IslamicFinance.de

State-controlled utility Saudi Electricity is in talks with regional and international banks about issuing a US dollar-denominated sukuk. A number of companies in the kingdom are considering sukuk issuance to offset a decline in revenues due to lower oil prices. Oil giant Saudi Aramco issued a debut $3 billion-equivalent sukuk in the Saudi local market in April, while ACWA Power is expected to issue an international bond of at least $600 million this week. Saudi Electricity issued $2.5 billion in sukuk in 2014, split between a $1.5 billion sukuk maturing in 2024 and $1 billion due in 2044. The company recently repaid a $500 million five-year sukuk it issued in 2012.

The Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD) in partnership with Ibdar Bank and Labour Fund Tamkeen has announced the launch of the Bahrain SME fund. The Bahrain SME Fund is a Shariah compliant mezzanine private equity Fund which will invest in Bahrain’s Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s). The Fund will target SME’s with high growth potential in consumer, industrial, ICT, education and healthcare sectors, as well as sectors experiencing dynamic change. The Fund will add immense value to Bahrain as a tool for SME growth and development where 90% of Bahrain enterprises are SMEs and their contribution accounts for about 30% of the Kingdom’s GDP.

#Saudi Jadwa Investment announced the conclusion of the public offering of its first Shariah-compliant Real Estate Investment Traded Fund, Jadwa REIT Al-Haramain Fund. The new fund will invest in real estate properties in Makkah and Madinah. The REIT, which has an initial size of SR660 million ($176 million), offered SR360 million worth of units to the general public. Over 5,800 individual and intuitional investors subscribed for SR4.53 billion during the offer period, resulting in a 1.257% coverage of the offered units. Haitham Al-Ghannam, head of alternative investments at Jadwa, said the initial portfolio of the REIT would comprise of two hospitality assets, a four-star hotel and a pilgrim accommodation. Both properties are located in Makkah with a combined capacity of 984 hotel rooms. At its initial offer price of SR10 per unit, the REIT offers net initial yield of 5.2%.

Saudi Arabia saw bids of $33 billion (Dh121.11 billion) for its record-breaking debut sukuk issue. The issue size of the sukuk could likely be $8 billion, spread across $4 billion each for the 5 year and 10 year tranche. The sukuk was priced at 100 basis points over mid-swaps for the 5-year tranche, and 145 basis points over mid-swaps for the longer dated issue. Anita Yadav, Senior Director of Global markets and treasury at Emirates NBD, said the yield on Saudi sukuk is likely to be attractive on relative value basis, which would appeal to the yield hungry international investor. Analysts expect larger institutions like Aramco or SABIC to take advantage and come the market. On an yearly basis, Emirates NBD expects $20 billion worth of issuance from Saudi Arabia including issues from the government, and state-run enterprises, banks and corporates.

The order books for Saudi Arabia's debut U.S. dollar-denominated sukuk have reached about $25 billion. The dual-tranche sukuk is set to be the largest ever Islamic bond, beating a $4 billion sukuk issued by Qatar in 2012. The two tranches have maturities of five and ten years. The initial price guidance put the senior unsecured Islamic bonds in the 115 bps over mid-swaps area for the five-year tranche and 155 bps over mid-swaps area for the 10-year tranche.

According to the Global Takaful Report 2017, the Takaful industry has grown in double digits across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in recent years. Between 2012 and 2015 the GCC markets grew by a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18%. While South East Asia reported a negative growth of 4% due to currency depreciation, Africa reported a CAGR of 19% during the same period. According to Safder Jaffer, Consulting Actuary at Milliman, Saudi Arabia is the largest Takaful market with a gross written contribution (GWC) of $9.7 billion (Dh35.62 billion) in 2015. The Saudi market is dominated by general insurance with limited life insurance business. GCC markets continue to dominate general takaful whereas South East Asia continues to dominate life takaful. In the GCC, family takaful achieved a record growth of 34% in 2015. Global takaful GWC is estimated at $14.9 billion as at the close of 2015. There is strong growth in overall global takaful market in the range of 13 to 14% each year. The split of the family and general takaful market in 2015 is approximately 17% and 83% respectively.

With the continuous growth of Islamic banking in the GCC, products such as Islamic Real Estate Investment Trusts (I-REITs) have started to emerge. Al Mahrab Tower REIT was the first private I-REIT in Kuwait in 2007. Following that, Dubai launched its first I-REIT (Emirates REIT) in 2010 and Bahrain listed its first public I-REIT (Eskan REIT) in 2017. Emirates NBD has also recently listed ENBD REIT and due to strong demand the offer was oversubscribed. Firms responded to this growing demand, including IdealRatings, which launched its first Sharia-compliant REIT index in 2015. While the future of I-REITs may seem positive, there are many challenges that lie ahead. It is important for asset management firms to devise efficient and logical I-REIT investment methodologies. This needs to be supplemented by sound ethical principles to ensure the sustainable growth of I-REITs in the region.

Global law firm Baker McKenzie has successfully acted for Dubai Islamic Bank in its defence of a $2 billion claim brought against it in the English Commercial Court. The claim was brought by Plantation Holdings, a holding company owned by an Argentinian-resident property developer. The allegation was breach of contract related to plot of land on the outskirts of Dubai, which Plantation had planned to develop into a high-end luxury lifestyle and equestrian complex. The Bank took security over the project as part of the restructuring of a $500 million debt owed to it as a result of a complex receivables financing fraud. The case was heard in an eight week trial, with evidence from witnesses from seven jurisdictions. The court ruled that Plantation's principal director had made up evidence and that another of Plantation's witnesses had manufactured documents, Plantation has been ordered to pay 70% of the Bank's costs on the indemnity basis. The nature of the case also resulted in examining the volatility of the Dubai property market and the functionality of its property registration system, as well as the Dubai authorities' approach to financial misconduct.

Saudi Arabia has included a disclosure on credit risk retention requirements in the prospectus of a debut dollar sukuk which is expected to issue this week and could total $10 billion. The disclosure to comply with the US Dodd-Frank Act has not been made for other sovereign sukuk issues. The US retention rule was set to align the interests of issuers of asset backed securities (ABS) with those of ABS investors by asking the sponsor of an ABS securitisation. Sukuk are generally asset-based, but in order to comply with the rules, Saudi Arabia will purchase at least 5% of the aggregate principal amount of each tranche it issues. Saudi Arabia began meeting investors on Sunday ahead of the deal, the second debt sale by the kingdom, which made its debut in the international debt markets last year with a record $17.5 billion bond.

La traduction en langue française de l’ensemble des standards de l’AAOIFI a été achevée. La première édition officielle en français des Normes Charaïques pour les institutions financières islamiques sera présentée le 12 avril 2017 à l’ouverture de la 15ème conférence annuelle de l’AAOIFI à Manama, Bahrain. Cette démarche s’inscrit dans le cadre des efforts de l’AAOIFI pour la diffusion de ses Shari’ah Standards, qui sont devenus la principale compilation de jugements de Fiqh contemporain dans le domaine de Fiqh al Mouamalat au niveau mondial. Eu égard à la taille des communautés francophones dans le monde, l’AAOIFI a entrepris de faire traduire ses Shari’ah Standards en français selon une méthodologie rigoureuse pour assurer une traduction une traduction fiable comportant plusieurs niveaux de révision, d’édition et d’assurance qualité.

Saudi Arabia is expected to raise several billion US dollar sukuk across five and 10-year tranches. The notes will be in a hybrid mudaraba-murahaba format, a structure in essence already trialled by Saudi Aramco for a riyal-denominated sukuk. The kingdom is rated A1 by Moody's and A+ by Fitch. The banks running the deal are BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan and NCB Capital. The national oil company Saudi Aramco raised SR11.25bn riyals in order to diversify its revenues impacted by low international oil prices. The floating rate local currency sukuk has a seven-year maturity and offers 25bp over the six-month Saudi Arabian Interbank Offered Rate.

Warba Bank has recently purchased a newly constructed UK vehicle imports-exports facility strategically located next to Immingham port. The property is leased to KIA Motors UK for unbreakable lease term of 20 years. The facility has a capacity of over 15,550 cars and totalling 86.68 acres (35.08 hectares) of land. In addition, the site also includes a warehouse space of 63,515 ft.² (5,901 m²), facilitating distribution, refurbishment, valet, inspection, refuelling, offices and gatehouses. The site receives on average c.1,200 vehicles a week. KIA anticipate 100,000 UK car sales target by 2020. Warba Bank’s CEO, Shaheen Hamed Al Ghanem, said this acquisition was one of the best risks mitigated real estate investment of the bank, generating a steady and secured return from unbreakable long lease. He elaborated that the investment plan for 2017 is highly ambitious and the bank is looking for more international real estate investment opportunities in USA, UK and other continental European countries.

Wadi.com, #Saudi Arabia's home-grown online shopping marketplace, announced a new strategic partnership with one of the kingdom's most trusted banks, Al Rajhi Bank.

It seem like the ongoing bitter battle between the managers of Sabana Shariah-compliant Reit and some disgruntled investors will come to a head at an extraordinary general meeting End of April which has been called at the behest of 66 unit holders who began a campaign against Sabana Real Estate Investment Management.
Reason was dissatisfaction with the Reit manager's lacklustre performance and 3 years of falling distributions per unit. At the EGM 4 resolutions will be tabled one of which ask for Sabana Real Estate Investment Management to be removed.

Trustbank from Suriname is one step closer to open its doors to customers interested in Islamic banking products after it signed a new licensing deal with the Kuwaiti based software vendor, Path Solutions, to implement Islamic Banking and Investment System as a new core banking platform.
This is major thing for the Path Solutions, as it’s the company’s first Islamic core banking software deal in the Americas. The company won the deal as one of three shortlisted vendors besides Oracle FS, Temenos. Path Solutions won the deal because of ist Sharia compliance, product functionality and technological superiority.

The International Finance Magazine (IFM) granted Eng. Ziad Tarek Aba Al-Khail, CEO and Managing Director of Aljazira Capital, the “Best Brokerage CEO – KSA Award” in 2016. Aljazira Capital was also granted the “Fastest Growing Islamic Brokerage House-KSA Award” in 2016.
Ziad Aba Al-Khail was really proud of the IMF’s appreciation of the performance. Such a constant international recognition of his team is a living example of our constant commitment to provide our customers with the best services as well as adopt up-to-date strategies in world trade in order to create new horizons for their customers and give them access to regional and global capital markets.”
Ziad Aba Al-Khail also expressed his gratitude and thanks to Aljazira Capital team whose efforts led to this achievement, and added: “This remarkable achievement is the fruit of our company strategy in rendering and managing an integrated system of Islamic-oriented financial services and investment solutions of unique value and high quality.”

NCB Capital, Saudi Arabia’s leading provider of wealth management and investment services, and the Kingdom’s largest asset manager, has announced the launch of its Pan European Real Estate Fund with more than $150 million raised through a private placement.
NCB Capital has partnered with Fidelity International, a leading global asset manager, to invest in commercial properties, including office, retail, logistics/industrial and mixed use, located in key European property markets including France, Germany, Benelux and the United Kingdom. Favorable currency conversion rates, robust legal and regulatory environments, coupled with consistent growth expectations of the core European economies make this an opportune time to invest in a solid real estate market.

Katharine Budd, the chief executive and co-founder of Now Money, a Dubai-based fintech start-up, explains how fintech works.
This is a new financial services phenomenon. While nowadays you might be able to operate your bank account from a website or mobile app, but the systems behind these online user interfaces have barely changed since they were implemented in the 1970s. The international payment transfer system Swift still runs on the telephone systems. This means that no matter how nice the front-end website your account is on, the transactions displayed are still run off legacy systems, which can lead to legacy issues such as delays in processing transactions and potentially losing the transaction in the system altogether.
New start-ups are innovating where banks are stagnating and are cooperating with regulators and cybersecurity experts and developing new technology. These organisations have become know as “fintechs” and their purpose can range from offering customers alternative ways to bank, usually through mobile, to using advanced analytics to provide investment recommendations.

Saudi Aramco has plans that would raise 11.25 billion riyals (3 billion US-Dollar) from its debut Islamic bond. That would boost the size of the sale because of investor demand. King & Spalding Partner Rizwan Kanji weighs in on "Bloomberg Markets: Middle East."

GCC is expected to account for about 31% of sovereign bond issuances from emerging markets this year. The expected 2017 sovereign issues will be distributed among GCC, Eastern Europe Middle East Africa and Latin America, according to forecasts by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Issues from the GCC has been increasing rapidly mainly due to low oil prices, with some new issuers in 2016, and analysts expect the 2017 issuance to continue to be high. Among those, Kuwait inaugurated the external sovereign debt market with $8 billion (Dh29.3 billion) to finance a budget deficit resulting from low oil prices. Sovereign issuance for 2017 is forecast to be 6% higher compared to the previous year. In 2016, sovereigns issued $135 billion, mainly from Latin America, while corporates issued about $300 billion, mainly from Asia. Analysts expect gross sovereign external issuance to come in at $144bn in 2017.