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PT Bank Muamalat Indonesia, the second-largest sharia lender in the country, secured a loan commitment of $90 million from a commercial bank in Malaysia and an international financial institution based in Washington, reported Bisnis Indonesia. The loan has a tenure of 5-7 years and will be used for new financing in 2014 that is expected to reach 41.7 trillion rupiah ($3.43 billion), said Finance Director Hendiarto.

Bahrain-based investment firm Gulf Finance House (GFH) has agreed a partial sale of its stake in English football club Leeds United. GFH said the sale was agreed with British investors, whose details the firm did not specify. The investment firm did not provide details on the stake value or the size of the stake sold. GFH bought Leeds United in December 2012 through its Dubai-based subsidiary, GFH Capital, but its financial statements showed that the firm disposed off more than half of its holding less than six months later.

Turkish Islamic lender Bank Asya applied to the regulator, the Capital Markets Board, to issue sukuk worth up to $500 million, the bank said on Friday. The bank made the statement to the Istanbul stock exchange.

Bank of London and The Middle East (BLME) expects Islamic bond issuance to pick up in the Gulf next year as companies refinance maturing debt in a strong economic climate. Scheduled sukuk maturities in Gulf Arab countries next year are expected to trigger a flurry of fresh issues. Many of the new sukuk will be larger than the instruments they replaced. Because of rising economic confidence in the Gulf, tenors of newly issued sukuk will likely become longer, with some moving out towards seven years from the five-year tenors which have dominated in recent years. BLME's assets under management include a $65 million sukuk fund rated A by Moody's Investors Service. Its balance sheet grew to 1.04 billion pounds ($1.7 billion) at the end of last year.

Bahrain's Ibdar Bank was launched as a brand on Monday following the merger of Capivest, Elaf Bank and Capital Management House, after more than a year of negotiations between the Bahraini lenders and authorities. Ibdar hopes to leverage the combined expertise of its predecessor banks and a larger balance sheet to win business. The Islamic lender now has $300 million of paid up capital, $329 million in equity and assets of $360 million, which it hopes can help it win deals in its focus areas of capital markets, private equity and real estate. Ibdar is not leveraged and will retain Elaf Bank's licence in Malaysia to support a geographical scope that includes the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey.

Abed Al Zeera has been removed with immediate effect from the board of European Islamic Investment Bank (EIIB).

Draft Islamic banking and insurance regulations have been prepared in Morocco and could be passed by parliament before the end of next year. Morocco has been seeking to develop Islamic finance for about two years, partly as a way to attract Gulf money and fund the huge budget deficit. The government originally planned to issue its first sovereign Islamic bond this year but that plan appears to have been delayed. The Islamic finance laws could clear the way for Morocco to see its first conventional bank with an Islamic window, as well as sukuk issuance by private firms. Two or three private firms could tap the market fairly quickly after the laws are passed.

Dubai is in talks with Islamic endowments, or awqaf, in other countries to promote its drive for the industry to become more efficient and profit-oriented. Dubai wants to become a centre for modernising awqaf and coordinating their activities in order to make them more financially successful. The Emirate plans to establish an international body during the first half of next year that would handle cooperation with other emirates and countries. It would be managed jointly by members and include non-awqaf charities that operated in similar ways. In March, Dubai said it was launching the new asset management firm NoorAwqaf that would specialise in handling awqaf assets. With 10 million dirhams ($2.7 million) of paid-up capital, the new firm would offer services including due diligence, financial analysis and assisting awqaf to develop their strategic objectives.

Saudi real estate firm Dar Al Arkan (B+ from S&P) has launched a $300 million, three-year sukuk offering at 6 percent. The Reg S only deal is expected to price later on Wednesday via Bank Al Khair, BAML, DB, Emirates NBD Capital and GS. The sukuk al-wakala will mature on Nov. 25, 2016.

EIIB-Rasmala, a venture between London-based European Islamic Investment Bank and Dubai's Rasmala Group, has launched a sharia-compliant trade finance fund as a low-risk investment product. The Cayman-domiciled fund is linked to emerging market trade transactions and the firm hopes to attract $100 million into the fund over the coming year. The fund targets a return of 4 percent with low volatility as the firm continues to expand its sharia-compliant product range. Since last year, EIIB-Rasmala has launched three Islamic funds including a leasing fund and a sukuk fund seeded with $25 million of the company's own capital.

Saudi Electricity Co plans to issue Islamic bonds denominated in both riyals and dollars in coming months and has reportedly selected banks to arrange the offers. The monopoly utility has large fund-raising needs as it looks to expand generation capacity to keep up with the kingdom's rapidly growing power demand. SEC has chosen the investment banking arm of Banque Saudi Fransi and HSBC's Saudi Arabian unit to arrange the riyal-denominated sukuk. This transaction is expected to launch as early as Thursday. HSBC will also be involved as an arranger of the dollar-denominated sukuk, along with Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan Chase. This sale is expected in early 2014.

Indonesia's finance ministry did not receive any winning bids for all offered sharia bonds at Tuesday's auction, the debt office at the finance ministry said. The country offered project-based sukuk with maturities of 7-years, 24-years and 30-years with an indicative target of 1 trillion rupiah. Total bids were 366.3 billion rupiah ($31.7 million).

Djibouti is promoting Islamic finance to increase banking penetration in the tiny African nation and help fund upgrades to the country's infrastructure. Since most people are still not customers of banks, Djibouti sees sharia-compliant finance as a way to pull itself out of poverty and to assemble capital for investment. Central bank governor Ahmed Osman said banking penetration had risen from 10 percent of the population six years ago to 17 or 18 percent now, but that conventional banks were not attractive to many people for religious reasons. The spread of Islamic banking will also help authorities move more business activity from the informal economy to the formal sector.

Omani real estate developer Tilal Development Co has sold the country's first Islamic bond, a 50 million rial ($130 million) sukuk. Tilal's five-year sukuk, offering a profit rate of 5 percent and based on an ijara structure was privately placed with investors, arranger Al Madina Investment said. About 95 percent of the sukuk, rated BBB+ by Cyprus-based Capital Intelligence, was placed with local investors including pension firms and banks. Tilal, 40 percent-owned by sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority, will use proceeds from its sukuk to expand the Tilal Complex in Muscat, a flagship project which includes the Muscat Grand Mall as well as residential and office space.

Turkey's Islamic finance industry is being reshaped as banks widen their product range and new competitors prepare to enter the market, according to a Thomson Reuters study. Promoting Islamic finance in Turkey is part of government plans to boost commercial ties with the Gulf and diversify the country's investor base. Last year Islamic banks reached a combined $36 billion in assets, representing a 5 percent share of total banking assets. The study estimates Islamic bank assets could reach between $80 billion and $120 billion by 2017. For this to occur, however, the industry will need to do more to educate customers. Moreover, banks and companies would also need to take advantage of new rules that facilitate issuance of various types of Islamic bonds.

Cairo-based Ridge Islamic Capital plans to launch the first dedicated Islamic fund of funds in the Middle East by the end of this year, with an initial capital base of $150 million. The Bahrain-domiciled fund will invest across a pool of sharia-compliant funds around the world. Ridge Islamic will contribute $15 million to the fund's capital. The Ridge Islamic fund will be U.S. dollar-denominated and use controls designed to limit risk, including exposure caps by country, sector and asset class. The rules will allow up to 20 percent of the fund's net asset value to be allocated directly into sharia-compliant financial instruments; up to 40 percent of net asset value could go into cash and Islamic money market instruments. The fund has a three-member sharia board with scholars from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

Fitch Ratings has assigned Al Hilal Bank's (Al Hilal; A+/Stable/F1) USD2.5bn trust certificate issuance programme a final Long-term rating of 'A+' and a final Short-term rating of 'F1'. At the same time, Fitch has assigned Al Hilal's USD500m senior unsecured fixed rate certificates (sukuk) issued under the programme a Long-term rating of 'A+'. The certificates have a profit rate of 3.267% per annum and mature on 8 October 2018. The ratings assigned to the programme and the certificates are driven solely by Al Hilal's Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs), as the sukuk structure is viewed as an originator-backed/asset-based structure. The ratings of the trust certificate issuance programme and the certificates are highly sensitive to any rating action on Al Hilal.

Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) has reported a 12.4 percent drop in third-quarter net profit, missing analysts' average forecast. QIB posted a nine-month net profit of 975.1 million riyals, compared with 1.1 billion riyals for the same period last year. The third-quarter results, with a net profit of 345.1 million riyals ($94.8 million), missed the average forecast of eight analysts in a Reuters poll. QIB's total third-quarter income from financing and investing activity dropped to 738.4 million riyals from 773.8 million riyals a year earlier. Fee and commission income fell to 91.4 million riyals from 119.7 million riyals. QIB shares closed 0.3 percent lower on Sunday. They have fallen 9.7 percent year-to-date.

Expansion of the takaful industry is slowing as firms struggle for scale and face growing competition, according to a report by Ernst & Young. Driven largely by Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, takaful globally is expected to grow by 16 percent annually in coming years compared to an average 22 percent rate between 2007 and 2011. But firms have expanded in narrow product segments such as auto insurance which are saturated by competitors, sparking price competition to gain market share. A shift from general insurance to more profitable life business remains unlikely in the Gulf because of comfortable government-funded safety nets. Geographical expansion is one way out, but this is difficult because of expensive regulatory requirements and the lack of a standard approach to sharia-compliance across the world.

BIMB Holdings yesterday received shareholders' nod to buy the remaining 49% stake it does not own in Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd from Dubai Financial Group (DFG) and Lembaga Tabung Haji (LTH). The acquisition is expected to be accretive to the group's earnings by another 5% from the financial year ending Dec 31, 2014 (FY14). With BIMB's current 51% controlling stake in Bank Islam, the Islamic banking unit is already contributing 85% to the group's revenue and earnings. BIMB shareholders also gave the green light to BIMB to raise up to RM3 billion through a combination of a rights issue and a sukuk to part-finance the acquisition. Besides, BIMB might reportedly acquire stake in Bank Muamalat Malaysia from state investment fund Khazanah Nasional and conglomerate DRB-Hicom.