IslamicFinance.de

The following borrowers are expected to sell Islamic bonds: MALAYSIA, YEMEN, DUBAI, GULF INVESTMENT CORP., FRANCE, SAUDI INTERNATIONAL PETROCHEMICAL CO., GENERAL ELECTRIC CO., PALESTINE MONETARY AUTHORITY, NAKHEEL PJSC, SABAH CREDIT CORP., CREDIT AGRICOLE SA, NOOR ISLAMIC BANK, NATIONAL COMMERCIAL BANK, KPJ HEALTHCARE BHD., EMIRATES TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORP., SENEGAL, ALBARAKA BANKING GROUP., ISLAMIC DEVELOPMENT BANK, THAILAND, KNM GROUP BHD., CAGAMAS BHD., SAUDI ARABIAN OIL CO., GAMUDA BHD., EGYPT, PT BANK MUAMALAT INDONESIA, SENAI-DESARU EXPRESSWAY BHD., MALAYSIA DEBT VENTURES BHD, INDONESIA, TURKEY, KAZAKHSTAN, PHILIPPINES, SAUDI ELECTRICITY CO., EMIRATES INTEGRATED TELECOMMUNICATIONS CO., LAFARGE MALAYAN CEMENT BHD..

Kuwait Finance House (KFH) reported a net profit of $10m following the liquidation of a real estate fund targeting the Turkish market.
The liquidation process seem to come with a return on investment of 14 percent.

A new global Islamic liquidity management corporation backed by central banks will start issuing Islamic bonds next year to help Islamic banks manage their liquidity.
The Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) said in October it would set up the International Islamic Liquidity Management Corporation to issue sharia-compliant instruments.
The liquidity management company will be backed by 11 central banks, including Malaysia, Iran and Turkey and some Gulf states and is expected to have up to $1 billion in authorised capital.

The funds collected at participation banks were up 13 percent and reached 30.4 billion TL (21.1 billion USD).
The number of participation bank branches was up 6 percent to 595 and the banks employed 12,404 people in the mentioned period.
The Participation Banks Association of Turkey has currently four members, including Albaraka Turk, Bank Asya, Kuveyt Turk, and Turkiye Finans.

Albaraka Banking Group BSC, the biggest publicly traded Islamic lender in Bahrain, expects to complete an acquisition in Indonesia in the first quarter of 2011 as part of an expansion.
The bank has identified targets for the planned transaction in the Asian country. Albaraka has also identified an acquisition target in Malaysia.
Albaraka this year acquired Pakistan’s Emirates Global Islamic Bank Ltd., which boosted its network in the country to about 90 branches. It also began operations in Syria this year.
The Manama-based bank has received approval to set up a representative office in Libya to benefit from the country’s strong trade ties with other markets where the bank operates, such as Egypt, Turkey, Algeria and Jordan.
The bank expects total loans to increase 20 percent in 2010.

The Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), the private sector arm of the Islamic Development Bank Group (IDB), the Statistical, Economic & Social Research & Training Center for Islamic Countries (SESRIC) and the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to promote and support the development of Special Economic Zones (SEZs).
Khaled Al-Aboodi, CEO and General Manager of ICD, Dr. Savas Alpay, Director General of SESRIC and Dr. Umit Ozlale, Director of TEPAV, signed the MOU in Istanbul, Turkey, on Oct. 6 on the sidelines of the 26th Session of COMCEC.
The institutions will liaise with one another and would also consider supporting each other through jointly conducting due diligence on specific feasible projects that have been identified for possible cooperation.

Neova Insurance, a joint venture by five companies, aims at atracting customers who are cool towards insurance because of the their religious concerns, said the chief executive officer Tuesday at a press meeting in Istanbul.
Neova Insurance succeeded to realize premium generation of 44 million Turkish Liras by the end of September.
The company’s strategy is established to keep current customer in the system, to be proactive, to share profits and add new customers to the system so on, Koç told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
There are many peeople in Turkey who remain “frosty” to insurance companies “due to their religious concerns".
Target of Neova Sigorta founder partners of which consist of various affiliates of Kuwait Finance House, or KFH that is shown as the most important finance organization in its region with equity capital about 6 billion dollars and principal partner of which is Turkapital is to become one of important actors of the market.

Noor Islamic Bank expects to close a “healthy number” of Islamic syndicated loans and Islamic bonds in the first half of 2011, with Turkey emerging as an active market for Islamic finance.
Aamer Zaidi, head of corporate banking at Noor Islamic Bank, said on Wednesday that the company is involved in a few sukuk issuances in the Gulf region and is also working on syndicated loans within the UAE.
The Gulf sukuk market is poised for a revival as large corporate and supra-national issues come to market following Dubai World’s restructuring accord with 99 percent of its bank lenders as well as Dubai’s successful $1.25 billion conventional bond issue in late September.

Citigroup plans to arrange more sales of Islamic bonds, or sukuk, from Turkey after managing a $100 million issue for Kuveyt Turk Katilim Bankasi AS, an executive at the company said. Citigroup and Liquidity Management House, a unit of Kuwait Finance House KSC which is the owner of Kuveyt Turk, acted as arrangers in Kuveyt Turk’s sukuk sales, the first in Turkey after regulators allowed companies to offer Islamic bonds in April.

Citigroup plans to arrange more sales of Islamic bonds, or sukuk, from Turkey. Citigroup is having talks with other potential sellers of Shariah-compliant debt in the country, said Hulusi Horozoglu, director of global Islamic banking at Citigroup, in an e-mailed response to questions. Turkey’s government is considering selling sukuk “in the future,” Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said in an interview.

Kuveyt Turk Katilim Bankasi, a subsidiary of Kuwait Finance House, will pay a coupon of 5.25 per cent on Turkey’s first Islamic bond offering that was oversubscribed, said people close to the transaction. Kuveyt Turk launched the three-year $100 million sukuk on August 17. This is the first ever sukuk from Turkey and the first bank sukuk originating from Europe, according to law firm Norton Rose, which advised on the offering. “This is another significant step towards growing Islamic finance in Europe. “The sukuk by Kuveyt Turk further demonstrates continuing interest and appetite for Islamic finance within key emerging economies,” Neil D. Miller Global Head of Islamic finance at Norton Rose (Middle East), said in the statement. The joint lead managers on the transaction were Citigroup Global Markets and Liquidity Management House.

KuveytTürk, the Turkish Islamic bank, has received according to Turkish media a license to operate as a financial service branch.

The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) will extend some USD 100 mn with one-year terms to Turkish exporters that have experienced trouble as a result of the ongoing global financial crisis. Officials from Turkey's Eximbank informed the Anatolia news agency that the IDB will give money to Eximbank, a bank formed with the aim of lending support to Turkish exporters.

Islamic Arab Insurance Co (Salama) is looking for acquisitions in a number of markets including Turkey.

Liquidity Management House, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kuwait Finance has succeeded in making a combined global 1-year Murabaha finance deal about USD 115 million for KFH-Turkey, after attracting 7 global and regional banks: Halk Bank-Turkey, Islamic Development Bank, Citibank, Garanti Bank International-Holland, Gatehouse Bank-UK, NBK International PLC, Standard Chartered Bank.

KFH-Turkey Chief Executive Officer is Ufuk Iwan.

KuveytTürk aims to cater for German Muslims from payment services to the whole range of Islamic finance products in the years to come. The application process for a financial services branch with both regulators is ongoing but not yet finished contrary to what media sources were reporting yesterday.

Nevzat Devranoglu and Thomas Grove reported on 28 January on Reuters that theTurkish Treasury sold only a quarter of an expected YTL 1.89 bn in its first issue of an income-indexed bond, considered a type of Islamic bond, as it attempts to boost capital inflows by tapping the Gulf region.

The Treasury of Turkey announced it will sell bonds linked to income at four state enterprises. The Treasury will issue the bonds in Turkish Liras and dollars Jan. 28 after collecting bids Jan. 26 and 27. The total issuance will be YTL 1.89 bn, or USD 1.15 bn. The papers will be linked to income at four state enterprises, namely oil company TPAO, the state stationary office DMO, the government-run airports authority DHMI and the coast safety authority, or KIYEM. The Treasury statement did not clarify whether the new revenue-index bonds were compliant with Islamic investment principles. Last month, Selim Ye?ilba?, the head of the international finance markets department at the Turkish Undersecretariat of Treasury, said to Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review the new borrowing method would be "based on rent certificates."

Cecilia Valente and Selcuk Gokoluk reported on 7 January on Reuters that the Sukuk planned by the Turkish government, finds potential buyers in Turkey's institutional investors like Oyak Emeklilik or AK Portfolio. On average, Turkish pension schemes allocate more than 70 percent of their assets to government bonds, with the rest in shares, repo or bank deposits.