Tadawul platform designed to empower clients with more efficient tools and all the support and information they need to stay informed of promising investment opportunities available. The new reports and smart analytical tools include free features that automatically analyze the market and highlight promising opportunities. The availability of various trading channels enables traders to trade and keep track of stocks at any time and from any place. Additionally, the TeleTrading Service enables users to trade anywhere, even without an Internet connection. Live up-to-the-second stock prices are provided to all traders free of charge.

Short term Sukuk rated A-1 by Standard and Poor’s Rating Services (S&P’s) have been issued by the International Islamic Liquidity Management (IILM). The 3 month sukuk for $860 was issued at a profit rate of 0.63960%. Orders for $980m were received. IILM sells its Sukuk through its primary dealers which were added to in this auction by Qatar Islamic Bank and Boubyan Bank. As at October 2015, the IILM Sukuk that have been issued and reissued amounted to USD12.69 billion.

The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI) has announced a significant increase in the number of Islamic Finance qualifications taken in the Arabian Peninsula over the last 12 months. CISI recorded 111 of its Islamic Finance Qualification exams taken between August 2014 and August 2015, compared to 82 taken in the same period in 2013 -2014. The UAE was the country which saw the biggest increase in people undertaking the exams, with a 35 per cent increase from August 2014 to August 2015. As Dubai invests in the Islamic finance industry, this will accelerate the sector’s development in the rest of the region.

Aiad Al Khatib, head of corporate regulatory and scientific affairs at Nestle, said that standards for what is halal, or permissible under sharia law, need to be aligned, clarified and simplified to allow manufacturers and exporters greater access to markets. Halal standards are being produced by several bodies including government-linked organizations, private organizations, independent halal certification bodies as well as national, regional and international bodies. Global Muslim spending on food and beverages rose 4.3% to around USD 1.128 trillion in 2014 from a year earlier, accounting for 16.7% of the total global food and beverage expenditure. The halal food and drinks market is expected to grow to USD 1.585 trillion by 2020.

One of the biggest issues plaguing efforts to help the millions of refugees flowing out of Syria is a lack of funding. In September, the World Food Program (WFP) had to drop one-third of Syrian refugees from its food-voucher program, including nearly 300,000 in Jordan alone. Abeer Etefa, WFP regional spokesperson for the Middle East, said the agency needed $236 million to keep its food-voucher program afloat through November. One way of remedying the issue may lie in bond markets. In a move that could potentially raise tens of billions in economic assistance to the region, the United Nations, World Bank, and Islamic Development Bank have unveiled a plan to issue bonds.

The Lord Mayor of the City of London, Alderman Alan Yarrow has urged Nigeria to consider all sources of finance as a means for attracting investment. In particular the Mayor during a trip to Nigeria was keen to highlight the City of London as a leading centre for Islamic finance and stated Islamic finance can provide substantial investment for Nigeria. He suggested the North of Nigeria would in particular benefit from Islamic financial products. Yarrow who met with financial sector regulators and operators in Abuja last week, said London had the capacity to help Nigeria to deepen its Islamic financial system.

The Islamic banks wanted for long some sort of bonds from the Bangladesh Bank (BB) to invest in to the fulfilment of the statutory liquidity ratio (SLR), as required by the regulator. But only in 2014, did the BB come out with an offer of interest-free bonds to the Islamic banks, which now control one-fourth of the deposit market. If the Islamic branches of the interest-based commercial banks are included, then the deposit share will go up. Though the Islamic banks were permitted in the middle of the 1980s, the regulatory framework to oversee this activity and the conditions they were to fulfil with respect to compliance with the regulations were not there.

Shariah-compliant funds in Pakistan say the government’s plan to end a year-long hiatus in local sukuk sales is too little, too late to plug a shortage of assets that has put off their investors. The finance ministry will sell rupee-denominated sukuk once 233.8bn rupees ($2.2bn) of notes mature on November 21. That would be the first offering since it raised 49.5bn rupees in June last year. While Pakistan issued global bonds twice in the past 12 months, it has neglected local investors. A sovereign credit-rating upgrade in June, record foreign-exchange reserves and a narrowing current-account deficit make it an opportune moment to return to the Islamic debt market, after its conventional dollar bond sale in September drew bids for twice the $500mn offered.

The Board of Directors of Alkhabeer Capital has accepted the resignation of Mr. Saleh Mohammed Binladen from his position as Chairman of the Board of Directors, for personal reasons. The board also announced the appointment of Mr. Musaad Mohammad Aldrees in his place as Chairman, effective October 7, 2015. Mr. Binladen said he was stepping down to reduce his broad responsibilities. Mr. Aldrees , a member of the board of Alkhabeer Capital since 2008, will serve as Chairman until the appointment of a new Board and Chairman in January 2016.

Dubai Islamic Bank is exploring an entry into India as it seeks to benefit from the funding needs of one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. India presents huge opportunities as an emerging economy because of infrastructure development and growing trade with the Middle East, Chief Executive Officer Adnan Chilwan said. Indians make up nearly a quarter of the U.A.E.’s population, and India is its biggest trading partner, with combined exports and imports of $63.7 billion in 2014. The two countries plan to create a $75 billion fund to invest in Indian infrastructure, according to a joint statement at the end of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the U.A.E. in August.

While a number of mechanisms can be employed to structure a Sukuk transaction from a Shariah perspective, a Sukuk structure typically involves the acquisition of assets from the entity seeking to raise financing (the originator) by a limited recourse, bankruptcy-remote, SPV established in a tax neutral off shore jurisdiction. The Cayman Islands are, unquestionably, the off shore jurisdiction of choice for SPVs on Sukuk structures originating in the Middle East. The prevalence of Cayman SPVs in Sukuk structures stems from a number of factors: Trust regime in the Cayman Islands, Absence of tax, Ease, speed and cost of incorporation, Sophisticated off shore center for financial services, Reliable legal system, Use of Arabic names.